The intellectual collaborationism of the Russian “opposition”

I want to support Garry Kasparov's assessment of the political behavior of Russian activists, who are promoted by certain political circles in the West, such as Yulia Navalnaya, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Ilya Yashin, as intellectual collaborationism. However, in their speeches at the European Parliament, they also demonstrated signs of obvious human stupidity and moral betrayal.

Because nothing other than moral betrayal can describe the call from the widow of anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny to Europeans to reject help from Radio Free Europe in favor of funding Russian media teams that have emigrated. And this is primarily a betrayal of her late husband's memory.

It is a betrayal because Radio Free Europe had not only the opportunity to talk about Navalny’s projects and fate by naming things for what they were and not sugarcoating it with the degrading Russian society and criminalized government, as Russian media — both pro-government and opposition — have done all these years. At the same time, reminding that behind his forgiveness stand not just journalists, but the United States of America itself. And perhaps the realization of this past fact gave Navalny a few extra years of life and his wife a few years of family happiness.

Yes, Radio Free Europe is funded by the U.S. Congress. This is a brilliant invention of the American genius: to tell an authoritarian country about its own problems, supported by the interest of the American people in democracy and truth. How can one not understand this and oppose this invaluable experience to Russian émigré projects? Foolishness, ignorance, or immorality? I don’t understand!

As for Ukraine, I understand everything. The activists and their public servants — from the hysterical, acidic Shenderovich to the melancholic, uneducated Latinina — still demand that Western countries save Ukraine.

But in reality, Ukraine could have been saved not by the West, but by the Russian people — if they were against the war! Meanwhile, it is from this very people, the Russians, that the activists are trying to shift any responsibility for the Kremlin’s crimes — as if it is not Russians who are killing, looting, raping, bombing, supporting, manufacturing deadly weapons, and paying taxes for the war!

Why? Because instead of thinking about saving their own honor and the historical honor of their own country, all these petty and foolish people are thinking about fantastic elections! They don’t think about the Ukrainians dying under bombs or the Russian society that supports the criminal regime. They think about the electorate and the budget. And they don’t see how life in a utopia leads them to moral collapse and intellectual collaborationism.

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About the author: Vitaliy Portnikov, journalist, laureate of Ukraine's Shevchenko National Prize.

The editorial team does not always share the views expressed by blog authors.