Today, Monday, a Moscow court sentenced longtime public Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison. This is the harshest sentence for “high treason and slander against the military” since Russia invaded Ukraine.

At the announcement of the guilty verdict, he stated that “Russia will be liberated”, which is the slogan of the Russian opposition.

Kara-Murza, 41, a father of three and an opposition politician with Russian and British passports, has been publicly critical of Vladimir Putin for years, pushing Western governments to impose sanctions on Russia and individual Russians for human rights abuses, he said.

Prosecutors, who asked the court to sentence him to 25 years in prison, charged him with high treason and slander against the Russian military for criticizing what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

In an interview with CNN that aired hours before his arrest, Kara-Murza said Russia was ruled by a “murder regime.” He also, in speeches in the United States and across Europe, accused Moscow of bombing political targets in Ukraine, but she denied the accusation.

In his final address to the court last week, Kara-Murza compared his own trial, which took place behind closed doors, to the trials of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s and refused to ask the court to acquit him, saying that, in fact, he was proud of everything, what did you say.

“Criminals should repent of their deeds. I, on the other hand, am in jail for my political views. I also know that the day will come when the darkness will dissipate over our country,” he said.

In addition, Great Britain has already condemned the decision of the Moscow court and summoned the Russian ambassador in London for an explanation. At the same time, the UN and the US are calling for his immediate release.

However, twice, in 2015 and 2017, Kara-Murza suddenly fell ill from poisoning, both times he fell into a coma.

Russian authorities deny any involvement in the incidents. Kara-Murza’s lawyers say he has a serious nervous system disorder called polyneuropathy as a result.

Source: Reuters.