Roger Wicker: “Mr. Kara-Murza's imprisonment is part of Mr. Putin's larger assault on what remains of political freedom in Russia. In…”

“Mr. Kara-Murza's imprisonment is part of Mr. Putin's larger assault on what remains of political freedom in Russia. In Mr. Kara-Murza's words, Putin's regime has gone ``from highly authoritarian to near-totalitarian almost overnight.'' In March, Russian officials passed a new censorship law forbidding all criticism of Mr. Putin's war in Ukraine. That law has been the basis for more 16,000 arrests since the war began in February, including that of Mr. Kara-Murza. Another 2,400 Russians have been charged with administrative offenses for speaking out against the war. Meanwhile, Putin's propaganda machine is ramping up. Independent Russian media outlets have all but vanished, having been blocked, shut down, or forced out of the country by the Kremlin. The last embers of freedom in Russia are going cold. Putin's crackdown on domestic freedom began in 2003, when Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on trumped-up charges of tax fraud after he simply criticized the government. A former member of the elite, Mr. Khodorkovsky had successfully led the Yukos Oil Company through privatization after the Iron Curtain fell. And contrary to the Kremlin's claims, the company consistently paid its taxes. But that didn't stop Vladimir Putin from plundering its assets and throwing Mr. Khodorkovsky in jail, where he stayed for 10 years. I would note that just before his arrest, Mr. Khodorkovsky displayed the same courage and patriotism that we now see in Vladimir Kara-Murza. Like Mr.…”