Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian politician, author, historian, and former political prisoner, will receive the 2025 Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan on November 4th at 4:30PM in Rackham Auditorium. A close colleague of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, he served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian Parliament. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, Kara-Murza played a key role in the adoption of Magnitsky sanctions against top Russian officials by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia. Magnitsky sanctions are governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. For this work he was twice poisoned and left in a coma; a joint media investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel has determined that officers of the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) were behind the attacks.

In April 2022, Kara-Murza was arrested in Moscow for publicly denouncing the invasion of Ukraine and war crimes committed by Russian forces. Following a closed-door trial at the Moscow City Court, he was sentenced to 25 years for “high treason” and kept in solitary confinement at a maximum-security prison in Siberia. He was released in August 2024 as part of the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War negotiated by the U.S. and German governments.

Kara-Murza is a contributing writer at the Washington Post, winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his columns written from prison, and has previously worked for Echo of Moscow, BBC, RTVi, Kommersant, World Affairs, and other media organizations. He has directed three documentary films and is the author or contributor to several books on Russian history and politics.

Kara-Murza serves as vice-president at the Free Russia Foundation, as senior advisor at Human Rights First, and as senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal. He was the founding chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and has led successful international efforts to commemorate Nemtsov, including with street designations in Washington, D.C. and London. Kara-Murza is a recipient of several awards, including the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, and is an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

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The Wallenberg Medal and Lecture ceremony is free and open to the public. For event inquiries and requests for event accommodations, please contact wallenberglecture@umich.edu or 734-936-3973.