Vladimir Kara-Murza and his wife, Evgenia, speak of his time in a Siberian jail

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/29511054

The last time I met Evgenia Kara-Murza, it was a grim day in early March. The timing couldn’t have been worse. As we spoke, Alexei Navalny’s coffin was being lowered into the frozen ground in a Moscow cemetery. Meanwhile Evgenia’s husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was still incarcerated in a Siberian prison cell almost identical to the one in the Arctic Circle in which Navalny had been found dead, presumed murdered.

The prospects were so grim and the news from Russia and Ukraine so unrelentingly depressing, it feels almost unimaginably miraculous six months later to see Evgenia walk into the lobby of a London hotel, this time with Vladimir right next to her. Six weeks ago, he was in a Siberian gulag. Today, he’s a free man on a trip to London with his wife and their youngest son, nine-year-old Daniel, the result of the largest prisoner exchange between Russian and the west since the cold war.

Most people he met in the Russian prison system, “the police officers, prison officials, judges, prosecutors, they don’t believe in anything”. Most are not pathological sadists, he says, they were just doing a job. “But the Alpha Group, the FSB special unit that was escorting us, I saw ideological hatred. They believe in this stuff and that’s even scarier.”

Kara-Murza’s grasp of history underpins his certainty that Putin’s regime will collapse – quickly and without warning. “That’s how things happen in Russia. Both the Romanov empire in the early 20th century, and the Soviet regime at the end of the 20th century collapsed in three days. That’s not a metaphor, it was literally three days in both cases.” He believes passionately that the best chance of a free and democratic Russia and peace in Europe rests on Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    35·
    3 months ago

    …

    One of his generals marched troops towards Moscow a while ago…

    I’d say that was a pretty big warning.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      7·
      3 months ago

      If a render safe mission happens then they haven’t just collapsed like before. They would have to be not replaced, causing an immense power vacuum. It’s also functionally impossible to secure all the nukes of a country Russia’s size. The military refuses to guarantee it even for India or Pakistan.

      • can_you_change_your_username@fedia.io
        6·
        3 months ago

        Missions to secure nuclear weapons happened when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian government invited the US in to do some of them. The missions wouldn’t be to take the sites and disarm the weapons, the goal would be to make sure all weapons are accounted for, being properly maintained, and under the control of a government. It would be to make sure the Russian arsenal wasn’t being sold or taken by splinter groups or extremists rather than to disarm Russia. I expect China would be doing a lot more of it than the US if Russia collapsed in the near future but the US as well as UN nuclear inspectors would almost certainly have a role.

        • MrMakabar@slrpnk.netEnglish
          5·
          3 months ago

          The US also bought Russian nukes. The nucleae material ended up being used as fuel for US nuclear power plants.

          Also a huge part of building the ISS was to keep Russian rocket experts in Russia, rather then helping some other dictator.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          5·
          3 months ago

          That’s quite different from the mad scramble. That’s a normal process. Although in the modern day a new Russian government might instead invite the Chinese and EU. It would have the same effect while snubbing the US. It all depends on where they want to go with things.

  • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    3 months ago

    True enough if it happens. Putin seems to have his Oligarchs convinced he can form a coalition with China, India, Iran and North Korea that can stand against the west.

    At least they’re convinced for now. If that changes, the rest of the world will find out posthumously.

  • Valmond@lemmy.world
    25·
    3 months ago

    Revolution is three meals away.

    We’ll see how winter will be for the russians this year.