Staunton, April 13 – Political emigres
have long played a much greater role in Russia and especially in Russian
thinking than in other countries, the result among other things of the fact that
Lenin and a tiny band of emigres returned from abroad in 1917 and in the space
of a few months carried out a revolution.
Now, as a result of Vladimir Putin’s
increasing repression at home, ever more Russians are choosing to leave the
country not simply for better economic opportunities as was true during the
first post-Soviet years but for political reasons. And they are increasingly
the focus of Moscow’s concerns and attacks.
In today’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta,”
Aleksey Gorbachev, that Moscow paper’s political observer, discusses this unfortunate
if not unexpected development and points out that “opposition figures who go
abroad are now being accused of organizing color revolutions” and even being
charged in absentia in Russian courts (ng.ru/politics/2015-04-13/3_emigranty.html).
Last
Friday, without either the accused or his lawyer being present, Pavel
Shekhtman, who has emigrated to Ukraine, was “arrested” in absentia by a Moscow
court. Also last week, Finland gave political asylum to Andrey Romanov,
formerly of Magnitogorsk. Both were accused of extremism because of their
pro-Ukrainian posts on social networks.
Olga
Kurnosova, a leader of the Russian political refugees in Kyiv – and there are
now enough of them that one can speak of such a position, told “Nezavisimaya
gazeta” that Moscow is seeking to “accuse many of those who have left Russia of
making plans for a color revolution” in their homeland.
Shekhtman,
who had been under house arrest in Russia, fled to Ukraine where he sought
political asylum because he was threatened with up to five years in Russian
prison camps for web posts asserting that Russian soldiers have been “killing
Ukrainian prisoners who refuse to make declarations on Russian channels.”
He
says that he “will return to Russia only if the [Putin] regime falls.”
Romanov
faced similar charges and an order for his arrest was issued last December, but
before it could be acted upon. The Magnitogorsk internet activist fled together
with his family to Finland. On Friday, a
Finnish immigration court informed him that he had been granted political
asylum in that country, a status which means he won’t be handed over to Russian
officials.
The
increasing number of such political emigres, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” writer
says, has not passed unnoticed by the Russian authorities. Moscow has deployed
not only diplomatic and law-like means but also launched media campaigns in the
countries to which they have fled, accusing them of fomenting a revolution at
home and threatening bilateral ties.
This
campaign is clearly “coordinated,” Kurnosova says from Kyiv. And she notes that
when she and others in her status try to speak via internet telephone with
their friends in Russia, the connections are jammed with the same kind of “music”
that the KGB used against Western radio stations in Soviet times.
Konstantin
Kalachev, head of the Moscow Political Expert Group, told the newspaper that in
his view, suggestions that those who have emigrated are plotting a color
revolution is “the only argument which the authorities can advance to justify
the fact that people who think differently have been forced to leave the
country.”
“If
people who think differently did not exist, they would have to be invented to
justify the fact that they are being forced to leave the country. The theme of
a color revolution in Russia today sounds like unreal science fiction. But the
siloviki prefer to protect themselves” by pushing people out and thus
justifying what the organs are doing.
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