Vladimir Putin critic fights for life for a second time as his family claim he was poisoned in silencing bid
Less than two years after anti-Putin activist was given five per cent survival chance following acute poisoning, Vladimir Kara-Murza is in coma once again
RATTLING through the snowy Russian countryside on a train, anti-Putin activist Vladimir Kara-Murza began to feel nauseous — with a sinister sense of deja vu.
At first the critic of the President’s autocratic regime brushed it off, joking to a friend that “Siberia hadn’t agreed” with him.
But when he woke the next morning — a week ago today — with a racing heart and having trouble breathing, his family were certain he had been poisoned in a bid to silence him. Again.
In May 2015 the 35-year-old suffered sudden multiple organ failure, with doctors concluding he had experienced acute poisoning.
The case reminded many of the murder of secret police whistle-blower Alexander Litvinenko.
He was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 slipped into his tea in London in 2006 — probably on the orders of Vladimir Putin himself, according to a UK public inquiry last year.
Meanwhile, tests on Kara-Murza’s blood after the 2015 incident found high levels of heavy metals, but could not pinpoint a specific toxin.
He was given just a five per cent chance of survival that time.
Now once again the father of three young children is facing a battle against overwhelming odds.
The campaigner is in a critical condition in a medically induced coma in a Moscow hospital, being kept alive on artificial respiration.
Medics say the cause once again is acute poisoning “by an unidentified substance”.
His wife Yevgeniya said: “The clinical picture, according to his doctors, is the same as last time.”
Last year, after months of treatment, the former TV journalist said: “I have no doubt that this was a deliberate poisoning, that it was intended to kill, and it was motivated by my political and public activities in the Russian opposition.
“It was clearly a sophisticated substance — it looks like it was a professional job, and it looks like it was meant to kill, not just scare me.”
He continued: “All I can say is that usually it is . . . people from the special services who have access to these kinds of things.”
The family now live in Washington DC but Kara-Murza regularly returns to Russia to keep up the voice of opposition. That is despite being well aware he is a target.
Just last year a Chechen leader posted a photograph of Kara-Murza mocked up in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle.
This time, he was back to screen a film about his good friend Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader gunned down in Moscow in 2015 — another in a long list of Putin critics to die.
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The pair had helped organise street protests against Putin and co-wrote a 2013 report about corruption — one of the reasons Kara-Murza suspected he was targeted for poisoning just three months after Nemtsov was killed.
He also angered bigwigs by successfully lobbying for a US law passed in 2012 designed to blacklist crooked Russians trying to take their ill-gotten cash to New York, Dubai and London.
But Kara-Murza said he would never stop fighting against what he saw as a “harsh authoritarian regime with elements of personal dictatorship.”
And he declared in an interview early last year: “They have destroyed elections as an institution, they’ve destroyed the independence of the major media, they’ve destroyed the integrity of the legal and judicial system.
“They’ve destroyed every legal, legitimate, constitutional way of changing a government. So when change comes, it will come as a revolution in some form.
“It’s our responsibility to make that revolution as peaceful as possible.”
Death toll of critics
ALEXANDER LITVINKENKO
EX-Russian secret service agent, 44, who lifted lid on corruption.
Fled to UK where he was poisoned with Polonium in his tea in 2006.
On deathbed accused Putin of ordering his murder, A UK inquiry last year said that was indeed probably the case.
BORIS NEMTSOV
OPPOSITION leader and ex-deputy PM, 55, was shot dead in February 2015 steps from the Kremlin, two days before he was due to lead an anti-Putin protest.
He had also been scheduled to release a report the Kremlin’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.
BORIS BEREZOVSKY
OLIGARCH who was once close to Putin but became a critic when they fell out.
Fled to UK and accused the Kremlin of Litvinenko’s murder.
Found dead in Berkshire home in 2013 at 67, hanged by wife’s cashmere scarf. The inquest declared an open verdict.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
JOURNALIST, 48, famous for her criticism of Putin was shot dead at her Moscow apartment block on October 7, 2006 – Putin’s birthday.
Two years earlier she had been poisoned.
Five men were found guilty but it is still not known who ordered killing.
SERGEI MAGNITSKY
LAWYER uncovered evidence suggesting officials were behind a huge tax fraud, with the backing of the Russian state.
He was arrested and accused of being behind the scam himself.
Found dead in his cell in 2009 aged 37, with injuries from “a blunt object”.
OLEG EROVINKIN
EX-KGB chief suspected of helping compile “dirty dossier” of alleged links between Donald Trump and the Russian government.
Found dead aged 61 in the back of his car in Moscow on Boxing Day last year.
No cause of death has been confirmed.