Overthrow Putin & Give Back Crimea: What Was Proposed at the “Free Russia Forum”

Garry Kasparov, former chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, (which organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum and trains “democracy activists”), sits on the Permanent Committee of the Free Russia Forum with Ilya Ponomarev. Mikhail Khodorkovsky has spoken at both the Free Russia Foundation and Oslo Freedom Forum.

One of the most interesting discussion panels of the FRF was entitled “The right to revolt: prospects for non-violent revolutions”. Its participants drew attention to the fact that a large number of dissatisfied demonstrators is not a reliable guarantee of regime change. This was clearly demonstrated by Venezuela and Belarus.

“It is impossible to remove dictatorships like Putin’s or Lukashenko’s regime by peaceful means in our time,” agreed sociologist Igor Eidman. Moreover, in Belarus, he observes the strengthening of the current government: protest activity is not increasing, the president is winning back his position.

The moderator of this bloc Ivan Tyutrin summed up the disappointing results: “The current discussion showed that if you remove the emotional component, but instead make calculations and analyse the experience of other countries, it seems to me, unfortunately, in a situation where you are dealing with a strict authoritarian regime, purely non-violent methods do not lead to the desired results. If the security forces are consolidated, if the elites do not disintegrate and as a result of pressure, there are no plots against the dictator, there are actually not so many mechanisms for bringing the revolution to its logical end. Especially when the existing regime is ready to go all the way”.

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But the former vice-president of Yukos, Leonid Nevzlin, did not restrain himself and recommended that Belarusians attack the security forces.
“I really liked the Kyrgyz version, when they surrounded the riot police with a crowd and beat them properly. Because there are still a lot more people, and in a close engagement, neither weapons, nor gas, nothing matters; they just need to be taken and beaten, because there are a lot more people, but, unfortunately, Belarusian people are not as aggressive as Kyrgyz people,” Nevzlin said.

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Former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev spoke at the panel session “The Kremlin’s foreign policy strategy in modern conditions”. Here, perhaps, is his deepest thought: the main task of the Nord Stream 2 project is to strengthen the geopolitical position of … Germany, which allegedly acts as the main lobbyist for Putin’s economic interests in the west.

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“It is well known that with the perturbations that are waiting for us, it is very likely that some territories will withdraw from the Russian Federation. It is clear that the withdrawal of the North Caucasus looks very likely, and the formation of the Ural Republic is less likely, but all this is possible,” said Leonid Gozman, President of the Union of Right Forces. In an effort to “dismember” Russia, he suggests that the constitution prescribe specific mechanisms for the withdrawal of territories from the country.

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The forum creator Garry Kasparov went the farthest when he decided to speculate about the fate of Crimea. Other liberals (for example, Kseniya Sobchak) talk about the need to hold a new referendum on the peninsula. But Kasparov thinks otherwise. Who needs these democratic procedures?

“There should be no referendums. The transition period should in no way be accompanied by negotiations — there is nothing to negotiate over. The decision to return Crimea to Ukraine’s control must be made immediately,” the chess player said.

Related:

The Free Russia Forum is an independent platform for Russia’s opposition to discuss issues of Russian and international politics, as well as to develop solutions for bringing Russia out of its current political, economic and civilizational crisis.

The key focus of the Forum is the formation of an intellectual alternative to Putin’s regime, which would create the framework for building a new Europe-oriented Russia.

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Regular participants and guests of the Forum include:

Garry Kasparov, Vytautas Landsbergis (first President of Lithuania), David Satter (USA), Arkady Babchenko, Andrey Piontkovsky, Vladimir Ashurkov, Marat Gelman, Andrey Illarionov, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Alfred Koch, Ilya Ponomarev, Artemy Troicky, Mark Feygin, Maria Alekhina, Evgeny Kiselev, Evgenya Chirikova, representatives of Belarus, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Germany and many others.

As of 2018, the governing body of the Free Russia Forum is the Standing Committee. Following a secret ballot, 11 individuals were elected members of the Standing Committee of the Free Russia Forum: Vladimir Ashurkov, Marat Gelman, Andrey Illarionov, Garry Kasparv, Danil Konstantinov, Leonid Nevzlin, Ilya Ponomarev, Andrey Sidelnikov, Ivan Tyutrin, Mark Feygin and Evgenya Chirikova.

The Free Russia Forum is the largest platform of Russia’s opposition outside of the Russian Federation. Hundreds of civil activists are involved in the Forum’s work, including residents of Russia and those who have emigrated. They include activists from over 50 regions of Russia, representing various opposition and human rights organizations, including the PARNAS party, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia, Alexei Navalny’s team, the Yabloko party, the Memorial Human Rights Centre, and many others.

— About the forum

In December 2019, representatives of the Free Russia Forum Andrey Illarionov, Ilya Ponomarev and Ivan Tyutrin presented the updated Putin List to the US Congress and several other American departments. As one of the delegation members, Ivan Tyutrin, said, special attention was paid to the “Moscow case” in the updated report. Forum representatives plan to convey information about the next political process in Russia, naming by name the people responsible for the violent dispersal of peaceful demonstrations and fabrication of criminal cases against civil activists.^[38][39]

— Wikipedia