Evening With Radio Free Europe: The Story of Jailed Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva

Alsu Krumasheva, a journalist with Radio Free Europe, spent more than nine months in prison in Russia. In May 2023 she travelled to Kazan to visit her sick mother, but the Russian authorities did not allow her to leave the country and return to Prague, where she has lived with her husband and two daughters since 1998. She was charged, detained for months and sentenced to six and a half years for “spreading false information about the Russian army”. The United States government, Radio Free Europe, human rights organisations, and most importantly, Alsu’s family worked tirelessly for her release. On August 1 of this year, after nine months in a cold prison cell, she was finally freed, thanks to a historic prisoner exchange between the West and Russia.