Evgenia Kara-Murza:

He’s doing as well as he can.

He’s — he still sounds — well, sounds. I haven’t talked to him since last summer. But, in his letters, he is optimistic, and he sends us words of support. But that’s what Russian political prisoners do, amazingly. They are the ones mistreated. They are the ones denied medical care. They are the ones in solitary confinement.

And they say about Russia — about the hope for a different Russia, and about that hope living on even after the murder of Alexei Navalny. They say that Vladimir was able to address us during a recent court hearing. And it happened right after Alexei’s murder. And he said that, of course, he was absolutely devastated by what had happened, and this was not the first political assassination in Russia’s history.

But he also said that we cannot give in to despair, because this is exactly what they want us to do. And we need to fight even more. And this is what we owe to our fallen comrades, to continue the fight to make sure that Russia does become what they fought for and died for, a normal, European, free, democratic country.

So, Vladimir sitting in this solitary punishment cell in Western Siberia sends us words of support and encouragement.