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Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist in Kiev, Ukraine, claimed the Kremlin orchestrated two suspected poisonings in 2015 and 2017.

The bearded, bald 43-year-old may not be as outspoken as opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who nearly died from similar nerve agent poisoning in 2020.

However, Kara-Murza, a Harvard-educated historian, has been key in persuading Western governments to impose personal sanctions on numerous Russian officials.

He was given a 25-year sentence in Moscow in 2023 for “treason,” and while incarcerated, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his columns for The Washington Post.

Kara-Murza, who was released last year as a prisoner swap, settled in Germany and continued to campaign against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration and the Ukrainian conflict.

However, many on both sides of Europe’s thorniest armed conflict were stung by Kara-Murza’s remarks about the ethnicity and alleged bloodthirst of Russian servicemen last week.

In an interview with the French Senate on Thursday, Kara-Murza explained why the Russian Ministry of Defense recruits ethnic minorities and how, “[ethnic] Russians find it psychologically difficult to kill Ukrainians.

Because of the similarities between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, we are similar people, practice the same religion, and share hundreds and hundreds of years of shared history, Kara-Murza said.

Russians and Ukrainians are ethnic Slavs whose statehood dates back to Kyivan Rus, the largest state in medieval Eastern Europe torn apart by Poles and Lithuanians.

It is allegedly simpler to kill Ukrainians to someone who belongs to a different culture, Kara-Murza continued.

His statements sparked a flurry of annoyance among Indigenous rights advocates and observers.

A former Russian diplomat claimed that “ethnicity measurement is a dead end” when assessing a person’s level of cruelty.

Boris Bondarev, who resigned from his position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in protest of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claimed that the Kremlin does not specifically “recruit minorities; rather, it recruits people from the poorest regions, which are, in general, ethnic autonomies.

In the fourth year of the conflict, a multiethnic society’s activist Itelmen nation of Kamchatka, Dmitry Berezhkov, said, “Only a dull man could say that.”

He continued, “Russian liberal opposition figures, who are primarily middle-class urbanites, “drown as soon they tread on the thin ice” of issues involving ethnic minorities.

More than two-thirds of Russia’s 143 million people are ethnic Russians. The rest are minorities, ranging from the millions of Ukrainians and Tatars to the smaller, regionally autonomous Indigenous groups in Siberia and the Arctic.

The minorities coexist and mingle with ethnic Russians in rural, frequently inhospitable regions, even in those that are rich in hydrocarbons, rare earths, or diamonds.

They all rely on the Kremlin-funded television networks more than urban dwellers, frequently have no access to the internet, and watch the signing bonuses and salaries of Ukrainian servicemen as a way to escape the agony their families endure.

Recruits can expect to make up to $50,000 when they sign up for the position and earn several thousand dollars per month, which is a lot for anyone from those regions, regardless of their ethnic background.

No matter whether they are Russian or Buryat, they will never make money from it, Bondarev said.

In response to a wave of criticism, Kara-Murza claimed on Facebook on Monday that the accusations were “lies, manipulations, and slander” and that they were nothing more than lies.

The comment further tarnished Kara-Murza’s reputation, according to Berezhkov.

He claimed that “Kara-Murza’s words] used to be mistaken and could be taken as a mistake, but they are now his position.”

Another proponent of minorities rights thought Kara-Murza’s attack was a “signal for future voters” in the liberal, post-war Russia that Kremlin critics hope to resurrect.

Oyumaa Dongak, a Turkic-speaking province near China’s Tyva, believes Kara-Murza and other exiled Russian opposition leaders are “competing” with Putin.

She told Al Jazeera, “We are the ones who defend]ethnic] Russians,” not him.

Kara-Murza claimed in 2024 that the Western sanctions against Moscow following the 2022 invasion are “unfair and counterproductive” and hurt Russians in general. He desired that the West stop imposing harsher sanctions and concentrate instead on individual officials.

According to a Ukrainian observer, Kara-Murza does not want ethnic Russians who might elect opposition leaders to vote in the election to feel collectively responsible for the atrocities committed in Ukraine.

“People don’t feel bad,” he said. People won’t confess their guilt but will hate anyone who hits them, according to Kyiv-based analyst Vyacheslav Likhachyov, who has been criticized daily with moral condemnation.

He said, “The stories about the atrocities of Chechen executioners and Buryat rapists are and will continue to be popular.”

According to staged videos of them “storming” Ukrainian strongholds, Ramzan Kadyrov’s pro-Kremlin leader in Chechnya dubbed the “TikTok army.”

Their primary function in the conflict is primarily to protect occupied areas, terrorize ethnic Russian service members who refuse to fight, and torture them.

However, in Ukraine in 2022, Buryats, Buddhist natives of a sparsely populated and impoverished area close to Mongolia, have gained notoriety.

Some Buryat soldiers who tortured, raped, and killed civilians in Bucha and other towns north of Kyiv, according to human rights organizations and Ukrainian officials’ personal information.

A community activist claimed that ethnic Buryats are difficult to distinguish from other minority servicemen with distinctive Asian characteristics because Ukrainians frequently refer to them as “Buryats.”

Aleksandra Garmazhapova, who assists Buryat men escaping mobilization and fleeing abroad, said, “All Caucasus natives are seen as Chechens, and all Asians are considered Buryats.”

However, overwhelmingly Russian service members allegedly committed alleged war crimes in Bucha.

Garmazhapova was saved when Ukrainian forces began shelling Russian positions and his captors fled to a basement.

Millions of Catholics on the African continent mourn Pope Francis’ death, which was witnessed thousands of miles away from the Vatican.

Due to the large number of African Catholics, who he was credited with promoting a liberal embrace of all races and his vocal support for poor and underprivileged communities, he was a key figure on a continent that was sometimes called the “future of the Catholic Church.”

Pope Francis reinforced recent Vatican conventions by reviving his predecessors’ engagements by visiting 10 African nations while serving as papal leader. Popes rarely left the Vatican before the 1960s.

Leaders in other parts of Africa are also grieving his passing. The late pope was referred to as “exemplifying servant leadership by his humility, his unwavering commitment to inclusivity and justice, and his deep compassion for the poor and the vulnerable,” according to Kenya’s president William Ruto.

How, during his reign, the late Pope Francis placed Africa first:

Pope Francis’ numerous trips to Africa

Pope Francis visited 10 countries during the course of his papacy, making five trips to Africa.

He made the decision to travel to countries that were at war or in low-level conflict. He also emphasized those who are dealing with problems with the economy and the climate. In an effort to bring peace, the pontiff did not shy away from holding mass in ghettos or kissing the feet of conflicting leaders.

In his 25 years of service, Pope John Paul II’s visits to more than 25 African nations modeled on those of Pope John Paul II, who altered how the Vatican communicated with the continent. Pope Benedict XVI spent two days in three African nations, including Nigeria.

When and where did Pope Francis travel to?

East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, and the Central African Republic (CAR)) in 2015

In November 2015, the pontiff made a six-day visit to three African nations, which was filled with colorful welcomes and significant mass gatherings.

• The pope is still revered and remembered in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, for holding the mass in Kangemi, a low-income neighborhood. He criticized what he called “modern forms of colonialism” there and argued that the nation’s urban poor were underrepresented and excluded. He also criticized wealthy minorities, who, according to him, “hoard resources meant for everyone.”
• The pope enjoyed traditional dances from various ethnic groups as a colorful welcome to Uganda. As he passed through the crowds of people gathering to catch a peep, he blessed dozens of children who had been thrust into his open-sided popemobile. Additionally, he spoke with more than 700 disabled people and went to a facility where disabled children are treated.

Healing a shattered nation

The pope then made an unprecedented move in the CAR, entering a Muslim neighborhood as a result of months-long religious unrest.

Before then, Christians could not enter the PK5 neighborhood in Bangui, but as the pope made his way to a mosque there, crowds of Christians followed him there. As they embraced one another, those who had lost touch sobbed.

In his speeches, Pope Francis urged both sides to “lay down their arms” and referred to Africa as “the continent of hope.” After the visit, the warring factions would come to terms with a peace deal, but true peace would need to wait five more years.

2017-2019 North Africa (Egypt, Morocco)

Pope Francis traveled to Cairo, the largest Christian community in the Middle East, for two days in April to support the Coptic minority there. In Egypt, Coptic Christians have long been the target of hate and deadly attacks. Additionally, Francis addressed Muslim clerics there.
• The pope also urged religious tolerance and inclusion during his March 2019 trip to Morocco, which King Mohammed VI had invited him to. He urged Morocco to uphold the rights of immigrant and refugee refugees.

2019 Indian Ocean (Malawi, Madagascar, and Mauritius)

Pope Francis turned his attention to Southern Africa, particularly those in the Indian Ocean, in September of that year.

• In a region where climate change has intensified storms and destructive cyclones, he demanded that there be end to poverty and better protection of the environment in Mozambique and Madagascar.

South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2023.

The pope’s visit to the DRC symbolically called for peace and reconciliation in the troubled central African nation in the midst of ongoing conflict and a humanitarian crisis brought on by armed factions looking to control the country.

The pope had to postpone the trip due to ill health, so the DRC, which has the largest number of Catholics in Africa, was very important to him. Congolese welcomed him in the thousands.

South Sudan’s humble display

The pope in South Sudan demanded that Salva Kiir’s rival president and his deputy, Vice President Riek Machar, maintain peace. Since gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011, the nation, which is the youngest in Africa, has faced difficulties. Between factions loyal to the two leaders, which erupted right away, and until 2013, leading to the displacement of millions of South Sudanese.

The pope had expressed an unusual level of humility five years prior to their arrival in South Sudan, where he had had to lower himself with great difficulty to kiss the leaders’ feet while they were on a spiritual retreat to the Vatican. In order to protect the interests of the people, he urged them to adhere to peace agreements that had already been signed.

The nation has once more been in the grip of conflict since January. He wrote to the two leaders again in a letter in late March, calling for peace and dialogue as the pope was already dealing with more serious health issues.

Did the pope and the African bishops have a good relationship?

Yes, Pope Francis had friendly encounters with various African bishops and their organizations. Some people have also criticized him for his position on same-sex unions, though.

The pope authorized the same-sex couples’ blessing in the Church in an unprecedented way in December 2023. He forbade the practice of such blessings as long as they are not performed simultaneously with other civil unions and don’t fall under the normal rites of the Church.

African bishop organizations reacted strongly to this. Due to their religious and cultural beliefs, many nations on the continent are vehemently opposed to same-sex or other non-conforming gender categories.

The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), a group that opposed the rule and called the union of same-sex or non-heterosexual people “unacceptable,” issued a statement. Under Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of the DRC’s leadership, the group stated that “these acts…must not be approved under any circumstances.”

Bishops from Asia also urged the Vatican to reverse its decision.

Pope Francis responded to the criticism by stating that, in addition to the union, his focus should always be on the people’s blessings. He said, “We are all sinners; why create a list of sinners who may enter the Church”: