17 Apr The wife of detained Russian Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza has spoken out ahead of her husband’s sentencing.
The wife of detained Russian Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza has spoken out ahead of her husband’s sentencing.
Mr Kara-Murza, a journalist, will tomorrow be sentenced for allegedly breaking Vladimir Putin’s “misinformation” laws, which were introduced following the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Appearing on GB News, his wife Evgenia told Arlene Foster the last time she spoke with her husband was in April last year.
She said: “The last time I spoke with Vladimir was one year ago before he was detained in Moscow and then arrested.
“Vladimir had been fighting for many years for the right to have phone conversations with his children. The first denial of that right came around Christmas time last year. I’m sure it was meant as a ‘Christmas present’. The official paper said that phone conversations with children would impede the due legal process in the criminal case against him. And, just recently, about a couple of days ago, he received yet another denial of that right, a repetitive denial.
“So, the authorities are using this as psychological torture, by denying a man the right to speak to his kids, and to have any contact with his family by isolating him entirely from people who love him and miss him terribly.”
Outlining what she’d like to see happen she continued: “My message to the Russian authorities and to the regime in Moscow is that they are overly optimistic by giving my husband a sentence of a quarter of a century. They’re overly optimistic – they’re not going to be here in 25 years. I hope that they’re not going to be here in five.
“I will continue doing everything that is in my power to make sure that more human rights violators are sanctioned all over the world. And I do hope that I can put my small nail in the coffin of this regime, even if it’s a very, very small nail. But I also have a message for the British government, Vladimir is indeed a dual citizen, and I would very much like to see the British government more involved, and more engaged in the defence of Vladimir. I would like the British government to stand up with my husband.”
Evgenia said she wasn’t surprised by how her husband is being treated.
She added: “Thousands of people, over 20,000, have been detained over the last year who are protesting against the war.
“This is what the authorities are now doing in Russia, sending people to prison for up to 15 years for standing in the street with a slogan that says, ‘no war’.”
