The recent prisoner exchange in which foreign citizens and political prisoners imprisoned by Vladimir Putin acquired their freedom ended in a big scandal, which was provoked by the statements of released young Russian politicians.
Some of them immediately rushed into the public sphere, pining for attention, freedom, their favorite journalists, and so forth. They have already made many mistakes, showing, mildly speaking, insufficient respect and gratitude to Ukrainians, Ukrainian civil society, and the Ukrainian leadership.
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Their rhetoric and approach, which boiled down to the idea that the Putin regime is responsible for everything, and the ordinary citizens of the Russian Federation should not have to suffer evoked an entirely justified storm of dissatisfaction. Equally strange were initiatives of individuals in the political emigration and anti-war organizations regarding the collection of humanitarian aid for residents of the Kursk oblast via Putinist financial institutions.
Apparently, these people do not fully understand how their declarations sound to those on the outside. Particularly in Ukraine and Israel. The people suffering from terrorist attacks of the totalitarian regimes of Putin and his ally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are justified in considering all Russian citizens and their political leaders, both in power and in the opposition, as their enemies. Not only “Putin and his gang,” but also ordinary Russians are killing Ukrainian children and adults, torturing prisoners, and raping women and children. Russian citizens are helping Iran kill our Jewish, Druse, Arab, and Bedouin Israeli children and adults.
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Our peoples have the right to despise Russian imperialists independent of their political convictions. We know that the majority of them are liars and hypocrites, and some are also Kremlin agents. We know many of them by name. We know that the main goal of the “political” activity of many of them is money and power.
As long as oppositional Russian politicians do not understand the meaning of what interested parties are telling them or until other leaders appear who are free of the gene of Russian imperial “national distinctiveness,” there will be no prospects for the proverbial “beautiful Russia of the future.” What will remain is a mafia country with an atomic bomb.
Russian oppositionists make additional mistakes. They try to please the so-called “voter.” They try to portray themselves as savvy politicians adept in technologies and messaging that could enable them to gain popularity in the Russian Federation.
They need, ultimately, to understand that they have no chance of being elected in democratic elections in Russia. They ought to stop “working for the entire Russian electorate.”
Today a genuine Russian politician is focused primarily on Ukraine and also on the “healthy” part of the Russian diaspora in Western countries and on the public and private spheres. A genuine Russian politician who has a conscience and is decent today supports the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Guard, the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian civil society, the Ukrainian people, and the legitimate elected authority in Ukraine, independent of their opinions based on the lack of a true Western education, democratic political experience, critical thinking, and sober self-appraisal.
Indeed, genuine, recognized Russian opposition politicians could do something very important and necessary for Ukraine, Israel, Europe, America, and all free world countries. To do so, however, they must understand and accept what is said by impartial people, experts on the RF from various countries and various nationalities, and not “court” political scientists and journalists in the service of the “political opposition.”
It would be worth recommending to all Russian oppositionists, activists, media experts, political consultants and others: fight against the Putin regime and not with each other. Especially publicly. This is perceived as your “societal glue,” something like the traditional Russian fist fight.
When I speak about Russian opposition politicians without naming them specifically or differentiating them according to “views and convictions,” I mean precisely those who call themselves politicians – not all the sectarians and their “rabble” playing the role of politicians. They are parasites of political and social processes profiting from tragedies with varying degrees of professionalism.
The goal of sect leaders is usually personal enrichment at the expense of their followers, often by means of brainwashing people who are irresolute for various reasons. Unfortunately, sometimes sect leaders go crazy and try to combine their passion for profit with the desire to seize political power in some country.
Several noted public personalities who aspire to leading roles in the Russian opposition have appeared at liberty outside of Russia. This is a new generation, which is following after the senior politicians. Despite the fact that some of them went to jail out of thoughtlessness or calculation and some simply “landed” there, they are all former political prisoners who gained freedom – and that’s excellent.
Some of them say that they will study the experience of effective political activity that is carried out from abroad. I am sure that the above-mentioned sectarians will enthusiastically study the political experience of the predecessor of the present Iranian dictator – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who, while abroad, organized the overthrow of the Shah and the subsequent Islamic Revolution. Ultimately, a regime was created that hangs its own people from cranes and seeks to wipe my homeland off the face of the earth.
Some politicians can carefully study Russia’s successful experience of acceding to power from abroad – the activity of Vladimir Lenin. A marginal political group, using successful agitation in a disintegrating army and appealing to the same dark sides of the soul of the overwhelming majority of the illiterate population, picked up the power that had collapsed for entirely different reasons. And it created a terrible totalitarian regime, the consequences of which we shall continue to endure for years.
I would advise those Russian oppositionists who truly want to remain moral people and wish to establish the very same “beautiful Russia of the future” and realize their political ambitions to study the biography of Willy Brandt. He was a convinced anti-fascist and anti-communist, who was forced to leave his homeland and join the armed forces of another state that was occupying his native country.
After the defeat of Germany, Willy Brandt returned to Berlin as a major in the Norwegian army. He refused Norwegian citizenship, restored his citizenship in his own country, and engaged in politics in his renewed homeland. Brandt was very successful, occupied high-ranking posts and became chancellor of West Germany, doing penance for the sins of those against whom he fought his entire life.
Possibly, a future Russian leader will return to his homeland in the uniform of the Ukrainian armed forces. This may be a very distant prospect; such a leader will not succeed right away. He will need years of political struggle in a renewed country. For this renewed country to appear, however, Putin’s Russia must fall. And those who see themselves as new Russian politicians must facilitate precisely the collapse not only of the regime but of the entire state.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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