Putin must not win the Ukraine war, says released Russian dissident Kara-Murza | News on the Russia-Ukraine war

Kara-Murza defends the prisoner exchange, saying it is crucial to securing the release of other political prisoners in Russia.

Western governments and the Russian opposition in exile should now lay the foundations for a democratic transition in Russia after President Vladimir Putin leaves office, said Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Seven weeks after his release from a Siberian penal colony in a historic East-West swap, Kara-Murza declined to say how he thought Putin's exit would look, but he said Friday that Russia should not waste what he said was a short time to establish a democratic government, as he said the country did after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

“We must learn from the mistakes of the past, from the lessons of the past, to ensure that we do not repeat those mistakes the next time an opportunity for change arises in Russia,” Kara-Murza told reporters at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, in his first public appearance in Britain since his release on August 1.

“None of us know exactly when and under what circumstances, but it will happen in the very foreseeable future. And next time we have to get it right.”

Putin, 71, has been president and prime minister since 1999. He began a new six-year term as president in May. He dominates Russia's political landscape while leading opposition politicians are in prison or in exile.

Kara-Murza, 43, has been one of the most prominent opposition voices in exile since his release from prison, where he was serving a 25-year sentence for treason for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. He holds both Russian and British passports.

“We must not allow Vladimir Putin to win this war in Ukraine. What is more, we must not allow him a face-saving way out of this war,” he said on Friday.

He argued that the West should develop a plan for a future democratic Russia. This includes Western politicians making it clear to the Russian people that the West is on their side against Putin, Kara-Murza said.

Of crucial importance is the release of further non-violent political prisoners – according to him, there are around 1,300 of them in Russia.

“I wake up every morning and go to sleep every night thinking about all the others who are still left behind,” the politician said.

He singled out 63-year-old Alexei Gorinov, the first person to be imprisoned under Russia's wartime censorship laws, and Maria Ponomarenko, a Siberian journalist currently on hunger strike, as among those in urgent need of support.

When asked if he feared that prisoner exchanges could encourage Putin to take more prisoners, Kara-Murza said he would definitely continue taking prisoners “because he is afraid of the truth.”

He argued that the August 1 prisoner exchange had saved “16 human souls” from the “hell” of Russian prisons, adding: “This was not a prisoner exchange, this was a life-saving operation and that is how we must see it.”