Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security penal colony, has finally elaborated his position on the Putin regime, its imperialistic war against Ukraine, and what needs to be done. He has set out his views in an essay published on Sep. 30 in the Washington Post.
Navalny has often been accused of being a Russian imperialist himself and failing to condemn more forcefully Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, annexation of its territory and denial of its right to exist as a sovereign state with its distinct Ukrainian nation.
But now, while sharing his thoughts on the need to democratize Russia and transform it into a parliamentary republic, he has spoken out very clearly on the key questions concerning Ukraine and relations with the West.
“The issue of postwar Russia should become the central issue — and not just one element among others — of those who are striving for peace,” he writes. “No long-term goals can be achieved without a plan” to ensure that “Russia must cease to be an instigator of aggression and instability.”
To his credit, Navalny candidly acknowledges the central role of Ukraine in this regard and the critical need to change the prevalent Russian attitudes towards it.
“Jealousy of Ukraine and its possible successes is an innate feature of post-Soviet power in Russia; it was also characteristic of the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. But since the beginning of Putin’s rule, and especially after the Orange Revolution that began in 2004, hatred of Ukraine’s European choice, and the desire to turn it into a failed state, have become a lasting obsession not only for Putin but also for all politicians of his generation,” Navalny stresses.
He goes even further, acknowledging that “Control over Ukraine is the most important article of faith for all Russians with imperial views, from officials to ordinary people. In their opinion, Russia combined with a subordinate Ukraine amounts to a ‘reborn U.S.S.R. and empire.’ Without Ukraine, in this view, Russia is just a country with no chance of world domination. Everything that Ukraine acquires is something taken away from Russia.”
Russia’s war against Ukraine, Navalny continues, has raised “Putin’s approval rating by super-mobilizing the imperially minded part of society. The news agenda is fully consumed by the war; internal problems recede into the background: ‘Hurray, we’re back in the game, we are great, they’re reckoning with us!’”
The Russian oppositionist realizes that “The war with Ukraine was started and waged, of course, by Putin, trying to solve his domestic political problems.” But here he makes an important point: “the real war party is the entire elite and the system of power itself, which is an endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind. External aggression in any form, from diplomatic rhetoric to outright warfare, is its preferred mode of operation, and Ukraine is its preferred target.”
Russia’s “self-generated imperial authoritarianism is the real curse of Russia and the cause of all its troubles,” he concludes.
Navalny ends his unexpectedly forthright and penetrating thoughts about the dangerous perennial Russian malaise and how it should be treated with the following advice and prescription:
“While I commend European leaders for their ongoing success in supporting Ukraine, I urge them not to lose sight of the fundamental causes of war. The threat to peace and stability in Europe is aggressive imperial authoritarianism, endlessly inflicted by Russia upon itself…. Only a parliamentary republic can prevent this. It is the first step toward transforming Russia into a good neighbor that helps to solve problems rather than create them.”
With this new powerful piece in the Washington Post Navalny may well have restored his credentials as a credible leader of the Russian opposition seeking to fundamentally transform Russia into a democracy, good neighbor and respectable member of the international community.
Fingers crossed that this provocative piece from Putin’s best known political priosoner will stimulate reflection and action in Russia itself.
See “Alexei Navalny: This is what a post-Putin Russia should look like” as published in the Washington Post here.
There is also a Russian version.
