By Mark Trevelyan

Dmitry Muratov, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and editor-in-chief of the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, attends an interview with Reuters in Moscow, Russia September 22, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) – As a U.S. envoy heads to Moscow to negotiate over a complex blueprint for peace in Ukraine, Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov says a vital element is missing from the agenda.

Borders, security guarantees, the fate of frozen Russian assets and the prospects for joint U.S.-Russian investment ventures are all expected to be on the table when President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff sits down with President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Tuesday.

But Muratov is worried about the fate of people – above all, the hundreds imprisoned in Russia under censorship laws passed after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that made it a crime to “discredit” the Russian army or spread “deliberately false information”.

On Monday he and 15 other past winners of Nobel prizes for peace, literature and the sciences sent an open letter to Putin, Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the European Union, calling for a release or exchange of political prisoners to form part of the proposed deal.

“Look, they’re talking about money, deals, rare earth metals, borders, but have you ever heard anyone talk about people?” Muratov, a newspaper editor who continues to live and work in Russia despite being labelled a “foreign agent” by the authorities, told Reuters in a video interview.

“I really don’t know what’s going on in Putin’s head, forgive me… I only know that people are dying in prisons, and they need to be saved,” he said.

PHOTOS OF PRISONERS

During the conversation, he held up before and after photographs showing how several prominent Russian dissidents, including activist Alexei Gorinov, theatre director Zhenya Berkovich and saxophonist Andrei Shabanov, have visibly aged in prison and suffered damage to their health.

“I will show you what (these) people look like now. So that no one has any doubt that many simply will not survive. They will die if the international community — Zelenskiy, Putin, Trump and the European Union — don’t decide the fate of these people now,” Muratov said.

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