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The wife of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza expressed deep concern on Wednesday at his failing health behind bars, praising his courage in the face of an act of “cynical revenge” by Moscow.
“I’m obviously worried,” Evgenia Kara-Murza said in an interview with AFP. “His health is actually failing.”
Her husband had serious health issues even before his arrest last year, suffering from a nerve condition called polyneuropathy that he said was caused by two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017.
In the last year of pre-trial detention his condition has deteriorated significantly, he said, warning that with a harsh sentence imposed today, the situation will worsen.
Kara-Murza, 41, was sentenced last month to 25 years in a high-security prison on treason and other charges for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He appealed against the sentence — the longest handed down to a Russian opposition figure in recent years — but his wife said she “of course” expected it to be overturned.
He pointed out that Russian law prohibits the imprisonment of people suffering from polyneuropathy, which can lead to paralysis, but that “the Russian authorities are not bothered by this”.
Targeted ‘to kill’
Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, Evgenia Kara-Murza expressed anger at her husband’s sentence.
“This is pure and cynical revenge by the Russian government,” he said, pointing out that Kara-Murza’s judge and the head of the prison where he is being held are subject to sanctions he has pushed the United States and Europe to impose.
He contributed to the adoption of the Magnitsky Act, a US bill seeking to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009.
“The regime clearly sees my husband as a personal enemy,” she said.
“Twice in the past … our children almost lost their father,” he added, saying he was poisoned in an attempt “to kill, not to threaten”.
Despite the dangers, she said that her husband did not hesitate to return to Russia and that he supported her decision.
“Of course it makes me fear for his life,” she said, her dark eyes filled with tears, pointing out that “Vladimir and I have carefully built our little world over the years: our children, our family.”
“But I know what he is fighting for,” he said, adding that “in all these dangers, in all the attacks”, he remained “true to himself”.
“If I accepted him the way he was more than 20 years ago, it would be hypocritical of me to ask him to change now. That’s not Vladimir.
“The only option for me is to stand up to him and fight him and fight for him.”
>> Read more: Wife of jailed Russian activist Kara-Murza says she ‘will never stop fighting’ for him
‘cracks’
He acknowledged that the situation was “very painful” for the couple’s three children, but said that Kara-Murza “somehow managed to continue to be a good father to them even behind bars.”
“He taught them a very valuable lesson: that they should face the bullies with courage, that they should not give up without a fight, that they should accept the risks… recognize them, and still fight even more than those risks.”
Asked if he thought others would dare to follow his example, he pointed to “20,000 people who have been arbitrarily imprisoned” since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
>> Read more: Russia’s last remaining opposition voices have been silenced amid the war in Ukraine
That so many people dared to protest at a time when “the regime is using its entire arsenal of Soviet-style repression methods against anti-war protesters”, he said, means that “there may be millions are against the regime, but are afraid to speak.”
During the Soviet era, “mass protests became possible only when the regime began to show cracks”, he pointed out, being confident that “it will happen … when Putin’s regime starts to show cracks” .
As for when that would happen, he suggested a clear victory in Ukraine would be possible, after “more than two decades of impunity for Vladimir Putin’s regime…
(AFP)