"Kara-Murzas" to replace "Navalnys". Why is Russian opposition Ukraine's enemy? 

Well, maybe not stars necessarily - at home in Russia their influence is minimal. However, Western elites are clinging to the illusion of democracy in Russia—a narrative they have constructed themselves.

Speaking about the high-profile prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia, the most valuable character for Joe Biden was journalist Evan Gershkovich. 

This child of Soviet Jews who migrated to the United States was put behind bars for nothing. Interestingly, in his pardon letter, he requested an interview with Putin and the Wall Street Journal.

For Putin, the exchange was highly advantageous—indeed, "incredible." The Kremlin's killers and spies were returned to Russia, while Western liberals, who have begun to defend the "great country," were sent to the West.

According to German journalists I know, many people listened to the request to lift sanctions against the Russians here and now, because they are innocent. And many wondered whether it was worth handing over the killer Vadim Krasikov, who shot Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, the hero of the national liberation movement of Ichkeria, in front of Berlin schoolchildren. 

For his first interview, Ilya Yashin—whom I previously knew not for his opposition activities but for his past relationship with Putin's goddaughter Ksenia Sobchak—brought a significant message. He spoke about the hardships faced by sociable FSB special forces operatives, lamenting their difficult "business trips" to Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. Yashin noted with a sense of regret that the situation had reached a dead end. Perhaps, if his new friends had managed to capture Kharkiv, the beleaguered oppositionist might have been more content.

Well, we must finally draw conclusions. We should never invite such clowns to Kyiv and treat them to local delicacies. No matter how generously you treat them, they will continue to search for Nazis and SS flags in Kyiv's Podil district.

Another pocket oppositionist, Andrei Pivovarov, went on a big interview with Current Time TV and immediately showed the nature of a typical Putin larva.

Khodorkovsky's associate said that it was unacceptable for an oppositionist from Russia to support not only the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but also those Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine.

"And maybe these people are not supporters of democratic ideals, but it is unacceptable for me to wish them (the occupiers - author) to die, to help that spread. But I'm not ready to support those people who are fighting against Russia with weapons in their hands," said the "good Russian" Pivovarov. 

The pocket oppositionist also considers it unacceptable when Russians abandon the tricolor, which has become a symbol of Russian aggression. 

"The tricolor is our flag and we cannot give it away. You cannot give it up," the Putin oppositionist said.

What is the moral of these confessions that Russia is hopelessly sick and that the West still has a firm grip on Solzhenitsyn, Steinbeck, and Marvel movies that portray Russians as superheroes, hardworking bees, and sexy spies with the body of Scarlett Johansson? 

This has already happened. And Dmytro Dontsov wrote about it well in his collection Moscow Poison. 

"Every time," Dontsov writes in his article "The Russian Predator - Yesterday and Today," "when Russia faces a new political upheaval, a changing of the guard, a change in its leadership, there is a frenzied advertising of the 'new Russia' around the world... It is worth emphasizing the boundless naiveté of those foreigners and some Ukrainians who still believe in some third, fourth, or tenth Russia, which will surely be free and give freedom to others. Russia does not change, it has been the same for 350 years and it is the same today. Our task is not to fight this or that regime in the USSR, but to fight Russia as such, and its barbaric and violent spirit..."

It is to be expected that the Western media will continue to drag out the effigies of the Russian opposition for the next six months. They will even occasionally suggest that Ukrainian human rights activists and journalists seek reconciliation dialogue on public panels. 

But it's worth remembering once and for all. All these gatherings were possible before 2014. Then they all felt comfortable when Russia was tearing Crimea apart. And when it went to invade the Ukrainian city of Donetsk with tanks. 

They, these public Russians, had already run around Kyiv during the two previous Maidans. They were expressing their views on whose Crimea was and how to move forward with relations with Russia. We remember Sobchak with Krasovsky, who was proposing to strangle Ukrainian children, hugging Yevhen Karas and becoming friends. 

Therefore, the task of every visionary in Ukraine is to convey the idea to Western elites that there is no point in keeping Lenin's corpse in a refrigerator in the hope that it can be revived. 

The Russian mantra that we have the largest territory, and therefore we should be the ones to manage security in Eastern Europe, must be shattered by attempts to increase these territories by genociding the neighbors. 

And finally, since our thinkers and philosophers once gave birth to this monster, gave it shape and color, we have to kill it. Because this project has exhausted itself, and Ukrainians should no longer work for this killing machine. The biggest mistake of the seventeenth century must be corrected so that we have a chance to move forward.

Exclusively for Espreso

About the author: Maryna Danyliuk-Yarmolaieva, journalist

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.