Vladimir Kara-Murza Biography Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza, a Russian-British political activist, journalist, novelist, filmmaker, and former political prisoner, goes by the Russian name Влaдимир Владимирович Кара-Мурза. A protégé of Boris Nemtsov, he serves as vice-chairman of Open Russia, an organization that supports democracy and civil society in Russia and was started by Russian billionaire and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In 2012, he was elected to the Russian Opposition’s Coordinating Council. From 2015 to 2016, he led the People’s Freedom Party as deputy leader. He is the director of the documentaries Nemtsov and They Chose Freedom. He serves as Senior Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights as of 2021. In 2018, he received the Civil Courage Prize. Kara-Murza was detained in April 2022 on suspicion of defying police commands; his detention was later prolonged.
Vladimir Kara-Murza Biography 2025
Among the 16 detainees the Kremlin freed as part of one of the biggest East-West prisoner exchanges since the Cold War was one of Russia’s most vocal critics. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist and Washington Post contributor who was born in Russia, had been detained since 2022 on treasonous allegations. The 42-year-old dissident was given a 25-year prison sentence last year, but Russia later decided to free him and other prisoners in exchange for the return of eight others who were detained in the United States, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, and Poland. As part of the deal, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, and American-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva were also freed from Russian detention on Thursday. The conversation comes after months of closed-door talks.
Vladimir Kara-Murza Biography 2025 Details
| Born |
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Citizenship |
Russia
United Kingdom |
| Political party |
-
- Union of Right Forces (2001–2008)
- People’s Freedom Party (2012–2016)
|
| Spouse |
Yevgenia |
| Children |
3 |
| Parent |
- Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr. (father)
|
| Alma mater |
Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA) |
| Awards |
Václav Havel Human Rights Prize (2022)
Pulitzer Prize (2025) |
| Category |
Singers Bio |
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About Vladimir Kara-Murza Biography
Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza is a Russian-British political activist, journalist, author, filmmaker, and former political prisoner.
Born: 7 September 1981 (age 42 years), Moscow, Russia
Spouse: Evgenia Kara-Murza
Education: University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall Cambridge
Nationality: British, Russian
Grandparent: Alexey S. Kara-Murza
Parents: Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.
Organization founded: Anti-War Committee of Russia
Early life and education
The son of Russian journalist and television host Vladimir Alexeyevich Kara-Murza (1959–2019), a vocal opponent of Leonid Brezhnev and a proponent of Boris Yeltsin’s reforms, Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza was born in Moscow. Like his mother, he is Jewish. His father was the great-grandson of Voldemārs Bisenieks, the revolutionary leader of Latvia (1884–1938), and the great-grandnephew of Georgs Bisenieks, the country’s first ambassador to the United Kingdom (1885–1941), who was also shot by the NKVD. Their older brother was the Latvian publisher and agronomist Jānis Bisenieks|lv (1864–1923).
Sergey Kara-Murza, a Soviet/Russian historian, chemist, and philosopher who was born in 1939, is connected to him. He belongs to the Kara-Murza family, descended from a Tatar aristocrat who lived in Moscow in the fifteenth century AD and became a Christian.
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Vladimir Kara-Murza Net Worth
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a well-known Russian human rights activist, has seen his net worth drop by $800 million.
Career
By the time Kara-Murza was sixteen, she was a journalist. From 1997 until 2000, he was the London correspondent for Novye Izvestia; from September 2000 to June 2003, he was employed at Kommersant; and from September 2001 to June 2003, he was employed at the radio station Ekho Moskvy. Subsequently, Kara-Murza worked as a foreign affairs correspondent for Kommersant from July 2003 to April 2004 and as a BBC Washington correspondent from December 2004 to December 2005 for a limited period of time. He served as the chief editor of the London-based financial journal Russian Investment Review in 2002. He joined the RTVi television network in April 2004 and served in that capacity for the following nine years. He was fired from this position on September 1, 2012.
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Magnitsky Act
English-fluent journalist Kara-Murza was partially based in the United States and contributed to the events that resulted in the Magnitsky Act being passed by the U.S. Congress in 2012. The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. was reportedly closed to Kara-Murza a few days prior, according to a complaint he filed in July 2012. The ambassador personally ordered this decision, citing Kara-Murza’s status as “no longer a journalist”. The public learned about Kara-Murza’s termination from her position as RTVi’s chief Washington bureau on September 1, 2012. Multiple sources claimed that he was now on a “blacklist” and could not work as a journalist for any Russian media. His support of was the cause of this prohibition.
Who is Vladimir Kara-Murza
Kara-Murza was born in Moscow, but since his mother wed an Englishman while he was a teenager, he has also had British citizenship. Vladimir Kara-Murza gestures during a court hearing on Wednesday to discuss an appeal against his prison sentence while he is behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants.
According to Reuters, the writer and contributor to the Post has long been a vocal opponent and dissident in Russia, having frequently denounced Moscow’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, demanded sanctions against the country, and charged Russian President Vladimir Putin with governing a murderous dictatorship. Kara-Murza won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in May “for passionate columns written from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on truthfulness and integrity.
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When was Murza arrested
The Kremlin accused Kara-Murza of disseminating false information about the armed forces, leading to his arrest in 2022, two months after Russia invaded Ukraine. During a court hearing on Wednesday to consider an appeal against his prison term, a police officer handcuffs Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent member of the Russian opposition.
According to Reuters, the father of three was later accused of treason because to remarks he had made regarding the conflict, one of which was in March 2022 to the Arizona House of Representatives when he claimed that Putin was attacking houses, hospitals, and schools in Ukraine. Kara-Murza filed an appeal in which he claimed he was being punished only for his actions, and in April 2023, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the sentence of 25 years in prison.
