The dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza he won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism (comments section) for a series of articles published in the Washington Post and written in the first six months of 2023 from the prison where he has been locked up for just over two years. The Russian opponent was sentenced to 25 years in prison for criticizing Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. The arrest of Kara-Murza dates back to April 2022. When the war broke out in Ukrainethe political opponent was in the United States. However, he decided to return to Russia to wage political battles against Putin at home. A move that proved fatal. A few hours after giving an interview to the CNNin which he defined Putin at the head of a “regime of assassins, he was arrested by the police.
The Pulitzer Prize jury called Kara-Murza’s articles “passionate”, «written from his cell with the awareness of personal risks, warning public opinion of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.” When the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize was announced, Evgenia Kara-Murzacontacted by Washington Post, she described herself as ‘heartbroken’ as her husband will not be able to be present at any awards ceremony.
One of the articles that earned the Russian dissident the Pulitzer, published in the Washington Post on June 7, 2023, It’s called “Putin’s war on Ukraine makes a mockery of the law.” The word prohibited by Russian law is used. A gesture of defiance and freedom at the same time towards the Kremlin boss. «The law, both Russian and international – writes Kara-Murza – prohibits wars of aggression. But for more than fifteen months, the man who calls himself president of my country has been waging a brutal war, unmotivated and aggressive against a neighboring state, killing, bombing cities, conquering territories.” In this editorial, Kara-Murza underlines the brutal repression against those who express their ideas: «Today in Russia those who are judged are not those who wage this criminal war, but those who oppose it: the journalists who tell the truth. Artists putting up anti-war stickers, priests invoking the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” teachers who call things by their name. Parents whose children draw anti-war pictures. Or, as in my case, politicians who speak out openly against this war and against this regime. Hor received a 25-year sentence for five public statements. The head of my guards sarcastically joked in the Moscow court: ‘You did an impressive job.'” In his writings, Kara-Murza has always had, being a historian, an eye for the events of Europe and Russia. Those who fought for freedom in Russia paid with prison. A script that repeats itself, Who threw Russia into the abyss, according to Kara-Murza, he will not be able to escape political and moral condemnation. «The same – highlights the dissident in the Washington Post – will happen with the current war in Ukraine, and it will happen much sooner than it might seem for those who started it. QThis is because, in addition to legal laws, there are laws of history, and no one has yet managed to erase them. And then the real criminals will be tried, including those whose arrest warrants have already been issued by the International Criminal Court. As you know, war crimes are not subject to the statute of limitations. I have advice for all those who organized mine and other show trials against opponents of the war, trying to present us as “traitors of the Fatherland”, for all those who are so nostalgic for the Soviet system: remember how it ended. All systems based on lies and violence end the same way.” Meanwhile, yesterday Putin was sworn in for his fifth mandate. Russian Patriarch Kirill wished eternal life for the master of the Kremlin. The usual rhetoric that does not take history into account and is now completely disconnected from reality.
