My husband Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of Putin's sworn enemies – he tried to kill him twice & he's now jailed for 25yrs | The Sun

THE wife of a jailed Russian dissident has revealed how Vladimir Putin's thugs twice tried to kill her husband, as he's jailed for 25 years.

Vladimir Kara-Murza was charged with treason for speaking out about the Ukraine war but wife Evgenia insists her husband won't give up his struggle.

The 41-year-old Kara-Murza, who holds both Russian and British passports, was sentenced at a court in Moscow today after condemning Putin's disastrous war.

Evgenia recently spoke to The Sun Online in Vilnius, Lithuania and described how her husband has survived two assassination attempts, she believes were carried out by on the tyrant's orders.

"He was poisoned twice by an unknown substance. Both times it happened in Moscow," she said.

"He developed very weird symptoms suddenly and ended up in a coma with multiple organ failure.

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"Both times he was given a five percent chance of survival. He was lucky enough to survive the times because of the very dedicated team of doctors who treated him."

The attempts on his life have left Kara-Murza with polyneuropathy, a debilitating and life-threatening nerve disorder. 

Afterwards, he had to re-learn how to carry out tasks as simple as buttoning up his shirt and pouring tea, but both times he soon went back to work.

Vladimir Kara-Murza was born in Moscow moved to Britain with his mother when he was a teenager and graduated from Cambridge University, where he studied history.

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He has publicly opposed Putin since the tyrant came to power in 2000 andwas also a friend and ally of Boris Nemtsov, and opposition leader shot dead near Red Square eight years ago.

He was abroad when the war broke out but returned to Russia to encourage anti-war protests but has been held in jail since his arrest.

The couple's home is Washington and they have three children, aged 11, 14 and 17.

The Sun Online spoke to Evgenia as she addressed a of fellow Russian dissidents and opposition figures who have made the city their home in the past year.

His wife outlined how the Russian authorities have been relentlessly pursuing her husband, for speaking out over the war in Ukraine.

So far, there have been three criminal cases initiated against him, the first one for spreading so-called fake news about the use of Russian armed forces in Ukraine.

"That's the legislation that was adopted by the so-called Russian parliament in early March, only nine days after their full-scale invasion of Ukraine had broken out," she said.

"That legislation allows the Russian authorities to throw people in jail for up to 15 years for protesting against the war in any way during the summer months.

"The second charge against my husband was brought for organising an event in support of political prisoners at Moscow's Sakharov Centre in October 2021.

"And then in October, while I was in Strasbourg, to receive the Havel Human Rights Prize on his behalf, he was accused of high treason by the Russian authorities.

"This charge is based on three public speeches that he made on different international platforms. He spoke at NATO, at the US Congress, and at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

"He spoke about censorship of the media in Russia and the need to provide the Russian population with access to independent, objective information.

"He spoke about political repression in Russia and the ever-growing number of political prisoners and the about and about the illegitimate character of this so-called constitutional referendum that allowed Vladimir Putin to annul his previous presidential terms and basically rewrite the constitution, thus making himself into a tsar.

"So now my husband is facing up to 24 years of strict regime for high treason, because, as the official indictment said, these speeches that my husband made threatens the national security of the Russian Federation and damaged the image of the Russian Federation on the international stage."

She added: "Anyone who opposes the official narrative, anyone who denounces the crimes committed by the Russian regime against its own population and against our closest neighbours.

"Anyone who dares stand up to Putin is seen as a foreign agent and a traitor."

However, she insists her jailed husband isn't brave, but "stubborn".

"I've lived with the guy for many years. He's stubborn," she said.

That stubbornness extends to refusing to leave his native Russia, despite the 2015 and 2017 assassination attempts, believed to have been carried out by FSB operatives working on Putin's orders.

Those operatives are also thought to have been behind the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, another Russian dissident who currently rots in one of Putin's jails.

That stubbornness, Evgenia says, also comes out of her husband's genuine love for his country.

She said: "My husband is a genuine Russian patriot, and he has fought for years to bring change in our country."

A copy of Kara-Murza's final speech to the court was made public this week.

In it, he says he only blames himself for one thing – failing "to convince enough of my compatriots and politicians in democratic countries of the danger that the current Kremlin regime poses for Russia and for the world".

He also compared his situation to that of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, when Stalin was carrying out a series of repressive show trials and purges of his political opponents.

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“For me, as a historian, this is cause for reflection,” he said. “Criminals are supposed to repent of what they have done.

"I, on the other hand, am in prison for my political views. I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate."

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