[citation needed] Kara-Murza earned a BA and an MA degree in history at Trinity Hall, Cambridge,[17] and he speaks fluent English.

Based on the original 1906 parliamentary record and contemporary newspaper reports, as well as memoirs by participants of the events, the book was launched in both Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

[26] Putin's word was therefore "void of value", wrote Kara-Murza, citing as evidence the false statements made by the Russian President and his broken promises.

[27] Putin soft-pedaled his response to the opposition during the Sochi Olympics, Kara-Murza wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, published on 26 February 2014.

For Putin, he explained, "maintaining the status quo in Ukraine was not primarily about preserving a post-Soviet sphere of influence or recreating a Moscow-led empire".

The candidate from the United Russia ruling party Vladimir Gruzdev attempted to have him removed from the ballot; the lighting on Kara-Murza's campaign billboards and the sound during his televised debates were turned off; and unlawful carousel voting was discovered on election day.

In May 2007, Kara-Murza nominated the veteran human rights activist and writer Vladimir Bukovsky as a democratic opposition candidate for the Russian presidency in the 2008 election.

"The opposition needs a candidate for president – strong, uncompromising, decisive, with irreproachable political and, more importantly, moral authority," read the statement written by Kara-Murza on behalf of Bukovsky's campaign committee.

[33][35] In October 2007, Kara-Murza was one of organisers of the "Rally of Free People" held on Moscow's Triumfalnaya Square in support of Bukovsky's presidential nomination.

"It is an honor for me to join this distinguished institute and contribute to its mission of keeping the spotlight on the situation in Russia and advocating for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law", said Kara-Murza, "These values should remain at the forefront of international relations.

Launched in 2014, Open Russia has been instrumental in educating Russian citizens on western democracy, whilst bringing opposition groups and activists in contact with support from the west.

[50][51] As a journalist who was fluent in English and based partly in the U.S., Kara-Murza played a role in the events that led to the 2012 passage of the Magnitsky Act by the U.S. Congress.

[53] Kara-Murza explained his support for the law by saying that "The prospect of losing access to the West and its financial systems...may well be, for now, the only serious disincentive to corruption and human rights violations by Russian officials.

It had "potential downsides," and was worsening "Russia's already precarious human-rights situation", driving "some of the ever-dwindling number of effective opposition journalists" from the country.

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, reported Adomanis, "suggested the decision to fire Kara-Murza may have come from an extremely high-ranking official: Alexei Gromov, the deputy head of the presidential administration.

He did quote Kara-Murza's comment that the bill would hit corrupt officials and human-rights violators "where it hurts, closing access to their ill-gotten gains in the West.

"[56] In a December 2012 article co-written with Nemtsov, Kara-Murza reiterated his support for the Magnitsky Act which he and Nemtsov called "a pro-Russian law that strikes at the heart of the Kremlin's mafia-like system", adding that "Russian opposition and civil society leaders and cultural figures, as well as a plurality of Russian citizens, are in favour of the Magnitsky law."

[57] Kara-Murza and Nemtsov called on Canada to pass a similar piece of legislation, then under consideration by the International Human Rights Subcommittee of the Canadian parliament's House of Commons.

[53] Writing for Maclean's in December 2012, Michael Petrou reported Kara-Murza's visit to Ottawa to urge the passage of the proposed Canadian version of the Magnitsky law, a private member's bill introduced by Liberal MP Irwin Cotler: while it was the task of Russian opposition leaders, not foreigners, "to bring democratic change to Russia," Kara-Murza said, Western democracies could still help the cause of Russian democracy through legislation.

Those in Russia who had abused and tormented Magnitsky "rule in the style of Zimbabwe or Belarus," wrote Petrou, paraphrasing Kara-Murza, "but prefer the West as a safe place to store their money, buy second homes, and send their children to school.

[57] In late April 2015, Kara-Murza and Mikhail Kasyanov presented a list of eight names to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the US Congress.

These were the TV presenters and other state-employed journalists and commentators who, Kara-Murza and Kasyanov alleged, had created an atmosphere of "hatred, intolerance and violence" around the figure of Nemtsov in the months leading up to his murder one hundred yards from the Kremlin.

Specifically, the named individuals had stated on nationwide television that Nemtsov was a traitor, an enemy of Russia, part of a "fifth column" within the country, and that he would have welcomed the invading German forces outside Moscow in 1941.

[65] Kara-Murza explained the appeal to U.S. legislators by saying that Russia's law-enforcement agencies, unfortunately, had declined to investigate these recorded and documented statements although incitement to harm an individual was also a crime according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

[66] On 18 May 2015, the daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that Yevgeny Alexeyevich Fyodorov, a State Duma deputy for United Russia, had requested the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation to assess whether Kasyanov and Kara-Murza had not committed an act of treason, under Article 275 of the RF Criminal Code, by submitting the above list of eight names to members of the US Congress.

[68] He had eaten lunch at a restaurant and then had a two-hour meeting, during which he consumed nothing and felt normal, before becoming ill over a ten to fifteen minute period, leading to vomiting.

But for unclear reasons, the FBI subsequently have not revealed details of their investigations into the substance that triggered Kara-Murza's illness, with one US Senator suggesting that it might be "classified".

[75] In February 2021, a Bellingcat joint investigation[84] with The Insider and Der Spiegel said that Kara-Murza had been followed by the same FSB unit that allegedly poisoned Alexei Navalny before he fell ill in 2015 and 2017.

[85] On Monday 11 April 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kara-Murza was arrested outside his house in Russia on charges of disobeying police orders, and faced up to 15 days in jail or a small fine.

[104] On 3 September 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia, where he was welcomed with a red carpet reception despite an ICC arrest warrant related to alleged war crimes in Ukraine.