Putin's downfall is inevitable, says released dissident Vladimir Kara Murza

A A leading British-Russian dissident who escaped death after being rescued from solitary confinement in a historic US-brokered prisoner swap has said the downfall of Vladimir Putin is “inevitable”.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, 43, served two years of a 25-year prison sentence for speaking out against the war in Ukraine before being released from his Siberian penal colony in August.

As one of the most prominent opposition leaders against Putin, he firmly believes that even if he is killed, like Alexei Navalny, others will rise up against the regime.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent Hours after arriving in Britain for the first time since his release, Kara-Murza speaks at length about the future of Russia – and how those who reject the status quo are unstoppable.

Read the full interview

“Even if Vladimir Putin kills all of us, the current opposition leaders, others will take our place,” he says.

“Others from the younger generation. The people who came in their tens of thousands to the funeral procession for Alexei Navalny in Moscow earlier this year. People who laid those flowers at makeshift memorials across the country. They will come and take our place, to find a democratic Russia, even if none of us will be there.”

He thanked The Independent for shedding light on his case, adding: “Thank you for your reporting over the last two years. That is why I am sitting here talking to you today.”

The father of three, who met Sir Keir Starmer today, has escaped death but is more than ready to risk his life again for his country by returning to Russia.

He survived two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017 that he said were orchestrated by the Kremlin, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2022 for his opposition stance, the longest political prison sentence in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The assassinations left him with polyneuropathy, a paralyzing nerve disease that affects the feeling in his fingers and toes. At the start of his prison sentence, his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov was told that Kara-Murza had three years to live. “It was a death sentence,” he says.

But in the six weeks since his release, he has repeatedly stressed that his return to Russia is only a question of when, not if.

“I'm not going to be paranoid,” he says when asked about future threats to his life. “I know what I'm doing is the right thing. I know I'm right.”

“I know that Russia will be better off as a normal democratic country and not as an archaic, corrupt dictatorship like today.”

He is very concerned about the question of whether Russia can really be democratic.

“I'm really fed up with this insulting, isolating and deeply false narrative that Russia and democracy somehow don't work,” he says. “For me, it's racism to talk like that about any country, not just Russia. And it's a false argument.”

He refers to Ronald Reagan's speech at the Palace of Westminster in 1982, in which the then US president said that it would be “cultural condescension, or worse, to suggest that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy”, and describes it as evidence of how Western leaders should think.

And he undoubtedly enjoys the ear of the West's most influential politicians. Since his release from prison, he has met US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. This morning, he met with Sir Keir Starmer. The meeting was not originally planned but was hastily organised by Downing Street on Thursday evening.

In a press conference after the meeting, he said: The Independent He believes that the Prime Minister and David Lammy are thinking seriously about the strategy for a post-Putin world.

The first part of those diplomatic talks, he says, will focus on the urgent need to help the more than a thousand Russian opposition prisoners still held in dangerous environments. This latest exchange, he says, cannot be the last.

He mentions Alexei Gorinov, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for calling the Russian invasion of Ukraine aggression and war, and who is missing part of his lung.

He also mentions Maria Ponomarenko, a journalist who has been in prison for six years for sharing a post about the Russian bombing of the theater in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Hundreds of people died, but Moscow arrested her for spreading “false information.” Since then, according to Amnesty International, she has been “injected with unknown drugs and brutally treated,” and her mental state has deteriorated sharply.

“The health situation is so bad that it is literally a matter of life and death for them,” says Kara-Murza.

But the second part of his conversation with these world leaders, he said, revolves around the future of Russia and the need for a “Russia strategy.” His comments are similar to those of Alexei Navalny’s former chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, who in an interview with The Independent called on the West last week to open its borders to Russia and start supporting Russian youth.

“The only way to have long-term stability, security, peace and democracy in Europe is a free, peaceful and democratic Russia,” he says.

“We are the largest country in Europe. That is a geographical fact. That will never change. Russia will not disappear. It will not disappear, even if some people wish it would. That will not happen.”

“If we are really looking for a strategic solution to all this, and not want to freeze everything and pass the problem on to the next generation, as has been done so many times, then there has to be a Russia component.”

He describes a conversation with Biden last month in which the US president suddenly turned to him in the middle of the conversation and asked: “What will Russia look like in 10 years?”

Kara-Murza said he thanked Biden for the question and then added: “These are the important questions. I will have the same discussions here in London.”

If the West wants to ensure peace in Ukraine, it is crucial, he adds, that it is the duty of Western politicians to help the Russian civilian population as well.

“The first country that should be interested in a democratic Russia is Ukraine,” he says. “Without a Russian component, there will be no long-term solution to all this.”

“As long as there continues to be an aggressive, dictatorial and murderous regime in the Kremlin, Ukraine will never be safe. Ukraine will never have security. There will never be peace in Ukraine.”

“So we need to have a strategy, otherwise we will be talking about another attack in a few years.”

He said he was in contact with “many Ukrainian friends, including members of parliament and members of the current government, who also understand the need for a Russia strategy and are ready to look beyond emotions.”

While he acknowledges that “the emotions are understandable when children die every day because of the bombs that Putin dropped on Ukraine,” he is firmly convinced that this tragedy must not stand in the way of future peace.

“We cannot build a long-term political strategy on emotions,” he says. “It has to be rational. It has to be based on what we want, what we want to happen, what we want to see, what Europe should look like in ten years.”

While the war in Ukraine rages on, the West must now think more seriously about Russia, he says, because who knows when the Putin regime will fall? It could collapse within a matter of days.

“One thing we know for sure from Russia's modern history: major political changes in our country happen in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and no one sees them coming.”

“Both the Romanov Empire at the beginning of the 20th century and the Soviet regime at the end of the same century collapsed within three days,” he says. “March 1917 and August 1991. The same will happen next time.”

“None of us knows when or under what circumstances the next political change will come in Russia, but it will come, because nothing lasts forever. It may be in three years, it may be in two months. But it will come.”

So, he says, taking a deep breath, the West must be ready.