A top Kremlin foe was convicted Monday on charges of treason and denigrating the Russian military and sentenced him to 25 years in prison after a trial that marked the latest move in a relentless crackdown on the opposition amid the fighting in Ukraine.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., a prominent opposition activist who twice survived poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin, has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago. He has rejected the charges against him as political and likened the judicial proceedings against him to the show trials during the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
“I know that the day will come when the darkness engulfing our country will clear,” Kara-Murza, a father of three, said at his closed trial last week in remarks that were posted on social networks and Russian opposition media. “And then our society will open its eyes and shudder when it realizes what terrible crimes were committed in its name.”
“This verdict wrongly conflates human rights activism with `high treason' and is reminiscent of Stalin-era repression,” Amnesty's Russia Director, Natalia Zviagina, said in a statement. Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading “false information” about its military days after it sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Authorities have used the law to stifle criticism of what the Kremlin calls “a special military operation.”
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