Surviving Putin's gulag: Vladimir Kara-Murza tells his story

hi I'm damir marisk an assignment editor here at the Washington Post and one of the editors of the impromptu podcast normally on impromptu we bring you the conversations we're having inside the Washington Post opinion section this time we're bringing you a big one we haven't been able to stop talking about the release of our dear colleague and friend Vladimir karura from Russian prison earlier this month karura was imprisoned by Vladimir Putin's regime sentenced for 25 years he was convicted of treason for speaking out against the war in Ukraine he want to pull it for the brave columns he wrote for the Post while behind bars these last 2 years earlier this month he was part of the largest International prisoner exchange since the Cold War this week he joined opinions editor David Shipley for an important and timely conversation about press Freedom today you will hear that conversation recorded Wednesday at the Washington Post Live Center freedom of speech is one of the core values that any decent Society must uphold Vladimir korza was jailed for speaking out against blatant criminality and Injustice in his country every day journalists like Vladimir risk their lives to tell the stories that affect change the Washington Post is proud to be part of the press Freedom partnership that stands with and advocates for these Brave individuals and their critical work we're so glad to have Vladimir back we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did hello and welcome to Washington Post Live I'm David Chipley opinions editor here at the post and I'm joined by someone we haven't seen in a very very long time but who we are very happy to see today Vladimir carera Vladimir a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live hello David thank you so much for having me and uh it's wonderful to be back on the Washington Post platform and I really mean this in many ways well but before we get into into other things maybe tell us a little bit about the last two weeks what have you noticed well frankly the last two weeks have been completely surreal you know it's it's as if I'm watching some sort of a film um from a side it's a very good film but it doesn't feel like this is happening in real life just a few weeks ago I was absolutely certain that I I would die in Putin's Gulag uh and you know now I'm sitting at home and speaking and speaking with you and uh I'm here with my family and I could hug my kids hug my wife and I wasn't allowed even to to call on the phone from prison and so uh this is Vladimir bosski uh who's a prominent Soviet era dissident and longtime prison of conscience who was uh himself exchanged in 1976 uh in actually what was the first of its kind uh East West Exchange involving political prisoners uh there had been exchanges involving spies on both sides before but this was the first uh exchange of political prisoners in December 1976 uh it was an exchange mediated by uh the US administration at the time the Ford Administration it involved kukovski on the Soviet side and Lis corvalan the Chilean Communist party lady horses imprisoned in in Chile under General pinish on the other side and in his book recalling this historic exchange bukovski compared the experience to what a deep sea diver feels when he suddenly burst out from the depth of the ocean onto the surface and you just completely lose your orientation you just have absolutely no idea what what's happening and you need time to sort of acclimate to get back to transition back into reality this is the the metaphor he used and I think it's a very uh very appropriate what spot on I mean this is this is exactly how how I've been feeling and I don't know how much time it will take to get to acclimate to get back into some sort of normal and to realize that this is actually happening in reality instead of being some sort of a dream but all I can say is that there are no words adequate enough to express how grateful I feel and I think I can speak for all of us who are on that plane baned for anchora from Moscow earlier this month how grateful I feel to to all friends uh in the Free World who uh throughout all this time throughout all this hell uh never stopped advocating never stopped speaking out never forgot for a second about uh those political prisoners who are sitting in Putin's gulad having committed no crime uh except uh you know speaking out against Putin's dictatorship except speaking out against Putin's aggressive and criminal war against Ukraine uh and had it not been for the tius campaigning by people of Goodwill in so many countries including here in the United States including my friends at the Washington Post to whom I'm maternally grateful this would not be happening I would not be speaking to you now and I also think it is very important to saying to remember that while the 16 of us on that plane uh two weeks ago less than two weeks ago was snatched out of the Putin's gag there are so many others who are still there there are thousands of people there are Russian political prisoners there are Ukrainian uh prisoners of war and civilian hostages there are hundreds and hundreds more than a thousand political prisoners and neighboring Belarus right there are two dictatorships still left in Europe Russia under Putin and Belarus under Luken and we must not forget about them for a moment and we must not relent until they are free and out of this hell as well and this is one of the issues that I'm going to be dedicated a lot of time dedicating a lot of time and effort to now that I'm out of it myself and back to back to life back to reality I I hope we can talk more about that later in the conversation there there is a the moment that you came up for air um was captured on a clip that I I'm sure you've encountered and we wanted to show that to the audience just quickly we're in the Oval Office no no word is strong enough for this I was sure I'm going to die in prison there I don't believe what's happening I still think it's a I still think I'm sleeping in my prison salom instead of hearing your voice but I just want you to know that um you've done a wonderful thing by saving so many people I think there are 16 of us on the plate again I I still can't really it's happening um I mean amazing pivot to English in those circumstances us for the for the previous two and a half years so I'm surprised I can actually use it it was stunning how how is your family how are they fairing they are they're fine they have they've held out for this two and a half years of hell you know amazingly strongly and uh it has always been the case and it is the case now that it's actually much harder on the families of political prisoners than it is on political prisoners themselves because you know after all we did this all uh purposefully I mean I've been in Russian politics for almost 25 years all this time in opposition to Vladimir Putin's regime to Vladimir Putin's dictatorship I mean I knew what I was getting into to this is my life this is my mission and and a lot of us you know people like my colleague Yashin for example can say the same thing but our families are suffering only because they are our families because they are our wives because they are our children and this is a uh a very old uh very uh well unfortunate there's not a strong enough word for this but it's uh it's it's a very old tradition going back to Soviet times when the regime in the Cronan would fight not only their political opponents but also their families in in sort of the worst the the most uh horrendous times under Starin the the wives and children of so-called enemies of the people were actually arrested and and sent into the Gago internal Exile themselves in sort of less uh less gruesome times and on the kov and BV uh there were just you know pressured um certainly not allowed to speak or communicate with their loved ones and this is what we're seeing again today and so it is it is much much harder on our families and on our on our loved ones than it was on us and so I'm I'm I'm I'm so deeply grateful to to my family especially to my wife yvenia who uh as well as you know caring about our three children car about our home basically you know carrying on uh carrying on and trying to make life as normal as possible for our kids she also took on uh all of my work all of my campaigning uh all of my uh you know know civil advocacy and political missions and and she's done it amazingly she's done it frankly much better than I ever did and so there are no words adequate enough to express how grateful I feel to to my family for enduring these two and a half years of hell and we will all need adjusting it's not just for me it is for them as well uh and so uh it's it's only been what it's been less than two weeks and I think we will need much more time to sort of get get get used to each other again get back to normal get back to reality get back into life but uh as I said it feels like a dream it feels like a film but it's a it's an amazing one and it is a miracle there's no I don't think there's any other way of of putting it as as you might imagine we've been flooded by questions from the audience and people who have followed your writing in the post we have one from uh Jacqueline RIT of New Mexico who asks what major or constant thought Focus kept your spirit elevated throughout your ideal I imagine your family and some of the issues that you've just spoken about have but maybe you could talk a little bit about that uh thank you so much thank you to uh to our viewer for this question so it's a very important one I will name three things that sort of kept me going in those conditions in which it's very difficult for any human being to sort of keep going and I'm certainly no Superman I'm just you know I'm just a regular human being as as anybody else and uh and and and in order to sort of maintain yourself maintain your personality and Frankly Speaking maintain your sanity it is important to to have that Focus that she's asking about and I would name three things three things that kept me going throughout all this and that helped me survive uh the first is my Christian faith because I know that whatever numbers and whatever words are written by some people on pieces of paper you know it's not going to life is not going to go according to to those pieces of paper it's going to go according to uh uh to a higher power much higher power and this is and this is an important knowledge this is an important uh Focus that that that keeps things in perspective as it were and you know what happened to us on the 1 of August I think certainly confirms that in a very clear way uh the second thing I would name is my uh background as a historian I'm historian by education and my sort of major area of study has been the modern history of Russia the 19th 20th century including the Soviet period and all of these things everything that we are living through in Russia today uh the repressive dictatorship that engages you know in in crack down on the rights and freedoms of our own people but also that engages in in in in aggression uh towards neighbors and towards others this sort of very dark uh very very dark period in in in Russian history that we're living through now under Putin we've had all this before we've seen all this before both under the Zar and under the Soviets and we know how these things end because you know history frankly is a science as much as I chemistry or physics is just uh uh our science doesn't work on on numbers and figures but it but it certainly has its own laws it certainly has its own logic uh and nobody but not Vladimir Putin or anybody else can ever you know override or cancel uh or trying to bypass the logic of history and so we know how this will end we know how this will end it's only question of time so that's that's the uh that's the thing number two that I would name and then the the third the third thing I would say many many years ago almost 20 years ago I made a documentary about the Soviet disident movement um I've studied it for a long time these are the people I admire these are my heroes to me these are the real heroes of the 20th century in uh in Russia and the Soviet Union the people who stood up for the dignity and the reputation of our country uh at at the worst time a horrible time at a time of repression and and and aggression again a similar time to what we're living today um this documentary is called uh they chose Freedom was a four-part documentary one of the people I uh interviewed for that documentary was uh Vladimir bukovski whom I already mentioned the the dissident and longtime prisoner of conscience who was exchanged in 1976 and I asked him sort of very similar question uh I asked what kept you going uh in in in the gulag in the prisons in the labor camps what kept you going what what helped you survive and he answered with a very short phrase he said I knew that I was right I knew that I was right and you know at the time to be honest I thought these are just nice sounding words and of course I took them into the film because it sounds good but I have to say now that you know having gone through a similar experience myself I can tell you that this knowledge is really important because I knew that I was right I knew that the real criminals are those who are waging this aggressive and criminal war against Ukraine not those of us who have publicly spoken out against it yeah and when you know that you're right the fear and the doubt frankly just disappear can you describe a day in prison how did the guards treat you did you did you talk with them did you have an opportunity to speak with other prisoners what was your day it's very easy for me to describe uh as you put it a day in prison because they were all the same basically just a long Groundhog Day uh you know endless meaningless and and exactly the same each one ssk where I was in uh uh where I was imprisoned is it's in Western it's aity in Western Siberia that has literally centuries long uh traditions of uh holding political prisoners in Russia both in the Imperial times and the Soviet times I mean among the people who were there were doeski for example of The Decemberists back in the 19th century uh in the 20th century uh Alexander saniton was in prison in Omsk on his way to to the gulad in Kazakhstan Mustafa J if the leader of the Crimean tatars was there as well so it's it's sort of a place that that that holds this long unfortunate tradition and today uh in Russia of Vladimir Putin ssk is known um for for its for the harshest prison uh regime out of the whole the whole of our country frankly and you know when I was uh when I was thr on the way from from my mosow prison to Siberia in this uh prison train this Stalin prison uh train cars as we call them and when the Convoy officer uh read out the names of the prisoners from from is folda and the final destination when he called my name and said everybody who's around me suddenly uh went quiet and I didn't I didn't at the time I didn't realize what the reason was but you know I very well understand it now um it is the harshest prison regime in the whole of Russia everything is um by the second by the minute by the rule uh you know no step left no step right uh the whole day is uh you know literally scheduled by the minute 5:00 and in the morning 5:00 a.m. is the official wakeup call you attached your bunk to the wall where it stays until 9:00 p.m. uh when it's uh when it slids out so you cannot lie down or sit properly during the day just basically walk uh in the in the in the small cell as much as you can or you sit at this very small and uncomfortable stool that basically you know just sticks out of the wall and a tiny desk uh it was a it was a small cell uh and I have to say as well that in the in the more than two years that I've been in prison I've been in in 13 different Penitentiary institutions the last one being the notorious KGB FSB prison in Moscow the for from where we were taken to the exchange so qu quite an appropriate numbers well the for of being number 13 but um but what I describe now are the uh prisons that I was uh held in in Omsk because there was several too but basically the regime and the schedules were all the same so 5:00 the morning in the morning is a wakeup call The Bunk gets attached to the wall um and then you just spend the entire day sitting uh in a Cell it's it's a small cell 2 by 3 m so 7 by 10 ft something like that oh you were given an hour to write weren't you did you get one hour to an hour and a half how would you organize your thoughts around that I mean that must have been to somebody who's profession is writing as it is in my case I have have to say that's a particularly sadistic rule so essentially what you do the whole day is just you just sit and stare at a wall because so it's a small cell 2x3 m one small window near the ceiling with metal bars uh two metal doors uh you know into the cell itself that only get open when you let out to the so-called walk which is depending if you're in punishment cell it's 1 hour a day if you're in in a regular isolation cell it's around a half hours a day uh and the walk frankly is just you know walking around in a circle in a small internal covered prison Courtyard uh which is not much bigger than the cell itself but you can see a little bit of the sky upstairs through the through the metal bars and top the rest of the day uh you just sit in your cell essentially doing nothing uh not able to speak to anyone not able to go anywhere not able to do anything you're only given uh pen and paper to write for 90 minutes a day one and a half hours in which you have to cramp abs absolutely everything you have to do so this includes for example preparing for court sessions which I had quite a few reading letters from from you know friends and family responding to those letters answering any questions you know from journalists I don't know making notes doing any any any writing you have to do you have to crump it in into into those 90 minutes a day then the guards take the pen and paper away as well and uh you know apart from the sort of the the confined space in which you to stay all the time apart from the total uh Solitude because I was in solitude confinement and it was actually uh it's really amusing to me well amusing is probably not the appropriate word but you have to keep your irony in prison otherwise you know otherwise it's very difficult to survive I think bam shalam of one of the the most prominent writers and uh uh the people who Chronicle the Soviet gulak he he wrote that uh you know for a prisoner to remain a human being uh hirosima kept the irony and so you have to sort of keep this ironic attitude to everything and it was really amusing to me when my lawyer said to me that uh according to international law according to the United Nations uh standard minimal rules on the treatment of prisoners solish confinement for more than 15 days in a row is officially considered to be a form of torture degrading and inhumane treatment I was in solitary for almost 11 months straight without any break and I have to say it really it's it's really not easy when you are just completely deprived of any human contact because uh as Aristotle said human beings are social animals right we need communication as much as we need oxygen to breathe or water to drink or food to eat and when you're just totally deprived of it it is very very difficult and so one of the advice that people who who've been through this experience always give and I've read a lot of books a lot of Memoirs by Soviet dissidents of the past in my life and so I was fortunate to to sort of having known about this advice as well the advice they always give is you have to fill your time with something meaningful something constructive something useful so you just don't just sit there and stare at a wall because well to speak frankly it's really easy to to to start going crazy pretty soon if that happens and so I try to read as much as I can although it's not very easy because your concentration really goes down only in those conditions but I try to read as much as I can I read up uh actually a lot of uh literature and history of the of the Russian Civil War because as you know Omsk was actually the capital of of white Russia of of the anti-bolshevik Russia during the Civil War in 1918 1919 this was the uh this was where the cult government was based and so there was actually in in our prison libraries there there there was a lot of uh rare materials rare books published on the history of the Russian Civil War that I hadn't even seen in Moscow so I took advantage of that and I read as much as many as many as I could um and I also learned Spanish because again you have to do something you have to do something with your time you have to fill your head with something useful and so this is this is how your day goes uh and as I mentioned it's all scheduled by the minute when they give you the meals when they take you out to walks uh and then for the lights out in the evening and one other uh sort of consequence of this regime that I was held in you know essentially sitting as the Iron Mask from the from the famous novel is that you're also completely deprived of any uh telephone contact with with your family in a in a two years and 3 months that I've been imprisoned I only SP once was able to speak with my wife on the phone and only twice to to my three children uh and so this is going back to what we already discussed uh this is an old very Soviet habit of the CRI when they tried to punish not just political opponents themselves but their families as well [Music] [Music] so I guess this gets to the foundational or the existential question um which is why you know why put a human in solitary confinement in a ceran prison a world away why why do they do it yeah why were you there well because the enemy must be punished right and uh I got a very clear message during my so-called trial and in fact you know my my wife wrote to me we communicated through letters that was the only way we could keep in touch and she wrote to me after I got my 25e sentence back in April of 2023 uh this was the highest sentence for political prisoners since Stalin's time uh since late 40s early 50s nothing nothing even close happened since then and so she wrote to me that you know I always had this tendency before uh to sort of uh you know basically uh I I always doubt doubted uh if if I was able to you know achieve anything of of effect anything of value you know I would always sort of ER on the on the side of uh underestimating everything that that we that we could do and could accomplish and and the my wife wrote to me that you know um I think your self-esteem should should should go up a little bit after this 25 year sentence frankly it's like it's like a medal and you know all jokes aside uh this the sentence that I received uh and you know the sentence that Alexi received and the sentence that y Yashin received and many many other colleagues of mine has have shown these sentences have shown uh what the Putin regime is really afraid of in my case it wasn't just public opposition to the war in Ukraine it wasn't just uh public advocacy on behalf of political prisoners it wasn't just uh uh sort of public speeches in in international platforms talking about the illegitimacy the illegality of uh Vladimir Putin uh bypassing the Constitutional term limits for example and staying in power indefinitely this was all in my sentence too so we know these things have really irritated them but sort of the unspoken and Unwritten charge uh that I was convicted for was uh also my uh involvement in the passage of magnitsky laws the passage of uh magnitsky acts in several Western countries beginning here in the United States these were the laws that imposed targeted sanctions visa and financial sanctions on key officials of the crimin on key officials of the Putin regime and frankly there are a few things that they that they feared more than losing their coveted access to to Western countries to Western institutions to Western Financial systems and so just to drive home the point uh the judge that gave me my 25e sentence was the same judge who imprisoned Sergey magnitsky back in 2008 he was one of the first people sanctioned by the United States government under the magnitsky act so if there was you know they couldn't there couldn't have been a clearer message that the Kremlin could send in this and so then of course um you know the enemy has to be punished and so this is why Siberia this is why solitary confinement this is why these conditions can only be described as as torturous according to international law you know torture is not can be not only of the physical kind I think a lot of people when they think about torture they only imagine the physical things you know when they break your back when you give you electric shock and all the rest of it and by the way these things happen these things are rampant in Putin's prison system but for the sort of more high-profile political prisoners they use a different kind of torture they use the psychological and mental torture I can tell you that it's not uh it's it's it's no better than than than the physical kind in fact it could be much more difficult I mean do you think the release of Russian political prisoners will help the anti-putin opposition inside Russia and without well first of all I think what happened with us gives a lot of Hope to so many others who are still uh languishing in in Putin's goak because you know one other uh measure of I guess you can describe it as a sort of a way of applying mental pressure on prisoners every day whenever I wrote any anything like any official paper you write to to the prison director for example anytime uh you are told to present yourself like say your name say your cell number and all the rest of it you also have to State um the date of your release uh s the length of your prison sentence in my case it was that's a date that's going to stay in my memory forever April the 21st 2047 this was when I was you know scheduled to get out of course that date was purely theoretical because I would never have survive that because you know after after two FSB organized poisonings I don't exactly have the state of health too I mean even for the for the most healthy person in the world the Russian gag is not exactly a good place to be let alone for people like Alexi and N or myself who have survived what we did and so I had to sort of pronounce this data every day and so do all the political prisoners who remain in Putin's go like now and um I'm thinking in particular of people like Alexi gorinov a Moscow minicipal counselor who was the first person to be arrested and criminally charged for public opposition to the war in Ukraine I'm thinking of Maria panamarenko journalist from Siberia a mother of two daughters who who's also in prison for her public opposition to the war I'm thinking of Igor barishnikov an engineer from kaliningrad who who has been in prisoned for his antiw War STS and so and so many others and these people every day they have to sort of you know publicly name this uh release date and uh well I have to say frankly it really gets on you when you do this day after day after day and when all you do is you wake up in the same cell not doing anything not speaking to anyone not going not going anywhere not being able to even call your loved ones it really gets in you and so I think what happened on the 1st of August with this release gives hope to a lot of people back uh back in Russia back in Putin's gulad that these dates that this release date that they have to pronounce that it's not it's not actually connected to reality and that if enough people of Goodwill in the Free World uh you know decide that they're not okay with this they're not okay with so many insome people being confined to prisons being away from the loved ones only because they're opposed to Putin's aggressive War only because they're opposed to Putin's dictatorship that this public opinion can actually work and that there is a way that these people will be free much much sooner than their official prison paper per say and and as I've said I'm going to dedicate uh my time and I'm going to dedicate all the strength that I have left to advocating to campaigning for all of those Russians ukrainians belarusians who are still stuck back in those in those gulags in those prisons and I'm not going to rest until the day they are free and and Vladimir so how do you break through I mean I I remember listening to your CNN interview as you are LED through the airport and you're there in a in your black long johns and a T-shirt and your shower sandals and no in my prison clothes this I had to change in the show sandals in Moscow right and handcuffs and you're going through a commercial Air Terminal with people who are going about their lives um you look at the most recent uh polling around the war in Ukraine um and there's a lot of Russians who evince um remarkably little interest in it at least according to the polls um so people are going about their lives they are living their lives with a war that is going on that they're either less aware of than they might be or really have made a decision about um how do you begin to continue how do you make that case especially since you aren't in Russia I mean you you've you've talked often about going back as a Russian politician you know that's something that you did at enormous cost that's something that Alexi Naval did at tremendous cost um how do you carry on that conversation with the Russian people because inevitably that's where it has to come from right absolutely but David before we talk anymore about this let's please never use the word PS when we talk about an authoritarian regime it's it's completely meaningless I mean when people talk about Pauls or elections in Putin's Russia I don't know if they're joking or they're just being provocative because dictatorships don't do polls dictatorships don't do elections these are all sort of Notions from a Democratic Society when first of all when people actually have access to information as opposed to just being brainwashed by government propaganda but secondly when people are not afraid to speak their mind and when people don't think that if they answer in a qu unquote incorrect way there'll be consequences for themselves and for their families so let's just forget about you know polls and elections and everything that you used to hear in the US that these these Notions do not apply to authoritarian countries in fact Boris nof my close friend My Mentor the Russian opposition leader who was was murdered in Putin's orders in in February of 2015 uh he always said that in the conditions of an authoritarian State like Russia and Putin where there are no free elections where there are no meaningful and reliable opinion polls the best way to test uh the real state of public opinion is to actually see at what sort of views what sort of positions the regime persecutes more and uh it is enough to look at the scale of repression in the last 2 and a half years in Russia against people who are coming out publicly against War uh in Ukraine uh to see that uh you know what these so-called polls say is actually really removed from reality I mean there have been tens of thousands of police detentions across Russia for anti-war demonstrations since February 2022 until today there are hundreds of people who are in prisoned today in Putin's go because they have publicly spoken out against the war in Ukraine I've seen many of these people in my prison transfer from Moscow to Siberia I've seen them and when I was still in my pre-trial Detention Center in the prison in Moscow where I could still actually communicate with with people it is it is is very a large quantity of people and that's only a drop in the ocean that's only the tip of of the Iber and so let's not forget about that when we speak about public opinion but you are absolutely right that of course uh there are a lot of people in in Russia who are either indifferent or who P back what the Putin regime is doing in Ukraine uh it is uh it is tragic it is something that that I don't even know what what right word to use here to describe my emotion something that makes me very angry very sad at the same time needless to say uh but it is also something that frankly should not be surprising after a quarter Century of onean dictatorship Vladimir Putin has been in power for 25 years let's not forget that one of the first things he did after coming to power was shut down or take over independent television networks to make sure that Russian Society only receives officially approved uh messages officially approved propaganda and so after 25 years of propaganda after 25 years of brainwashing after 25 years of repression when those people who are publicly coming out against the regime and its policies are murdered are imprisoned are in the best case exiled uh I think it's hard to expect frankly that a large part of society would not be affected by this and it is and by the way when we speak about uh the fact that a large part of Russian Society be responsibility for what Putin is doing in Ukraine today and for what Putin is doing generally that is absolutely true but let's not forget also that a lot of this responsibility is uh also born by leaders of Western countries who for so many years despite our cries shouts warnings I don't know how else to express it continue to engage with Vladimir Putin to legitimize Vladimir Putin in the a International Community to trade with him to make deals with him to invite him to International Summits you know to look into his eyes and see his soul to engage in resets and so on and so forth this is a fact as well and let's not forget about the responsibility that Western leaders be for for what is happening in Russia and for for what is happening in Ukraine today but it is absolutely clear to my mind that once this regime is out of power uh and it is only a question of when and not if again this this is me speaking as a historian not as a politician it is only a question of when not if when this regime is out of power there will have to be enormous work uh undergone in in Russia to try to deal with the consequences of this I mean we wouldn't be the first one who have to do this uh there are a lot of countries in the world who have gone through this trauma of uh dictatorship who have gone through this difficult process of transitioning from dictatorships to democracy very different countries in very different geographical regions in very difficult historical circumstances and look you know Argentina after military dictatorship South Africa after apartheid um the countries of Central and Eastern Europe after after communism of course Germany after Nazism after 1945 so this is a road that has been traveled many times we will not be the first ones to do it but to me one of the most important uh things we'll have to work on I already mentioned the advocacy for political prisoners that is absolutely Paramount but no less important is working on this road map if you will on how we can heal and transition and yes educate Russian Society post Putin about everything that happened they will have to be acknowledgement there will have to be public reflection there will have to be public responsibility that's something that never happened really after 1991 in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet regime and this is what brought us to poop I've spoken and written about it many times including on the pages of the Washington Post we will have to do this work and so um this is something this is a road map that we need to be preparing today because if we go by Russian history major political changes in our country usually happen like this unexpectedly and suddenly and uh the next time will be absolutely the same I mean just think of the fact that both the Roman of Empire at the beginning of the 20th century and the Soviet regime at the end of the 20th century collapsed in three days this is not a figure of speech I'm talking literally and this is how it's going to happen next time and so we all need to be preparing for our part uh how we deal with this inside of Russia but also I think it is very important to uh it's very important for the free world but leaders of Western democracies to prepare on their side as well because once things really do change in Russia and once uh you know we do start this work on transitional Justice on this transition from dictatorship to democracy inside of Russia it is very important that the Free World stands ready to help reintegrate that new Democratic post ftin Russia back into the Civilized world back into the rule-based international order back into the big Europe that we all want to see you know if we still believe in that goal of a Europe whole free and at peace a goal was expressed you know famously uh 35 years ago by an American president speaking in West Germany as you remember if we still believe in the goal of a Europe whole free and at peace that goal will only be possible when Russia which is the largest country in Europe also becomes peaceful and Democratic a Europe whole free and peace will only be possible with a peaceful and Democratic Russia as a part of it and this is a road map that we need to St preparing today we have a last gone ridiculously over time I am told um but it has been worth every second and I wish we could go on I'm sorry wish we could go confin forgive me for this I I guess maybe this conversation will have to be carried on in the pages of the Washington Post where there are pages and Pages waiting for to be to be filled with your words Vladimir um be very happy to and I'm always honored by the opportunity and and I'm glad I could carry on from prison as well don't know how many colonists you had writing from from behind bars but I was honored by the opportunity that you allowed me to continue this there also weren't that many who were awarded uh Pitzer prizes for commentary for their work both inside and outside of prison did you how did the how did word of the Pulitzer get to you did it get to you well speaking about surreal uh he did get to me was uh on on one of the visits by my lawyer who usually came to see me once or twice a week uh so I'd be escorted by the prison guards into this small tiny Roman lock behind the glass window and then my lawyer would come in from the outside and sit on the other side and so we would sort of speak about you know things in preparation for our court hearings and so on and one day in May he walks in and and says that I've been awarded a pullet Sur prise and I haven't say you know nothing this was before the exchange right but by that time nothing had ever felt more surreal I was of course deeply honored and deeply humbled by this recognition but it also felt like something out of another planet frankly when I was sitting in that solitary cell in Siberia and you know I'd never imagined the the words Pulitzer and my name in the same sentence so I cannot I cannot express enough how how grateful and humbled I am for this recognition but it's uh something that also felt completely unreal and as if I watching some kind of a film as well I mean I've been watching a lot of films this year they've been really good ones and uh I just hope that you know sometime soon uh the film and the reality actually sink in together well it it it's really nice at least temporarily to end on a happy ending Vladimir thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us on Washington Post Live and thanks to all of you for joining us for more conversations like this one though probably not like this one please sign up for a post subscription or get a free trial by visiting washingtonpost.com I'm David Shipley and thank you again [Music]