Evgenia Kara-Murza recently said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “signed his own death warrant” when he started the war in Ukraine. She is the wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political activist and journalist who has written articles for The Washington Post and was arrested in Moscow in April for his opposition to the Kremlin.
Murza was charged with “spreading deliberately false information” about Russia’s military. This charge can carry up to 15 years in jail due to a new law that will create more pressure on dissent. It was started after the invasion of Ukraine in late February.
Evgenia Kara-Murza told the American press that her husband faces a long jail term for “calling this war a war.” And she believes that her husband may be killed because he has survived two suspected poisonings.
Vladimir Kara-Murza repeatedly returned to Russia even though he is a permanent resident of the United States. His wife defended this saying that he believed that as a Russian politician, he couldn’t ask the people to continue fighting the government if he stayed safe somewhere else.
Evgenia believes that Putin’s reign of terror will soon be over. “I believe Putin has signed his own death warrant with this war, but he will fall the sooner we end these double standards: at the same time as countries support the Ukrainian people by sending weapons and providing humanitarian aid and imposing sanctions on the Russian economy, they also give Putin billions for oil and gas, which allows him to continue his aggression […] this has to stop because honestly, it is inexplicable,” she said.
Vladimir Kara-Murza has been outspoken as well. Just hours before his arrest, he appeared on CNN criticizing Putin for the invasion of Ukraine.
“This regime that is a power in our country today, it’s not just corrupt, it’s not just kleptocratic, it’s not just authoritarian, it is a regime of murderers,” he said.
He went on to talk about how important it is to say things like that out loud. He called it a tragedy that it took a large-scale war in the middle of Europe for Western leaders to open their eyes to the Putin regime’s real nature.
Vladimir Kara-Murza told The Post that hundreds of Russians who protested the war are being arrested or detained. He also said that there are no more media outlets in Russia that will talk about the protests.
Despite this, both Vladimir and Evgenia believe that Russia will be free, and they are sure of it.
Evgenia said that even while her husband is under arrest, he has been like a “hurricane contained inside a bottle.” She said that he has so much energy and so many ideas and initiatives while being contained behind four walls. He has worked for 15 years alongside Boris Nemstove, another opposition leader who was killed in 2015.
She confessed that her family has been living under this pressure for a long time. The couple has three teenage children and their father was targeted for death twice before in 2015 and 2017. Both times Vladimir was left in a coma with multiple organ failures. Evgenia brought him to the United States where he recovered, but he soon went back to Russia. She said that the Kremlin is trying a new tactic with her husband. They chose to lock him away and hide him from the public eye.
But the horrific actions of Putin’s forces remain in the public spotlight. The economic war is deepening, the military conflict escalates, civilian casualties are rising and evidence of horrific war crimes continue to mount.
Putin’s clock is ticking, and he could have signed his death warrant.
