“Would they have given you 10 years if you had been?” Such a theater of the absurd is playing out today in Moscow in the case against activist Vladimir Kara-Murza. Without doubt, Mr. Kara-Murza spoke the truth in public about these atrocities, but in Mr. Putin’s Russia, as in Stalin’s Soviet Union, the truth can be turned into a crime. This treatment of Mr. Kara-Murza, a democratic activist and Post opinion contributor, who in 2015 and 2017 was the victim of poisonings, marks another slide toward wartime totalitarianism in Russia. Mr. Kara-Murza is a permanent resident of the United States and lives in the D.C. area with his family. The truest sign of Mr. Putin’s deepening dictatorship is the adoption of Stalin’s methods — the tyrant decides who is arrested and prosecuted.

Source: Washington Post April 23, 2022 15:27 UTC