Liberal Russian Opposition Must Think about What a New Muscovy will Be Rather than Back Kremlin’s Imperialism, Tatarstan Exile Government Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 27 – The liberal Russian opposition has refused to recognize the right of regions and republics within the current borders of the Russian Federation to become independent state or to think about what the new Muscovite state that will remain will look like and how it will relate to the other new states around it, Tatarstan’s government in exile says.

            In an open letter to the exile Congress of Peoples’ Deputies, the exile regime points out that Tatarstan as well as many other places now under Moscow’s rule “will not be a part of the Russian Federation no matter how wonderful and legal” the opposition says it will produce (abn.org.ua/en/documents/the-open-letter-from-the-government-of-independent-tatarstan-in-exile-to-the-congress-of-peoples-deputies/).

            The exile government says it has been deceived by Moscow leaders far too often to accept their promises and reminds everyone that what is called the Russian opposition is in fact the Moscow opposition because almost all of its leaders come from within the ring road and project the values of the capital on everyone else.

            Rather than following the Kremlin line and trying to maintain the current borders of the country, something that will be possible only by totalitarian means, the Moscow opposition should “begin to formulate the future policy of your Moscow State for yourselves and think about the principles of establishing  friendly relations” with its new neighbors.

            These relations, the Tatarstan exile leadership says, must be entirely different than the colonial ones now in place because “Moscow will no longer have the resources and taxes” that it has routinely taken from regions beyond the beltway and not returned. Instead, it will have to make its own way in the world, something that won’t be easy.