One Day Free

From Russian opposition leader and former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, the extraordinary account of his career, persecution, and resistance as Vladimir Putin transformed Russia from a flawed democracy to a full-fledged dictatorship.

In April 2022, Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested and later sentenced to twenty-five years in a Russian penal colony for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and against Putin’s dictatorship. He spent more than two years in prison—including eleven months of solitary confinement in Siberia—before he was released in the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War.

In this vivid memoir of post-Soviet Russia, Kara-Murza chronicles his and his compatriots’ resistance to Putin’s authoritarian takeover. Mentored by two of Putin’s most prominent critics—opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and revered Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky—Kara-Murza participated in some of the defining moments of modern Russia’s history. He challenged Putin’s party at the ballot box and saw firsthand how it stifles opponents. He rallied support from the streets of Moscow to the halls of the US Congress. And he paid the price for his defiance: He saw his friends murdered, narrowly escaped two poisonings, and was convicted of “high treason.”

But Kara-Murza’s hope for a democratic future in Russia remains undimmed. A tribute to resilience and courage in the face of oppression, One Day Free is a reminder that no country is forever destined for unfreedom.