“Don’t confuse the Putin regime with Russia; they are not the same,” newly released Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza said in Bonn, Germany, Aug. 2. Not differentiating between the government in Moscow and its invasion of Ukraine and the Russian working people means giving credence to “the line of Putin’s propaganda — that all Russians are for war and for Putin.” It’s as if he and his fellow political prisoners, as well as “millions who are against the war, don’t exist.”
Kara-Murza was speaking at a press conference alongside Ilya Yashin and Andrei Pivovarov, two other Russian oppositionists freed the day before.
In total 24 people were exchanged. Russian President Vladimir Putin received eight of his overseas operatives, including a prized international assassin. He released three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, five Germans and eight political oppositionists from Russia.
Yashin said they had actually suffered an “illegal expulsion” as they had refused to ask for a pardon from Putin, the “tyrant.” He said one of Moscow’s aims was to undercut the ability of outspoken political opponents like himself from confronting Putin inside Russia.
Kara-Murza, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, was freed from a Siberian prison where he had expected to die. He was framed up, serving a 25-year sentence for “treason” for challenging Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sanctions hit Russian working people
He told the press he opposed the sanctions imposed on Russia by Washington. Supposedly targeting “the upper echelons of the Putin regime,” he said, they end up being directed “against the entire country and all Russian citizens.”
This is “extremely unfair and counterproductive,” he added, as it allows Putin to depict the Russian people as being “surrounded by enemies.” This position is controversial with many Ukrainians.
The Socialist Workers Party agrees with Kara-Murza. “The far-reaching sanctions imposed by the U.S. rulers and their allies, whatever their supposed ‘target,’ in fact fall heaviest on working people in Russia,” Rachele Fruit, the SWP candidate for president, told the Militant Aug. 12.
These measures “make it more difficult for Ukrainian workers and farmers to forge links of solidarity with working people in Russia. Their combined class forces can win the fight for an end to Putin’s invasion,” Fruit said.
Moscow caught off guard
Thousands of Ukraine’s troops with armored vehicles and artillery poured across the border into Russia’s Kursk region Aug. 6. The sudden offensive caught Russian defenses, the Kremlin and even Kyiv’s allies, off guard.
Hundreds of surprised Russian conscripts surrendered. Over 150,000 Russian civilians have been evacuated, including from the regional capital, Kursk.
Kyiv’s audacious action aims to draw Moscow’s forces away from battle lines in eastern Ukraine, where they are making some advances, at the cost of hundreds of soldiers killed daily in “human meat” attacks. Despite its risks, the move is boosting morale for Ukrainians and is humiliating Putin.
Yashin, one of the newly freed Russian political prisoners, told the press, “Ukraine does not intend to annex any Russian territories.” The Ukrainian people are “demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops,” which Yashin said is “absolutely justified.”
“The war is not just a tragedy for Ukraine, it’s also a catastrophe for Russia,” he said.