GLOBSEC Chat - Russia, Free?

[Music] ladies and Gentlemen please welcome Kim doia thank you and I would like to welcome to the stage in his first appearance since being freed from Russian prison Vladimir [Applause] caramuta thank you thank you thank you I should say his first conference appearance we've seen you a couple of times um on the air this has got to be surreal for you it is totally surreal It's seems as if I've been watching some kind of a film for the past four weeks it's a very good one to be sure but it's uh it's I feel like a spectator you know up until four weeks ago I was certain I was going to die in that siberian prison and uh it's just you know it's what happened to us uh is more fit for a Hollywood action movie I think than the reality of today's Russia and it shows once again that miracles do happen and that um at the end of the day as has been show so many times in history already concerted efforts by good people in in the Free World uh are stronger than any dictatorship can ever hope to be we've seen this so many times before and we've seen it again four weeks ago now you were sentenced to 25 years about two years ago released on August 1st I want to hear about the release because you just wrote about it in the Washington Post and your pitz are winning column um have you well first tell us what landed you in prison cuz you had a choice voice when the Ukraine War began to leave but you stayed I've always felt that a Russian politici has to be in Russia um you know I've been in this for 25 years uh I began to work with Boris nof the Democratic opposition leader in Russia in in the Autumn of 1999 25 years ago this year I believe in what I do I believe in my country I care about my country I think my country deserves a better future than to live under an aggressive criminal murderous K KGB L dictatorship and you know throughout all these years um I've always taken a stand I've always taken a position I've always called on my fellow Russians to resist and to stand up to this dictatorship I just wouldn't feel that I'd have any moral right to do this if I myself was sitting somewhere in Far Away safety and a lot of people feel the same way uh and so when The fullscale Invasion began in February of 22 um the question didn't even cross my mind I mean if if I was calling on my compatriots to resist the dictator I had to do it myself otherwise what would all my convictions what would all my words what would all my positions be worth um and so I stayed and um and you spoke out I remember seeing you on several different channels including CNN talking about talking against the Invasion but a BBC report said it was actually um somehow defying the police that actually got you arrested um initially I mean in the first days of The Bu scale Invasion there were still some Russian Independent Media Left TV rain radio echo of Moscow where I had a weekly program uh my last weekly program was actually I think on day three of the invasion um where we talked about that and then 3 days after that echo of Moscow was shut down I think that's um thank you for raising this point actually cuz I think it's important for people to remember however however strange however surreal however Kafkaesque this sounds uh in the 21st century but the reality is that a lot of Russians are not even aware of what is actually happening in Ukraine because the first thing that Vladimir Putin did well first of all the first thing he did in general when he came to part 25 years ago was to go after all the major Independent Media all the uh independent television networks in Russia were shut down within the first three years of his rule by 2003 but there still remain some pockets of Independent Media radio stations and all newspaper uh websites but since February of 2022 the censorship has got to absolutely unprecedented levels the Cyber censorship the normal media censorship and you know the vast majority of the Russian population are exposed to daily State driven propaganda people do not have access to objective information and I can tell you from personal experience in even in prison over these last two two and some years that when you actually speak with people uh when you tell them what's actually going on people very quickly change their minds and so you know when uh some analysts some politicians some journalists in the Free World uh sort of talk casually about the fact that the vast majority of Russians uh support the invasion of Ukraine let's remember this is a dictatorship there's no freedom of the media there's no Freedom of Information in order to support or not support something you have to know about it and and also you have to not be afraid of the consequences of speaking out and so anyway to go back to your question um the invasion was uh February 24th and my arrest came on April 11th so I've lasted about a month and a half after it began and what was the moment you knew that you were going to go to prison oh I was coming back from a from a meeting with a friend um famous artist who's passed away since uh I was driving back through the boulevard ring in Moscow one of my favorite areas of my hometown you know I was just saying goodbye now that I think back to it um and I was driving home um when I noticed uh a black Volkswagen following a surveillance car and obviously that's nothing surprising if you're an opposition politician in Russia we get folded all the time and uh usually it's done in a very sort of deliberate demonstrative manner so so that we know that there's surveillance so to be honest I didn't didn't pay attention to to intimidate you in yeah just and just to to sort of to to let us know that you know they they watch and they see everything we're doing and and where we at every moment in time and so I saw that surveillance car okay you know nothing new and then as I um drove to my home to my apartment building I noticed um silver minivan with with black tinted windows um standing by the by the entrance didn't pay much attention you know I live in downtown Moscow it's it's a busy Place always cars around and then I stopped to open the gate of the parking lot um to to to park the car inside the the courtyard and as the gate opened and I began to drive there I saw in the rear view mirror the doors of that minivan open and about six or seven black uniform B lava cover uh police officers uh ran out and began to run after uh the car and that's that's the moment I knew what was happening and I had time to park and text my lawyer that I've been arrested and then he he you know slammed open the door and and got me out that was the moment April 11th 2022 fastest text ever it was and I'm glad I had the time to uh to send it not that it stopped what was about to happen no but it's always you sort of feel more comfort when people know you knew the world was going to get informed and I think and this is why the biggest responsibility that I feel now now that the 16 of us were snatched from the hell of Putin's gak four weeks ago is to Advocate to speak for to speak on behalf of those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds who are still left behind because it is much easier to intimidate someone to pressure someone to torture someone someone in silence and in a vacuum than it is when people are paying attention and so as it is important that the the world sees and that the World Hears and that the world notices all those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds more than a thousand political prisoners in today's Russia a number much higher than in the late Soviet times and the fastest growing segment on that list are those Russians who have publicly spoken out against the aggression on Ukraine and that sends a message to everybody else now while you were incarcerated um I heard from people like Bill Browder Julian Glover your lawyers were reaching out through a number of avenues to the state department in Pentagon press Corp in Washington DC to let us know that well they lost they lost contact with you for a while recently and they were worried about your health and they didn't think there was any way you were going to survive the full term the 25 years um you've survived poisoning twice before this by the Russian government what was going on at that time uh that was over my work uh on the magnitsky ACT which was a law that we first got passed in the United States 12 years ago in 2012 and that had since been passed similar pieces of legislation have since been passed in in all major Western jurisdictions including the European Union the United Kingdom Canada Australia and others a law that has um a very simple but very powerful principle behind it it's a lot that brought personal targeted sanctions against those key officials of Vladimir Putin's regime and the key oligarchs around Vladimir Putin's regime who have long made a habit of stealing in Russia and then spending and parking and stashing not stolen money in the west because that is what these people do they violate and and and and and attack the most basic Norms of civilized Democratic Society at home in our country and then they come to your countries to free countries here and they want to enjoy the benefits and the Privileges that Democratic Society offers and so it's no secret to anybody that key uh figures around Putin um and have Ys have Villas have bank accounts have you know nice apartments in in in major Western countries and that law that um we work to pass and the uh this was originally initiated by Bill Browder Sir William Browder now whose uh lawyer Sergey magnitsky was murdered by uh the Russian prison officials after uncovering uh a massive tax fraud scheme corruption scheme and a key role in convincing the American Congress to pass the magnitsky ACT belonged to Boris NSO my friend My Mentor the Russian opposition leader who was who was murdered who was gunned down on Putin's orders literally in front of the Kremlin in February of 2015 uh my poisonings came the first one was in May of 2015 that same year the second came in in February of 2017 uh and they left you with long lasting health issues they did but I'm you know I'm very fortunate to to be sitting here because both times doctors told my wife that had about a 5% chance to survive so um but it sent a very clear message that this is what the keman is most afraid of losing their coveted access to the west to the Free World losing their coveted access to the very Democratic Society they profess to hate and they profess to smear and they deny our own people at home but they themselves want to enjoy the benefits and the Privileges of it and by the way when I was on trial um sort of the official charges against me were were so my 25 years came uh were handed to me for five public speeches that was in my indictment as thee of the police Convoy in the Moscow City Court said that they I received my sentence he said you know when they were taking me down in handcuffs from the courtroom downstairs into the corway area he turned to me and said so did you just get 25 years with five public speeches I said yeah he said must have been good speeches I said well I hope so um and two of them were against the war in Ukraine two of them were on uh political repression and political prisoners and political murders in Russia uh and one was about the illegality and unconstitutionality of Putin violating the Constitutional term limits to stay on as president now for 25 years not as president as dictator for 25 years for quarter Century so they sort of by presenting the indictment this way they sort of showed what are the most sensitive points to them right the war repression and the fact that Putin is a usurper he is not a legitimate president he's not a legitimate head of state he's a dictator he's a usurper apart from being a war criminal but the unspoken charge the unspoken indictment uh during my trial uh was my work on the magnitsky ACT and they made it as clear as they could possibly have done because the judge who handed me my 25e sentence was the very same judge Serge podo priorov who had jailed Sergey magnitsky in 2008 and who was one of the first 13 people that we got sanctioned in the US under the magnitsky act and he was the one um putting me on trial and giving my 25e sentence these people do everything in a very in yourface manner they make it known why they do this and to me this was again a very clear confirmation that this is what they're most afraid of these people around Putin losing this access to the coveted Western jurisdictions Financial systems to to to to Western countries shopping and schools for their family interest shopping Schools holidays yardsville as you name it bank accounts stealing in Russia spending in the west and by the way as astonishing as it sounds even today more than two and a half years after the largest military conflict in in Europe since the second world war that Vladimir Putin started in Ukraine even today we still see from time to time information in the media about key officials not only from the Putin regime in general but actually from the military in industrial machine that enables the war in Ukraine for example the son of Mr arov who is the number two official at Ros which is the main sort of military industrial corporation that supplies more than 80% of armaments to the Russian forces including now during the war in Ukraine this guy's son you know was recently seen taking his girlfriend to Milan today as astonishing as it sounds so so there's still a lot of work to be done to to close those holes and if you said that back in Russia right now you'd get another 25 years which your fellow Freedom Fighter Alex naly called Revenge well I remember when I got that sentence uh and actually my lawyers told me um I was I was sort of surprised because um you know Putin's regime obviously needless to say this has nothing to do with rule of law but it is what some people refer to as a legalistic dictatorship they try to sort of keep the the you know the the commas and the in the right place right they try to sort of pretend to have some legality to what they do even though everybody conceived through it but but but they sort of want to keep the appearance and um my lawyers told me that I couldn't get more than 24 years by Russian law because I have uh three young children and and that's a what is it called extending circumstance or whatever the legal term for that is so 24 was the maximum I could get but I got 25 from the from the from the judge who jailed Sergey magnesi and you know as I was listening to to that sentence uh in the Moscow City Court I remember the words of um uh Arthur Burton the protagonist of of the gadfly by E you remember in the epilogue where he writes to JMA uh and he says this is literally I think the last page of the novel where he says that I've done my part of the work and the sentence is only proof that I've done it thoroughly these are the words I had in my uh in my head when I heard the sentence that's the way you get recognition in today's Russ your lawyers and your loved ones thought they'd lose you in prison when is the moment you realized you were getting released walk us through how that happened the short answ is at the very last moment and this was the case for all of us because we shared experiences when we were on the plane on route to Turkey but to me um this whole movie as I've already referred to it began on the 23rd of July it was a Tuesday uh when suddenly the doors of my cell I two double two sort of metal doors one on the outside and then a metal bar door inside as a particularly dangerous criminal in a Sol confinement cell the two doors burst open um and a couple of prison officials walked in and told me to come with them so they take me into uh an office there's a desk a chair a big portrait of Putin on the wall there's a piece of paper a pen and some sort of a template with a pre-printed text next to the sheet of paper and so the official told me to sit down and write what's written in a template you know from my own hand and and sign my name and this was a request for pardon addressed to Vladimir Putin in which I was supposed to admit my guilt Express remorse for what I had done etc etc original tell was a joke so I swe I just laughed in his face and I said what is this he said no please sign it I said no I'm not going to sign it he said why are you going to sign it I said well look you have internet like me Google my biography I mean don't you know who I am well I'm not going to sign this first because I do not consider Putin to be a legitimate president I consider him to be a usurper a dictator and a murderer and secondly because I'm not going to admit any guilt I'm not guilty of anything the real criminals are those who are waging this war not those of us who are speaking out against it so um he asked me to put on in writing which that I was happy to do and I did signed it dated it and gave it to him and then at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday July 28th um and I have to say that even by the standards of the Russian prison system even by the standards of Putin's modern day Gulag Omsk the Western Siberian city where I was held is notorious for its fanatical adherence to discipline everything has to be done by the rule book by the paragraph by the minute uh and so you know if if you undo your button that's a violation you get disciplinary self- punishment for that if you remove your head for a minute in the courtyard that's a violation you get that's gets registered you get punished with disciplinary cell and so on and so to be outside your bunk bed at night is a violation too so when the door of my cell burst open at 3:00 a.m. and they barge in a group of prison officers and they tell me to get up and get already in 10 minutes um I was absolutely absolutely convinced I was going to be let out and be executed and actually when we shed our experiences on that plane again three or four others thought the same thing it was done in a similar manner to all of them you you all thought you'd been woken in the middle of the night to be killed right as the way they usually do it the nearby Woods attempting to escape or you know whatever the the the scenery is but instead of the nearby woods they took me to it to the airport just a normal regular civilian airport in Omsk and I have to tell you Kim I I don't think I have enough words to to sort of Express the feeling because I'd spent out of 2 and a half years in prison i' spent 11 months straight in solitary confinement where you literally sit in a small cupet you know 2x3 meters within four walls just staring at a wall not being able to as much as say hello to anybody and after that I suddenly burst in the middle of a of an airport normal regular airport families people you know kids working I was in handcuffs with the Convoy but we were in a normal airport um by this stage of course I I realized that I'm probably not going to get executed because know they would have just done it there what's the point but I have absolutely no idea what's going on and so they board me on a plane in handcuffs with a convoy and we fly to Moscow it's a three-hour flight last year actually exactly this time last year when I was taken from Moscow to Siberia it took 3 weeks in the stal and train carriages as they know you know the Russian prison trains where the transit prisons and so on went through Samara through chabin through uh orsk uh that was a 3-we journey this was three hours a much quicker one and needless to say they don't usually take prisoners in Russia by plane so something really weird was happening nobody explained what or why or what was going on uh and so we're flying to Moscow I get put in the Patty wagon and driven somewhere which they there are no windows and no spatty wagons so when you sit inside you don't see anything you just sit in a small confined space um and so when they told me to get out it was an internal Courtyard a yellow brick prison building they didn't say where I was but I'm a musite I know what Le foral looks like and of course I know of it from literature from Solja NS and from bosski from sharansky it's it's a legendary prison if I can use that word it held many many celebrated opponents of the communist regime in the past so at this point you're thinking frying pan fire at this point I'm thinking there's going to be a new Criminal Case cuz that's the reason they usually take you to lefora if you are already prisoner and they take you from your regular prison to lefora usually it's to start a new criminal case I mean I sort of struggle to think of why on Earth would they open a new criminal case against somebody who already essentially has a life sentence 25 years but you know logic doesn't always work with the system the repressive machine has its own sort of internal logic uh to its actions and everything looked really really cfes every moment of it so this prison officer the captain who was sort of checking me in and registering me we had this most bizarre conversation with him so I say to him first of all I tried to ask you know where where we are he just looked at me and smiled but again I knew it was before so I said to him can you please notify my family and my lawyers that I'm I've been transferred to Moscow because they're going to be worried sick cuz that's the way they always do things in the Russian prison system you just disappear uh so when I was transferred to Siberia last year I just disappeared none of my you know my wife my kids my lawyers nobody knew where I actually was and this was the same so I said can you please notify them by law you have to so that so that my family knows and so this Captain looks at me smiles and says but you're not on mosow Vladimir Vladimir you still in Omsk so which didn't exactly help CLE clear things up I have to head games right so I said okay I know the rules I've been transferred to a new prison I have a right to go to the shower can we go to the shower please he looks at me again smiles again and says you are in Omsk so you're going to be taking shower in Omsk so I said so presumably the walks in the courtyard will be insk as well he said yep you're absolutely right they're going to be in Omsk too and then I said and excuse me for the for the language but I said uh well can I go the toilet here or is that going to be insk as well he said no no that's fine you'll have one in your cell you can you can go you can go to the toilet here so they take me to uh another solar CH can find and sell but I have to say Le for was like was like a hotel like a resort after my prison msk I I know I know how that's going to come out sounding but I enjoyed my time there because I mean insk um I had to fold my bunk to the wall at 5:00 a.m. after that all you can do is either walk around a small cell or you sit at a really small andc comfortable stool um you get everything gets regulated as I mentioned uh you can only have pen and pay for for 90 minutes a day one and a half hours and they take it away again and essentially you just sit and stare at a wall uh for for for the whole for the whole duration of the day so your travel guide to Russian prisons would say this was an upgrade oh this was definitely an upgrade this was a Five Star by the Russian prison system and and by the way actually if you read about Le for in in Memoirs by Soviet distence they said the same thing so that was the case back in Soviet times so I had a bed I could lie on it no nobody cared I had my notepads and pens and books nobody cared I wasn't limited in you know how long I could read or write uh and how long did this go on five days uh and uh and nothing happened so I I thought this was you know this was a new criminal case but if it's a new criminal case you're supposed to get interrogated there's supposed to be you know some people coming in to talk to you nothing was happening I was just sitting there and that cell on my own uh in a complete vacuum and then um on the morning of August 1st and this is the answer to your question came when when I knew and this is the the case with all the others two on the morning of August 1st uh the deputy director of Le for Li tenant colel walked in with the same Captain who was registering me in they wrote all my bags and they said um take off your prison uniform put on whatever civilian clothes you have and I said well all I have from my civilian clothes I have basically you know a a t-shirt in which I slept um black Underpants to because I mean it's obviously gets really cold in Siberia minus 4 in the winter so when you go around in the into sort of the small courtyard to walk you have to put something underneath your clothes not to get completely freezing so I had those and the only shoes I had were was uh were the uh rubber flip-flops I go to the shower t-shirt long johns and rubber flip-flops exactly so that's all I had and the uh this left tenal colel said why don't you have any normal civilian clothes and I said look man I'm serving a 25e sentence in solitary confinement in a strict regime prison in Siberia what would I need civilian clothes for he had nothing to respond to that he said okay put put put that on so I put on the Long John's the t-shirt and flip-flops I was told to take my bags and I was escorted downstairs and I was again and this is I keep coming back to the movie it was a movie there was a row of Men In Black B clava covered faces standing it's pretty intimidating site just small you know small space for eyes and I all the whole face covered with a black B clava in um civilian clothes this was an FSB special Union and they told me to go outside into the internal prison Courtyard and there was a bus parked in in in there and they told me to to get up in and I get into the bus and it's totally dark there's no light on the windows are tinted black and in every R of that bus were more ballock lava covered black ball lava covered FSB special unit operatives and next to each of them I saw a friend a colleague a fellow political prisoner the first person I saw was olar L from Memorial prominent human rights activist uh the second person I saw was my friend and colleague uh Andre pvar the former director of open Russia who actually I believe was at this conference he might be in this room even and the third person person I saw was uh Elia Yashin the opposition politician former Moscow legislator we'd all been serving time in different regions of Russia in different places um and there was only there could only be one reason for us all to be on the same bus that was the moment I knew at the very last moment now I want to read something to you that your wife said just after you were incarcerated this is something she told the BBC she said I love and hate this man for his incredible Integrity he wanted to show that you shouldn't be afraid in the face of that evil and I deeply respect and admire him for that and I could kill him as your way forgiven you yet she told me she wants to feed me properly first CU when she saw when she saw me in Frankfurt cuz I lost 25 kilos in in prison and so when she saw me uh in Germany cuz we were all taken first to Turkey and then to Germany for the for the exchange not all so the Americans were taken to the US but the Russians and the Germans we were taking to Germany and when my wife and kids flew into uh to get me from there uh she told me later that they all looked at me and and said no we we have to feed daddy up first a little bit I mean it's not fair to beat him up now so I'm trying to take this process as slow as I can cuz you know did did did getting to call you from um President Biden's Oval Office in the the White House soften this at all you know that was just I mean everything about this is totally surreal but once we got to the air so this bus took us to vovo the government the government airport channel in Moscow luko 2 which is where Putin and lavro and all these other guys usually fly from there was a twoof jet that was ready there um there FSB uh guys took us up on on the plane so each of us had a personal FSB Convoy uh so one prisoner for one FSB officer and then some others just sort of generally there and um the plane took off nobody said where we were going but there was a flight map on the screen and we saw we actually originally thought we were going to be taken to kaliningrad and exchange of the Russian Polish border cuz I mean usually the or often this happens at land Crossings right like with sharansky for example you remember on the bridge between East and West Berlin in 1986 so we thought that was that that was going to happen too but the uh flight map showed the plane goes Southeast KR would be Northwest obviously the Baltic were they letting you talk to each other on the plane they got a bit more relaxed on the plane they did so we could uh Elia Yashin was sitting behind me Alexander sceno an artist who was also in prison for uh protesting against the war in Ukraine was sitting in front of me o orof couple of seats in front Andre was sitting on the left left across the row and we got talking on the on the on the flight and so you know as as we sort of we're making that journey I just couldn't help I'm a historian by background and by education and in one of my areas of study has been the history of the Soviet dist movement and you know sometimes it is said that every historian sort of subconsciously dreams subconsciously wants to personally experience the era of his study well if that's true then I certainly got everything everything that I could that I could ever wish for but I just couldn't reflect I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that really nothing has changed since since those times even in the minute details for example we were being taken to to Turkey to Ankara by the very same FSB special unit back then it was the KGB special unit that for example escorted Vladimir bukovski for the famous Exchange in December of 1976 this was the first of its kind International prison Exchange involving a political prisoner bosi for Luis corvalan the leader of the Chilean Communist party in Zurich that was mediated also by the United States government same as in our case and you were about to become the largest prisoner exchange since this was since the Cold War and only the fifth in history that involved not just freeing Western hostages in Russia or the Soviet Union not just freeing intelligence operatives because that happens regularly but this was only the fifth exchange pres change in history that actually free read political prisoners prisoners of conscience from Soviet or Russian captivity and so as we were flying to Anchor I sort of couldn't help but reflect on the fact that I was remembering what bukovski wrote about his own exchange back in 76 he wrote this is in his book um to build a castle one of the most important books in my life by the way it's it's an amazing book it's for any generation but it's especially important topical now so he writes in there that we have a funny country where they can neither arrest you nor release you according to the law and this was exactly the same with us obviously we were all arrested illegally because you know none of us have committed any crime we were there for our political views for our public opposition to this War uh but they didn't release us legally either uh in at least three different ways I mean first of all um the way the pardon procedure Works in Russia you're supposed to request it and and you know I for example refused to so did El asashin so did Ol gof so we were pardoned forcibly as it were in involuntarily he really needed his Hitman right from Germany Putin did uh secondly article 61 of the Russian Constitution very clearly and exp explicitly states that a Russian citizen cannot be forcibly removed from Russian territory I mean it's just common sense citizen of a country cannot be removed from his or her own country country nobody at any point had asked for consent they just hurted us onto a plane like cattle and flew us out to anchora and finally you know as in any country you're supposed to have a passport to cross the border but we weren't given any mine had expired while I was in prison I don't for the first time in my life I do not have uh a current Russian passport uh so we all crossed the border illegally even in this even in this sense back and so to your question about anchara when they change actually happened so we were put onto one set of buses and then the bus with the prisoners Putin was getting an exchange you know the hackers the spies the murderers including the Hitman the Assassin from Germany we saw them walk up the plane the same plane that brought us and then our bus was taken uh into some sort of a government terminal in Anchor some sort of reception area there were tables laid out some sandwiches tea coffee everything felt and and and and looked complete seral I mean this this is just frankly this is too quick and too much for the human mind to process especially after you spend months and months in solary confinement where you really I mean you you just sort of all your concentration completely goes down everything starts you know you you see everything as if through some sort of a fog right and suddenly this and just when it seemed things couldn't get any more surreal a lady Diplomat from the American EMB Embassy in Anchor walked up to me carrying a cell phone and she came up and she said are you Mr car Morris I said yes she said the president of the United States is waiting to speak to you and you know by then I just I I just had given up trying to understand what was happening so I just took the phone and of course say know I hadn't used the word of spoken English in two and a half years so had to sort of scrambled and remember it I mean I hadn't used much of Russian either in in there well that is amazing now I have pushed the time but I'm going to have to WP W it up for the next panel and invite everyone in the audience to thank you and I think you have a lot of friends out there who want to talk to you when you step off stage welcome back the conversation thank you so much you thank you I just go back there right that way and the next session starts immediately if everyone could keep their seats we just have a couple of videos for you to watch and we got to get some [Music] more for