Pedro Pizano is the assistant director for the Democracy Programs of the McCain Institute.
For nearly two years and four months — 844 days — Vladimir Kara-Murza was held hostage in Russia for speaking the truth about Putin’s regime. Many of us spent that time coming up with ideas, holding events, writing letters, and more to keep him and his story alive, and seek his release.
In a once-in-a-generation negotiation, Kara-Murza was released last month via a prisoner swap. It was the largest and most complex prisoner swap with Russia since the Cold War.
Why was he arrested?
The Putin regime charged him with “public dissemination of knowingly false information,” belonging to an “undesirable foreign organization,” and committing “high treason,” for simply saying, among others, that “Vladimir Putin’s regime has unleashed [a war of aggression] against the nation of Ukraine.” Putin preferred the world call his unlawful invasion a “special military operation.”
The McCain Institute and partner human rights organizations detailed all those sham charges in two submissions before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the U.S. State Department.
The real reason for his arrest, as I wrote about for the Journal of Democracy, and confirmed by Vladimir after his release, was Kara-Murza’s pivotal role in the enactment of Magnitsky sanctions.
Magnitsky sanctions are currently in force in at least 12 jurisdictions; in the U.S. alone there are 544 individuals sanctioned. Some have called it the most effective targeted sanction regime in the world. His arrest and subsequent 25-year sentence, the longest one since the 1940-50s, were retaliation and vengeance from Putin and his cronies for all the Magnitsky Acts.
In a cruel twist of fate, Kara-Murza’s jailer and judge were the same ones that sent Sergei Magnitsky to his death, and they were both sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. We exposed this in an op-Ed in The Washington Post: “How Vladimir Kara-Murza’s case exposes the rot at the heart of Russia.”
Why do we advocate for him?
Dissidents and political prisoners, like Kara-Murza, are the prophets and partners of tomorrow’s free and democratic future.
They are prophets as Natan Sharansky tells us — Sharansky himself was charged with treason in the Soviet Union, spent nine years in prison, and was released in a prisoner swap — because “they alone perceive the extent of internal opposition to the regime.” He gives the example of Andrei Almarik who predicted the fall of the Soviet Union years before its collapse. So has Kara-Murza by saying that it’s not “if” Putin falls, but “when.”
Dissidents “will be few at first,” Sharansky tells us, “but their courage often inspires others.” In other words, without dissidents like Kara-Murza there is no possibility of change.
Dissidents are also the critical partners for the free world because even when there is change, “revolution and elections do not guarantee a stable democracy.” Sharansky urges us to be discerning and only support those dissidents that promote democratic principles. They are the free world’s “most potent unconventional weapon.”
Why it matters
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a free man, a Pulitzer-prize laureate for columns he wrote while in prison, and an even more effective and more legitimate opposition leader. His wife, whom Vladimir said did his work better than him while he was in prison, just received the Lantos Prize. With them the future of a free and democratic Russia beckons.
His release and all the efforts expended are really a testament to the democratic valuing of human life. Kara-Murza is a partner and a prophet. Through his valor — he chose to go back to Russia knowing that he would be arrested, and he still says he will go back — we are inspired that change in Russia is possible. We are also reminded of the sacrifices for freedom that many are making now, and which those of us lucky to be born or reside in the free world take for granted.
Given how important dissidents are, it is crucial to highlight that the West sought dissidents and journalists from Russia in this prisoner swap, while Russia sought convicted murderers and spies.
The Putin regime’s coveted prize, Vadim Krasikov, for whom they planned to take someone like Evan Gershkovich hostage, and use him as a political pawn to get Krasikov back, murdered a Georgian refugee of Chechen descent in broad daylight in the middle of Berlin, after trailing him on a bicycle. Krasikov was serving a life sentence.
What is next?
There are many more political prisoners in Russian jails, as well as Belarussian and all over the world. The struggle to free prisoners being held in Russia doesn’t end with Vladimir Kara-Murza and the others who were freed. The highest profile individuals have been freed but many remain. Let us hope that these dictatorial regimes don’t take the lesson to take even more hostages and start using them as bargaining chips.
On the other hand, let’s start looking for people that the dictator of Belarus wants and see if we can exchange them for political prisoners there. That is the tension of prisoner swaps and how the moral hazard of exchanging them, becomes, at times, the moral hazard of not exchanging them.
For eight hundred and forty-four days, we shouted Free Kara-Murza to anyone who would listen. Now we can shout Kara-Murza is free. We now know that in a once-in-a-generation confluence of events, someone, particularly in the U.S. and Germany, listened. Let’s keep shouting to free them all and bring them all home.
