Opinion: The Imperial Test for the Russian Opposition

The adoption of the PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) resolution establishing a platform for dialogue with the Russian opposition, based on the model of PACE cooperation with Belarusian opposition, has sparked mixed reactions.

For the Ukrainian delegation, this was undoubtedly an unpleasant development: the lobbying capacity of representatives of the Russian opposition within PACE turned out to be stronger than the arguments presented by the Ukrainian side against returning Russians in any capacity to international politics until the Russian aggression against Ukraine is over.

The main test for the Russian opposition, in PACE or elsewhere, will be the “national question” – its attitude toward the colonial policy on which the Kremlin’s imperial system has rested for centuries. In this context, the Chechen question remains the litmus test of genuine democratic maturity of the Russian opposition.

While other peoples of Russia may speak of internal colonization, the Chechens are, in fact, under occupation. On Oct. 18, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine officially recognized this by adopting a resolution condemning this occupation of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by the Russian Federation.

For the Russian opposition, this decades-long occupation, with all its horrors, is not, and should not be treated as an abstract issue. If it recognizes the Rada’s decision and is willing to build relations with the ChRI on the basis of the Treaty on Peace and the Principles of Relations, signed on May 12, 1997 in the Kremlin by Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Aslan Maskhadov, then this opposition will have a chance for a meaningful future. If it discards the matter, then the concerns of many analysts will be confirmed: despite its change in rhetoric, the Russian opposition in essence does not differ from the imperial thinking of the Kremlin.

Of course, the opposition itself is not homogeneous. For instance, back in 2017 Russian economist Andrei Illarionov, one of the authors of the Berlin Declaration of the Russian Democratic Forces, signed in Brussels, on behalf of the opposition, a joint statement with the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in exile, confirming recognition of the 1997 Treaty and readiness to build relations based on it.

On the other end of the spectrum stands Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose statements remain overtly imperial. In December 2013, when asked about the possible secession of the North Caucasian republics, he said that “war is a very bad thing,” but that he was personally ready to fight for the territorial integrity of Russia, and even to some extent considered himself a nationalist. In August 2022, already amid the war in Ukraine, Khodorkovsky reaffirmed this stance, stating: “Crimea and Donbas are Ukraine. The North Caucasus is Russia.” And in an interview in May 2024, he admitted that he had financed and materially supported the Russian army and special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Chechen wars, adding that he had supported the decision to conduct the war. When asked by the journalist whether he was aware of the war crimes committed by the Russian army in Chechnya, Khodorkovsky replied affirmatively – and when pressed on why he still financed it, he answered cynically: “They’re ours, after all.”

Meanwhile, the latest version of the Declaration of the Russian Democratic Forces (dated April 30, 2025) explicitly states in paragraph 3: “The pursuit of imperial policy, both domestically and abroad, is unacceptable.”

This forthcoming imperial test will therefore become decisive for the Russian opposition. It will reveal whether we are witnessing the formation of a new democratic culture – or merely a temporary political construct, in which anti-imperial rhetoric remains nothing more than a situational instrument.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.

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