The Putin regime rules primarily through fear.
And the only thing we can counter that with is to refuse to be afraid.
To me,
the most important lesson of the Soviet dissident movement was that fear at the end of the day is always a personal choice.
It is up to each individual person to decide whether or not to be afraid.
We did not think we would be seeing Vladimir Karamevtsi again.
When the veteran Russian opposition figure last visited Midori House back in 2017,
he appeared on an episode of The Foreign Desk which,
somewhat optimistically it turned out, pondered Russia's future beyond President Vladimir Putin.
Karamevtsi's efforts to bring that about had by then already seen him poisoned twice.
a favourite dissident silencing method of the Kremlin.
In April 2023 Karamevtsi was sentenced to 25 years in a Siberian prison colony for charges related to his public criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In August 2024, much to his surprise,
he was freed as part of a complex prisoner swap between Russia and several Western countries,
though not before winning a Pulitzer Prize for the Washington Post columns he filed from his cell.
I'm Andrew Muller and I spoke to Vladimir Karamevts for The Big Interview.
Well, first of all, words I wasn't sure I'd ever get to out of Vladimir Karimertso.
Welcome to the big interview.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a pleasure.