PSCRP-BESA Reports No. 134 (June 16, 2025)
U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to end the Russia–Ukraine war within a short timeframe have yet to materialize. In recent days, media outlets across various countries have been actively discussing the following statement from the U.S. president: “I’ve always said that he [Putin] wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”
Accordingly, growing concerns are emerging globally that the only way to prevent the expansion of the war into NATO member states bordering Ukraine may be the collapse of the current Russian regime.
The German government’s decision to implement a “new form of military-industrial cooperation” between Ukraine and Germany—particularly by lifting restrictions on the use of German-manufactured long-range missiles against military targets deep within Russian territory—marks a shift, at least among part of Ukraine’s Western allies, in their goals regarding the support they provide to the embattled country. That goal is now evolving from merely preventing Ukraine’s defeat to actively seeking the military defeat of the aggressor state, the Russian Federation. It appears that the slogan launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the fall of last year, “Make Russia small again” is turning into a practical guide to action.
In such a context, both Ukraine and the broader Western alliance must consider the need to develop a coherent policy regarding the various movements proposing postwar reorganization plans for Russia and its constituent regions. The Ukrainian intellectual and political elite, to a certain extent, have already formed a position on this matter. Based on the author’s direct engagement with representatives of this elite, it can be confidently stated that the idea of Russia’s disintegration as a strategic goal enjoys considerable popularity among them.
This perspective was, in the author’s view, clearly articulated in an interview with the Ukrainian analytical website Ukraїner by Volodymyr Viatrovych, a Member of Parliament from the opposition party European Solidarity (formerly the Petro Poroshenko Bloc), former head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, and, since August 2023, Secretary of the Temporary Special Commission on the Issues of the Enslaved Peoples of Russia, established by the Ukrainian parliament: “I am convinced that supporting the enslaved peoples of the Russian Federation is a strategy for Ukraine’s victory. I see no alternative. Even reaching the 1991 borders or joining NATO will not eliminate the threat from Russia. As long as it remains an empire that subjugates other nations on such a scale, it will pose a threat to Ukraine. A reboot of this empire—its transformation into a collection of national, democratic states—is in our direct interest. This is what will truly guarantee security for future generations.” At the same time, representatives of the ruling Servant of the People party, as far as I am aware, have not yet publicly expressed themselves as directly on the idea of the Russian Federation’s disintegration.
As for the Russian opposition, which is making its voice heard in the media and on social networks—and most of which is in exile in the West, and in some cases in Israel—the position of the majority of Ukrainian society and elites toward them is clearly negative. In particular, Ukrainians find unacceptable the Russian opposition’s narrative that the full-scale aggression against Ukraine is “Putin’s war” rather than a war waged by Russians as a whole.
In this context, a Telegram post by Garry Kasparov, published on April 16, 2025, has recently been widely quoted.
In it, he wrote, among other things, “The position of many of my fellow exiles is indefensible. This constant effort to keep their white gloves clean—’we had nothing to do with it’—is bewildering. You did have something to do with it. We are all in this shit, and this shit is on all of us. Stop pretending you had no part in it. The longer you pretend, the more complicit you become in Putin’s crimes. With every Russian strike on Ukraine, the shameful lie of ‘Putin’s war’ crumbles to dust. This is not Putin’s war. This is Russia’s war. Stop lying to the West that there is an anti-war movement in Russia. There are a few decent people who remain silent. But they are still only a handful in the grand scheme. Some are in prison—but even they didn’t end up there because they dreamed of heroism.”
It is worth emphasizing that the former world chess champion considers himself a Russian opposition figure, despite the fact that his connection to Russia is complex. He was born in Azerbaijan, is half Jewish and half Armenian, has not lived in Russia since 2013, and has held Croatian citizenship since 2014. Perhaps partly for this reason, Kasparov stands out rather sharply from among the so-called “good Russians” — those who criticize Putin’s policies while denying the collective responsibility of Russian society for them and strongly opposing the idea of Russia’s potential decolonization or disintegration. In any case, the term “good Russians,” which emerged in 2022, has become a negative meme in Ukraine.
As for Ukraine’s Western partners, they have so far been reluctant to take seriously the organizations and movements advocating for the decolonization or disintegration of the Russian Federation and for the creation of independent states in its place, whether on ethnic or regionalist grounds. A number of such organizations and movements are united under the League of Free Nations, which was established in the spring of 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine. The League’s first congress was held in April 2024 in Estonia. It was attended by several Estonian politicians, though not by official representatives of the country’s government.
Despite the clear ineffectiveness of the “metropolitan” Russian opposition—the very same “good Russians”—Western partners continue to allocate grants to support their activities. Undoubtedly, this is partly due to the fact that such opposition figures as the late Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Ilya Yashin are far better known in the West, and their declared goal of democratizing Russia aligns with familiar Western narratives and expectations. However, inertia also plays a role. The collective West, which has begun taking steps that could lead to the defeat of the Russian Federation, has yet to determine its stance on what might happen within Russia in the event of such a defeat.
It seems likely that before long, while continuing to provide a certain level of support to the “metropolitan” Russian opposition, the West will also begin assisting movements advocating for the decolonization or disintegration of the Russian Federation—perhaps at first without public fanfare, in order to maintain at least the appearance of hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the current Russian regime.
In the interview quoted above, Volodymyr Viatrovych, speaking about the need to support national liberation movements of Russia’s subjugated peoples, specifically noted: “This does not mean that in the future, when independent states emerge from the ruins of the Russian Empire, we will have only friendly, neighborly relations with all of them. But in the current situation, the reconfiguration of Russia is our strategic interest.”
This statement by a Ukrainian politician is logical from the perspective of a state literally fighting for its survival and therefore compelled to form temporary alliances, including with forces that do not necessarily share the values of Western democracy—values to which today’s Ukraine, and in particular the European Solidarity party, declares its commitment.
In theory, newly formed states created by such forces may, due to their ideology or civilizational orientation, become sources of serious challenges for the collective West, of which Ukraine sees itself as a part. However, that is not Ukraine’s current concern. Ukraine’s Western partners, by contrast, are in a fundamentally different position. They do not currently face an immediate threat to their statehood and still have some time and capacity to develop a more nuanced and differentiated approach to the various movements and organizations advocating for the decolonization or disintegration of the Russian Federation.
Expanding on Viatrovych’s point that Ukraine’s relations with some of the new states that may emerge from the ruins of the current Russian Federation could prove far from ideal, one can reasonably assume that the largest and most significant of these entities might be a new Russia—an ethnic Russian state that has lost a substantial, if not the greater, part of its former territory, along with much of the natural resources it once controlled. This would be a state burdened with reparations and other consequences of military defeat, a state afflicted by ressentiment, and one that lays claim to the legacy of the current Russian Federation, just as the current Russian Federation claims to be the successor of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.
It is highly unlikely that the liberal “metropolitan” opposition figures currently living abroad will be able to take the reins of such a state. And even if they were to succeed in doing so, they would have to take into account the sentiments of the wider population in order to maintain power—either by aligning their behavior accordingly or at least by issuing statements that resonate with the prevailing public mood. It is no coincidence that these opposition figures (Kasparov being a notable exception) have so far withheld support from Ukraine—and especially from the Ukrainian Armed Forces—since doing so would cast them as collaborators or “Russophobes” in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of Russians, who broadly support the chauvinist rhetoric and aggressive political course of the current Russian regime.
Far more likely is the prospect that power in this hypothetical “ethnic Russia” would be seized by forces such as the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is currently fighting alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces and whose members predominantly adhere to a radical nationalist ideology. Because of this, it cannot be ruled out that future tensions may arise between them and their current Ukrainian comrades-in-arms.
In addition, in some of the hypothetical new post-Russian states, the influence of radical Islam will undoubtedly be significant—something that could potentially pose challenges for both Ukraine and the collective West. This is especially likely in regions of the current Russian Federation where “ethnic Muslims” constitute an overwhelming majority of the population and where the influence of Muslim radicals is already strong—most notably in Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia. It appears that the greatest potential for establishing states that align with Western democratic standards lies with the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga region (the Komi, Udmurts, Mari, Erzya, Moksha), as well as the Chuvash, Kalmyks, Yakuts, and regionalist movements primarily oriented around ethnic Russians.
At the same time, not all national liberation movements of traditionally Muslim peoples should be automatically regarded as potential threats to Western democracies. Often, much will depend on who supports these movements—and thus who exerts the greatest influence over them: the West or fundamentalist Islamic states. Should these movements—and the national identities of the corresponding peoples—be shaped primarily by ethnicity and language rather than by religion, there is every reason to believe they, too, could establish “national, democratic states.”
This argument applies especially to the Circassian, Tatar, and Bashkir national movements. At this stage, even the names of the largest indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation may sound somewhat exotic as potential historical actors. Nevertheless, it seems increasingly clear that real-world policymaking already requires close attention to the ethno-political dynamics of the post-Soviet space.