Even Vladimir Putin’s most passionate defenders do not deny that he now has a personality cult, but even his most committed critics acknowledge that such a cult is not an explanation but rather something that must be explained, all the more so because the Putin cult did not emerge full-blown all at once but rather has emerged and evolved over the last 15 years.

Although few people spoke about a Putin cult of personality in the first years of his rule, the BBC already in 2001 pointed to the appearance of Putin portraits in many public spaces in Russia and Italy’s “Corriere Della Sera” had an article speculating about its emergence. More suggestively, British political scientist Richard Sackwa suggests that a personality cult was part and parcel of Russian leadership, noting that popular songs in Russia began at that time to speak about Putin the way they had earlier spoken about Stalin.

Now, almost everyone speaks about a Putin cult of personality. Recently, Oleg Panfilov, a professor in Tbilisi, discussed how and why that happened and pointed to the essential shift from ironic or even critical comments about Putin to completely respectful ones. He dates that shift, one essential to the formation of a real cult, to a letter from a group of Leningrad professors who were upset by the presentation of Putin on the “Clowns” television program and Putin’s own promulgation of his Information Security Doctrine in September 2000, a document which laid the groundwork for censorship and expanded government propaganda.

Soon after that, Panfilov writes, the task of forming the image of the leader was assumed by his propagandists. The population could no longer be trusted to come up with the right one, and there followed a new imagery with Putin as a judoist, a jet pilot, a bare-chested fighter, and a devoted churchman.  “Young people started wearing t-shirts with pictures of Putin,” he continues, and the notion of “a strong country with a strong president began to spread.”

But despite all this, which emerged at the very beginning of Putin’s reign, it would be incorrect to assert that most Russians viewed him as the leader that they conceive him to be today.  A minority did so from the very beginning, but the majority had to be involved in this cult. And that took both time and the unceasing efforts of the Kremlin’s image makers.

Over time, the jokes were becoming less welcome and the cult of personality was becoming more rigid

That, in fact, constitutes the paradox of Putin’s first term. On the one hand, many Russians, including members of the intelligentsia, really did feel a certain sympathy to the young, businesslike and decisive successor of Yeltsin especially since Putin could be counted on not to embarrass them by any drunken antics like trying to conduct an orchestra or forgetting to leave his plane when he was supposed to.  And they thus viewed the new president not as an ideal leader but as a normal one, something that for many of them seemed to be little short of a miracle. But on the other hand, there were the beginnings of a Soviet-style cult of the leader’s personality, even though at that time Putin himself did not risk speaking about a return to Soviet times or doing away with the freedoms of Yeltsin’s.

Indeed, it many cases, it is difficult if not impossible to draw a clear line between a healthy popularity of the Russian president and a real cult of personality.  As long as the Kremlin tolerated jokes and parodies about Putin that distinction did not seem to matter as any overly enthusiastic treatments of his leadership for his sobriety and discipline would be balanced by jokes about his Chekist past and style and about his resemblance to other dictators like Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Few Russians and even fewer foreign observers noted that over time, the jokes were becoming less welcome and the cult of personality was becoming more rigid, something that not only signaled an end to the freedoms of the 1990s but pointed to more repression ahead.  That process, however, did not take place all at once and even in 2010, it was still possible to parody Putin and Dmitry Medvedev by speaking of a “multitude” of personalities when in fact it was becoming ever more obvious that there was only one who could be supported: All the others but not that one could be the subject of laughter.

This situation might have gone on for some time had it not been for the rise of anti-government protests at the end of 2011.  They suggested that at least some Russians no longer loved Putin and that many of them as before continued to laugh at him.  That was unacceptable to the Kremlin image makers and their response to their discovery was a concerted effort to form a genuine cult of personality and to impose it on the population.

In order to understand what they have done, one needs to keep in mind that the most significant group of values for Russians at that time were “defensive” ones, that is, a commitment to stability, peace and happiness of the population, a relatively high standard of living and a desire to avoid anything that might challenge that. The reasons for that are obvious: no one wanted to go back to the difficult economic times of the end of the USSR and the beginnings of the Russian Federation, and all feared that what they had now might disappear overnight.

Putin’s image makers cleverly exploited these fears.  As a result, at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, they promoted the idea that peace and stability depended on the personality of Vladimir Putin and that his defeat or ouster in and of itself would lead to chaos. And linked to that notion were the ideas that Russians must put up with corruption, illegality and the violation of their own rights lest things get worse and that Russians must view any critics of the existing regime as enemies who are threatening to destroy peace and stability.  That in turn led to the formal division of society and the radicalization of both liberals and patriots.

It is important to note that at that time, Putin’s political system was not idealized. Instead, it was promoted as “a lesser evil” as compared to possible social cataclysms. And to that extent, one should not speak even then of a full-blown cult of personality in the usual sense of the term.  But it was at that moment that such a cult began to be formed and ever more quickly as the regime sought to defend itself against any challenges. As a result, the focus on defensive values declined and the propagandists began to form a great power vision of Russia and its leader, a shift that was occasioned by the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine and that involved talk about the Russian world, of Russia as an empire, and of Russia’s neighbors as temporarily lost but permanently part of that state.

There was an obvious basis for such a development: the way in which the Soviet authorities treated the borderlands, the mistakes of Russian leaders in the 1990s, and the sense among many Russians that the promises democrats and reformers had made had not and even could not be fulfilled, all of which made many Russians perfectly ready to accept the arguments of the Kremlin that what was needed was a specifically Russian way forward with a leader cult and all the rest.

Those feelings were played to and exploited by a group of aggressive “new ideologists” like Starikov and Dugin and the creation of youth organizations which celebrated the Soviet period, accused the US of destroying the USSR, and welcomed opposing Russian culture to Western civilization.  Conspiracy theories multiplied and more or less quickly were assimilated into the new definition of Russian patriotism, a definition which presupposed the existence of a strong leader like Putin. Such feelings in turn were intensified by the rehabilitation of the Soviet past, the appearance of the cult of the Chekist in society and the whitewashing of the crimes of Joseph Stalin.

This shift from defensive to offensive values involved not only the creation of a genuine cult of personality around the leader but the formation of an entirely new set of foreign and domestic policies, although it is not difficult to see that from the logical point of view, these two groups of values are mutually exclusive since the defensive values want peace at any price and the great power ones seek war with a hostile world until the empire can be restored.

There are several reasons why Russians are able to accept this fundamental contradiction.  First and most important, few think about these things but simply accept what they see and hear on television where no one pushes the two sets of ideas to the point that their mutually exclusive character becomes obvious. Related to that, the unprecedented level of propaganda has created for Russians a completely different, alternative reality in which the first group of values supposedly harmoniously combines with the second, even though that is obviously not the case. And finally, Kremlin propagandists have cleverly insisted that these two things can be held together only if people rally round Putin as the national leader, the only person who can achieve both things at once. That is the true basis of his personality cult now – and also why it is so dangerous.

The rehabilitation of the Soviet past and the thorough formation by means of culture and the mass media of an image of external and internal enemies have been intensifying with each passing month and has created for most Russians an image of their country as a besieged fortress which only one person can defend and save – Vladimir Putin. And that in turn has allowed the regime to combine the notions that “without him things will be worse” and that with him Russia will be able to “rise from its knees” and restore itself as a great power and empire.

The most tragic aspect of this is that under its influence have fallen many of those who protested against Putin in 2011-2012. In the past, they viewed Putin with humor and could distinguish black from white; but now, there is no place for humor and many of them have simply turned off their psychological defense mechanisms by viewing Putin as their salvation. But even more important, the Putin cult is useful to and being exploited by Putin’s entourage who see it as the only way to protect their illegal activities and who recognize that if things go wrong, Putin rather than they will be blamed.

As a result, Putin now enjoys unprecedented expressions of support; but it is important to remember that the 80 plus percent approval he normally gets now is not all of a piece. Instead, there are at least six different categories of people who lay stress on different parts of the cult and who may go their own separate ways if the Kremlin leader departs from their understanding too quickly or too radically in the future.

These include  the active imperialists who want an aggressive foreign policy and will not be satisfied by anything less, the active conformists who go along with the regime for pragmatic reasons, the passive conformists who see no reason for not going along and hope to avoid negative consequences for themselves, the mass of people who believe what they hear on television but don’t think too much about any particular issue, zombified people who accept everything they are told and blindly follow it, and the active victims of propaganda who incorporate propaganda into their own self-concepts.

At present, these six groups are held together by the current definition of the Putin cult of personality, but they are likely to go their own separate ways as the cult evolves – and consequently keeping track of how the leadership is promoting the cult at any particular time is a good indication of where the Kremlin is heading – and perhaps even more of what it and its chief occupant fear most.

By Ksenia Kirillova

Although few people spoke about a Putin cult of personality in the first years of his rule, the BBC already in 2001 pointed to the appearance of Putin portraits in many public spaces in Russia and Italy’s “Corriere Della Sera” had an article speculating about its emergence. More suggestively, British political scientist Richard Sackwa suggests that a personality cult was part and parcel of Russian leadership, noting that popular songs in Russia began at that time to speak about Putin the way they had earlier spoken about Stalin.

Now, almost everyone speaks about a Putin cult of personality. Recently, Oleg Panfilov, a professor in Tbilisi, discussed how and why that happened and pointed to the essential shift from ironic or even critical comments about Putin to completely respectful ones. He dates that shift, one essential to the formation of a real cult, to a letter from a group of Leningrad professors who were upset by the presentation of Putin on the “Clowns” television program and Putin’s own promulgation of his Information Security Doctrine in September 2000, a document which laid the groundwork for censorship and expanded government propaganda.

Soon after that, Panfilov writes, the task of forming the image of the leader was assumed by his propagandists. The population could no longer be trusted to come up with the right one, and there followed a new imagery with Putin as a judoist, a jet pilot, a bare-chested fighter, and a devoted churchman.  “Young people started wearing t-shirts with pictures of Putin,” he continues, and the notion of “a strong country with a strong president began to spread.”

But despite all this, which emerged at the very beginning of Putin’s reign, it would be incorrect to assert that most Russians viewed him as the leader that they conceive him to be today.  A minority did so from the very beginning, but the majority had to be involved in this cult. And that took both time and the unceasing efforts of the Kremlin’s image makers.

Over time, the jokes were becoming less welcome and the cult of personality was becoming more rigid

That, in fact, constitutes the paradox of Putin’s first term. On the one hand, many Russians, including members of the intelligentsia, really did feel a certain sympathy to the young, businesslike and decisive successor of Yeltsin especially since Putin could be counted on not to embarrass them by any drunken antics like trying to conduct an orchestra or forgetting to leave his plane when he was supposed to.  And they thus viewed the new president not as an ideal leader but as a normal one, something that for many of them seemed to be little short of a miracle. But on the other hand, there were the beginnings of a Soviet-style cult of the leader’s personality, even though at that time Putin himself did not risk speaking about a return to Soviet times or doing away with the freedoms of Yeltsin’s.

Indeed, it many cases, it is difficult if not impossible to draw a clear line between a healthy popularity of the Russian president and a real cult of personality.  As long as the Kremlin tolerated jokes and parodies about Putin that distinction did not seem to matter as any overly enthusiastic treatments of his leadership for his sobriety and discipline would be balanced by jokes about his Chekist past and style and about his resemblance to other dictators like Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Few Russians and even fewer foreign observers noted that over time, the jokes were becoming less welcome and the cult of personality was becoming more rigid, something that not only signaled an end to the freedoms of the 1990s but pointed to more repression ahead.  That process, however, did not take place all at once and even in 2010, it was still possible to parody Putin and Dmitry Medvedev by speaking of a “multitude” of personalities when in fact it was becoming ever more obvious that there was only one who could be supported: All the others but not that one could be the subject of laughter.

This situation might have gone on for some time had it not been for the rise of anti-government protests at the end of 2011.  They suggested that at least some Russians no longer loved Putin and that many of them as before continued to laugh at him.  That was unacceptable to the Kremlin image makers and their response to their discovery was a concerted effort to form a genuine cult of personality and to impose it on the population.

In order to understand what they have done, one needs to keep in mind that the most significant group of values for Russians at that time were “defensive” ones, that is, a commitment to stability, peace and happiness of the population, a relatively high standard of living and a desire to avoid anything that might challenge that. The reasons for that are obvious: no one wanted to go back to the difficult economic times of the end of the USSR and the beginnings of the Russian Federation, and all feared that what they had now might disappear overnight.

Putin’s image makers cleverly exploited these fears.  As a result, at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, they promoted the idea that peace and stability depended on the personality of Vladimir Putin and that his defeat or ouster in and of itself would lead to chaos. And linked to that notion were the ideas that Russians must put up with corruption, illegality and the violation of their own rights lest things get worse and that Russians must view any critics of the existing regime as enemies who are threatening to destroy peace and stability.  That in turn led to the formal division of society and the radicalization of both liberals and patriots.

It is important to note that at that time, Putin’s political system was not idealized. Instead, it was promoted as “a lesser evil” as compared to possible social cataclysms. And to that extent, one should not speak even then of a full-blown cult of personality in the usual sense of the term.  But it was at that moment that such a cult began to be formed and ever more quickly as the regime sought to defend itself against any challenges. As a result, the focus on defensive values declined and the propagandists began to form a great power vision of Russia and its leader, a shift that was occasioned by the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine and that involved talk about the Russian world, of Russia as an empire, and of Russia’s neighbors as temporarily lost but permanently part of that state.

There was an obvious basis for such a development: the way in which the Soviet authorities treated the borderlands, the mistakes of Russian leaders in the 1990s, and the sense among many Russians that the promises democrats and reformers had made had not and even could not be fulfilled, all of which made many Russians perfectly ready to accept the arguments of the Kremlin that what was needed was a specifically Russian way forward with a leader cult and all the rest.

Those feelings were played to and exploited by a group of aggressive “new ideologists” like Starikov and Dugin and the creation of youth organizations which celebrated the Soviet period, accused the US of destroying the USSR, and welcomed opposing Russian culture to Western civilization.  Conspiracy theories multiplied and more or less quickly were assimilated into the new definition of Russian patriotism, a definition which presupposed the existence of a strong leader like Putin. Such feelings in turn were intensified by the rehabilitation of the Soviet past, the appearance of the cult of the Chekist in society and the whitewashing of the crimes of Joseph Stalin.

This shift from defensive to offensive values involved not only the creation of a genuine cult of personality around the leader but the formation of an entirely new set of foreign and domestic policies, although it is not difficult to see that from the logical point of view, these two groups of values are mutually exclusive since the defensive values want peace at any price and the great power ones seek war with a hostile world until the empire can be restored.

There are several reasons why Russians are able to accept this fundamental contradiction.  First and most important, few think about these things but simply accept what they see and hear on television where no one pushes the two sets of ideas to the point that their mutually exclusive character becomes obvious. Related to that, the unprecedented level of propaganda has created for Russians a completely different, alternative reality in which the first group of values supposedly harmoniously combines with the second, even though that is obviously not the case. And finally, Kremlin propagandists have cleverly insisted that these two things can be held together only if people rally round Putin as the national leader, the only person who can achieve both things at once. That is the true basis of his personality cult now – and also why it is so dangerous.

The rehabilitation of the Soviet past and the thorough formation by means of culture and the mass media of an image of external and internal enemies have been intensifying with each passing month and has created for most Russians an image of their country as a besieged fortress which only one person can defend and save – Vladimir Putin. And that in turn has allowed the regime to combine the notions that “without him things will be worse” and that with him Russia will be able to “rise from its knees” and restore itself as a great power and empire.

The most tragic aspect of this is that under its influence have fallen many of those who protested against Putin in 2011-2012. In the past, they viewed Putin with humor and could distinguish black from white; but now, there is no place for humor and many of them have simply turned off their psychological defense mechanisms by viewing Putin as their salvation. But even more important, the Putin cult is useful to and being exploited by Putin’s entourage who see it as the only way to protect their illegal activities and who recognize that if things go wrong, Putin rather than they will be blamed.

As a result, Putin now enjoys unprecedented expressions of support; but it is important to remember that the 80 plus percent approval he normally gets now is not all of a piece. Instead, there are at least six different categories of people who lay stress on different parts of the cult and who may go their own separate ways if the Kremlin leader departs from their understanding too quickly or too radically in the future.

These include  the active imperialists who want an aggressive foreign policy and will not be satisfied by anything less, the active conformists who go along with the regime for pragmatic reasons, the passive conformists who see no reason for not going along and hope to avoid negative consequences for themselves, the mass of people who believe what they hear on television but don’t think too much about any particular issue, zombified people who accept everything they are told and blindly follow it, and the active victims of propaganda who incorporate propaganda into their own self-concepts.

At present, these six groups are held together by the current definition of the Putin cult of personality, but they are likely to go their own separate ways as the cult evolves – and consequently keeping track of how the leadership is promoting the cult at any particular time is a good indication of where the Kremlin is heading – and perhaps even more of what it and its chief occupant fear most.

By Ksenia Kirillova

On June 5-6, 2023, the European Parliament in Brussels at the initiative of Lithuanian MEP Andrius Kubilius and others, hosts a two-day conference “The Day After”, with the participation of over 200 representatives from Russia’s anti-war and opposition groups, journalists, prominent cultural figures, as well as European politicians.

On June 5, 2023, Natalia Arno, President of Free Russia Foundation spoke at the European Parliament in Brussels. In her opening remarks to the inaugural session of the Brussels Dialogue— Roundtable of EU and Democratic Russia Representatives, Ms. Arno described the heroic efforts by Russian civil society to stop the war and stand up to Putin’s regime; and called for a closer cooperation between Russian and European democratic forces to support Ukraine’s victory and ensure a lasting peace in Europe.

Below is the transcript of her full remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished members of the European Parliament and EU institutions, esteemed representatives from across the transatlantic community, and my dear friends and colleagues who are selflessly fighting for a free and democratic Russia, 

Thank you all for being here today. My special thanks to the MEP from Lithuania, Standing Rapporteur on Russia, Andrius KUBILIUS and to Shadow Rapporteurs – Messrs. CIMOSZEWICZ, GUETTA and LAGODINSKY – and their amazing teams who worked tirelessly to gather us all for this historic event. We are thankful for a very timely realization at the EU level that we, pro-democracy anti-war anti-regime Russians, are an important actor in efforts to stop the war and the key force in transforming Russia into democracy. 

The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February shook the world with its brutality and aggression, wretchedly echoing World War II. This war has been the first war watched on social media, brought to our living rooms– with every brutal death, every destroyed hospital, every orphaned child—staring into our face, breaking our heart, hundreds of times per day. But it’s not something that only exists on a computer screen. The reality on the ground is both unspeakable destruction and human cruelty that defies who we crave to be as humans. This war is black and white. The fight between the evil and the good, between the dictatorship and the democratic world with Ukraine on the front lines. There are no half tones, no moral ambivalence. Just like Hitler, Putin is perpetrating a criminal atrocity not only against Ukraine, but against freedom, democracy and our civilized way of life. 

This war is a huge tragedy for Ukraine, but it is also a catastrophic disaster for Russia. It’s a tragedy for so many Russians who understand what this war is, and it’s a tragedy that there are so many Russians who don’t understand it at all. 

This war has forced the world to take a new look at Russia. What is this country and who are these people engaged in unspeakable acts of brutality? Who are these people who passively watch as their army kills and destroys without any reason? They must be pure evil reincarnated! 

As the world, in pain and anger, looked for ways to respond, some of your governments shut your borders to all Russian passport holders, cancelled air traffic from Russia, pulled out businesses, denied services to all Russians, equated all Russians to Putin. We understood the reason for this. 

But let me remind you something. The Russian civil society and independent media were the first victim of Putin’s regime. We were the first ones to warn about the dangerous, corrupt, criminal, murderous nature of Putin’s regime. We were those telling you that his internal repressions will lead to external aggression. We were those who exposed the Kremlin’s export of corruption, influence campaigns in Europe and elsewhere. We were those who discovered Prigozhin’s factory of trolls and other disinformation tricks. We were the ones pleading the West not to enable Putin, not to operate with “realpolitik” and “business as usual”. In Putin’s war against freedom and democracy, Russian civil society has always been one of his priority targets. Many of us have paid a terrible price ourselves – losing our homeland, in many cases losing our freedom to imprisonment and to some of us, losing lives or family members. 

While we often hear there are no good Russians, I know many. All of us who are here today were invited by the European Parliament for our merits. We and our colleagues have moved mountains. Hundreds of us here represent civil society organizations, media outlets, grassroots initiatives with dozens of thousands activists and journalists in our networks. We communicate to millions through our YouTube and Telegram channels, newspapers, programs, and events. All of us are in exile now.

Inside Russia, many keep resisting, too. According to OVD-info, a portal tracking activism inside Russia, since the full-scale invasion there have been only 25 days without arrests for anti-war protests. There is the story of a Siberian grandmother— anti-war activist Natalia Filonova from my native Republic of Buryatia, whose special needs son was taken away from her in retribution for her protests and sent to a remote orphanage, while she herself is in jail awaiting trial. Another political prisoner Ilya Yashin, has just published a story about Natalia Filonova. Yashin himself is in jail for 8.5 years for telling the truth about Bucha.

Another real Russian patriot is a dear friend and man whom most of you know personally— Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has survived two assassination attempts by Putin’s regime, two comas, and still went back to Russia to testify to what is right and what is true. He is now in prison on a Stalin-era 25year sentence. 

Yesterday it was the birthday of Alexey Navalny who also survived Novichok poisoning and is slowly being killed in prison. 

All these names and many others will be mentioned at this conference and shouldn’t be forgotten. There are tens of thousands of documented stories like these. Tens of thousands of “good” humans arrested and prosecuted for their anti-war and pro-democracy stance. 

Why am I telling you all of this? In hopes that you see that Russian civil society was the first front in Putin’s war on democracy and peace.  As Western leaders dined and shook hands with Putin for 20 years, as Europeans accommodated Putin’s regime in exchange for cheap energy, as they offered citizenships to his associates, Putin was busy eradicating the Russian political opposition, independent media and civil society. 

Today, we address a pressing issue that lies at the heart of our shared destiny and demands our immediate attention and decisive action. Through all this shock from the devastating tragedy that we are all experiencing, I want to bring to you a message of resilience, hope and an urgent plea for solidarity. We, pro-democracy anti-war anti-regime Russians, are not only first victims of Putin’s regime, and not only targets for friendly fire and problems for your governments because we need visas and bank accounts, but most importantly, we are agents of change. Not foreign agents or undesirables as the Kremlin labels us, but agents of change, agents of the Russian people and Russia’s future. We are the part of the solution. We are the ones who are willing to transform Russia, to make it normal and civilized.

No doubt that Ukraine will win, but after the war it won’t be easy. We understand doubts about Russia’s democratization prospects, but we, pro-democracy anti-war anti-regime Russians, can’t afford to believe that freedom and democracy is not possible in our home country. Democracy in Russia is the only guarantee of sustainability of Ukraine’s victory and a key factor of stability and security in Europe and globally.

Those of us invited to this event have been working tirelessly as supporters of change for years. Our collective resume includes rallies against media capture and Khodorkovsky’s arrest in Putin’s early days, election observation missions proving massive fraud in all levels of elections throughout the country, “Dissenters Marches”, rallies on Bolotnaya and Sakharova and many other squares throughout the country and throughout the years, against the annexation of Crimea and invasion to Eastern Ukraine then and the full-scale invasion now. Our collective resume includes advocating for sanctions, both personal and sectoral, advocating for enforcement of sanctions and for making it harder for the Kremlin to circumvent them. Our collective resume includes assistance to Ukraine – evacuations from the war zone, search for Ukrainian POWs, litigation and advocacy on behalf of Ukrainian hostages of Putin’s regime held in Russian jails, cooperation on international justice mechanisms including the Tribunal and on documenting war crimes, humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians including shelters, clothing, medication. Our collective resume includes huge efforts by Russian independent media, bloggers, influencers, grassroots initiatives to tell the truth about this brutal war, to disseminate the factful information, to counter Kremlin’s narratives, to influence public opinion inside Russia. Our collective resume also includes discussions on how to achieve political transition, how to conduct sustainable reforms, how to make deputinization and even desovietization of Russia. 

We are not Europe’s headache, we are your asset. We ask our European partners to use our expertise, because nobody knows Russia better than us. Nobody knows Putin regime and his methods better than us. Nobody knows the Russian people better than us. Individually we do a lot. Collectively as a Russian pro-democracy anti-war movement we can do even more. With your solidarity, with the support of the democratic world, we can win. Working together is a force multiplier.

When I looked on your website yesterday, the main stated aims of the European Union within its borders are: to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its citizens. 

How do we promote peace now? We do everything we possibly can to make sure Ukraine wins this war. But it is clear, that until there is a real political change in Russia, until democracy and civil rights are reestablished for the Russian people, until Putin’s regime is brought to justice, no lasting peace is possible. It’s very practical for the Western democracies to support, strengthen and grow us— inside and outside of Russia. 

I am here to call on the EU as a community— to give voice to pro-democracy anti-war Russians at European institutions. Regular sessions of this conference, new report on Russia by the EU Parliament, EU Special Representative for Russia and other working mechanisms are important to discuss plans on reconstructing Ukraine after the war, prosecuting war criminals, and reforming Russia after Putin. So that Russians inside Russia see that Putin is wrong— the West does not seek to destroy Russia, and that Russians who are for democracy are not outcasts but are embraced by the international democratic community. 

We need a coherent Europe-wide strategy on how to stabilize the Russian civil society— save us from peril, prevent us from quitting the fight, help us mobilize and engage Russian society. This means clear legalization policies; some standard approach to our ability to work and travel. That means the end of the punitive measures such as denial of services that are not only counterproductive but also are illegal under the EU law. That means judging us on the basis of our values and our actions, not on the basis of our citizenship and nationality. That means support of our programs and initiatives.

In this room there are Russians from different regions and organizations, of different backgrounds, with different opinions and you might see some debates and disagreement throughout the program, but we have one unified position: Ukraine must win the war, and Russia must change from the inside to be a reliable and stable partner for the democratic world. Russia must return to its fundamental values of producing great poets, composers, physicists, and philosophers instead of being hackers, invaders, and war criminals. We in this room are here to join hands with our European partners and work with you to make this happen.

While traveling abroad recently, Free Russia Foundation’s president fell ill under circumstances that cause great concern. The matter is under investigation.

The health and safety of our staff and beneficiaries are our paramount concern.

Free Russia Foundation continues its work for a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Russia, reintegrated into the international community as a constructive and positive actor.

Dear colleagues and friends,

Today, on April 17, 2023, the Russian judicial system handed down a monstrous sentence to Vladimir Kara-Murza, a politician, journalist, historian, our colleague and friend — a 25-year prison sentence, which effectively means the rest of his life. The verdict was reached based on false accusations, despite the absence of any evidence to support them.

We are at a loss for words to express our outrage and indignation at this unjust and merciless verdict. This is a clear act of revenge, without any basis or justification. The Putin regime no longer even attempts to make its accusations appear plausible. This is not merely a kangaroo justice, but rather a repeat of Stalin’s criminal statutes, his allegations, and his sentences. It is a new version of the year 1937. The Russian authorities are repeating the errors of the past, and leading the country directly towards the Gulag. In one of his letters from prison, Vladimir Kara-Murza wrote, “When evil is not recognized, condemned, and punished, it will inevitably return. This is the terrible lesson that post-Soviet Russia has taught the world.”

Many of us know Vladimir Kara-Murza not only as a public figure but also as a hero, a fighter for freedom and justice in Russia, and a close associate of Boris Nemtsov. Despite surviving two severe poisonings in 2015 and 2017, which brought him close to death, Vladimir continued to fight for the freedom and rights of Russian citizens. However, his health has significantly deteriorated since being imprisoned, and he is experiencing a loss of sensation in his limbs. Before our eyes, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a true patriot of Russia, is slowly dying in prison and may become another victim of Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The trial of Vladimir Kara-Murza was a ploy to silence his voice and remove him from the path of those who are willing to maintain their power in Russia at any cost. This is a clear act of political revenge from the Kremlin, in response to his longstanding pro-democracy stance and opposition activities, his active participation in advocating for personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, and his public criticism of Vladimir Putin’s war on the people of Ukraine.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a prisoner of conscience and must be released immediately and unconditionally. The criminal charges against him must be dropped.

Free Russia Foundation is urging the international community, public figures, and human rights organizations to increase their pressure on the Kremlin to release Vladimir Kara-Murza from detention, or to exchange him as part of humanitarian programs. We invite everyone to join our #FreeKaraMurza campaign and condemn this unjust sentence. We strongly believe that only through unity and solidarity can we secure Vladimir’s freedom.

We also want to express our support for Vladimir Kara-Murza and his family during this difficult time for them.

Free Russia Foundation will continue to fight for freedom and democracy in Russia until fundamental rights are reinstated. We encourage all Russian citizens to remain courageous, not to succumb to threats, and to resist evil. Justice will always be on the side of truth and freedom, and light will inevitably overcome darkness.

Today the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on several Russian officials responsible for the incarceration and prosecution of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a politician, journalist, human rights activist, and prisoner of conscience. The update from the U.S. Treasury Department included the names of six Russians who faced sanctions: Oleg Sviridenko, Ilya Kozlov, Elena Lenskaya, Danila Mikheev, Diana Mischenko, and Andrey Zadachin.

Oleg Sviridenko, the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation, supervised the department for NGOs in the Russian Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for placing individuals on the register of “foreign agents.” Elena Lenskaya is the judge of the Basmanny District Court in Moscow who ordered Kara-Murza’s detention. Andrei Zadachin is the prosecutor of the Investigative Committee, who ruled to initiate a case of “fakes” against the politician. Danila Mikheev is the Director of the “Independent Expert Center for the Development of Humanitarian Expertise,” whose expertise has formed the basis of a number of criminal cases against Russian opposition figures. In the case against Mr. Kara-Murza, Mikheev acted as an expert and provided a report that served as the basis for the prosecution. Diana Mishchenko is the judge who issued the initial order for Kara-Murza’s arrest and sentenced him to 15 days in jail. Ilya Kozlov is the judge who rejected Kara-Murza’s appeal of Mischenko’s administrative detention order.

The sanctions imposed by the U.S. include asset freezes and entry bans into the country for individuals responsible for human rights violations and suppression of the Russian opposition activist’s freedoms.

“The U.S. Treasury joins our many national and international partners in calling for Vladimir Kara-Murza’s immediate and unconditional release,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “His arbitrary detention is another instance of the Kremlin manipulating Russia’s legal system to silence dissent. Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny, and so many others in Russia who are unjustly imprisoned are not forgotten, and we will continue to promote accountability for perpetrators of these abuses on the international stage.”

In 2022, U.S. senators and leading human rights organizations called on President Biden to impose sanctions on those responsible for Kara-Murza’s unjust imprisonment. Amnesty International recognized Kara-Murza as a prisoner of conscience in May 2022, and in September of that year, Senators Jim Risch and Robert Menendez urged President Biden to make determination on whether Kara-Murza’s arrest constituted a gross violation of human rights and whether sanctions would be imposed on those responsible. Last October, Human Rights First formally recommended sanctions to the U.S. Treasury Department and State Department, identifying 13 Russians involved in Kara-Murza’s arrest and prosecution. In November 2022, Canada became the first country to impose sanctions on the persecutors of the Russian opposition activist.

The politician has been imprisoned in Russia since April 2022 and has been facing continuous expansion of charges against him. Initially, he was accused of spreading false information about the Russian military (under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), which was initiated after his speech at the Arizona State House of Representatives in the United States where he referred to the bombing of residential areas and social infrastructure facilities in Ukraine. He was later charged under Article 284.1(1) of the Criminal Code for participating in the activities of an “undesirable” organization and subsequently charged with high treason (under Article 275 of the Criminal Code) for making three public appearances in Lisbon, Helsinki, and Washington, D.C., where he criticized the Russian authorities. If convicted, Vladimir Kara-Murza could face up to 25 years in prison.

In December 2022, Kara-Murza was prohibited from talking to his children on the phone by the prosecutor, who claimed that such conversations “could create a real threat to the proper conduct of criminal proceedings, as well as interfere with the production of the case.”

In March 2023, Vladimir Kara-Murza’s was placed in a punishment cell. His health deteriorated, and he began to lose sensitivity in his feet. His lawyer Vadim Prokhorov stated that his client had developed peripheral polyneuropathy as a result of two severe poisonings with military grade chemical agent.

Vladimir Kara-Murza has been involved in political activities for over 20 years. Together with Boris Nemtsov, one of the leaders of the Russian opposition, he actively contributed to the promotion of the so-called “Magnitsky List” in the U.S. in 2012. The document launched the practice of personal sanctions against Russian officials involved in the violation of basic human rights for the first time. On February 27, 2015, Nemtsov was shot right outside the Kremlin. Kara-Murza himself nearly died in May 2015 as a result of severe poisoning with military grade chemical agent at the direction of Putin’s government. In 2017, he was hospitalized again with similar symptoms. In honor of the assassinated Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Kara-Murza organized a series of renaming of streets and squares in world capitals where Russian embassy buildings are located.

In 2022, Kara-Murza was awarded the Václav Havel Prize for Human Rights and the German Axel Springer Stiftung Prize for Courage. In 2023, the Estonian Foreign Ministry handed over the state award for Vladimir Kara-Murza – the Distinguished Service Cross II degree – to the politician’s wife, Eugenia. In letters and articles that Vladimir Kara-Murza regularly writes from SIZO No. 5, he often emphasizes that he does not regret anything, as “the price of silence is unacceptable.” He also expresses support for Russian political prisoners and their aspirations to end the war in Ukraine.

Dear colleagues and friends,

Today we are marking a dark date — the anniversary of the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, one of the most tragic events in the history of modern Europe. This senseless and brutal act of aggression has taken lives of tens of thousands, destroyed cities and villages, and rendered deep wounds that will take a long time to heal.

We express our deepest condolences to all those affected by this unfathomable tragedy — to those residents of Ukraine who lost their loved ones, friends, homes, and livelihood.

Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine has gone on since the morning of February 24, 2022. Russian military is launching airstrikes against military and civilian infrastructure, destroying not only airfields, military units, or oil depots, but also power plants, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and churches. The shelling of residential areas is carried out with artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and ballistic missiles, in violation of the rules of warfare, moral standards, and religious precepts.

On this day, we remember the victims of this tragedy and express our deepest sorrow to the families and friends of the victims. The hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead and wounded, the millions of broken lives, and the cities razed to the ground — they cannot be brought back nor forgotten. We remember those who continue to languish in the shadow of the war, suffering from its consequences.

We denounce the aggressive policy of Putin’s regime as the main cause of this war. For years, the Kremlin had conducted hybrid operations, violating Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity with impunity. Free Russia Foundation condemns Vladimir Putin and his accomplices for their role in perpetrating countless crimes against humanity. International law and Ukrainian sovereignty are inviolable and should never be threatened by other states.

Today we recognize not only the pain, loss, and suffering, but also the courage and resilience of Ukrainians who defied evil and stood shoulder to shoulder to defend their homeland. When Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, his delusional plan was for the Russian military to capture Kyiv in three days. One year later, the Russian military is nowhere near achieving that objective. We express our admiration and unconditional solidarity with the people of Ukraine who fearlessly fights for their rights to life, freedom, and independence. We pledge our support in this struggle every step of the way.

We are grateful to the Russian anti-war activists and organizations who are courageously speaking out against this war and Putin’s aggressive policies, to those who said without equivocation “No to war!” We commend the Russians who continue to fight to end this conflict. Ending this war is an absolute prerequisite for any positive future for the Russian nation.

We must not remain silent or inactive in the face of Putin’s regime and its aggressive foreign policy. Such complacency will only serve to bolster his hold on power and further his expansionist agenda. We call on our fellow compatriots in Russia to take action against Putin’s rule using all available methods, to disseminate information about the situation in Ukraine and human rights violations in Russia, to support independent media and journalists, and to endorse anti-war initiatives. Let us stand together in solidarity and fight for a better future, free from the clutches of tyranny.

We demand an immediate and unequivocal end to the inhumane war that has plagued Ukraine, and we call for the swift withdrawal of all Russian troops. Furthermore, we firmly assert that those responsible for the heinous crimes committed during this conflict must be held accountable for their actions and face justice to the fullest extent of the law. 

We urge all those who cherish peace and democratic ideals to join efforts for ending this senseless violence and offer unwavering support to those who strive for freedom and human rights of Ukrainian citizens. Light will always triumph over darkness.