A prominent Russian opposition activist and politician was detained on Monday hours after he criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin in a CNN interview.
Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested near his home and sentenced to 15 days in jail for disobeying a police order.
Kara-Murza is a long-time Kremlin critic who fell deathly ill in 2015 and 2017 in Moscow with symptoms consistent with poisoning.
“Twice have the Russian authorities tried to kill my husband for advocating for sanctions against thieves and murderers, and now they want to throw him in prison for calling their bloody war a WAR,” his wife, Yevgeniya wrote on Twitter Monday night. “I demand my husband’s immediate release.”
One of Kara-Murza’s close friends, prominent politician and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed in 2015 near the Kremlin, according to CBS News.
Kara-Murza is a vocal opponent of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and has launched an anti-war committee along with other opposition figures. Hours before his arrest he predicted the war will be the end of Putin’s regime.
“I have absolutely no doubt that the Putin regime will end over this war in Ukraine,” he told CNN, adding that it “doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen tomorrow. The two main questions are time and price. And by price, I do not mean monetary — I mean the price of human blood and human lives, and it has already been horrendous, but the Putin regime will end over this and there will be a democratic Russia after Putin.”
