Original subtitles

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

MUFFLED SPEECH

Publicity's my only weapon.

Because I believe it is much harder to kill someone

when the entire world is watching.

This regime that is in power in our country today,

it is a regime of murderers, and it is important

to say it out loud,

and it is... it is really tragic, frankly,

I have no other word for this,

that it took a large-scale war in the middle of Europe,

which Vladimir Putin is now conducting against Ukraine,

for most Western leaders to finally open their eyes

to the true nature of this regime.

Vladimir, you have been poisoned not once, but twice.

Aren't you concerned that you will again be targeted

and potentially this time it will take, you will die?

Well, I'm speaking to you from Moscow now.

Look, I'm a Russian politician,

I have to be in Russia, it's my home country.

I think the biggest gift we could give,

those of us who are in opposition to Putin's regime,

we could give to the Kremlin would be just to give up and run.

That's all they want from us.

This morning, a Russian opposition politician

taken into custody by Moscow police hours after a CNN interview...

As one of Putin's fiercest domestic critics,

he was a key figure in the Global Magnitsky Act,

which targets human rights abusers in Russia and around the world.

Six people connected to the Magnitsky case have ended up dead.

His wife, Evgenia, and their three children

live in the US for their safety.

Vladimir Kara-Murza faces, you know, a very bleak reality.

There's no execution date, but this is a slow death.

So let's start with the most important question first.

How is your husband? How... Can you communicate with him?

- I haven't seen or talked to my husband since April. - Mm-hm.

- My only contact with him is through his lawyers. - Mm-hm.

So far, he's still kept at Moscow's fifth pre-trial detention centre.

- They're trying to silence him by putting him behind bars. - Mm-hm.

When I met your husband, my last question to him was

why he decided to go back to Moscow again and again,

even after having been poisoned two times.

Was there ever a moment when you told him, "Don't go back"?

If this is not too personal a question.

Please tell me if it's too personal.

We are a team, we are... we are...

- I cannot tell him not to. - No.

Because I know what this is about to him.

- Calling on people in Russia to continue protesting... - Mm-hm.

- ...from a safe distance was never an option. - Mm-hm.

I am very new to all of this.

I am not a politician like my husband.

I am not a diplomat.

I don't actually know what I am at this point.

But now that he's being held

by the same people who tried to kill him twice...

...I'm going to be fighting for him for as long as it takes.

- I just have one request. - Yeah? - Um...

- Just not too much. - OK.

Mom, are you that worried?

First of all, I do not like make-up.

Second, I do not like being on live TV.

- Thank you very much. - OK, good luck!

- Next time, you're doing it, Daniil. - OK!

Out front now with us, Evgenia Kara-Murza,

the wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza.

UNTRANSLATED RUSSIAN

Our kids have been growing up like this.

Living in two parallel realities.

One where they have a loving family...

...and another one where the Russian regime

is trying to kill their father.

We've never been apart for so long in our 20 years together.

We were classmates in Moscow.

We met when he was 10 and I was 11.

I mean, I did not expect to marry someone

at the age of...23?

And have three kids, which in Russia is a big number of kids.

No!

UNTRANSLATED RUSSIAN

- Wait, Wimpy Kid? - No, no, no...

This is my... place of strength.

But now I don't get to spend

more than just a few days at home at a time.

Honestly, I don't like publicity, because I am an introverted person.

But Vladimir is cut from a different cloth.

Vladimir has made friends all over the world.

He's been speaking on behalf of political prisoners in Russia

for many years,

before becoming a political prisoner himself.

I miss him being in the house, working in his office

and just clanking on his computer and, um...

...miss his voice.

They've been my rock through all of this.

I told them that I would have to pack my bags

and I'd be on the road.

I need to bring Vladimir back.

I'm only getting used to this.

I used to work from home, I didn't need cards,

and now that he's in prison, I basically took over

his project on political prisoners and sanctions,

and I've been working with the Free Russia Foundation.

This is Natalia Arno, the founder of the foundation,

and Natalia has been working with Vladimir for a number of years.

So thank you very much for welcoming us.

Give us an overview of basically the case.

The trial will probably be held behind closed doors.

And I believe that Western politicians should interfere,

because these people are fighting for the values

which your societies are based on.

And these people are risking their lives.

Because I know that I twice almost lost my husband already,

I twice saw him in a coma and, uh...

The second time he was, after...

In 2017, after the second poisoning, his doctor told me that

if anything similar were to happen again,

Vladimir would not survive it.

After the first poisoning,

Evgenia, she immediately stopped everything

and had to fly back to Russia.

After the second poisoning,

we all couldn't even comprehend that this is possible.

Why a second time? Like it's stupid, they are not that brazen.

But no, they are that brazen,

that criminal, that murderous, that vindictive.

And I was trying to persuade him not to go back,

but he just realised even more that what he is doing is right.

It means a lot.

Yes.

This is the Russian embassy. Look at this.

You should film them.

It is crucial to the regime to silence all these voices...

...to pretend like there is no opposition in Russia.

Because this regime is built on fear,

it is based on fear, so that is what the regime uses

to silence protest, to silence dissent.

Vladimir's in prison, he doesn't work on his schedule.

He writes something that he believes would be important to say.

I just try to get it to his editor as fast as I can.

- You should get... - I'm typing up my, uh...

...criminal husband's article for the Washington Post.

My...

My traitor of a husband's article for the Washington Post.

Please do not distract me.

Was he recording everything, the conversation?

And the moment he saw us taking a picture,

he pretended like he got a call and he left.

I don't know if Vladimir ever told you,

but he always could tell those people,

those agents following you around.

But those who actually tried to kill him twice,

he never felt their presence.

They operate in a slightly different manner.

So there might be people like that around us.

We don't know.

I am also trying to sort of...

...investigate the possibility of having him, um...

swapped as a prisoner,

um... basically.

- Are you talking about you think about exchange? - Yeah, yeah.

Like, yeah, like exchange.

Who this should...? You know, right now...

I don't...

As you can imagine,

I have absolutely no experience in this.

I don't know how this is done, I don't know the procedure.

I'm just trying to save his life.

Vladimir is someone I like sharing breakfast with.

Who reads books, you know?

He knows how to imitate different accents.

He's amazing like that.

Every time he would read to Daniil, I would crawl in bed with them

just to listen to him imitate all these accents.

And that person is in this...

...punishment cell.

In the case of Vladimir Kara-Murza...

...today is a particularly dark day.

Earlier this morning in Moscow,

he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

An extraordinary 25 years in prison...

- 25 years... - 25 years in prison...

That's an incredibly harsh sentence, even by Russian standards.

They slowly torture these people to death in prison.

It's not just Vladimir Kara-Murza - it's Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin...

25 years is truly a life sentence for him.

I am very much concerned about my husband's health,

because his health has significantly deteriorated

over the past year,

and he's now dragging both his feet,

and he's lost 22kg, so over 40lb.

I'm very grateful for these expressions of concern,

but I need to see some actual actions.

I am a US citizen, all three kids are US citizens.

- He's a green card holder. - How are they doing?

I know they are proud, I know they are all so terrified,

because, you know, they've been growing up with this.

And they know that I twice brought him back,

in 2015 and 2017.

I brought him back,

and I know that they expect basically the same thing,

that Mum will go and make it right, yet again.

But the courage to go back to Russia,

the courage when he didn't have to.

Vladimir is this type of leader,

who proven to be an outstanding character.

And he's going to be transferred to...

a strict regime prison colony or prison.

And they can just, you know, disappear him along the way

and say that he just dropped and died.

Then they can say, "Oh, it's natural causes."

Of course. Of course.

We will work here on as many fronts as we can,

and in a very divided Congress here, we have bipartisan support...

My biggest fear has been that the world would forget about my father.

In a strange way, this life with him behind bars

is only starting to feel more real as time passes.

It makes me proud

that my mother chose to continue my father's work...

...and that strength runs in the Kara-Murza family.

Welcome to the 2023 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.

Before we hear from our opening speaker,

Evgenia Kara-Murza,

I'd like you to pay attention to the screen,

where you'll see her husband,

who stood on this podium several years ago.

As so often in our country's history,

the political cost and the personal cost

of dissent in Russia today is high.

Natalia changed her ticket

and she flew back to the United States,

and she spent hours and hours with the FBI.

They, uh... drained half her blood.

So she has numbness.

It was just like travelling symptoms throughout the body.

Um...

At this point, she still has headaches.

One arm is numb and along her spine.

Um...

So, yeah, so someone's been doing this to activists, journalists...

That's what they did with Natalia, yeah.

In your underwear.

And even if there are guards standing by my door,

they can put it in my food.

Sure.

I am very concerned for Natasha,

because her symptoms are still there.

She has the shooting pains throughout her body and...

So, yeah.

Well, I will try to be more careful from now on,

but on the other hand, how do you protect yourself from poisoning?

I mean, how do you protect yourself from someone walking into your room

while you're away and putting poison on your pillow

or on your underwear, like they did in Alexei Navalny's case?

How do you?

We still don't know how Vladimir was poisoned.

Probably the same way.

I was in a work meeting

when I suddenly started to feel really sick,

and I went, within about 20 minutes, from feeling completely normal

to feeling like a very sick man.

And I don't remember anything for the next month.

When he was poisoned,

we smuggled samples of his blood

and hair and nails

from Moscow to London,

so I could take them on a train to a secret testing lab in Strasbourg.

The Russian doctor's official diagnosis is

an acute intoxication by an undetermined substance.

When you're trying to breathe and you cannot,

when you feel your organs shutting down,

giving up on you one after another, and when you feel the life

coming out of your body in the next few hours,

and you don't remember anything for the next month.

And then for the next year, you're trying to relearn how to walk.

Since then, how many people have died of poisoning

at the Russian hands? A lot.

In the UK, there was multiple poisonings.

It's just an old Soviet way of dealing with undesirable people.

When the plane was landing and I looked out,

I was like, "Oh, London, it'd be funny to be killed here,"

thought I.

Yep.

Because so many people were actually killed in London.

I didn't go further into that thought.

I brushed it off and the plane landed,

and I was off the plane and running to meetings.

I believed there was going to be

a kind of big hostage swap

at some point.

And there's two types of hostages.

There's the random hostage,

and then there are the political hostages.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin.

We want Vladimir to be excluded in that.

Navalny's team have been, you know,

on my case over this.

I then say, we need to talk about

a prisoner swap

for not only Navalny, for Kara-Murza as well, and for others.

Their pushback from the Foreign Office is absolutely full-on.

And they will say the reason why we have fewer hostage issues is

because our policy of not talking,

whilst painful, is actually the way to go.

That's what they feel. I'm not saying I agree with that.

Just to say that we don't want to get involved

in hostages because that encourages other hostages,

it's just nonsense.

I don't think that they know this story specifically.

I haven't discussed it with them because,

you know, it's enough for them to be afraid for the life of their father.

TRAIN ANNOUNCEMENT IN FRENCH

What's in your diary?

My life. My work life.

I try not to think about it.

Yeah. It's...

You know, just giving all these interviews,

talking about difficult stuff endlessly...

...it's already hard without

them trying to exploit my vulnerability,

when they ask personal questions and I can't hold back tears.

And of course, in the face of something so monstrous,

you won't be strong.

And that's the image that you want to project.

Not just for your sake, but for the sake of everyone who's behind you.

That's sort of...

You have to be strong for others' sake.

You have to be this soldier.

You know? And, yeah, I don't want to be seen with tears in my eyes.

And I know that sometimes it's hard to keep them back, so, yeah.

Oh.

And what are the diagnoses that have been given to you?

It was exposure to nerve toxin.

Basically, my nerves were burnt.

Even in exile, we are not safe.

The Kremlin's regime has very long tentacles in the West.

But it also means that we are very effective.

I'm often asked in my interviews,

but how about the personal side of it?

Because this is personal.

Oh, of course.

This is definitely personal. Very personal.

As it is for Masha Moskalyova's father.

As it is for Tatiana Usmanova.

I missed so much.

So much time with Vladimir. So much time with the kids.

God, it's just, um...

And very often, it does feel like there is no light at

the end of this particular tunnel.

Jeez, I haven't seen this in 19 years. Maybe 30.

Wow.

Old.

Well, that's the inside.

Is there anything in?

SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

- Oh, cassettes! - The Beatles. - Cassettes tapes.

- The Beatles. - The Beatles.

SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

Mashina Vremeni.

- It's kind of like... - It's like Russian rock. - Yeah.

Oh, look. The cassette tape.

That's cool.

- - The world expresses outrage and mourns the death

of Russia's opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

He'd been serving out that 19-year sentence

at a remote penal colony in Siberia.

The 47-year-old appeared gaunt, but seemingly healthy.

Putin is responsible for Navalny's death.

Yes, of course, after this brutal assassination of Navalny,

we all started to think, who is next?

And I'm very worried that very high on this target list

of Putin is Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Evgenia joins us live now.

Evgenia, thank you so much for being here.

How do you cope with the awful emotions you must have experienced

the last 24 hours?

When was the last time you spoke with him?

Do you expect to see your husband again?

Of course I do.

Are you, as a family, prepared to receive the worst news?

Because that's what seems to happen

to the families of Russian dissidents.

I woke up and saw all these requests from journalists again.

Yeah. Mm-hm.

To comment on the murder of Alexei Navalny.

On the death of Alexei Navalny.

So since then, I've been continuously repeating

that it was a murder.

Not just death. He did not just die.

And how is that easier?

No, you just, uh...

I don't know how to answer that question.

You ask ridiculous questions.

How did you feel here? How did you feel there?

I feel devastated and heartbroken 100% of the time.

Every single day.

Steven, seriously, you're just like that journalist

who kept and kept just...

Yes.

No, it's true. Because how can I explain?

I don't know. I don't have the words to explain that.

Imagine, like, just, like, put yourself

in my shoes, in the shoes of any

family member of a political prisoner.

You live with the understanding

that your loved one can be killed any given day.

How would you feel?

And I have to put on these lovely faces,

you know, and go and talk to these people who tell me,

no, they would not kill him because he's too high-profile.

So how can I...

Yes.

A couple of days ago.

Oh, he was devastated, of course.

This is just yet another political assassination.

Now to the escalating crisis in Ukraine.

Two years into its invasion, Russia launching a new offensive.

Dozens of protesters have been arrested.

With the help of tear gas and stun grenades.

Wife of jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza is calling

for prisoner exchanges to secure

the release of her husband and other political detainees.

The number of political prisoners

has grown under a Russian government crackdown.

Everyone has a breaking point,

and you don't know what your breaking point is

until you're basically faced with it.

OVERLAPPING MEDIA REPORTS

- It's truly a life sentence for him. - My father's health has deteriorated.

Limited media access during the trial.

He won't survive.

We do have some breaking news we want to get to.

That at this hour, there is a massive prisoner swap

internationally taking place.

Multinational deal considered the biggest in post-Soviet history.

Involving 24 prisoners and multiple countries.

We're not hearing any confirmation just yet, Ana,

of who may be included in this prisoner swap.

Again, we don't know who is in this exchange,

but it's extraordinary.

These are the first images of

the American prisoners leaving Russia.

Their first taste of freedom.

Among them, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Today, we're bringing home Paul, Evan, also Vladimir.

TEARFUL GREETINGS

I didn't think I'd get out.

I was certain I was going to die in that Siberian prison.

So this is all still a little surreal.

Amazing, but a little surreal.

I do not have enough words in any language

that I know to express the love and the gratitude

and the appreciation I feel for Zhenya. It's...

And I'm fortunate to have not just a wife, but to have a real friend.

She never stopped. She never relented. Not for a day.

But Zhe hates all this public stuff.

That's the one difference between us.

I am very much an extrovert,

And so, for me, solitary confinement was a special form of torture,

even though it is torture anyway by international law.

And Zhenya was an introvert who, more than anything,

just likes to, you know, sit in the corner of a sofa and read her book.

And she had to go out and testify before Parliament,

and meet prime ministers and foreign ministers,

and speak at public events and conferences and massive halls.

And she did it brilliantly. She did it better than I ever could.

And, um...

...she's the main reason I'm sitting here and speaking to you now,

instead of still being locked up in that prison in Siberia.

It's one of his favourite chores - to get mail.

It's only now that I'm realising what we've been through.

I've been denying myself the right to...

...to be emotional.

I've been denying myself the right

to actually feel the pain for so long.

And I've become this.

I've become an emotional wreck over this.

So I, um... Yeah.

Um...

And that, I will have to deal with as well.

Um...

NOISE OFF-CAMERA

Ah, there's the little guy.

Daniil, we ordered pizza.

EVGENIA CHUCKLES