More than in the USSR

Kremlin critic: record number of political prisoners

Vladimir Kara-Mursa during his speech at the ceremony. His words are moving.(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

According to Vladimir Kara-Mursa, an opposition activist who was imprisoned there for years, there are more political prisoners in Russia today than in the entire USSR at the end of the Soviet era.

"There are more than 1,300 known political prisoners in Putin's Russia, far more than in the last years of the entire Soviet Union," Kara-Mursa warned the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Monday.

Regarding the situation of political prisoners in Russia, Kara-Mursa continued on the occasion of the awarding of the Vaclav Havel Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado: "The free world knows that the real criminals are those in the Kremlin who started the war in Ukraine, not those who are in prison for opposing it."

The free world knows that the real criminals are those in the Kremlin who started the war in Ukraine, not those who are in prison for opposing it.

Wladimir Kara-Mursa

Kremlin cheats with Putin supporters
It is a "propaganda lie by Putin that all Russians support his regime and his war", Kara-Mursa continued. He called for action to free the imprisoned dissidents: "We must continue to fight for their release and for the release of all unjustly imprisoned people in the world."

Kara-Mursa was harassed in the penal colony.(Bild: AFP/Alexander NEMENOV)

Kara-Mursa is one of the most prominent critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin and was himself awarded the Havel Prize in 2022. Named after the Czech ex-president and former anti-communist dissident, writer and playwright Vaclav Havel, who died in 2013, the prize honors representatives of civil society who are particularly committed to human rights in Europe or beyond.

Had accused Russia of "war crimes"
Kara-Mursa, now 43, was imprisoned by the Russian authorities in April 2022 after accusing Russia of "war crimes" against Ukraine. In April 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released at the beginning of August as part of a prisoner exchange.