Who is poisoning Kara Murza. Evgenia Kara-Murza: doctors abroad are looking for what poisoned my husband. What happened to him last week

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Now Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr. is on duty at the doors of the intensive care unit

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr., the father of the federal coordinator of Open Russia, is now on duty near the doors of the intensive care unit. He told MK about his son’s condition. The father believes that Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was not poisoned this time, but his condition was affected by the consequences of the previous poisoning and everyday overwork.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr.

The fact that the federal coordinator of Open Russia, Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., was announced by his wife Evgenia on Thursday morning. He felt bad, an ambulance was called, and early in the morning Vladimir ended up in the Yudin hospital in serious condition.

Versions appeared in the blogosphere that Vladimir was poisoned again. Let us recall that in May 2015, Khodorkovsky’s colleague in Open Russia was also suddenly hospitalized. Then doctors diagnosed him with “acute renal failure due to intoxication.” Vladimir spent more than a month in a state of artificial coma. When his condition stabilized, he contacted the police, believing he had been poisoned. The investigation into this matter has not yet been completed.

“MK” contacted the father of Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vladimir Alekseevich.

“I’m now sitting in front of a closed door that says “Intensive Care Unit,” he said. - The doctor who treated Volodya last time has now become the chief physician of the hospital where we are located. We trust this doctor, that’s why we brought our son here. His mother-in-law came with him in an ambulance, but she had already flown to America for her granddaughter’s birthday. His condition was assessed as serious, but everything will be fine. I'm only waiting for good news.

- Versions have appeared in the blogosphere that your son was poisoned again...

And lately he has also been very overtired. He held more than forty screenings of his film about Nemtsov alone - in Russia and abroad. And he single-handedly prepared the “March of Memory and Pain.” I overstrained myself, I think, and there was no malicious intent on anyone’s part. But everything will end okay. An hour of such hassle as recently is a year of life for him. When he comes to his senses, I will advise him to stop engaging in all this opposition nonsense. Let him rest, sleep, recover and be creative.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky also called on social networks not to fan hysteria around the hospitalization of a colleague. “Friends, those who are worried about Volodya Kara-Murza, he is having an attack, he, with the help of his wife, is in the hands of a good doctor. Let him work! - he wrote.

In one of the Moscow hospitals, famous Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza is fighting for his life. Relatives believe he was poisoned and accuse the Kremlin of creating a hostile environment for anyone who criticizes the government.

“Putin himself and his government are somehow responsible for this. They are responsible for creating such an atmosphere in the country when people are killed for their beliefs,” says Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia in an interview with Expressen.

When Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was admitted to the hospital on Thursday, he was on the verge of life and death. Relatives said that his body stopped functioning and he fell into a coma. He has now woken up and his condition has stabilized. But the situation of the opposition politician and journalist, who is not yet able to speak, is still very serious.

Loved ones have a feeling of déjà vu. For the second time in two years, Vladimir Kara-Murza falls ill with a mystical disease. Last time he himself expressed confidence that he was poisoned by the special services. This time, his wife Evgenia Kara-Murza also sees only one explanation: poison.

“Doctors say that this is the result of an unknown substance - that is, poisoning, in simple human language,” she says.

"There's only one explanation left"

Context

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Svenska Dagbladet 06/08/2016 Expressen cannot independently confirm these allegations. Some in Russia have also questioned Evgeniya's claims, and doctors have reported in the press that it appears there is no poison involved. But Evgenia dismisses all doubts, although she admits that the type of substance has not been established.

Last time there were suspicions that the side effects of the drugs were to blame. But, according to Vladimir Kara-Murza’s relatives, he no longer takes these medications.

“No, we went through all possible natural explanations, and only one remained. The diagnosis of Russian doctors confirms this,” says Evgenia.

"Complete lawlessness"

She is convinced that someone wants to poison her husband because of his political work. For example, he tried to convince the United States that sanctions against Russia needed to be strengthened, and he called on other countries to join them.

“Unfortunately, there are many people who will always be annoyed by my husband’s actions. The situation in Russia now is such that representatives of the opposition are being killed, persecuted, imprisoned - in this situation of complete lawlessness, anything can happen.”

Two years ago, Boris Nemtsov, opposition leader and friend of Vladimir Kara-Murza, was shot dead right outside the Kremlin walls. Nemtsov’s relatives criticized the investigation for the fact that the organizer of the murder was never brought to justice.

Blames Putin

Evgenia Kara-Murza places responsibility on the Russian government. This does not mean that the deputies poisoned her husband personally, with their own hands, but in the current atmosphere in society, attacks on dissidents are not considered something unusual. Vladimir Putin is personally to blame for this, she believes.

“Putin himself and his government are responsible one way or another. They are responsible for creating an atmosphere in the country where people are killed for their beliefs.”

Relations between Russia and Western countries have recently become worse than at any time in recent decades. But thanks to the new US President Donald Trump and constantly weakening ties within the EU, Russia will soon return to its former place, some experts say.

Evgenia Kara-Murza is sharply critical of this.

“I would say that President Putin is a killer and should be treated as such. You cannot build normal relations with someone who subjects his citizens to this.”

The Kremlin denies the accusations

The latest attack of the mystical Kara-Murza disease has attracted the attention of the United States. There, politician John McCain spoke about possible poisoning.

This weekend, Bill O'Reilly, a TV presenter on the American Fox channel, just called Putin a “killer.” This happened in an interview with the new US President Donald Trump. This characterization caused an indignant reaction from the Kremlin, which demanded an apology from the TV channel.

The Kremlin completely denies any involvement in Kara-Murza's illness.

"It is completely absurd to link this unfortunate incident to President Putin," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.

Given the family's situation, one might easily think that Evgenia Kara-Murza would prefer that her husband give up his political activities, which she believes are related to his illness.

But Kara-Murza returns to Russia time after time from the USA, where he lives from time to time. And the wife says that she would never force her husband to leave his business.

“I know he understands the risks,” she says. “He understood them when he returned to Russia after his first poisoning, and he understands them now. But I would never ask him to betray his beliefs.”

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized in a Moscow hospital on February 2 in critical condition. According to the wife of a Russian opposition politician, the doctors' preliminary diagnosis was the same as the first: poisoning with an unidentified substance. Kara-Murza previously stated that he was deliberately poisoned in May 2015 because of his political activities.

The Kara-Murza Jr. case has also resonated in Washington, where lawmakers have called on President Donald Trump's administration to pay attention to Kara-Murza's situation as it could influence policy toward Russia. Azattyk talks about what happened to the opposition activist and how he could have annoyed someone.

WHO IS VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA?

Kara-Murza, 35, is a veteran of opposition politics and an activist in Russian liberal political parties and movements since the early 2000s, when Vladimir Putin came to power. He is the son of a famous journalist, also Vladimir. He worked for several years as a television correspondent in Washington before joining the political projects of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a known Putin foe who now lives in Europe after his release from prison. Kara-Murza was also a friend and ally of prominent opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was killed in February 2015 near the Kremlin. Kara-Murza is a citizen of Russia, as well as Great Britain, where he spent his youth with his mother. His wife and children live in the suburbs of Washington, where Kara-Murza spends part of his time.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?

In May 2015, Kara-Murza, who was in Moscow at that time, suddenly became ill. A few weeks earlier, he had held seminars and meetings with fellow political activists in several Russian cities. While he was being taken from one hospital to another, and the doctors were trying to figure out what was happening to him, his main organs began to fail one after another - lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, intestines. He was put into a medically induced coma. As his wife Evgenia told the Russian edition of Azattyk, doctors at that time diagnosed “acute intoxication with an unknown substance.” Doctors managed to save the life of Kara-Murza, who subsequently underwent a long course of rehabilitation in Moscow and in the suburbs of Washington.

WAS HE PURPOSELY POISONED?

It's unclear. If so, it remains a mystery how he was poisoned. His Moscow doctors concluded in 2015 that his poisoning was due to years of taking the antidepressant Citalopram prescribed to him. But Israeli doctor Kara-Murza and his supporters were skeptical of the findings, saying such fatal symptoms were quite unusual for either an intentional or unintentional overdose of the drug. Independent toxicologists who studied Kara-Murza’s medical documents also concluded that the likelihood of poisoning with the antidepressant Citalopram is extremely unlikely. An independent analysis of his blood, hair and nails by a prominent French toxicologist was inconclusive.

“I don’t doubt for a second that it was a deliberate poisoning, that it was a deliberate poisoning for the purpose of murder, and that it was dictated by my political activities,” Kara-Murza said in an interview with the Russian edition of Azattyk in December 2015.

He believes that he was most likely poisoned with a very complex substance that only security services could have access to.

A number of prominent government critics have suffered similar fates during Putin's years in office, sometimes leading to lethal results, as in the 2006 death of former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko in London. Kremlin opponents call it a Soviet-style crackdown on dissent, but the government rejects such claims.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO KILL HIM?

Kara-Murza is far from the most famous person in Russia, where the liberal opposition is not only demonized by the government and its media machine, but also mired in constant infighting. He does not have the fame or reputation of an opposition leader like Alexei Navalny, but his political activities are distinguished by tenacity and consistency.

Notably, he has access to prominent members of the US Congress, where he has repeatedly lobbied for sanctions against senior Russian officials.

He actively lobbied for the US Congress to pass the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” which imposes sanctions on those accused of human rights violations in Russia. The law, passed in 2012, infuriated the Kremlin.

Vladimir also called on Congress to take sanctions against propagandists loyal to the Kremlin on television. In December 2015, in an interview with the Russian edition of RFE/RL, Kara-Murza said that he considered the most likely reason for the alleged assassination attempt to be his collaboration with Khodorkovsky or lobbying for the Magnitsky Law.

Kara-Murza's ties to Washington's political elite became clear after he was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms last week. Several leading US congressmen issued statements in support of him.

On February 7, Arizona Senator John McCain expressed concern about the health of his “good friend” Kara-Murza during his speech in the Senate:

Vladimir once again paid the price for his courage and integrity, for putting the interests of the Russian people above his own interests.

The head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, California Congressman Ed Royce, a Republican, on February 7 called Kara-Murza “one of the bravest people I know.” Leading Republicans and congressmen on the same day, during a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Relations and Regional Security Cooperation in Europe, called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerman to “pay close attention” to the Kara-Murza case, as he is currently studying and analyzing US policy towards Moscow.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM LAST WEEK?

As Evgenia Kara-Murza told RFE/RL's Russian edition, on February 2, her husband Vladimir Kara-Murza was at his parents' Moscow home when he suddenly developed the same symptoms as in 2015. In recent weeks, he has visited several Russian cities to screen a documentary about Nemtsov. He was taken to the same hospital where he had previously been treated, and his organs began to fail again. Doctors put Vladimir into a medical coma, and then announced the diagnosis - “acute intoxication with an unknown substance.” On February 6, his wife told RFE/RL’s Russian edition that “the clinical picture is the same” as in 2015. As his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov reported on his Facebook page on February 8, Kara-Murza’s condition has improved: he came out of a coma and even began communicating with his wife Evgenia, but his health continues to remain grave.

Kara-Murza's sudden illness only strengthened the suspicions of all his family and friends that he was deliberately poisoned. They say that after his hospitalization in 2015, he was fully examined by American doctors, who found nothing that could seriously jeopardize his health in the future. In addition, according to his wife, Vladimir stopped taking Citalopram and any other medications after the incident in 2015.

According to his wife Evgenia, samples of Kara-Murza’s blood, hair and nails were sent to an Israeli laboratory for independent analysis. On February 7, his lawyer Prokhorov told the Russian edition of RFE/RL that the results of the Israeli laboratory's research would be known no earlier than in 20 days.

However, there is no guarantee that these results will allow any firm conclusions to be drawn about what triggered Kara-Murza's symptoms of poisoning. Moreover, according to toxicologists, identifying a specific toxin from blood, hair and nail samples can be extremely difficult when it is not clear what to look for.

ARE THE RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATING HIS CASE?

According to Prokhorov and media reports, Russian investigators have looked into the poisoning of Kara-Murza in 2015 and are investigating his current hospitalization. However, the lawyer previously said that the authorities do not seem to take this case seriously, since it is being considered in lower authorities - the local branch of the Federal Investigative Committee in the Moscow district of Khamovniki.

On February 7, the state news agency RIA Novosti, citing an anonymous source in law enforcement agencies, reported that investigators were conducting a check based on media materials about the alleged poisoning of journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr.

On the same day, Prokhorov wrote on Facebook that he had received “confirmation from law enforcement agencies” that upon admission to the clinic, the diagnosis was initially established as “toxic effects of an unknown substance.”

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Evgenia Kara-Murza: Vladimir’s activities irritate many

Politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. ends up in the hospital with severe poisoning for the second time in two years. Last time, he stated that he was poisoned deliberately and demanded that a criminal case be opened for attempted murder. The politician's wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, said in an interview with the BBC that the situation again resembles a deliberate poisoning. According to her, the family is waiting for a response from Israeli and French toxicology experts.

“His heartbeat increased greatly - so much that it became difficult to breathe. He was taken to the hospital, and a few hours later his organs began to fail again - just like the last time,” said Evgenia Kara-Murza.

"The official diagnosis is acute intoxication with an unknown substance. This means poisoning. It looks like deliberate poisoning, since there are no other options left, we have checked everything," she says.

According to Evgenia, samples of hair, nails and blood samples from her husband have been sent to Israel and France for toxicological analysis, which may “help us get some kind of answer to our questions.”

"His activities irritate many people. It is extremely difficult to guess for sure who exactly could be behind this. But we know that the situation in Russia today is such that opposition leaders can be shot right in front of the Kremlin, poisoned, thrown behind bars. Anything can happen with people who decided to oppose Putin,” said Evgenia Kara-Murza in an interview with the BBC.

Image caption Evgenia Kara-Murza believes that her husband’s activities irritate many people

“Of course, I was scared to death. I was always very afraid for him, even before the incident when he was poisoned the first time, because I knew what he was doing, what exactly his activities were,” she added. "But he really believes deeply in what he does. He believes that he can make a difference. He believes that through grit and commitment to principles, he can win, achieve what he fights for."

Who is Vladimir Kara-Murza

Vladimir Kara-Murza was born in 1981 in the family of the famous Russian journalist and TV presenter Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza Jr. was educated in England. While studying at the University of Cambridge, he was noted as one of the best students and graduated from Trinity College, part of the university, with a degree in history.

During his studies, Vladimir worked as his own correspondent for the newspapers “Novye Izvestia” and “Kommersant” in London.

After that, he headed the bureau of the RTVI television channel in Washington for a long time. In 2012 (after the channel changed owner) Kara-Murza was fired.

Kara-Murza Jr. began to get involved in politics early. In 1999, the year he came of age, he joined the Democratic Choice party founded by Yegor Gaidar.

In 2000, Vladimir Kara-Murza became an adviser to one of the leaders of the Union of Right Forces party, State Duma deputy Boris Nemtsov. After Nemtsov’s murder in 2015, Kara-Murza Jr. headed a foundation named after him. In 2016 he released the film "Nemtsov".

In 2003, he himself ran for the State Duma in Moscow, but lost in his constituency to the United Russia candidate Vladimir Gruzdev.

On the eve of the 2008 presidential elections, Vladimir Kara-Murza was a member of several political structures opposed to Vladimir Putin. In particular, he was part of the initiative group for the nomination of writer and dissident Vladimir Bukovsky for president. But as a result, he was not registered as a candidate.

At the end of 2008, Kara-Murza joined the Solidarity movement, and in 2012 he joined the leadership of the Parnassus party. Four years later, he suffered a scandal, as did a number of other opposition politicians.

In 2011, Kara-Murza Jr., together with the leaders of the Russian opposition, acted as a lobbyist for the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” which imposed sanctions on Russian officials by the United States and the EU.

Recently, Kara-Murza Jr. has been the federal coordinator of the Open Russia movement of the ex-head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In May 2015, Kara-Murza Jr. with symptoms of poisoning. After his discharge, the politician, citing examination data, stated that the content of heavy metals in his body was greatly exceeded. Kara-Murza Jr. is facing a criminal case of attempted murder in connection with this.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. is in an induced coma. The condition of the coordinator of the Open Russia movement, who was hospitalized on February 2, has stabilized but remains critical, said his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov. Doctors continue to perform procedures such as artificial ventilation, hemodialysis and others, he added.

Prokhorov does not expect changes in the near future for the reason that the symptoms of malaise with which Kara-Murza was admitted to the hospital, “just like deja vu,” resemble those that the politician had at the end of May 2015. Last time, Kara-Murza Jr. was sure that someone had attempted to poison him. What is known about the May incident and what enemies could the politician have?

What do we know about what happened in May 2015?

May 26, 2015 began for Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. as an ordinary day. In one of the restaurants in the center of Moscow, he had lunch with a colleague from the PARNAS party, who later said that Vladimir was in a great mood and full of energy. Then the politician walked along the Garden Ring, then held a discussion with two colleagues in the Rossiya Segodnya building. Suddenly, during the debate, he felt ill - an accelerated heartbeat, then vomiting. When the ambulance arrived half an hour later, he could barely move. The doctors' first guess: heart attack.

But it soon became clear that this was not so. Kara-Murza spent a week in a coma. The doctors were able to save him, although at first it seemed that his condition was almost hopeless. This was followed by a six-month recovery course in the United States, where his wife and three children live. After returning to Russia, the oppositionist walked with a cane for a long time.

What really happened

This is a key question, but there is no clear answer to it. The press reported the findings of the French doctor Pascal Kintz, who discovered traces of heavy metals in the patient’s body. Kara-Murza himself says that “his official diagnosis” sounds exactly like poisoning. But Russian doctors are in no hurry to comment on what actually happened to him, noting that the issue is not only medical, but also political.

Moscow's chief toxicologist Yuri Ostapenko, answering questions from DW on February 3, refuted in absentia the assertion that poisoning was the cause of the acute illness in May 2015: "Forensic medical examination according to his statement (Kara-Murza Jr. - Ed.) could not confirm that there was poisoning,” Ostapenko said.

And yet, in private conversations, the attending doctors, according to Kara-Murza’s associates and relatives, agree that it was poisoning. But how? Nobody knows this. As Prokhorov's lawyer recently told DW, doctors suggested that the politician was simultaneously taking two medications that could be incompatible - a sedative and antihistamines. “But now he doesn’t accept them,” Prokhorov claims. Besides, where do the sedatives contain increased doses of heavy metals?

How and to whom Kara-Murza might have been displeasing

Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., like his father, worked as a TV presenter for some time. He is a historian by training and studied at the elite Cambridge University. He entered politics early, changed several parties, all of them were in opposition to Vladimir Putin. The Open Russia movement, of which he is the coordinator, was founded by former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

During his political career, Kara-Murza Jr. has repeatedly advocated for Western countries to impose sanctions against leading Russian politicians in power. His first serious action was lobbying in Washington for punitive measures against those responsible for the death of Russian auditor Sergei Magnitsky.

By this, according to many, he made influential enemies in the Russian establishment. “Many people were dissatisfied with Kara-Murza’s work on the Magnitsky list,” Khodorkovsky noted in an interview with the DW program “Nemtsova.Interview.” “This has hurt the interests of many people, and I think that problems associated with this are quite possible,” added the former head of YUKOS.

Context

The first case of acute illness happened to Kara-Murza Jr. three months after the murder of Boris Nemtsov. They were friends and worked together for more than ten years. Nemtsov was the godfather of Kara-Murza Jr.’s daughter.

After the murder of the politician on a bridge near the Kremlin, Kara-Murza and former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov traveled to Washington to present to members of Congress the so-called “Nemtsov list,” which included the names of several politicians and journalists who openly called for the persecution of Nemtsov. The next time Kara-Murza advocated imposing sanctions on Moscow was after Russia annexed Crimea.

Not only the murdered Nemtsov, but also Kara-Murza himself was subjected to persecution. Together with Kasyanov, he appeared in a video in which they are both depicted in the crosshairs. The video was distributed on Instagram by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Despite the fact that the 35-year-old oppositionist was sure that he was poisoned, and more than a year ago he submitted a statement to the Investigative Committee to initiate a criminal investigation into the incident. A criminal case, according to his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, has not yet been opened.