>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in August of 2024, when the United States helped broker a prisoner swap with Russia.

It was a large swap, the most extensive since the end of the Cold War, with 26 people on either side being freed.

One of them was a Russian opposition leader named Vladimir Kara-Murza.

He had been imprisoned on charges of treason after he denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it was a wonder that Kara-Murza was still alive at all.

Vladimir Putin had ordered Kara-Murza to be poisoned twice, and Kara-Murza barely survived.

Here's how Scott Pelley put it in a feature on 60 minutes.

You were never meant to hear the voice of Vladimir Kara-Murza ever again.

The Russian opposition leader was one of a group of voices who had warned the world about Putin, and that was long before the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Kara-Murza had worked closely with Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015.

And he told CBS News, quote, I think Russia deserves so much better than to live under a corrupt, repressive criminal dictatorship.

Change is not going to happen unless someone makes it happen.

End quote.

So why did Putin release Vladimir Kara-Murza?

The Biden administration was negotiating for the release of an American a Wall Street Journal reporter, and Putin wanted Vadim Krasikov set free.

Krasikov is a notorious Russian hitman who committed a murder on the streets of Berlin in broad daylight.

Now, here's how the Biden administration's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, described all of this to 60 minutes.

>> What was Schultz's dilemma?

>> Being able to look his people in the eye and say, we are releasing someone who has committed a grievous crime on German soil, and therefore I can deliver something for the people of Germany.

And that's why we ended up thinking through enlarging the problem, not just trying to bring out Americans, but of course bring out some German citizens as well.

And then the critical move of being able to say to the German people, the American people in the world, we are also getting Russian freedom fighters out, including people like Vladimir Kara-Murza.

>> And so Vladimir Kara-Murza is a free man again, and he's still working on the cause of Russian freedom today.

Kara-Murza is visiting Rochester as a guest of the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies, and we're honored to have Vladimir Kara-Murza on Connections this hour.

Thank you for making time for us.

>> It is a pleasure to be here, Ivan.

Thank you so much for the invitation.

>> And welcome to two other guests.

Dr.

Randall Stone is back with us.

He's the director of the center for Polish and Central European Studies at the University of Rochester.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Good to be with you again, Evan.

>> And welcome back to Dmitry Bykov, who is the inaugural Scholar in Exile in the Humanities Center at the University of Rochester.

Welcome back to the program.

>> Thank you so much.

I'm just a journalist here because asking questions to Kara-Murza is my hobby from maybe recent ten years.

>> Well, it's great to have you here, Dmitri.

And there's an event tonight, 5 p.m.

And doctor Stone, you want to tell the listeners about this?

>> That's right.

So Vladimir Kara-Murza is going to be speaking at 5 p.m.

in Hoyt Hall.

H o y t on the University of Rochester River campus.

And it's free and open to the public.

>> Hoyt Auditorium and Hoyt Hall, 5 p.m.

today.

And the way I've been describing it to colleagues is that you sort of undersold this.

When you emailed me a few weeks ago.

we're Vladimir Kara-Murza is an international story.

This is a this is a huge figure in the Russian opposition by many rights.

We'll talk about this.

He was very nearly not with us.

and I don't know how you keep bringing in people like this Randy, but you're doing a great service to the community.

>> Well, if to give Dmitry Bykov credit for that he is very well connected and knows everyone who's anyone in Russia.

yeah.

So.

So Vladimir was was close to Boris Nemtsov, as you mentioned who was the leading Russian opposition leader until he was assassinated on Putin's orders in 2015. on the streets of Moscow.

and then of course, the mantle was, was taken up by Alexei Navalny who died in prison in Moscow.

And Vladimir Kara-Murza seems to be the the next one up as the, the, leading Russian opposition leader who, of course, is in is is in an exile now because he was imprisoned after opposing the war in 2022, poisoned, as you mentioned, and barely survived, was in a coma.

then didn't expect to survive his time in prison.

he told us that he read three volumes of by Russian historian Yanov.

while he was in prison in order to keep himself sane.

And also, I believe, learned.

>> One of many dozens of volumes I read when I was in prison.

That was about the only thing to do not to get crazy.

>> and, and and then was, was traded for this large number of of former spies it's a it's a sign of the sickness of a of a culture, when they.

>> When you change the spies and killers for the thinkers and speakers.

>> Exactly, exactly.

And you didn't mention one of the more colorful groups of spies, you know, Americans will will know the television show.

The Americans.

And there was a real live group of illegals, right?

living in Slovenia who supposedly were from Mexico and Brazil but really were from Russia and were were even their children didn't know that they were spies.

Remarkable.

They were part of the part of the swap.

>> So remarkable story.

And so, you know, doctor Stone mentioned Mr.

Kara-Murza that the you were poisoned twice.

The first time you were poisoned, doctors in Moscow told your wife that there was only a 5% chance that you would survive it.

Of course you did.

But you had to relearn how to do a number of things, literally, including walking.

And yet, despite having permanent resident status in this country, you you kept going back to Russia.

I'm frankly amazed that you have survived this long reading your story.

And I wonder what you have told your family over the years when they worry about your safety and you've thought about going back to Russia and going back, and every time you go back, you're either poisoned or imprisoned.

What do you tell your family?

>> Well, I'm grateful and and privileged to be sharing my life with a woman who understands who I am and who knows who I am, and I would not have been able to to do everything that I've been doing for the past 25 years without her support, without her being by my side.

And I'm deeply, deeply grateful for that.

No words can can express it.

Look, I'm a Russian politician.

This is my life's mission.

This is what I do.

And I believe a Russian politician must be in Russia.

I've always felt that, you know what kind of a moral right would I have to call on my fellow citizens to stand up to Putin dictatorship if I did not do it myself?

The only way to lead as a politician, as a public figure, is with personal example.

I've always been deeply convinced of this.

And so the thought never even crossed my mind of of leaving the country after either of the two poisonings or after the launch of the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

And by the way, you know, I'm not alone in this.

So, so many of my friends and colleagues in the Russian opposition who felt exactly the same way.

And so when Putin in the very first days of of the full scale invasion of Ukraine, rubberstamped these laws, criminalizing not only antiwar speech, not only, you know, opposing this invasion, but even presenting facts about it, I mean, this is really Orwellian.

The reality we're living in, in Russia, you're not allowed to call a war a war.

Literally.

There are people in prison just for that.

They pass these laws in early March, about a week into the full scale invasion.

And then I waited for a few weeks to let the people who want to leave leave because, you know, for any dictatorship, it's not just for Putin, for any dictatorship, it's easier when their political opponents just leave the country on their own accord because they don't have to deal with the arrests, with the trials, with the political imprisonment, with the negative publicity, with the advocacy campaigns.

For them, it's easier when people just leave.

But as I said to many of us who are in the Russian democratic opposition, it was a point of principle to stay with our people at this difficult time.

And not only to say the words, but to do the deed as well, to show personal example, that we should not be afraid.

This is a central point in all of this.

Regimes like Putin's rule through fear.

This is the main instrument that has, you know, allowed this person to stay in power for 25 years.

They ruled through fear.

They terrorize our own Russian society.

They make people afraid.

This fear is all permeating.

It's everywhere.

It's omnipresent.

And the only way to show the people that we should not be afraid, because this is what keeps them in power, is to show it with personal example.

Here I am, I'm standing next to you at my home in my country.

I'm not afraid.

And you don't be either.

>> Yeah, I don't mean to ask a question flippantly.

I'm literally wondering if you are comfortable eating food anymore.

You've been poisoned twice.

Nearly to death.

>> Well, first of all, they don't poison through food as Dmitry Bykov will be able to concur because he was poisoned too, by the same FSB assassination squad.

And by.

>> The way, I should be afraid to dress.

And I think, you know.

>> It's absolutely because they put this poisonous substances on the clothing.

So it penetrates through your skin.

if.

>> That might be.

>> Worse than the.

>> Food.

>> If your readers are interested, there's there's an amazing, brilliant series of media investigations led by Bellingcat, an international investigative media group published in 2021 that revealed the existence of this secret assassination squad within the ranks of Putin's security services, within the ranks of the Russian FSB, a squad the task of which is to physically eliminate political opponents of Vladimir Putin.

It was members of this squad that tailed Boris Nemtsov in the weeks leading up to his assassination.

As members of this squad that poisoned Alexei Navalny, poisoned Dmitry Bykov, poisoned me, poisoned so many other people in Russia.

This is the reality of Putin's Russia today.

There is a special government unit whose job it is to go after and physically murder opponents of Vladimir Putin's regime.

>> Now, I suspect if you go back to Russia, you will certainly be killed.

You have permanent status in the United States.

>> You wouldn't be let in Russia.

>> Exactly.

I can't go into Russia because when they expelled us in the prisoner exchange, by the way, nobody so much as asked our opinion for it.

We were just thrown like cattle from a prison cell onto a bus or on a plane, and thrown out to Turkey.

When the prison guards woke me up in the middle of the night at my Omsk prison in a cell, I was sure they're going to lead me out to the nearby forest and shoot me.

Nobody knew anything until the last moment.

Nobody asked our opinion.

several of us, including myself, refused to sign any kind of pardon.

Petitions to Putin.

They just literally just herded us onto a bus accompanied by members of an FSB special ops team called the Alpha Group.

Drove us to the government airport, put us into the plane and threw us out of the country.

I don't even have a valid passport because my my Russian passport had expired while I was in prison.

They threw me out of the country without even a valid document.

A few months ago I went to the to the Russian Embassy in Washington to apply for a new passport.

And and I was denied.

I asked for it in writing.

So they actually gave me a piece of paper saying that I, a Russian citizen, I'm not allowed to get a Russian passport.

So no, we've been thrown out without a possibility of coming back until there's political change in Russia, which is only a question of time.

I have no doubt I'll be back in my country and we will have a road and difficult road ahead of us, a long and difficult road ahead of us to take Russia back to normality, to take Russia back to civilization after what the Putin regime has done to.

>> It.

In in our second half hour, we're going to talk to our guests in the room about whether the opposition is or can be unified, how strong it is.

But before we even get there, I want to ask you, Vladimir, you've been trying to warn the world that Putin is dangerous for years at a time.

During a period that I would say that at least in this country, there was a lot of complacency about Putin.

certainly before 2014, and even really in the intervening years, 2014 to 2022, this, this country, you know, maybe the political leadership was one thing, but I think there was a lot of complacency.

And you and your colleagues were trying to warn against that.

So now that the world has seen more of the danger here, I'm thinking about what people like Vice President JD Vance has said.

He says that, number one, we don't really have an interest in Ukraine.

Number two, that we need to avoid nuclear war and that this is a nuclear armed power and that some of Vice President Vance's fellow travelers have said that you must understand about Vladimir Putin.

He is not going to allow himself to lose that if he's pushed too far, he won't give up his life or his power without using every armament that he has.

and I wonder if you agree with that.

>> Well, first of all, Vladimir Putin has already lost.

He's already lost the war in Ukraine because his goal was to take Kyiv in three days.

His goal was for Ukraine to not exist as a sovereign, independent country, where almost four years into this full scale invasion and Ukraine very much exists, and that is already a loss for Vladimir Putin.

But look, you're absolutely right.

We've been trying to shout to the whole world of who Vladimir Putin is for the past 25 years.

It was clear from the very beginning there was, you know, there's this fashionable myth that we sometimes hear that there was some kind of an early Putin who was, okay, you know, who believed in modernization and cooperation with the West and what have you.

And then something went horribly wrong along the way.

This is complete nonsense.

One of the first acts of Vladimir Putin in office as president was to bring back the Soviet national anthem, once personally picked by Joseph Stalin.

Russia is a country of symbols.

I had no more questions after he did that.

It was the clearest signal of where he was going to take our country and the world with it.

And then for years and years we saw Western leaders, you know, while Putin was shutting down independent media, going after his opponents, rigging elections, beating up peaceful opposition protesters and so on, we saw Western leaders, you know, one after another, continuing to shake his hand, invite him for international summits, rolling out red carpets, continuing business as usual.

>>, ignoring a fundamental lesson from Russian history that whenever there's internal repression in Russia, there will also be external aggression, because a regime that does not respect the rights and freedoms of its own people is not going to respect the borders of its neighbors.

And sure enough, Putin has continued for all of these years to kill both inside and outside of Russia's borders, currently leading the largest military conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

But from this also comes another very important lesson what happens in Russia affects everybody, and the only true guarantee of long term peace and security, not just for Ukraine, but for the European continent as a whole, will be a democratic Russia, if we're still believe in that goal of a Europe whole, free and at peace, that has been the dream of so many generations of policymakers in the West.

The only way to get to that point is with a democratic Russia, a Russia that would respect its own laws and its own constitution and the rights of its own people.

And it would also respect the civilized norms of international behavior.

>> I think those who disagree with parts of what you're saying, I can't speak for the vice president.

I wouldn't try to.

I think they would say that you're avoiding the larger question, which is, yes, they failed in their goals in Ukraine.

Yes.

They've been humiliated in many ways.

But Putin is still going to Shanghai.

He's still going and getting red carpet treatment from not only our president, but also Modi, also Xi Jinping, that that alliance looks stronger than ever.

And so I think the larger point that those who fear what comes next in Russia, they would say, well, Vladimir Kara-Murza is dodging that question, which is if Vladimir Putin is going to lose power, would he destroy the world before allowing himself to lose power?

>> No, of course not.

Because, you know, I'm not just a politician.

I'm a historian by education, and we know that there's a very clear pattern in Russian history that every time you see a leadership change since 1762, to this day, that's more than 250 years.

Every time there's been a leadership change that came with 180 degree shift in policy, it was repression, then thaw repression, then thaw repression, then thaw.

Even when the next leadership came from the ranks of the previous one.

You know, Nikita Khrushchev was one of Stalin's closest acolytes.

He released millions of people from the Gulag.

Gorbachev was in many ways a protege of Yuri Andropov.

When of most repressive leaders in Soviet history in 20th century.

We know what Gorbachev did.

Putin was appointed by Yeltsin and totally destroyed the legacy of Russian democracy.

We had in the President Yeltsin.

Whatever happens after Putin will be 180 degree reversal.

The question is not to miss that window of opportunity, because we know that every time there is a change in Russia, the window of opportunity for democratic change is very short and very brief.

It was missed in the 90s because so many mistakes were made.

If we had time, we could we could go on talking about this for a long time.

The point is, we must not repeat those mistakes the next time.

There will be a window of opportunity for change in Russia.

We must be getting ready for that change.

Now.

>> I.

>> Want to ask.

>> You.

>> And then I want to ask you and Dimitri, about the best way to try to understand and contextualize Russian sentiment among the people, because dissidence is not allowed and because prison and death is a real possibility.

I think Americans are genuinely confused about whether the average Russian supports this regime or not.

but I also am confused about what the mechanism of change is.

So you're talking about a post-putin Russia.

And I take your point that history shows that very dramatic pivots and directional changes not only can happen, but have happened and may even be likely to happen with the next regime, but what's the mechanism for removing him from power?

>> First of all, you mentioned dissidence is not allowed.

Let's not forget that.

Not literally, not a day goes by without another news report of an arrest, of an indictment or a sham trial.

Because there are so many people in Russia who are not willing to be silent accomplices of the crimes committed by Putin's regime.

And every day there are news of more repressions against Russian citizens who are speaking out against this war.

Just a few days ago, Diana Loginova, an 18-year-old musical college student from Saint Petersburg, was arrested and placed in custody for singing anti-war songs on the streets of the city.

And there are stories like this every day from all over the country.

This is important when we talk about Russia.

Let's talk not only about the war criminals and the murderers are sitting in the Kremlin, but also about all of those decent and courageous Russia's courageous Russian citizens who are standing up to them, even at the cost of their own personal freedom, and ask the question of how Putin will be removed.

You know, we already talked about lessons from Russian history.

One other very clear one is that whenever there's major political change happening in our country, it usually happens like this at a click of a finger.

Both the czarist regime in 1917 and the Soviet regime, the communist regime in 1991, collapsed in three days.

And I mean this literally, it's not a metaphor.

And nobody, nobody saw it coming.

So I think, I mean, we could we could talk in detail about all the possible ways that things can change in Russia.

The reality will be different.

The reality is none of us knows exactly when or how it could be in five years and could be four months.

But the point is that we must be ready for that moment.

Because when that moment comes, you'll be too late to sit down and start figuring out what do we do now?

We have to have those roadmap, those roadmaps, those plans for the day after Putin ready today.

>> Are you are you someone who can lead in the in the aftermath, who can lead?

There are national figures.

For a long time I heard friends say someday Alexei Navalny will be the will be president of Russia.

And he's dead now who are the figures who could unite an opposition?

>> Well, to me, Boris Nemtsov was the best president.

Russia never had.

Boris would have been a whole different world.

He had if he had become president.

Which which of which?

There was a real chance back in the late 90s.

But I think that the answer to your question is it will be people we do not know.

You know, some of those tens of thousands of young people who came out to to Navalny's funeral last year when he was when he was being buried there was the police cordons all around the church.

So only the closest family members could go inside the church for the funeral service.

But around that church, there were tens of thousands of people, mostly young people, who remember nothing except Putin, because their whole lives have been spent under him.

And who knew that there would be police operatives and FSB agents with video cameras registering every name, taking down every face?

They knew how dangerous it was, but they still went for his funeral to pay their respects and to make a statement that they're not okay with what's happening in our country.

You'll be somebody from, from from that crowd.

We don't know who the next leaders will be.

And that's not the point.

The point is to have a free and democratic election in Russia, and then citizens will decide.

>> I take the I take your larger point, but I wonder if you you would go back in those circumstances.

>> I will absolutely go back 100% that that I can promise you.

and I would be honored to serve my country in whatever capacity I can be useful to it.

on that difficult, extremely difficult journey back to normality and back to civilization that our country will need to travel on after Putin's regime is finally gone.

But again, that's not the main issue here.

The main issue is to have that opportunity.

>> So Dmitry Bykov when when Americans are wondering why they don't see more demonstrations in Russia, part of what your colleague's point is, is there is quite a lot of dissent, and there are arrests every day, and there are imprisonments happening every day.

So whether we see them or not doesn't mean they're not happening.

I'm wondering if there's any way to know what the average Russian is thinking.

I mean, is it fear and complacency?

Are there probably are some Putin loyalists?

I don't know if that's a majority.

How do you sort of gauge what the Russian people want out of all of this?

>> Well, you see, the main advantage of living in Russia is not only predictability of Russian future because Russian history is somehow repeating itself every hundred years.

But the main advantage is that you can survive all the periods.

If you live long enough, you can watch personally, the for the period of reform, the period of repressions and surviving the period of repressions.

I must say that it's really very difficult to march through the streets with the open protest.

It's as difficult, maybe, as to raise to the battle in the real military fight, because you are risking your life and it's really dangerous in Russia.

And there's the answer.

You really don't see many protests, all those protests are hidden.

They are somehow underground.

As we know that term underground comes from Russia, from Dostoyevsky's underground notes.

And our psychology is also on the ground.

We are we have the skill of hiding and we hide very fast.

now the United States also have the chance.

The advantage of surviving the serious times for protesters.

We have seen this wonderful movie when your president is flying over his voters, and we can understand that sometimes it's really difficult to protest because you understand that in comparison with any military forces, all the forces of civilians are really nothing.

So surely real support of Putin and Russia is about 20 or maybe maximum 30%, which is absolutely normal for any totalitarian state.

But people are ready for changes.

They are waiting for them.

They only don't want to take any responsibility for it.

They want to start it anyhow without their personal participation.

But very soon I am absolutely sure in the 30s you will see another Russia because there was no czar in Russia or no general secretary who could rule more than 30 years.

It is like any good composer can write only nine symphonies.

The 10th is impossible.

The 31st year is fatal.

Nobody can explain why it is.

Maybe like some mathematician constant.

>> I think Vladimir, your colleague, was referring to the the the the A.I.

video that President Trump posted of himself flying an aircraft.

>> Flying over protesters, expressing.

You said that you thought.

>> His attitude toward processes, which.

Included dumping.

>> Excrement is not very simple to be protesting?

>> No, I understand that, but like I what I'm wondering, you know, listening to your colleague reference, the president's reaction to the the nationwide no protests over this past weekend.

Americans lately have been invoking a lot of language that sounds well, you yourself have said it feels like 1938 at times in the world.

and Americans have been thinking about that.

Americans have been wondering about a president who says comedians are not allowed to make jokes at my expense.

a government that's trying to control what people say on television.

But it's not.

We're not throwing people in prison just yet for that.

the president can post a video, as Dmitri says of himself flying over New York City and dumping excrement on crowds of protesters.

And he's wearing a crown, and he's laughing about it.

Do you see that as a dangerous step for a government that is supposed to be in favor of free expression?

Or do you think that we're still a long, long way away from the worst excesses of authoritarianism?

>> Well, first of all, far be it from me to comment on American politics.

I think you've had enough Russians in.

recent years trying.

>> To meddle.

>> Trying to meddle, trying to meddle.

>> In politics.

>> I don't want to be.

I don't want to be one more.

But on a substance of your.

>> I'm not trying to get you in any sort of trouble with this government, I will tell you that.

>> Well, look, first of all, I don't have any problems getting trouble with the government, as you probably say, but I have my own country that I have to deal with.

I'm not trying to meddle into your affairs, but on the general point of your question, I think it's just very important to be to be vigilant with the first signs.

that could be pointing to a very wrong direction.

I think it was President Reagan who said that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

Right.

And I think it's a very important truth to remember, just like there are no countries that are quote, unquote, destined to be authoritarian.

That's just a total falsehood.

but but so on the other side of this scale, there are no countries that are guaranteed a democracy.

No matter what.

I think it's important to to be vigilant and to stand guard and to defend those institutions.

Was it Ben Franklin who said you know, when the lady asked him on the streets of Philadelphia, what kind of government did you give us?

He said, a republic, madam, if you can keep it.

Well, it is important to keep it.

Democracies don't just happen.

They they only exist if citizens and societies are willing to defend them.

And I think it's very important to to not let it get to that point.

What it would no longer there will be nothing left to defend or the way Putin, for example, destroyed democracy in Russia was, you know, to use Mussolini's phrase, when he was talking about his own consolidation of power in Italy in the 1920s, when he said that he was plucking the chicken feather by feather to lessen the squawking.

That was the phrase he used.

So he did it incrementally, one by one, not trying to go after everything else at the same time.

That's how Putin did it in Russia when he came to power.

He first went after independent media.

He then went after the business community, making sure that it's it's subservient to the Kremlin's wishes.

He then went after the institution of elections and parliament, turning parliament into a rubber stamp.

And so on, and all while he was doing this, he sort of kept plausible deniability that, you know, people were able to say, oh, this is just one thing here.

It's just one TV channel closed.

This is not, you know, this is only one particular episode.

It doesn't pertain to the bigger picture.

Oh, this is just that one opposition party not allowed to run elections and so on.

And when he was finished, there was nothing left to defend.

I just think it's really important for citizens of a democracy, any democracy, to be vigilant and to stand guard and to make sure that they do keep that republic, that they have.

>> I just.

>> I wonder a little bit about the natural urging of human beings in that I take your point that you're a Russian politician, a journalist, a dissident.

Russia is your country.

Of course you would go back if you could.

Of course you would participate if you could.

I think in this country I did not expect in my lifetime I would ever hear presidents say things like, well, we took away the freedom of speech, of people who wanted to burn the flag.

I can take away people's freedom of speech if I want to.

we're going to imprison people without trial.

We're going to be attacking what might be fishing boats, what might be drug running boats without any sort of notice.

and we're going to say what people can say about The White House.

We're going to control speech.

I didn't think we would see that.

And I also thought that if we ever did, we would not see it be very popular.

And I was I was I was wrong about that.

So I wondered, do.

people do people want authoritarianism more than I realized?

Do people is there a natural urging toward authoritarianism?

Is there a desire for it?

I think there's a desire to be free.

>> It's a typical panic from intelligence.

I have a kind of consolation for you.

There would be no totalitarianism in America because most of American dystopias always promise.

It always promises fascism.

Fascists will come if you vote for it.

We remember it very well because one of my courses is devoted to the history of dystopia, dystopias are always very effective, but you will never get it, because in the United States, the main subject of national pride is the feeling of responsibility for everything, which happens not only in America, but in the whole world, which is maybe even disturbing sometimes.

America is responsible for the whole world, and most Americans are happy to be responsible for results of their politics or quotations.

They are happy to participate in the politics.

They are voting for.

Everything.

The building of bridges, the building of new benches in the city, and so on.

In Russia, your main aim is not to be responsible to say Putin is guilty or Brezhnev is guilty, or Stalin with time is always guilty.

So in America you will never get it because it's a kind of national sport.

courts.

Yes, courts political struggle and baseball.

There were three kinds of sports are immortal.

>> doctor Stone and maybe Vladimir.

And then what we'll do is we'll take a brief break, and I've got some questions from the audience for Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is with us, along with Dmitry Bykov.

Two men who have been targeted by the Putin administration for their dissent.

And I have been willing to put their lives on the line and are sharing their thoughts with us this hour.

Dr.

Stone, in recent years, have you wondered at all if there's more of an urging toward authoritarianism than maybe you believed?

>> Yes.

I think the recent years have shaken the faith of political scientists in America.

in American democracy, in terms of in its in its staying power.

and I, I would emphasize the United States is very, very far from the situation in Russia.

And the situation in Russia has become vastly more repressive since 2022 than it was before that.

There have been a number of important changes along the way, and it's important not to not to minimize those distinct changes.

but we're aware of lots of signs of democratic backsliding in the United States.

you mentioned some of them one popular way of thinking in political science about thinking about what democracy is.

was articulated by Adam Jaworski.

He argued that democracy is a political system where parties lose elections.

So the important thing is political accountability.

If a population is sufficiently disgusted with their leadership, they and that feeling is widespread enough, they should be able to get rid of that leadership, replace it with another one without resorting to armed conflict.

And that's the that's the basic promise of democracy.

All the other things, support for human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, those things follow from political accountability.

If the political institutions basically work, if it's in equilibrium for the leader who's defeated in at the ballot box to step down, then you have a political system that you can you can call democratic.

And there's it there have been close elections where people have argued, well, actually, the other side won the election.

it was decided in the courts.

We weren't happy with the way the courts decided it.

Perhaps this was unfair, but it had to be a very close election for that to ever be in question.

A democratic system is one where when there's an overwhelming victory for one side or the other, it can't be disputed.

and the people get their way.

This is the first time in living memory that American political scientists have really wondered whether that's the case, whether democratic institutions in the United States will be able to lead to a peaceful transfer of power from the current administration to whatever comes next.

Now, that doesn't mean that it that that won't happen.

We certainly hope that it will.

I think the probability that that will happen is greater than 50%.

But in any previous generation, we would have said the probability that that will happen is greater than 99%.

And the fact that political scientists are uncertain about how democratic our country is means that the level of democracy in America has declined in a terrifying and very damaging way.

>> I can only remind you your book, Satellites and Commissars.

You know, this division is very actual here.

I'm a typical satellite, and so Vladimir is a typical commissar.

When you are reading it, there is a great phrase which may be the slogan of my life.

Democracy is not a gift to get from the sky.

Democracy is a game to play.

And so in Russia now we have the game to play.

We must win it, not get it from anybody.

That's the main object of my belief.

>> So after our only break of the hour, I've got some questions for our guests here who include Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was part of the largest prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia since the end of the Cold War.

It happened in August of last year.

One of the late acts of the Biden administration in which they negotiated what became a 26 person exchange and Vladimir Kara-Murza was one of the people released.

He was in a Siberian prison on a 25 year term for treason, simply because he opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On the other side of this break, we'll get some feedback for him from our listeners, and you can see Vladimir Kara-Murza and Dmitry Bykov tonight at an event at 5:00 at the University of Rochester.

It is happening at Hoyt Hall, and they would love to see you there.

Powerful themes from someone who has lived it and nearly died for it.

We'll come right back on Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Wednesday on the next Connections.

In our first hour, the candidates for Irondequoit Town Supervisor join us.

We'll talk about the issues facing voters there.

And then in the second hour, Rochester Mayor Malik Evans running for reelection.

He sits down with us for the hour to talk about his campaign and the issues that he says are animating his desire for a second term.

Talk with you on Wednesday.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

All right.

First question from the audience.

Is there active and unified Russian opposition that is capable of either taking down or orchestrating changes in power in Russia?

So not not is there opposition, but is there unified opposition that could help lead to this change?

>> Well, first of all, let's settle on the terms.

I'm not sure the term opposition even applies to a situation like ours.

You know, opposition to me is a word from democratic systems like yours here because members of the opposition, you know, they run an elections, they debate in television studios, they sit in parliaments and so on.

In my country, people who oppose the current regime are either dead, like Boris Nemtsov or Alexei Navalny because they'd been murdered.

Are in prisons like I was until last year, like so many of my friends and colleagues are now, as we speak, or in forced exile.

So I'm not sure the word opposition is even relevant.

You know, in one of his last interviews, Boris Nemtsov said that, you know, please don't call me an opposition leader anymore.

Call me a dissident.

This is a much more relevant and appropriate term for the kinds of systems that we have in Russia.

So of course, in a in a dictatorship, it's not possible to have any organized opposition structures to state the obvious.

What we do know that we have is millions and millions of people in Russia who are not happy with the status quo, who oppose this dictatorship, who reject this war of aggression, and who, frankly, are willing to jump at the first opportunity to say so whenever a relatively safe and legal opportunity arises.

And the case in point, of course, was the so-called presidential election we had in Russia last year, which was a staged circus, of course, with Putin and a couple of pre-approved clowns, you know, on the ballot alongside him.

And suddenly there was a there was a guy, a lawyer, a former member of parliament named Boris Nadezhdin, who announced that he was running for president of Russia on an anti-war platform.

And the public response was just incredible.

Suddenly, all over the country, large cities, small towns, you saw these hours long lines of people standing outside of of his campaign headquarters to sign ballot petitions to get him registered as a candidate.

Hundreds of thousands of people literally voting with their feet, you know, for the only person who dared to say, I'm against this war.

And of course, he was not allowed on the ballot.

Needless to say, you know, opposition candidates in today's Russia never are.

But that was almost besides the point, because suddenly people saw that they were not alone.

Suddenly everyone saw through this lie, this propaganda facade put up by Putin's Kremlin that everybody in Russia supposedly, you know, backs Putin and supports the war.

They can, you know, they can rig election results which which they do, they can fake opinion poll figures, which they do.

But there was nothing they could do to hide the sight of hundreds of thousands of people standing in those lines all across the country to sign their name for the anti-war candidate.

I'll never remember one.

I'll never forget one letter I received in prison from a from a young woman in the town of Novorossiysk, in the south of Russia, on a Black Sea coast.

a pretty small town.

I think it's like 400,000 or something.

And she was she was describing how she waited in a long line of like minded people, mostly young people, to sign that ballot petition for the anti-war candidate.

And then she ended the letter by saying, I never realized how many of us there are.

But we do know that there are a lot of people in Russia who want to see our country become something very different from what it is today a normal, peaceful, democratic European country that we do know, and it is the best source of hope and optimism for the future.

>> So I think your point about the difference between being in opposition versus being a dissident is a is an important distinction because in this country, if you want, for example, to defeat the current leadership and power, you can still run for elections.

You can try to win majorities in Congress to change legislation.

You can run for president.

and for now, to Dr.

Stone's point, the system holds and you can be in opposition.

And I know that that's very different question.

That's part of why I want to understand where you think the path to change comes from, because it's a much narrower path when you can't be in opposition, when you have to be a dissident, when you might have to go in exile.

Because if it all happens quickly, if it happens in three days, to your point, and it can that that's chaos.

That's not an organized I mean, by definition, that would be a very chaotic and dangerous situation.

>> And but there's no other way out from a dictatorship.

But you're saying dictatorship is not going to lose elections?

I love that definition.

By the way, the professor Stone quoted from Adam Kowalski that a democracy is the briefest definition I've heard, but it's also the best one.

A democracy is when the ruling party can lose an election.

That's not possible in Russia.

We don't have elections, right?

>> Right, right, right.

So, so I, I guess I'm, I'm a little dispirited.

I shouldn't be dispirited.

It's just a reality that there isn't a way to organize opposition right now in the country, that the path to changing this is for, for for the average Russian citizen, it's not much more than hope.

or perhaps I'm missing something.

What's the path to to ferment?

>> It's much more than hope.

It's.

It's what Alexander Solzhenitsyn formulated back in the 70s in his in his famous work Live Not by Lies.

And he formulated, you know, something that any person living in a dictatorial regime can do not participate in those lies of the regime personally.

He wrote that even if those lies permeate, you know, everywhere, at least not through me, he said it's an absolute moral minimum that any person can do.

Even a dictatorial regime.

And this is what happened in the Soviet Union.

And it wasn't just hope, you know, there were there was a dissident movement in the Soviet Union with thousands of people, you know, going out to demonstrations, distributing samizdat publications, speaking out, listening to those, you know, foreign radio voices and so on, talking to each other.

and, you know, the role of the dissident movement in leading to the fall of the communist dictatorship was was enormous because it was the dissident movement that helped delegitimize the communist dictatorship in the eyes of a significant part of our own population.

And there are people who continue this work in Russia today.

So, no, it's not just hope, it's active work.

And a lot of people are doing this work as we speak at the cost of their own freedom.

And let's not forget that today.

It's a sobering fact that today, Russia alone holds more political prisoners than the whole of the Soviet Union, which is 15 countries put together, did in the mid 1980s.

This is according to publicly available figures from human rights groups.

And yes, on the one hand, it shows the staggering level of repression in Putin's Russia.

But it also shows that there are so many people in our country who are not willing to stay silent in the face of these atrocities.

>> Tremendous courage, tremendous courage.

Sam wants to know, what is the Russian view of American exceptionalism?

I personally have always had a problem with it, and I wonder if that attitude is part of the disdain the Russian government seems to have for the United States.

I find it difficult to support my country when it has no accountability for the native people.

It is destroyed in our soul and the slaves soil and the slaves it has brought here to the ruin of so many incalculable lives in the past now, and especially when the Founding Fathers saw fit to only include white male landowners as the ones who would make decisions and rule.

I'm curious to know what your guests have to say about that.

The idea of American exceptionalism.

Does that animate some of the Russian disdain in the government for us?

Do you think, Vladimir?

>> Well, I've always believed that human rights are universal by their very nature, and there are no borders, and there are no exceptions to this.

And I think nobody is above the law, and it certainly goes.

That's one of the sort of fundamental defining characteristics of Putin's regime in Russia today, is that he he's withdrawn us from all those international treaties.

For example, just a couple of weeks ago, Putin signed a law withdrawing Russia from the European Convention Against torture.

Torture is now legal in the Russian Federation.

After Putin signed this, I do believe in these international human rights principles and these international human rights statutes.

This year, in fact, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, which was one of the most consequential human rights documents in history, which laid down this this very clear principle that there are no borders for human rights, that human rights are universal and the violations of human rights are also matters of universal concern.

And I think this principle should apply to to any country.

And that is the only way that >> Do you want to weigh in, Dimitri?

And the idea of American exceptionalism.

>> You in this country just don't know what is exceptionalism.

You have never experience of real exceptionalism.

Somerset Maugham, who was British spy in Russia, wrote in his book Ashenden Russians are sure that even physical laws in their country, even anatomical anatomical rules in their country are absolutely exceptional, that they have another physical nature, that their history is not align with a circle, that their psychology maybe is a object of special interest or freedom and so on.

Because Russia always underlines the favorite idea of Vladimir Putin.

Well, not the part of civilization we are alternative civilization, another world, another planet.

And I must say that this exceptionalism, really radical, is maybe the shortest way to the national self-adoration as my philosopher Vladimir Solovyov called it.

And this may be the briefest way for the fascism.

So I hope that you will never get real exceptionalism here, because the main object of pride in the United States is not to be American, but just to be a human being.

I hope that Russia will go to it, because most of the obstacles on our way are artificial.

Most of people are absolutely national and rational, and they don't want to be the total and total exception of all the rules.

>> Back to your feedback.

James writes in to ask does your guest support a deal to end the war in Ukraine?

Vladimir, what do you want to see happen in Ukraine?

>> The war in Ukraine will not end for as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power.

It's as simple as that.

This man has been in power for more than 25 years.

For all this time, he has continued to kill both inside and outside Russia's borders.

This regime is not possible without war, without repression.

And those two, as we already discussed, are two sides of the same coin.

The only way to just and lasting peace for Ukraine, the only way to long term peace and security for the whole of Europe is a democratic Russia.

This is the only way this war will really end.

Do I support a temporary ceasefire for now?

Yes, absolutely.

To make sure that people stop dying every single day, as they have been for all of these three and a half, but really 11 years, right?

Since Putin first attacked in 2014.

And what I also support and as a whole international coalition of human rights groups that are leading this campaign called People First.

And the goal of this campaign is to make sure that any ceasefire agreement over Ukraine includes a provision for the release of all the people who are held captive because of this war, the prisoners of war, obviously, but that goes without saying.

That's in the Geneva Conventions anyway.

But also the thousands of Ukrainian civilian hostages who are completely illegally held in Russian prisons, thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted by Russia.

That's the reason for the arrest warrant being issued against Vladimir Putin by the International Criminal Court over the war crimes, and this includes the release of Russian political prisoners who are sitting in jails right now as we speak, because they spoke out against this war of aggression.

All these people's fates have to be on the table in any ceasefire negotiation, because when we hear these politicians talk about ceasefires, now, they talk about frozen assets, sanctions, territories, rare earth, mineral, God knows what.

We don't hear enough about people.

And this is what's most important here.

So yes, I do advocate an immediate ceasefire along the current lines with a necessary provision for the release of all the captives of this war, both Russian and Ukrainian.

But I do believe that the only real end to this war, and only real security guarantees, both for Ukraine and for Europe as a whole, will come once the Putin regime is out of power and once Russia becomes a normal democratic country.

>> Anthony writes in to ask if sanctions against Russia are leading to a weakening of the economy, and will that turn people?

We've talked about sanctions, doctor Stone, and the effect it can have on a populace.

I don't know if the state of living has declined.

If people are getting poorer in Russia or if you know, if people are if there's unrest because of it.

What would you say to Anthony about that question, doctor Stone?

>> So I think sanctions had a very strong effect early on in the war.

Then the the impact of sanctions was reduced because Russia found ways of getting alternative imports relying heavily upon China and then later on, sales of oil to India.

Right, in order to evade some of the sanctions and sanctions have become more effective again, because the price of oil has dropped internationally.

So the initially the war in Ukraine caused a spike in the price of oil, which helped to to compensate Russia for the loss of many of its export opportunities to, to Western Europe.

So it's complicated once you take all those things into account, sanctions have had a very severe effect, I think, on on both the prosecution of the war effort has been difficult for Russia to access microchips, which it needs to replace its missiles and so forth.

but they were able to source some of those things from China, which has allowed them to to compensate.

and then it very severely affected the living standards in Russia.

But then, of course, there was this compensating effect of oil prices.

Now that oil prices are are low again Russians are feeling the pinch.

And I think that has an effect on public opinion.

>> As we get ready to wrap here, you're going to hear the music in a second.

So I'm just going to ask Vladimir Kara-Murza for a very brief final thought.

I know you've talked about the bravery of the Russian people who are speaking up, who are making sure their voices are heard at great risk.

Is there anything that you want Americans to do?

>> Well, I'd never presume to give any advice, but I would just say that it is very important to speak out for what you believe is the right thing.

That's always important.

Not for expediency, not for benefit, not for what's convenient.

But if you believe something is right, you have to say it out loud.

>> I am really grateful for this hour.

I really can't express enough what it means to be able to sit down with people who've risked their lives Dmitry Bykov who's now been here a couple of times.

Vladimir Kara-Murza it's an honor to talk to you, to understand the bravery and the sacrifice that you and your family have given the world.

I'm glad that you're safe, and I hope that continues, and I hope that we can talk again in the future.

>> It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much.

>> And doctor Stone, Dimitri and Vladimir will be part of this event tonight.

5:00 the public can go out to where.

>> Hoyt Auditorium on the University of Rochester River campus.

And it's free and open to the public.

>> One of the really important brave international figures in Rochester today.

Two of them in the same room with us here and Randy and me.

Hey.

Thanks, everyone.

We're back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

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