“I don’t know how my husband does it all”

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The verdict of the Moscow court went around the world: a month ago, the Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Mursa (41) was sentenced to 25 years in prison with “strict terms of imprisonment”. It is the highest sentence ever imposed on a dissident in Russia.

Kara-Mursa, who survived two poison attacks in 2015 and 2017, has been charged with treason, contempt for the Russian military and working illegally for an undesirable organization. He had sharply criticized Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

But despite his imprisonment and complete isolation, his voice continues to sound. This is ensured by his wife Evgenia Kara-Mursa (42), who now reports worldwide on Putin’s terror regime and who met Blick at the Geneva summit for human rights and democracy. She tells Blick: “The publicity is my only weapon.”

Lost more than 20 kilos

Her husband, she says, is physically very poor. “He lost more than 20 kilos in prison.” The poison attacks on him would have left their mark. “He lost feeling in his feet and left hand.”

She can communicate with him only occasionally and only through a lawyer, who also told her that her husband reads a lot. “He used to always complain that he didn’t have enough time,” says Evgenia Kara-Mursa with a slight smile.

No sooner had Vladimir Kara-Mursa learned to walk and eat with a spoon after the poison attacks than he returned to Russia. “He didn’t want to abandon his friends and share the risks with them,” says Evgenia Kara-Mursa.

He also wanted to personally moderate his regular program on “Echo von Moscow” – a radio station that has since closed with the last independent stations.

fear of murder

It is clear to her that the Kremlin wants to kill her husband. “I feared for Vladimir’s life for years,” said Evgenia Kara-Mursa, who lives in the United States with their three children (17, 14, 11). “A regime that has launched a genocidal war against Ukraine can be expected to go above and beyond when it comes to treating an unwelcome prisoner.”

Evgenia Kara-Mursa accuses Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, 70, of wanting to falsify “a false reality”. But the dictator cannot fool his people. “Although in 1968, when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, only seven people demonstrated in Moscow’s Red Square, millions of Russians heard it.”

The Russians are well aware of the Kremlin’s atrocities. “The millions who publicly rejoiced in 1991 at the collapse of the Soviet Union and the freedom they were given are still here.” It is only a matter of time before the opportunity arises to revolt and overthrow the regime.

Survived two poison attacks

Vladimir Kara-Mursa is considered one of Putin’s harshest critics. Two poison attacks were carried out on him, in which he was seriously injured. In May 2015, while on a lecture tour for the Kremlin-critical organization Open Russia, he suffered sudden kidney failure after lunch at a restaurant in Moscow. He was rushed to hospital and was in a coma for a week.

At the beginning of February 2017, the whole thing was repeated. He awoke at 4 a.m. with difficulty breathing, tachycardia, and very low blood pressure. Before he passed out, he was able to wake up his in-laws.

Doctors diagnosed serious poisoning by an unknown substance on both occasions. In an interview five years ago, Kara-Mursa told Blick, “All my major organs failed within hours. My chances of survival were five percent.”

partner’s admiration

In 2022, Wladimir Kara-Mursa received the Axel Springer Award for Courage and the Václav Havel Prize from the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been rewarding the commitment to human rights since 2013 with the prize, which has been awarded 60,000 euros.

But the biggest award comes from his own wife. Evgenia Kara-Mursa says she admires his honesty, courage and moral strength, which keeps him alive despite his physical ailments. And with a trembling voice and tears in her eyes, she says: «Vladimir is my husband, my friend, my soul mate. I don’t know how he does it all.”

Source: Blick