When Vladimir Kara-Mirza announced he was returning to Moscow earlier this year, his wife Evgenia knew the danger but did not try to stop him.
Russia attacked Ukraine and called it a war crime. Thousands of protesters were arrested. Vladimir himself was a sworn opponent of President Vladimir Putin and an outspoken critic of atrocities committed by his military.
Yet the opposition activist insisted on being in Russia.
Now he has been locked up and accused of treason and Eugenia has not been allowed to speak to him since April.
But in a series of letters to me from detention center No. 5, Vladimir – who has twice been poisoned by the mystery – says he has no regrets, because “the price of silence is unacceptable”.
Opposition to President Putin was dangerous even before the attack, but repression of dissent has intensified since then. Almost all the main critics have either been arrested or fled the country. Nevertheless, Vladimir’s treatment is particularly harsh.
All the charges against him are for speaking out against the war and against President Putin, and yet his lawyer calculates that he could spend 24 years behind bars.
“We all understand the danger of opposition activities in Russia. But I could not remain silent in the face of what was happening, because silence is a form of complicity,” Vladimir explained in a letter from his cell. .
He felt that he could not even live abroad. “I didn’t think I had the right to continue my political activism, to call other people to action, if I was sitting safely somewhere else.”
‘I Can Kill Him’
Eugenia first heard the call about her husband’s arrest from her lawyer, who was tracking the worker’s phone as he always did when his client and friend were in town. On April 11, the phone was switched off at a police station in Moscow.
Vladimir was eventually allowed to call his wife, who lives in America with their children, for protection. There was only time to say: “Don’t worry!”
Eugenia smiled at the absurdity of this instruction.
The couple were children of Perestroika, who grew up during Russia’s democratic awakening after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Vladimir then studied history at Cambridge, as well as embarking on a career in Russian politics as an adviser to the young reformer Boris Nemtsov.
The couple have been apart for the longest since they married on Valentine’s Day in 2004 and the activist says not seeing his family is the hardest part. “I think about them every minute of every day and can’t imagine what they’re going through,” he says.
“I love and hate this man because of his incredible integrity,” Evgenia told me on a recent visit to London.
“He had to be there with the people who took to the streets and were arrested,” he said, referring to the many Russians detained for opposing the war. “He wanted to show that you shouldn’t be afraid of this evil and I deeply respect and admire him for that. And I can kill him!”
