WASHINGTON, DC, November 17, 2022 – The wife of 2018 Oxi Courage Award recipient Vladimir Kara Murza, who has been jailed in Moscow since denouncing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, inspired the audience at the Oxi Courage Awards in Washington, DC on October 27. Evgenia Kara-Murza, accompanied by their daughters Katya and Sonya, courageously vowed to be her husband’s voice as she campaigns for his freedom, and for the freedom of thousands of political prisoners held in Russia for speaking truth.

To see video of Evgenia’s powerful remarks, click here.
To see the video tribute to Vladimir Kara-Murza from the Courage Awards, click here. 

“I am humbled on honored to be standing here on this stage where my husband Vladimir Kara-Murza stood in 2018, when he received his Oxi Courage Award for his indominable bravery in the face of the monstrous regime of Vladimir Putin built in our country and his refusal to give up his decades long fight. Despite two assassination attempts carried out by a team of FSB operatives in retaliation for his tireless advocacy in favor of targeted Magnitsky style sanctions against thieves and murderers of this regime.
 
I’m here tonight because almost 20 years ago I married a man of integrity. A man to whom decisions come easy because his values are clear. A warrior, a patriot. A man who refuses to keep silent in the face of atrocities no matter the risks. A man who for years has given his voice to hundreds of political prisoners in the Russian Federation.
 
I want this regime to know that I will fight back. I will become Vladimir’s voice. I will become the voice of over 19,000 Russians who have been arbitrarily detained across the country since February for saying no to the Russian government’s vile, murderous, bloody war against our closest neighbor. If I need to become a warrior myself, I will.
 
Integrity, I believe lies at the foundation of that courage that President Roosevelt described as not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. That integrity is something today’s Oxi Courage Award recipients Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad have in abundance. And such people, I have no doubt, are the reason, are the guarantee, in fact, that the good will prevail over the evil.

To see Vladimir Kara-Murza’s remarks from 2018, click here.