‘Russia Will Be Democratic.’ Vladimir and Evgenia Kara-Murza on the Fight for a Free Russia

When Evgenia Kara-Murza learned that her husband, the prominent Russian opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, was released from a Siberian penal colony, she was inside the Oval Office. There, she and her children along with other family members of those wrongfully detained by the Kremlin stood by President Joe Biden as, one by one, their loved ones were phoned in. “That video will always make me cry,” Evgenia said of the moment they heard Vladimir’s voice on the other end of the line—the culmination of more than two years of tireless advocacy in which Evgenia traveled the world campaigning for the freedom of Vladimir and other political prisoners being held inside Russia. 

“To this day, it still feels surreal,” Vladimir tells TIME two weeks later, speaking from his and Evgenia’s home in Virginia on Aug. 14. While both concede that they could use a break to recuperate from their ordeal, neither believes they have the privilege of taking one. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ongoing, and with hundreds of political prisoners still behind bars, they believe they won’t be able to rest in their fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin until the war is over and his regime toppled. 

Read More: The Woman Fighting to Free Her Husband—and All Political Prisoners—in Russia

A historian by training, Vladimir still says it’s only a matter of time before it does. “The arc of history may not bend as fast as we wish, but it does bend towards liberty,” Vladimir says. “Russia will be a democracy, and we need to support those people who are the basis for this future democracy now.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

TIME: To start, what was the prisoner exchange process like for you both?

Evgenia Kara-Murza: On Sunday [July 28], we started hearing that certain political prisoners had begun to disappear. And then on Tuesday, a few more names were added to that list. In Vladimir’s case, the lawyer was told that Vladimir was still in [a maximum-security prison in] Omsk and that he had been sent to a different medical facility for some testing. This had already happened before, so we didn’t think too much of it. 

Read More: Who Was Released in the U.S.-Russia Prisoner Swap?

But I thought the names on that list sort of indicated that something was happening because Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeyeva, and Vadim Ostanin—these are people from [Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s] Anti-Corruption Foundation. There’s Oleg Orlov from Memorial and Ilya Yashin and Andrei Pivovarov, Vladimir’s colleagues and friends, both politicians. This obviously indicated that something was happening and I decided for the first time in over two years to stay silent, to keep quiet. I was afraid that even if Vladimir was not on that list himself, if he was still in Omsk, I didn’t want to botch it up for others because it felt like something was happening.

When did you know for certain?

Evgenia: The kids and I found out in the Oval Office.

Really?

Evgenia: Yes. The night before the meeting with the President, I got a call from the White House requesting our presence the next morning. They didn’t tell me if it was good or bad news. They just said that the President requested our presence. And so we presented ourselves at the White House on Thursday, and I saw the three other families there: Paul Whelan’s family, Alsu Kurmasheva’s family, and Evan Gershkovich’s family. We came around 9 a.m., but we waited until after 11. I think that they actually were waiting for confirmation. I think that they were cautious until the very last moment and just wanted to make sure that it actually happens because, well, they were dealing with Vladimir Putin and the thing that he does the best is lying.

Vladimir, what was the experience from your side?

Vladimir: Well, the short answer is I found out on the bus at the last moment. This is the case for all of us. But for me it all began earlier, on Tuesday the 23rd of July. Suddenly, the door of my prison cell opened and two officers came in, uniformed, and they said I need to get out. And they led me to a prison office. There was a desk, a big portrait of Putin on the wall, and there was a blank piece of paper, a pen, and a template next to it, and they told me to sit down and write a petition for pardon, addressed to Vladimir Putin, in which I was supposed to say that I fully admit my guilt of all the crimes I’ve been convicted of. Originally I thought it was a joke, so I actually started laughing in these people’s faces. But they just looked at me and said please write this. I said, no, I’m not going to write this because I do not consider Putin to be a legitimate president. I’m not going to admit my guilt because I’m not guilty of anything. They asked me five more times. I said no. They led me back into my cell.

Two days later, on Thursday, July 25th, the same two guys walk in and take me to the same room. There’s a different piece of paper this time, like a pre-prepared form with a pen. And they tell me, “Two days ago, you allowed yourself some offensive comments about our president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The director of the prison requests that you write an official explanation.” And I say, okay, this I’m going to be very happy to write. As [the Soviet-Russian writer Mikhail] Bulgakov wrote, “It is easy and pleasant to tell the truth.” So I sit down and I write everything that I said on paper: That Putin is a dictator, a usurper, a murder; that he’s personally responsible for the death of [the liberal Russian politician] Boris Nemtsov, that he’s personally responsible for the death of Alexei Navalny, that he’s personally responsible for the death of thousands of civilians, including children, in Ukraine, and that I very much hope to see the day when he stands trial for everything he has done; and how I’m not going to admit any guilt because I’m not guilty of anything and that the criminals are those who are waging this war, not those who are speaking out against it. I signed it, I dated it, and I gave it to them. I hope they kept it somewhere, that piece of paper.

They brought me back into the cell, and at this stage, I have absolutely no idea why this is happening. And then, on Saturday night at about 3 a.m., the doors of my cell burst open again, and there’s a massive bunch of people. There are two uniformed officers and six plain clothes and the director of the prison. At that moment, I was certain that I was being led out to be executed. I thought they're just going to shoot me in some nearby wood and say I was trying to escape. I mean, that’s the usual trick. But then, instead of the wood, they took me to the airport.

What was that experience like?

Vladimir: I was in solitary confinement for 11 months, so not being able to speak to anybody ever; just sitting alone in my cell all the time. And suddenly I'm in the middle of a normal civilian airport. And it was crazy. They boarded me on a normal passenger plane and flew me to Moscow. Needless to say, they don’t take prisoners on planes. I know that they’re probably not going to shoot me, because why take me to Moscow for that? When we landed in Moscow, I was taken down in handcuffs, put on a paddy wagon and driven somewhere. They didn’t tell me where, but I'm a Muscovite. I know what Lefortovo looks like. This is the notorious prison in Moscow where everybody from [Russian dissidents Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn to [Natan] Sharansky to [Vladimir] Bukovsky were held. As a historian, I’ve read so much about this prison in books. Now, I’ve been there.

They took me to the cell—obviously solitary confinement, as it was everywhere else. But I have to say it was like a sanatorium compared to my prison in Omsk, because there was actually a normal bed. In Omsk, I had this bunk that got attached to the wall at 5 a.m. until lights out at 9 p.m., so all day you could either walk inside the cell or sit on this really uncomfortable small stool. Here, there was a normal bed. The food was much better than what I had in Omsk. In Omsk I only got a pen and paper for 90 minutes a day. That was the only time I could write anything. In Lefortovo, nobody cared. I had my Spanish textbook, I had my notepads, my pens, I could do whatever I wanted. I could read. Frankly, it was like I was on holiday. I was just enjoying this time. Nobody explained anything. I tried to ask what is happening here. They said, “You’ll know in good time.”

By this stage, I’m thinking there's going to be a new criminal case. And then, on the morning of the first of August, the deputy director of Lefortovo comes in. They bring me all my stuff, like all the bags that I brought from Omsk and they say, “Put the civilian clothes that you have with you.” They took me down to the ground floor. It was like a scene out of some kind of Hollywood movie. There was a row of men in black balaclavas. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in prison, but it was still really scary, just the sight of that. They walked me out with these men in balaclavas into the courtyard and there was a bus standing there with black-tinted windows. There’s no light in the bus, so it’s really dark. And in every row in that bus, there is a man in a black balaclava, and next to each of them I see a friend, a colleague of mine. The first guy I saw was Oleg Orlov from Memorial. The second one I saw was Andrei Pivovarov from Open Russia. The third person I saw was Ilya Yashin. And only at that moment I realized what was happening here, because there could only be one reason why we would all be sitting in the same bus from different regions, from different prisons.

As a historian, did your knowledge of Russian dissidents throughout history provide a kind of comfort during your own experience of political imprisonment? Did history help you cope with the present?

Vladimir: Oh absolutely, in many different ways. First in a very practical sense, because a lot of the stuff that Soviet dissidents write about—they’re exactly the same now. From the daily schedule to the setup of the prison cell to how you communicate with the prison officials, everything is just exactly the same. I knew they survived it, so so can we. 

Frankly, my education as a historian has never helped me in my life more than it helped me in prison. All these things have happened in Russian history before. This happened under the tsars, this happened under the Soviets. And we know that it ended. And we also know how it ended. And this will end exactly the same way. We do not know when, precisely. We don’t know precisely in what circumstances. But the Putin regime will end, and the people who are in prison only for their views and their convictions will get out. And Russia will be democratic. I don’t just think this or believe this. I know this, because history is just as much a science as chemistry or physics. It has its own laws, it has its own logic. And nobody—not even Putin—can bypass or amend or cancel the logic and the laws of history.

It’s sort of funny and ironic—I can laugh about it now because it wasn’t so funny in prison. But there’s this belief that it’s every historian’s subconscious dream to actually personally experience the era of his study. If that’s the case, I got the best possible [laughs] including Lefortovo.

Be careful what you wish for.

Vladimir: Absolutely.

Evgenia, when we first spoke last year, you had already begun taking up the mantle of Vladimir’s activism. And today, you were awarded alongside Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya the 2024 Lantos Human Rights Prize for your work fighting against tyranny and autocracy.

Evgenia: I am truly humbled by this. I have no other words.

Vladimir: It’s a well-deserved recognition if ever there was one. That’s all I can say.

Well, you became a Russian opposition figure in your own right. Your friend, Bill Browder, told me that he’s never seen somebody, including Vladimir, who’s as effective at convincing people to take action.

Vladimir: She is better than me! There’s no question about it.

I guess my question is: Do you plan to continue that work? Or are you both taking time to rest and spend time with your family first? 

Vladimir: Not as much as we’d wish, to be honest.

Evgenia: The Americans who have been released sort of went into hiding, to process all of that, to recuperate, to do all these things. This would be the normal thing to do under these circumstances. But the United States is not at war with a neighboring country. The Russian state is at war with Ukraine. People continue dying on a daily basis. The number of political prisoners in Russia is on the rise. It continues growing every day. And these people who were released, including Vladimir, they’re very prominent public figures and politicians and activists, and they feel like they need to step in right away. 

In our case, going into hiding to spend time with the family and just breathe is a luxury. And this scares me, honestly, because I don’t know how much strength I’ve got left. And I don’t even imagine how it is for Vladimir and for other now-former political prisoners. The PTSD that they’re going through is there, it’s a real thing. So we’re going to take it one step at a time, I guess, hoping that our bodies and our minds are strong enough to keep on for as long as is required of us, and trying to fit in some family time here and there.

But Vladimir will be here for Thanksgiving, and that is my favorite holiday, because this is a day to gather around the table and say thanks. And he missed two Thanksgivings and he’s finally here, and he’s going to be here for Christmas and he’s going to be here for the kids’ birthdays. So that’s what matters, and that is what we need to make happen for other political prisoners as well.

What does the future of the Russian opposition look like? Vladimir, you’ve been targeted multiple times at this point, including two poisonings. Do you feel safe embarking on this work?

Evgenia: This has never been safe for Vladimir, and it’s not safe for any of us. Vladimir always talks about being paranoid and how that is absolutely destructive, and I fully agree with this. If you give into fear—the fear that is very natural to experience in this situation, you lose and they win. 

As for the work, I will continue working with the Free Russia Foundation, this civil society organization that encompasses, supports, and encourages different civil society groups, initiatives, et cetera. Of course, we will continue building up the 30 October Foundation, which was set up on Vladimir’s request using his prize money from the Václav Havel and other prizes that he received since his imprisonment to provide financial aid and support to families of political prisoners. I will also continue being the advocacy director at the Free Russia Foundation, speaking on behalf of Russian civil society, political prisoners.

It's going to be hard to divide the work because before Vladimir’s imprisonment it had been his work entirely. Then it became my work, and now we need to find out who’s better at what.

Vladimir: Unfortunately, there will be a lot of work for both of us.

Evgenia: It's going to be team work, as always. But I’m afraid that I will have to remain a public figure. I set myself a goal: When there is peace and when there is change in Russia, then I’ll reconsider and if my voice is no longer needed, I will be very happy to step aside and go and grow roses and bake cookies for the kids. 

Vladimir: First of all, I just want to say that I don’t know enough words in any language to adequately express how grateful I feel to my wife for everything she has done—not only on my behalf, but on behalf of everybody who has been unjustly imprisoned in Putin’s Russia for opposing the war, for opposing the dictatorship.

We have this long standing tradition in Russia, the tradition of the Decembrist Wife. These were the wives of the military officers who in 1825 under Tsar Nicholas I tried to stage an insurrection, unfortunately unsuccessful, where they tried to overthrow autocracy and introduce a constitution. Some of them were executed, many more were sent out into exile in Siberia, including to Omsk where I was imprisoned. And their wives essentially took on their missions, they took on their work, as well as the work they also took on caring for the families and the children and the homes, and many of them actually followed their husbands into exile to be next to them and to stand with them and to support them. So, there are many unfortunate and tragic traditions that have been brought back in our country—for example, the tradition of imprisoning people for their views and their convictions. But there are also some good ones coming back, and the tradition of the Decembrist Wife is certainly back, and I’m very fortunate to be a beneficiary of that. Everything in Russia still stands on strong women.

In terms of the work, well we’ll have a lot of work cut out for us, to be honest. And I think it’s a long time yet before Evgenia can grow her roses.

What are your main goals going forward?

Vladimir: We’re going to be here for two hours if I start mentioning all of it, but I’ll just name the three most important things: One is the continued advocacy on behalf of political prisoners in Russia and in neighboring Belarus.

The second part is to continue what I’ve been doing for so many years: public diplomacy, if you will, to finally open the world’s eyes to the nature of the Putin regime. We need to continue to talk about the crimes and the aggression committed by Putin’s regime. We need to continue to be the voices not just of the political prisoners in Russia, but frankly speaking of all the normal, democratically-minded people in Russia, of whom there are many. The Kremlin propaganda tries to portray that everybody in Russia supported Putin and his war on Ukraine. It is a lie. There are millions of people who don’t, and they don’t have any voice. We need to be the political representatives of those millions and millions of people in Russia who reject Putin’s dictatorship, who are against his aggression in Ukraine—the people, frankly, who are the future of our country.

And the third point, and this is going to be one of the most important areas of our work: We need to start working on a roadmap on a future, post-authoritarian transition in Russia towards a democracy. And this has two sides: One is the work we will need to conduct and undergo and engage in domestically in Russia, to try to heal and frankly re-educate our society after a quarter century of Putinism. That’s a trauma on society, the consequence of which we’re going to feel for years and years. And there needs to be public reflection, there needs to be public accounting for, there needs to be some sort of rethinking of Russia as a country, as a state, and a society.

From the international side, and this is just as important, this roadmap needs to include a path to reintegrate a future, post-Putin, democratic Russia back into the civilized world, back into the rules-based international order, back into Europe. We cannot have stability, peace, and security in the world without the world’s largest country. We cannot have a Europe that is free and at peace without Europe’s largest country, which is Russia. That needs to be a part of the construct going forward.

How soon do you envisage this happening?

Vladimir: The way major historical changes happen in Russia—and, again, this is me speaking as a historian—is usually like this: Nobody can predict it even a week before. I mean, both the Romanov Empire at the beginning of the 20th century and the Soviet regime at the end of the 20th century went down in three days. This is not a figure of speech—literally in three days. And this is how things will happen the next time. We don’t know exactly how, we don’t know exactly in which circumstances, but this is how it will happen.

You sound pretty certain of this.

Vladimir: I know it will happen—it’s only a question of time, and we need to be preparing for that now. When my plane was taking off from Vnukovo for the exchange to Ankara, the FSB guy who was sitting next to me turned to me and said, “Look out the window. It’s the last time you’ll see your motherland.” I just laughed in his face and said, “No. I can tell you as a historian, I don’t only think, I don’t only believe, I know I will be back here. And it’s going to happen much quicker than you ever think.”