Vladimir was sentenced to 25 years in prison for criticising Putin (Picture: AP)
One of the Russian prisoners freed in the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War has said he ‘knows’ he’ll be back in his home country again.
Dual British-Russian citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison for speaking against Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine – the longest sentence handed down to a critic since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Vladimir had been subject to horrific conditions in an Omsk prison, losing nearly five stone due to lack of medical treatment and abuse.
In a press conference after his release from prison this week, he said his Russian FSB officer told him to look out the plane window to see his motherland for the last time.
Vladimir said: ‘I turned to this guy and I laughed. I told him: “Look man, I am a historian by education. I don’t only feel, I don’t only believe, I know I will be back in my home country. And it will be much quicker than you think.”‘
Vladimir is one of 16 prisoners swapped in the massive exchange earlier this week.
Vladimir has been freed after two years spent in a Russian prison cell (Picture: AFP)
Prior to his arrest in 2022, he was a vocal critic of Putin and the Russian regime, as well as Western appeasement of Putin’s tactics.
After his release, he’s spoken to multiple news outlets over his heartbreak of having to leave his country, which he had hoped to change so badly.
He said it is ‘expressly forbidden’ to expel Russian citizens from Russia without their consent, though he realises the conditions he was living in were unbearable.
An emotional phone call with his family for the first time since his release was shared this week, with his wife Evgenia and two of his three children seen standing in the Oval Office as they eagerly said, ‘Hello, Dad?’
His family were visibly emotional when he called (Picture: White House)
He replied, ‘Yes, Katiushechka, is it you?’
His daughter, clearly emotional, replied: ‘Yes, yes, hi.’
‘Hello, little one,’ Vladimir said.
Later in the phone call, he spoke of his shock of being released, having believed he would die in prison.
Vladimir said: ‘I was sure I was going to die in prison. I can’t believe what’s happening. I still think I am sleeping in my prison cell.’
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