Russia | Opponent Kara-Mourza transferred to a penal colony in Siberia

(Moscow) Russian opponent Vladimir Kara-Mourza, sentenced to 25 years in prison for “treason” and for denouncing the offensive in Ukraine, arrived in a high-security penal colony in Omsk in Siberia to serve his sentence , his lawyer announced on Sunday.

Mr. Kara-Mourza, one of Vladimir Putin’s main critics who also has British citizenship, received a particularly harsh sentence in April, prompting Western capitals to call for his release.

“Vladimir Kara-Mourza was taken to the high-security IK-6 penal colony in Omsk to serve his sentence,” his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on Facebook.

According to him, the opponent was “immediately placed in an isolation cell”.

Omsk, a city of more than a million inhabitants, is located some 2,700 kilometers east of Moscow.

Prisoners receiving long sentences in the Russian prison system are often sent to remote colonies and take weeks to get there, with stops at various prisons across the vast country.

“The journey from Moscow to Omsk, in the 21st^e century, lasted no less than three weeks,” Mr. Prokhorov quipped, specifying that the opponent had been kept for “several days” in an isolation cell in the city of Samara, in central Russia.

Those close to Vladimir Kara-Mourza are concerned about his fragile health, with the opponent suffering from a nervous condition called polyneuropathy, due to two poisoning attempts.

Mr. Kara-Mourza was found guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian army and having links with an “undesirable organization” following a trial in behind closed doors.

This is the heaviest sentence against a major opponent in recent years.

Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, almost all opposition figures have been imprisoned or fled the country.

Thousands of ordinary Russians have also been prosecuted for their opposition to the conflict, and sometimes sentenced to long prison terms.