There are events in political emigration that you observe with special, almost entomological interest. These are moments when the internal logic of processes breaks down so much that yesterday’s irreconcilable enemies suddenly begin to speak in unison. Such a phenomenon could be observed recently when Leonid Volkov and Maxim Kats — two poles, two antipodes of the Russian opposition universe — voiced almost the exact same thesis word for word: the only legitimate way to form representation in Europe is through elections.
What could have forced these people to come to a common denominator? What force was capable of so distorting the political space-time? Just one document, born within the walls of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
«PACE Resolution 2621 (2025) Russian Democratic Forces». A document that was supposedly conceived as a historical step towards creating a unified platform for dialogue with the exiled opposition, but in fact turned out to be an instruction for its total filtration.
Filtration
At first glance, it is a standard bureaucratic product, full of correct words about democracy, human rights, and support for Ukraine. A document that any «decent émigré» could sign. But if you delve into paragraph 8, titled «Participants in the Russian democratic forces,» the entire construction begins to take on completely new, far more ironic colors.
This is where the points designed to cut off the undesirable are laid out. Take, for example, 8.10. It states that a participant must not have held «any positions in the state bodies of the Russian Federation» after 2014. Or, if they did, they must have «publicly and convincingly» condemned their activities and «contributed to their prosecution.»
This is not just a filter against collaborators. It is a political guillotine for anyone who tried to conduct legal opposition activities in Russia after the annexation of Crimea. Dmitry Gudkov, who openly opposed the annexation of Crimea and refused to participate in the vote, still turns out to be «unclean» by this logic, because he remained within the walls of parliament. This point retroactively declares any attempt to fight within the system not just meaningless, but compromising.
The next barrier is ideological, or more accurately, corporate. Paragraph 8.8 requires candidates to mandatorily sign the «Berlin Declaration.» A document that was originally positioned as a voluntary manifesto for a certain circle of the opposition is turning into a formal pass. This is a direct and unequivocal way to leave FBK (Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation) overboard, as they distanced themselves from this initiative from the very beginning, considering it Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s project.
Despite this, FBK was repeatedly invited to join, they were persuaded, and a special quota was practically reserved for them. Yet, in a parallel reality, Maria Pevchikh publicly laments that no one invited them anywhere, and the whole endeavor is a backstage conspiracy aimed at their, FBK’s, humiliating isolation. And amidst this fucking clown show of mutual claims, a simple but far more indicative question escapes view.
Why is there no place in this structure for Gera Ugryumova, who almost single-handedly builds a real system of assistance for emigrants? The answer is cynically simple: she doesn’t trade faces at conferences and doesn’t belong to closed «committees.» She doesn’t imitate activity for grants, she works hard in the human rights field with her own hands, and not with two illiterate volunteers under her brand of an alpha-omega capable only of posting photos of shit on Twitter and banning everyone who asks questions. The logic is crystal clear: with the big and media-savvy, they are ready to bargain and even tolerate their public lies (e.g., from FBK towards Khodorkovsky), creating the appearance of dialogue. But those who simply do their job do not exist at all for the architects of this system.
Thus, excluded are:
- practically everyone who had experience in legal parliamentary or municipal work in Russia after 2014;
- the largest and best-known opposition organization in the West (whose status is used by various thieves);
- independent civil activists who are not part of the «right» circles.
A logical question arises: for whom, exactly, is this platform being created?
The Architect
The answer to this question is simple and cynical. This platform is being created not for the Russian opposition, but for the European bureaucracy. To understand why, one only needs to look at who its architect is. PACE Special Rapporteur Eerik-Niiles Kross is an Estonian KGB agent, the former head of Estonian intelligence. It is quite obvious that he thinks not in terms of political struggle, but in terms of risk management.
For him, real, live politics with its conflicts and ambitions is not a tool, but a threat. The threat must be neutralized. Therefore, everything political is methodically castrated from the structure: experienced practical politicians are removed, large organizations are isolated, and independent activists are ignored. In their place should come convenient, predictable, and most importantly, manageable cabinet rats.
And the result of this bureaucratic logic is paragraph 10 of the resolution, which reserves one-third of the seats for «indigenous peoples and national minorities.» However, this is by no means about representation. It is about a quota, a checkmark in a diversity report. The cynicism of this mechanism was voiced by the leader of the Chechen national movement «United Force,» Dzhambulat Suleymanov, who stated that these seats are already reserved for «convenient, correct representatives of nationalities,» who will be led in by the organizers themselves.
This is not an organ for political struggle. It is a cynical attempt by the European establishment to cleanse itself of decades of profitable cooperation with the Putin regime by creating a certified, safe, and absolutely pliable sparring partner for dialogue.
The West, which for years pumped petrodollars into the Russian economy and supplied technologies for suppressing protests, is not interested in the emergence of a real, unpredictable, and sovereign Russian political force. It needs a convenient, pre-arranged group of people with whom it can hold conferences, sign memorandums, and take beautiful photos, demonstrating its own moral superiority.
Irony
The irony is that this dead, bureaucratic bullshit has spawned the only, perhaps even live, albeit small, political event in a long time. Its frank anti-democratic nature forced even such antagonists as Volkov and Kats to come to a common denominator and talk about elections — as the only mechanism that could give any representation some kind of legitimacy.
But the architect of this system does not need elections. He doesn’t need legitimacy; he needs pretense. Therefore, what we will get is not a potential «government in exile,» but another «focus group.» A structure that will perfectly represent not the interests of Russians, but the perceptions of European officials about what «good Russians» should be like. Right down to the symbolism: the very requirement to use exclusively the white-blue-white (BSB) flag is not about ideology, but about another convenient filter, a litmus test for sorting into «us» and «them.»
And when the last dispute over the regulations subsides, and this impeccable delegation finally gathers, somewhere in Russia another person will be jailed for a repost. And none of them — neither the one who jails nor the one who is jailed — will ever know that in distant Strasbourg, their common interests are already being represented by very proper, but completely unknown to them, people.
Or rather, they are pretending to represent them.