Russian President Vladimir Putin must lose the war in Ukraine and the respect he enjoys, and the end of his rule is the only solution for peace, one of the main opponents of the Russian leader, Vladimir, said today Kara-Murza, who was recently released in a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West, reported France Press, quoted by BTA.
„It is very important not to allow Vladimir Putin to win the war in Ukraine,” Kara-Murza, who was supposed to meet French President Emmanuel Macron today, said in an interview with AFP.
And “it is very important not to allow Vladimir Putin to retain his self-respect at the end of this war”, insisted the Russian opposition figure.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was serving a 25-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony, is one of a group of Russian dissidents and foreigners released last month in a prisoner swap between Russia and the West, AFP notes.
He says he is confident of his chances to one day return to his homeland because “the regime” of Putin will not last long, provided that “realpolitik” of the West towards the Russian president, which has turned him into the “monster he is today”, is over.
„Enough realpolitik!”, said Kara-Murza.
„If, God forbid, the Putin regime is allowed to present the outcome of this war as a victory for itself and stay in power, in a year or 18 months we will be talking about a new conflict or a new catastrophe,” warned Kara -Murza.
Forty-three-year-old Kara-Murza, who has dual citizenship – Russian and British, said it would be an “honour” to visit Ukraine and meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, adding that he believes that ties should be established between the Russian pro-democracy movement and Ukraine.
„We will have to find ways to live together and overcome this terrible tragedy that the Putin regime has unleashed,” says the Russian opposition figure.
„It won't be easy, it won't be fast, but we know it's possible”, Kara-Murza said, adding that he felt a “special solidarity” with the Ukrainian servicemen imprisoned in the same detention camp as him, although he could not communicate with them.
He himself was “absolutely sure“ that he would die in the Siberian penal colony where he was imprisoned. Until one morning he was suddenly put on a plane to Moscow, after which he was exchanged with other prisoners in the Turkish capital, Ankara, the Russian oppositionist said.
„No one ever asked us for our consent”, says Kara-Murza, adding: „We were loaded onto the plane like cattle and thrown out of Russia.“
However, in his words, “Putin's regime is not only not eternal, but /.../ I think it will end in the nearest future“. At that time, “we will face a gigantic task to rebuild our country from the ruins that Putin will leave behind”, Kara-Murza added.
Recalling the collapse of the tsarist regime in 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kara-Murza argues that “major political changes in Russia occur suddenly and unexpectedly, and no one is ever prepared for them”.
„Whether Putin likes it or not, the future is coming,” he said.
He himself struggled to describe the emotions he felt when he learned of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February in another prison.
„I heard it on the radio,”, says Kara-Murza. “After months in solitary confinement, your mind starts playing tricks on you. "I thought maybe I made it all up," he added, adding that he was sure Navalny was killed on Putin's orders.
„Any Western leader who shakes hands with Vladimir Putin is shaking hands with a murderer,” he says.
„The Anger“ against the “crimes“ committed by the Putin regime in Russia and Ukraine, his wife Evgenia, who accompanied him during the interview for AFP in Paris, also supported him. From the US, where she lives with their children, Evgenia Kara-Murza has not stopped fighting for his release.
„The anger I have felt all these years /.../ has surpassed any fears I could have,”, she assured and stated that she wants to continue fighting for the release of other political prisoners as well.
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„I wouldn't be here and talking to you if it wasn't for Evgenia”, concluded Vladimir Kara-Murza.