While Living in a Putin Dungeon, Vladimir Kara-Murza Wins a Pulitzer Prize
Reposting my reports on the political dissident — as a lesson in spine stiffening
This main report below was originally published April 11, 2023, before Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and it contains his beautiful words of defiance. The second report — on how we can help political prisoners — was published on April 7, 2024 — a year later.
In my mind I keep hearing the words of Tom Stoppard’s ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’:
“There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said — no. But somehow we missed it.”
In light of the news that the political dissident won a Pulitzer Prize for his commentary, I am republishing my key Kara-Murza reports as a reminder that this our moment. We mustn’t miss it.
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First Report:
Dissident Power — Beating Back Bullies, April 11, 2023
“What would things have been like [in Russia] if during periods of mass arrests people had not sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the door..but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the hall an ambush of half a dozen people?”—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writer, Soviet dissident, Nobel Prize winner
I am still feasting on our ‘Speakeasy’ with David Pepper, where we were given some incredibly practical advice about how to save democracy.
One of the lessons from David that is still resonating with me today is not letting ourselves be bullied by the authoritarian right. Good people banding together to speak truth to power have been toppling dictators for centuries.
As Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it - always.”
As Solzhenitsyn wrote, what if half a dozen people had ambushed the first thugs who came to arrest dissidents. What if…
This week we saw what happens when people whose state has been gamed by gerrymandering took back their power by showing up in the thousands to protest the expulsion of two black lawmakers for having the audacity to lead protests demanding gun control. Not only were stars born on the national political scene, but one of the expelled members has already been sworn back in.
Power to the people.
We can still do that in America if we stop cowering each time the authoritarian right does something despicable.
We are not Russia yet, although great effort is being exerted by horseshoe operatives who barely obscure their corruption under the cloak of fascism.
Stop being bullied.
Wisconsin is a great example of people rising up against bullying. They messed with the bull and they got the horn - the citizens of Wisconsin like women to have health care and don’t like gerrymandering, and they let it be known when a RWNJ vying for the Supreme Court was resoundingly defeated. The people chose a woman who reflects their values.
And Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg fired back at Jim Jordan today, filing a complaint that noted “Congress has no power to supervise state criminal prosecutions. Nor does Congress have the power to serve subpoenas ‘for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to punish those investigated.’”
Punching bullies right in the nose.
As David Pepper taught us, the authoritarian right’s policies are unpopular, so don’t let them force them on us. Stand up to bullies, while we still can.
#FreeKaraMurza
I wrote last week about a little girl in Russia, who was snatched from her family and put in an orphanage because she drew a picture in defense of Ukraine. Her father, who went missing, was sentenced to prison.
And to think we have traitors like Elon Musk, Michael Flynn, Tucker Carlson, and Day Old McDonald Trump actively working on behalf of Putin. It’s disgusting.
As my podcast partner Jim Stewartson wrote today:
“The transnational conspiracy to dismantle the liberal democratic order established after WWII is real, and it is vast. But the leadership is now openly collaborating in active measures and psyops. And we do nothing.
“They will never stop. They must be defeated.”
On Monday, Vladimir Kara-Murza, the protege of Boris Nemtsov - the opposition leader of Russia who was assassinated in front of the Kremlin - wrote his final speech to the court, where he is standing trial.
His crime? Speaking out against Putin’s war of annihilation in Ukraine. For that, he’s been charged with treason and is facing up to 25 years in prison.
His speech is beautiful, poignant, and I would like to share with you these excerpts:
The criminal, of course, must repent of his deeds. I’m in jail for my political views. For speaking out against the war in Ukraine. For many years of struggle against Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. For facilitating the adoption of personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against human rights violators.
Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it. I am proud that Boris Nemtsov brought me into politics. And I hope that he is not ashamed of me. I subscribe to every word that I have spoken and every word of which I have been accused by this court. I blame myself for only one thing: that over the years of my political activity I have not managed to convince enough of my compatriots and enough politicians in the democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and for the world. Today this is obvious to everyone, but at a terrible price — the price of war.
The day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate—when a war will be called a war, and a usurper a usurper; when those who unleashed the war rather than those who tried to stop it, will be recognized as criminals.
This day will come as inevitably as spring follows even the coldest winter. And then our society will be horrified by the terrible crimes…
Even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people.
His words are defiant, and staggeringly beautiful.
This is what is coming here to America if we do not fight the fascist creep.
When Ron DeSantis’ goons arrested the leaders of the Democratic party last Monday night for peacefully protesting a six-week abortion ban that the people in Florida do not want, he’s signaling he’s all in on fascism. RadPod went live with a Florida state representative to expose the gestapo-like tactics. We will not be distracted.
Chaos agents, tankies, Day Old McDonald on Tucksky - these are all distractions. We will distract away our democracy if we do not give enough of a shit to fight for it.
On the eve of the eighth anniversary of Boris Nemtsov’s murder, I wrote a thoughtful piece on his life and his legacy.
Here are portions of that report:
“My goal is to liberate Russia from crooks and thieves - from Putin.”-Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov defied Putin, recognized him as a thief, and wanted to mobilize the Russian people toward a “peaceful path to democracy.”
“Unfortunately, the revolutions in Russia usually end in bloodshed,” he said, in a 2011 interview with Deutsche Welle. “I’m an opponent of revolutions and a supporter of peaceful change… We have to do everything we can to put Russia on a peaceful path to democracy.”
On February 27, 2015, on the eve of a protest Nemtsov was set to lead against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he was assassinated in front of the Kremlin - four bullets to his back. His assassins didn’t have the courage to face him…
Nemtsov had warned of Putin’s “reign of cynicism and lies.”
“He rigged 13 million votes for his party of crooks and thieves,” said Nemtsov, to Deutsche Welle. “And then blames Hillary Clinton for the demonstrations.”
Clinton spoke openly about her serious concerns about Putin’s election conduct, and demanded a full investigation.
So what did Putin do? He virtually assassinated Hillary Clinton. The most qualified presidential candidate in American modern history was virtually assassinated in a systemic operation by Putin - the gravity, scope, and details of which are still unfolding.
The death of Boris Nemtsov is not just a loss for Russia, it is a loss for the world.
‘The Damned’
“I feel badly for Putin,” said Nemtsov, in the Deutsche Welle interview. “He’s damned. He’ll wind up like Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Ben Ali- it’s gonna end badly for him.”
We need to stand up to bullies. Things never end well for dictators.
We must not be distracted.
In my Nemtsov tribute, I wrote about a ‘masked dream’ I had.
I fell asleep last night while reading Nemtsov reports - the one about the billions of dollars stolen by “Putin’s crooks and thieves” in the lead up to the Sochi Olympics and his posthumous report on Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
I dreamed of a Russia, where all the people wear Nemtsov masks - as they go about their day - a symbolic statement that Russia had an opportunity for a peaceful future under the leadership of a man who dared to stand up to Putin and his corrupt allies.
As each Russian citizen wore their Nemtsov mask, it was tantamount to mass trolling of Putin, who’s been trolling the world by spreading poisonous unreality and crimes against humanity.
I realized when I awoke that I dreamed of the masks because of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Lucid column, which featured a photo of a death mask that Mussolini hung in the Palazzo Braschi in Rome in 1934. I described it as ominous threat in the center of Rome - a Kabuki demon mask - that cast an evil fascist eye on the people.
I wrote:
“The strongmen know what they are doing - they are trying to destroy our empathy.”
Perhaps I dreamed the future - a future when Nemtsov masks are worn as a reminder to Putin that his opponents may be murdered, but they live on in the hearts of the world, they speak from the grave of a peaceful future that doesn’t include a murderous band of crooks and thieves as leaders.
A world with empathy.
We have a duty to speak truth to power, while we are still able to think for ourselves.
I will leave you tonight with this - a memory from one of my early Resistance meetings, when they were still underground.
I made friends with an activist from Romania, and he grew up having to whisper in his home. He told me, “It starts with the silencing of truth.”
We made a tragic mistake in America in 2016. The people obeyed in advance. The majority just accepted Trump’s illegitimate presidency and went about their business. That was a mistake.
He and the other cabal of traitors have been trying to silence truth ever since.
Do we give enough of a shit to fight for democracy? Because if so, we must not be distracted, we must stay loud, we must stand up to bullies, and we must speak truth to power.
As Solzhenitsyn wrote:
“One word of truth outweighs the world.”
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Second Report:
Byline Supplement — “We Must Speak in the Language of Art” — April 7, 2024
I was so distraught after seeing an image of Kara-Murza behind bars, that I wrote a report about what we can do to help political prisoners in Russia. Below, is an excerpt:
“Putin knows that creative people are one of his main enemies. He cannot control independent journalists and free-minded artists. The artists are dangerous for Putin because they have a large audience and the courage and experience to tell the truth.”—Dmitrii Kovegin
This report stuck to my bones. I was out of alignment for days last week after turning in the draft to the Byline team. I knew it to be among the most profound reports I have written in some time, but I also knew it to be the most tragic.
Do we just sit around in the West waiting to weep as political prisoners are murdered by Putin’s barbaric regime, or can we do something? Anything?
I turned to my friend and ally Dmitrii Kovegin, who is mourning the loss of Alexei Navalny — a man who inspired him so much, he risked his own life volunteering for two Navalny campaigns.
I needed action steps, things we can do, so we can be the kind of Americans the world respects and looks up to again. Not the radicalized mob the world saw on J6, but the kind of Americans the world once knew.
Below is an excerpt from Byline Supplement, and for those who already subscribe to Byline, you are helping a small global team of investigative reporters in this time of great peril — thank you. If you can subscribe, please do. If you are unable to do so at this time, I am authorized to send my reports upon request to bettedangerous/gmail and am happy to do so.
Here is an excerpt:
“The people have the power
To redeem the work of fools
Upon the meek the graces shower
It's decreed the people rule.”
—Patti Smith
On my daily walk, I see a makeshift altar on a tree. I walked on by the day before — I didn’t want to go near it. I use my walks to try to clear my head of the Sturm und Drang that comes with investigating the corrupt of heart, and I needed a momentary reprieve from grieving another lost soul. I just wanted to listen to music and stare at the clouds.
As I walked by the tree in my neighborhood park the next day, the altar had grown, there were now photos nailed to the old growth oak tree, and I knew I had to pay my respect to whomever this person was. Despite the rainstorm that drenched Los Angeles the night before, the photos were clear, the flowers intact.
As I neared the tree, I saw a Ukrainian flag at its base, and bouquets of yellow roses, white hydrangeas, and potted plants with orange and pink blossoms. Above them, nailed to the tree, were photos of Alexei Navalny; of him with his family; in the hospital after the 2020 poisoning; a photo of a mural painted of him on the night of 28 April, 2021 holding his hands in the shape of a heart, with the words ‘A Hero of a New Time.’ The St. Petersburg mural was painted from a photograph where he is sending a love-heart to his wife, Yulia, from a defendants’ cage. St. Petersburg police destroyed the mural within hours.
There’s a photo of him smiling in front of a Christmas tree with hand-scrawled words in Russian, ‘I’m not afraid and you shouldn’t…’ the words obscured by another photo.
There’s a portrait I recognize from February 2020. It was taken at a march in memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, the man who would be President if he hadn’t been assassinated in front of the Kremlin five years earlier.
Navalny, too, was murdered by the Putin regime in February, in an arctic penal colony, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for having the audacity to challenge and expose the corruption of Putin and the St. Petersburg mob.
I think of the beauty of Navalny and Nemtsov — for they will always be young and beautiful — and then I think of the ugly botoxed spy, a pathological liar, made uglier by the barbarism of his regime.
In the play My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, by Ukrainian playwright Sasha Denisova, Putin is played as a feral creep with an oversized alien head, sneaking around like a human rat.
In Denisova’s play, The Hague, about an orphan from Mariupol envisioning Putin and his war partners on trial for crimes against humanity, he is played by a woman.
“Putin must be laughed at without mercy,” Denisova said in an interview.
In The Hague, a character based on RT propagandist Margarita Simonyan, is performed with a dangling pocket watch, as if to hypnotize everyone in her path with her chronic lies.
A Ukrainian soldier and filmmaker Volodymyr Demchenko once told methat Russia is ruining the world with lies.
These lies are effective at clouding minds in the West from taking action.
Too often, the West — because of Putin’s petrol and lie factories — gazes upon the cruelty of the gulags as if zombified by the hypnotic effect of active measures.
The pro-Kremlin vampires on X/Twitter, sharpen their verbal fangs each day, marveling at shopping carts, as they spew Orwellian lies: “Oceania was always at war with Eastasia.”
#FreeKaraMurza
As I see gaunt but defiant images of prisoner of conscience Vladimir Kara-Murza, the protege of Boris Nemtsov, I think, ‘Has the world gone mad? Are we just sitting around waiting for him to die?’
#FreeAlsu
On Monday, we saw the first prison video of Alsu Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor who holds both US and Russian passports. Kurmasheva’s crime? Visiting her elderly mother.
She is being kept in a Russian prison — accused of being an unregistered foreign agent and spreading false information about the Russian army.
#WithoutJustCause
Former Navalny campaigner Dmitrii Kovegin told Byline Supplement about #WithoutJustCause — a political prisoners initiative launched in 2023 by the US Department of State, which promises diplomatic involvement by US embassies and calls for the release of all political prisoners.
I ask Kovegin what we can do to be more effective at helping political prisoners.
First, he sends me a Patti Smith song. It’s a live version of ‘People Have the Power’. Smith, long wavy gray hair, sings as if in church. As the voices carry her lyrics, it immediately possesses healing qualities.
Daily Conscious Actions
“People who support democracy must create a counterbalance system. Democracy should be proactive… We must counter Putin’s propaganda with creativity.
“Putin knows that creative people are one of his main enemies. He cannot control independent journalists and free-minded artists. The artists are dangerous for Putin because they have a large audience and the courage and experience to tell the truth.
“We must speak in the language of art.
“It is necessary to organize political pressure on the Russian regime through the press. Political prisoners in Russia are a moral problem for Putin. He is forced to make excuses publicly when pressure is put on him in the global public space. Pressure works best when the dissident names are spoken. For Americans, it’s best to start by supporting public campaigns for the release of Americans from Putin's dungeons.”
Byline members can read the full report here:
Among Kovegin’s suggestions is to adopt a political prisoner and become an ambassador for them.
Here is another song he sent me that seems appropriate in this moment — it’s from a Russian-American band called Chase the Comet, an anthem called ‘Hero’ encouraging people to wake up:
“Wake up from your sleep
Yeah, I know it’s scary
Stop being a sheep, trusting the shepherd blindly…”
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
(Image from Moscow City Court, March 2024, Kara-Murza was too sick to attend court. He is a survivor of two poisonings)