'I told the Russians, I'll be back sooner than you think'

Freed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza says his removal from Russia was illegal and that he will return to his motherland

- TOM WATLING

British-Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza has pledged he will return to Moscow “sooner than you think” despite his ordeal as a political prisoner under Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The Cambridge-educated political leader, who spent much of his teenage years living in London, was one of 16 prisoners swapped for eight detainees held in the West on Thursday in the largest such exchange since the Cold War.

Also involved were three US citizens, including journalist Evan Gershkovich, three Germans and nine Russians. In return, Moscow received eight Russians accused of murder, spying and money laundering.

At a news conference in Bonn on Friday evening, Kara-Murza sat alongside former captives Ilya Yashin and Andrei Pivovarov, both of whom are figureheads of the Putin opposition, and recounted the moment their plane left Moscow for Ankara, Turkey.

“Each of us was accompanied by our personal FSB [Russian security service] officer … who was sitting next to us on the plane,” Mr Kara-Murza said. “My FSB officer ... told me the moment that our plane was taking off: ‘Look out the window. This is the last time you will see your motherland.’

“I turned to this guy and I laughed. I told him: ‘Look man, I am a historian by education. I don’t only feel, I don’t only believe, I know I will be back in my home country. And it will be much quicker than you think.’”