Putin’s rule is nearing its end, Kara-Murza says in Vilnius

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin appears as a “weak, paranoid old man” whose rule is nearing its end, Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza told BNS in an interview.

“Putin likes to project an image of a strongman, but he looks like a weak, insecure, paranoid old man who constantly sits in his bunker,” said the Kremlin critic during his visit to Vilnius.

“Every dictatorship has an expiration date, and it looks very much like the expiration date of Putin’s dictatorship is approaching,” he said.

“Regardless of how problematic opinion polls are in an authoritarian state where people cannot freely speak their minds, if you look at the latest Levada Centre polls, you will see that 67 percent of Russians advocate for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and peace talks instead of continuing the war,” Kara-Murza said.

“That is two-thirds in the context of a dictatorship; imagine what people would say if they were free to speak their minds,” he added.

Kara-Murza was released in 2024 during a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West.

Commenting on Putin’s claims that the war in Ukraine is subsiding, the opposition figure said no end should be expected as long as Putin remains in power.

He also said it was only a matter of time before significant political changes occur in Russia, making it vital to prepare for that moment.

“I think this clash between the image created by Kremlin propaganda and the real situation of the regime is very telling. The image they project is that they are strong and secure, and that everyone in Russia supports Putin and the war in Ukraine.

Kara-Murza said he worked for many years with Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition politician assassinated in 2015.

“He always said that in a country with no normal ways to measure public opinion, no free elections, no independent media, and no reliable polls, the best way to judge the true situation is to look at what the regime is doing. And from everything this regime does, we see intense fear and paranoia,” Kara-Murza added.

The 44-year-old British-Russian citizen was sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony in 2023 on charges of treason. He was held in Omsk, Siberia.

Kara-Murza said he suffers from a nerve condition that developed following what he said were poisoning attempts by the Russian Federal Security Service in 2015 and 2017.