Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
The largest ever multilateral prisoner exchange between Russia and the West showed “there is still room for decency and values in international politics,” the Anglo-Russian journalist and dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza writes in his first column for the WaPo since his release. He says there are still more than 1,000 political prisoners in Russia, many of them jailed for opposing the war in Ukraine. That number is of course dwarfed by the number of Ukrainians illegally captured by Russia, among them 25,000 PoWs and civilians and 700,000 abducted Ukrainian children, according to Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner. And Kara-Murza’s release was in exchange for that of Russian murderers like Vadim Krasikov. The line between decency and realpolitik is thin.
