Sentenced to 25 years in prison in Russia, Vladimir Kara-Murza was released, on August 1, along with 15 other political prisoners, in the biggest exchange with the West since the end of the Cold War. Now in Paris, he talks to Le Monde about his plans to unite oppositions and build a "roadmap" for the future of a democratic Russia.
I also met the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb. I had two main messages for everyone. The first, very important to me, was to tell them about the political prisoners in Putin's gulags. According to estimates, there are over 1,300 in Russia and around 2,000 in Belarus, not counting the Ukrainian prisoners of war. I feel a moral responsibility towards them every day. It's not just a question of unjust imprisonment but of life and death. For example, Alexei Gorinov, a municipal MP and the first person to be sentenced for opposing the war in Ukraine, is over 60 years old, missing a lung and being held in horrible conditions. There's also Maria Kalesnikava, an opponent in Belarus, who we don't know if she is still alive. We can't allow the exchange of August 1, which saved 16 lives, including mine, to remain a one-off.
We need to think about the future. Major political changes in our country happen all at once, whether it's the end of the Romanov empire or the end of the Soviet empire. But it's very important not to repeat the mistakes of the 1990s when there was no real break with the Communist past, no clear responsibilities, no guilty parties. When Putin's regime comes to an end, and it will, it will be necessary to open the archives, to be ready to judge all those responsible for the crimes committed in Ukraine but also against the Russian people, for the assassinations of Boris Nemtsov [an opponent assassinated in 2015] and Alexei Navalny [who died in custody in February].
In the 1990s, democratic countries were not really ready to welcome a free and democratic Russia, as they had done with the countries of the former Soviet bloc. There were some symbolic things, like joining the Council of Europe, but that was all. We need to think about a roadmap for integrating post-Putin Russia into the international community. If Europe wants to live together in peace, it will do so with a free and democratic Russia.
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