TALLINN, Estonia — Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to secure his fifth term in power this month on the heels of opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death in prison, which devastated Kremlin critics and spurred concerns about the safety of other imprisoned dissidents.
Putin has gone from tolerating dissent to suppressing anyone who dared challenge him during his 24-year rule. Over the past decade, his government has restricted freedom of speech and assembly, targeted people considered threats to the Kremlin, and restricted access to many independent news outlets.
Most opposition politicians are in prison or exile, and the 71-year-old Russian leader faces only token contenders.
Some of the prominent dissidents in prison today are:
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, SERVING 25 YEARS
A prominent opposition figure, Vladimir Kara-Murza was convicted of treason in April 2023 and handed the stiffest sentence for a Kremlin critic in modern Russia.
The charges against Kara-Murza, who has been behind bars since his arrest in 2022, stem from a speech that year to the House of Representatives in Arizona, where he denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza gestures while standing in a glass cage in a courtroom during the announcement of the verdict on appeal at the Moscow City Court on July 31, 2023. Kara-Murza was convicted of treason last year over a speech denouncing the war in Ukraine. He is serving a 25-year prison term in a Siberian prison colony, the stiffest sentence for a Kremlin critic in modern Russia. Credit: AP
The 42-year-old political activist, who started out as a journalist, was an associate of Russian opposition leader and fierce Putin critic Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015.
In 2011 and 2012, Kara-Murza and Nemtsov lobbied for passage of the Magnitsky Act in the United States. The law was in response to the death in prison of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had exposed a tax fraud…
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