A group of lawmakers brought together human rights advocates and family and friends of Vladimir Kara-Murza on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to call for the release of the Russian opposition figure just ahead of the two-year anniversary of his imprisonment and two months after the death of another top critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

What You Need To Know

  • A group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill brought together human rights advocates and family and friends of Vladimir Kara-Murza on Tuesday to call for the release of the Russian opposition figure 
  • It comes just ahead of the two-year anniversary of his imprisonment and follows the death of another top critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny
  • Kara-Murza, a journalist and dual Russian-British citizen, was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison last year as part of Russia’s relentless crackdown on critics
  • Lawmakers at Tuesday's event called for the Biden administration to do all it can to secure his release and one senator called for Kara-Murza to be designated as wrongfully detained

“We speak not only for Vladimir Kara-Murza but for all those that are being imprisoned today for speaking truth to the Putin government, ” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin, D-Md., who led Tuesday’s event.

“We are going to work to set him free and to set Russia free,” he added. 

Cardin was joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Republican, Jim Risch of Idaho; Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. Leaders of several human rights and policy organizations such as Freedom House, which named Kara-Murza its 2023 freedom award winner, and Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, and two children attended as well. 

“Vladimir would be humbled, and he would be standing here all red in the face,” Evgenia Kara-Murza said. 

Kara-Murza, a journalist and dual Russian-British citizen, was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison last year as part of Russia’s relentless crackdown on critics. The charges against him stemmed from a speech he gave weeks prior to the arrest to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An associate of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was killed near the Kremlin in 2015, Kara-Murza survived poisonings in 2015 and 2017 that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Those at Tuesday's event wrote and read from personal letters they planned to send to Kara-Murza in prison, pledging to continue fighting for his release. 

Risch, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted that he has spoken with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about designating Kara-Murza as “a wrongfully detained person.”

“I want to, again, here and now, reiterate that call today for that designation,” Risch said on Tuesday, “This would elevate his case and provide resources to his family as they fight for his freedom.” 

McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, made a direct appeal to President Joe Biden to “do all he can to assure Vladimir’s release.” 

“I continue to call upon this administration to remember that if the United States stands for anything, we are supposed to stand out loud and foursquare for human rights,” McGovern said. “This is a human rights issue if there ever was one, and we need to do more.” 

Tuesday’s event came two months after well-known Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died while imprisoned in Russia. He was serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges in an Arctic penal colony. 

Hours after the news of Navalny’s death emerged, Biden put the blame squarely on Putin. 

“Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death," Biden said. "Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled.”

“The Kremlin has tried to kill Vladimir before and there is certainly a significant risk that they may try to do this again,” Risch said of Kara-Murza on Tuesday. 

Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the arrest of American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who remains imprisoned in Russia. December 2023 marked five years since the detention of American and former Marine Paul Whelan. The U.S has designated both as wrongfully detained. 

In 2022, the Biden administration secured the release of both Brittney Griner, the WNBA star detained for 10 months for possessing two vape cartridges containing hashish oil, and Trevor Reed, a former Marine who spent nearly three years in Russian detention for allegedly assaulting a police officer while drunk in Moscow.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.