The Russian Opposition and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)

PSCRP-BESA Reports No 162 (October 28, 2025)

On October 1, 2025, during its plenary session in Strasbourg, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) decided to establish a platform for dialogue with Russian democratic forces. This platform is intended to serve as a forum for exchanging views and “addressing issues of mutual interest” between the Assembly and the Russian opposition. It will be personally chaired by the President of PACE. Participants in this platform will be granted certain rights — they will be able to attend meetings of committees and subcommittees, as well as events held within PACE sessions, and may address them with the President’s permission.

Given that Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine — which poses a direct threat to the security of all Europe — has continued for almost four years, this long-awaited decision appears both timely and necessary.

The Russian Federation became a member of PACE in 1996, during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. Despite criticism from other PACE members over human rights violations — particularly during the Second Chechen War — Russia remained for many years one of the organization’s five principal sponsors. In 2014, following the onset of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the Russian delegation to PACE was stripped of several key powers. Russian representatives were no longer allowed to hold leadership positions in PACE or participate in its monitoring committees.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its membership in PACE was first suspended and then completely terminated. Thus, the decision to establish a dialogue platform with the Russian opposition can be viewed as the creation of a kind of “alternative Russia” within PACE.

At a time when the Russian Federation has for years been waging a hybrid war against the collective West — and particularly against the European Union — through its agents of influence and active interference in European political processes, granting a form of official recognition to the anti-government Russian diaspora, even if only in the form of limited representation within PACE, amounts to a declaration of intent by collective Europe to support political change in Russia.

However, since the Russian opposition in exile — unlike, for example, the Belarusian opposition — cannot boast of any real unity, the question immediately arose as to which groups and political figures would benefit from the PACE plenary decision, and which would lose out. The PACE Special Rapporteur on relations with Russian democratic forces, Estonian MP Eerik-Niiles Kross, is well aware of the constant infighting that has long plagued the Russian opposition abroad. Therefore, the aforementioned PACE resolution includes an appeal to Russian opposition members in exile to unite in order to “defend democratic change in the Russian Federation and (…) support Ukrainians in their struggle against the aggressor state in various ways.” In this context, it is worth noting that this vague wording (“support in various ways” — what exactly does that mean?) is by no means accidental.

While the Belarusian opposition in exile openly and actively supports Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression — and does not conceal its ties with the Belarusian Kastus Kalinouski Regiment fighting within the Ukrainian Armed Forces — the vast majority of Russian opposition activists abroad refuse to support the Ukrainian army, including the Russian Volunteer Corps “Freedom of Russia” that fights on Ukraine’s side, and generally avoid expressing strong public support for Ukraine. This is due to their fear that such support would make them appear to ordinary Russians as “traitors” or “collaborators with the enemy,” which could politically damage them in the future when attempting to lead the so-called “beautiful Russia of the future.”

Given all of the above, the PACE resolution sets out a number of requirements for potential participants in the platform — including a firm condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other countries. In addition, they are required to sign the “Berlin Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces,” adopted by a large group of Russian opposition figures in April 2023. Incidentally, shortly after the adoption of the PACE resolution, the FSB announced that it had opened a criminal case against members of the “Anti-War Committee of Russia,” accusing them of preparing a “violent seizure of power and the creation of, or participation in, a terrorist organization.” It was reported that the reason for initiating this case was precisely the signing of the “Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces” in 2023.

The initiator of the Berlin congress at which the declaration was adopted was Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Thus, he and the organizations associated with him — the “Russian Action Committee,” the “Russian Anti-War Committee,” the “Free Russia Forum,” as well as politicians he supports, particularly Vladimir Kara-Murza — are the main beneficiaries of the creation of this platform. The main losers, by contrast, are Yulia Navalnaya and her team (the Anti-Corruption Foundation, FBK), who did not sign the “Berlin Declaration” at the time.

In addition, as might have been expected based on previous experience, disputes immediately arose among members of the Russian opposition in exile who had signed the “Berlin Declaration” — and who therefore met PACE’s requirement for participation in the platform — over who should lead this representation of the Russian opposition (albeit unofficially, since, as mentioned earlier, the platform itself will be chaired by the President of PACE). For now, it appears that the favorite for this informal leadership role is Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., who called PACE’s decision to establish the platform “historic.”

According to Ilya Yashin, who was released from a Russian prison at the same time as Kara-Murza, the latter should head the platform on behalf of the Russian opposition, as he “possesses undeniable moral authority and international experience.” However, not everyone agrees with this view. In particular, Russian opposition figures Maxim Katz, who resides in Israel and holds Israeli citizenship, and Leonid Volkov, who lives in Lithuania — both of whom, unlike Kara-Murza and Yashin, have not served prison time in Russia and are therefore significantly less known in the West — spoke out against what they described as “self-appointment” and proposed holding elections among opposition-minded Russians. In their view, without such a selection procedure, the opposition’s delegation would represent no one and risk turning into “a circus with horses.” However, it remains unclear who exactly falls under the vague definition of “opposition-minded Russians” and how such elections could be organized among them.

These disputes within the Russian opposition in exile once again highlight its disorganization and helplessness. If the disagreements and conflicts surrounding PACE’s decision to create the platform were limited to this internal squabbling, they would hardly merit much attention. But there is a much more serious issue connected to this decision — namely, how European policymakers envision the day after: the real, desirable outcome of efforts to end the current prolonged cycle of tension in Europe caused by Russian aggression — both the direct military aggression against Ukraine and the hybrid war against other European states.

For the day after to come, a change of political regime in Russia is essential. And judging by all indications, European policymakers already understand this. The very fact that PACE adopted a decision to establish a platform for engagement with the Russian opposition serves as indirect evidence of this understanding. However, at least theoretically, there are two basic scenarios for regime change in Russia:

1. Its “reset” — meaning the dismantling of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime and the creation in its place of a democratic and liberal system of governance, which the late Alexei Navalny once referred to as “the beautiful Russia of the future.”
2. The disintegration of the Russian Federation in its current form and the emergence in its place of a number of independent states along ethnic or regional lines — what supporters of this approach call “decolonization.”

Both the supporters of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and those of Yulia Navalnaya, as well as other, less prominent influencers within the “metropolitan” mainstream of the Russian opposition in exile, see the first scenario as the desirable and, in essence, the only possible version of the day after. However, they are no longer the only players in this field.

Against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s harsh policy of forced Russification of national minorities, and as a reaction to it, the national liberation movements of Russia’s indigenous peoples have become significantly more active since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is particularly evident in the activities of their representatives in exile. In their political work, these movements receive substantial support from Ukraine, whose political leadership takes a notably critical view of the “metropolitan” Russian opposition abroad — often referred to in Ukrainian media, with a note of skepticism and disdain, as “good Russians.”

Over the past several years, the Ukrainian authorities have adopted a series of legal acts explicitly aimed at supporting the national liberation movements of Russia’s indigenous peoples seeking independence from it:

1. In October 2022, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law recognizing the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria as an independent state temporarily occupied by Russia. Ukraine thus became the first UN member state to officially recognize Ichkeria.
2. In August 2023, the Verkhovna Rada established a special commission to work with the enslaved peoples of Russia.
3. In January 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree “On the Territories of the Russian Federation Historically Populated by Ukrainians.” Since ethnic Ukrainians have long been native to significant areas of Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov regions, as well as the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, they can undoubtedly also be considered one of Russia’s indigenous peoples.
4. In January 2025, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution recognizing the genocide of the Circassian people committed by Russia during the nineteenth-century Caucasian War. A similar resolution had been passed by the Georgian parliament in 2011. The practical significance of such resolutions lies in the international legitimization of the Circassian national movement’s demands for the repatriation to the North Caucasus of millions of descendants of Circassian muhajirs currently living in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and other countries — and for the creation of a Circassian state on the territories of Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar Krai, Adygea, and Karachay-Cherkessia that are now or were historically inhabited by Circassians.

Demonstrating that it clearly favors the second basic scenario for regime change in Russia — namely, its “decolonization” — Ukraine is actively using the levers of political influence at its disposal within international organizations to bring the issue of “Russia’s decolonization” onto the global agenda. The goal is to ensure that on the day after, Russia will no longer pose a military threat to its neighbors, having lost its imperial character.

As a result of Ukrainian diplomatic efforts in this direction, the following provision appeared in the aforementioned PACE resolution: “It will be necessary to address the issue of overcoming the colonial legacy of the Russian Federation, including the problems and interests of the indigenous and colonized peoples living within the territories of the subjects of the Russian Federation. The Assembly seeks to facilitate the establishment of an appropriate format for dialogue between its members, participants of the Platform, and representatives of Russian national groups.”

According to Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov, who took part in the negotiations with PACE concerning the creation of the platform for contacts with the Russian opposition, “this amendment was successfully introduced by the Ukrainian delegation on the last day. PACE deputies could not resist the emotional charge of their colleagues and allies from wartime Ukraine.”

It seems that PACE has not yet made a definitive choice between the two basic day after scenarios but has already moved away from its previous, unambiguous preference for the first option — and from its near-complete disregard of the second, once considered too radical. In this context, an attempt was made to merge the two mutually exclusive narratives by allocating a certain quota of seats within the future platform to representatives of national minorities.

Undoubtedly, among supporters of the “metropolitan” mainstream of the Russian opposition in exile, there are also members of Russia’s indigenous non-Russian peoples who are either fully integrated into the broader Russian opposition narrative or willing to settle for the promise of meaningful autonomy for their peoples within “the beautiful Russia of the future.” However, these cosmetic concessions in no way satisfy the advocates of Russia’s disintegration.

In this regard, the League of Free Nations (FNL) — an alliance of national liberation movements of Russia’s indigenous peoples advocating full independence and supported by Ukraine — issued a special statement on October 17 containing seven points:

1. “Our peoples are not part of the so-called ‘Russian democratic opposition.’ We do not seek to be part of the ‘Russian people’ and do not link our future with the ‘Russian state’ — neither in its current form nor in any reformed version. Our political and historical goal is liberation from Moscow’s colonial control and the establishment of our own independent national states.
2. Russian oligarchs and former officials now in exile have neither the moral nor the political right to speak on behalf of all the peoples living within the territory of the Russian Federation. Their attempts to once again claim the right of representation are a continuation of imperial practice, in which everything ‘non-Russian’ must submit to the ‘center.’
3. The Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Sakha, Buryats, and dozens of other peoples possess their own political subjectivity. We are not an appendage to the projects of Russian chauvinists — whether in the Kremlin or in exile. Any format of a ‘united Russian opposition’ that fails to recognize the right of our peoples to self-determination is merely a continuation of colonial logic under a new flag.
4. We see signs that another opportunity is being given to Russian forces to build a ‘democratic Russia,’ but this experiment could be the last for our peoples. Give us a chance. We want to, we must survive — help us. We want to be part of the free, civilized world, not Moscow’s subjects, regardless of who sits on the throne: tsar, emperor, general secretary, or president!
5. The League of Free Nations is ready for direct and independent dialogue with PACE, without the mediation of the Russian opposition. We insist that the voices of the indigenous peoples be heard directly and reflect the true diversity of the post-Russian space.
6. Ethnic Russians living in our national republics and regions are part of the future dialogue. We are open to the participation of all who recognize the right of our peoples to independence, self-determination, and peaceful development.
7. The League of Free Nations expects direct consultations with PACE and remains open to cooperation with other international organizations, including the Organization of Turkic States, the OSCE, and the European Parliament. We are ready for a constructive discussion on the paths to decolonization and the creation of new, independent states that threaten no one, on the territories currently under Moscow’s control.”

The statement quoted above was delivered not only by the main spokesperson of the FNL, Syres Bolyaen, leader of the Erzya national movement, but also by representatives of the Circassian (Rustam Khuazhev), Yakut (Raisa Zubareva), Buryat (Dorjo Dugarov), and Bashkir (Ruslan Gabbasov) national movements. This was intended to emphasize the unity of the peoples subjugated by Russia in their common struggle for decolonization.

It is still difficult to say whether PACE will respond to the demands of the FNL and of Ukraine, which supports it, or whether an alternative platform for contacts between PACE and the national liberation movements of Russia’s indigenous peoples will be established in the foreseeable future. However, it is already clear that, alongside the evident split within the Russian “metropolitan” opposition in exile, the sharp criticism of the PACE platform from supporters of Russia’s disintegration will serve as a powerful factor in delegitimizing both the platform itself and the Russian “metropolitan” opposition in exile as a whole.