In a conversation with CNN host Erin Burnett, Muratov said that he had spoken about Russian political prisoners with presidents, diplomats, and ambassadors and asked them to help him change the situation. He emphasized that this topic is hardly discussed in Russia.
Showing photographs of director Zhenya Berkovich, taken shortly after her arrest and in the penal colony, Muratov said that she now weighs about 40 kilograms. According to him, before the trip to the U.S., lawyers told him that Berkovich had been sent to solitary confinement for the second time recently: the reasons cited were that she had not put her hands behind her back quickly enough, had tied her headscarf incorrectly, and had not made her bed on time.
Muratov also showed photographs of former municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov before imprisonment and several years after the start of the persecution. He reminded that Gorinov became the first person in Russia to be convicted for refusing to support the war.
Separately, the journalist spoke about pianist Pavel Kushnir, who died in a pretrial detention center, and noted that he opposed the invasion of Ukraine in a channel with only 10–15 subscribers. Muratov also showed a photograph of pediatrician Nadezhda Buyanova, convicted in a case involving military “fakes”, and Samara saxophonist Andrey Shabanov, who suffers from psoriasis.
On the eve of the broadcast, the editorial team of Novaya Gazeta received a letter from Alexandra Strelets from prison, in which she wrote that she and her daughter “fought for life as best we could until the very end”. To conclude, Muratov spoke about Alexandra Strelets, who was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony on charges of supporting Ukraine. Her seriously ill daughter Lera was born weighing 530 grams, was on a ventilator from birth, and died in the hospital three days before the interview, while Strelets herself was not allowed to see her daughter in her final moments.
Muratov said that he supports U.S. talks with Moscow because the sides must talk in order to end the war. At the same time, he asked why the plane of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff returns empty after trips to Russia and why he does not ask Vladimir Putin to free political prisoners. As an example, he cited U.S. special envoy John Coale, who took part in the release of several hundred prisoners in Belarus, and suggested that Witkoff and Jared Kushner take up the release of Russian political prisoners.
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