Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 8 – Ivan Tyutrin, one of the co-founders of the Free Russian Forum, says that Russia needs a new flag given that Vladimir Putin by his aggression in Ukraine has forever linked the tricolor with imperialist aggression, and the Vilnius-based Russian activist proposes a new, white-blue-white one.
The Forum since its founding has insisted that for Russia to move forward it must break out of its imperial matrix, the Russian activist and historian originally from Tomsk says (forumfreerussia.org/main/2022-03-08/novyj-flag-svobodnoj-rossii and forumfreerussia.org/articles/2022-03-07/rossijskij-trikolor-zapyatnan-krovyu).
Until recently, Tyutrin continues, this task seemed impossible in the near future; but “the actions of the insane Russian dictator have changed the situation in a cardinal way. The war he has unleashed against Ukraine will inevitably lead to his ultimate defeat beyond which will follow the collapse of Russian statehood” as currently organized.
“With his own hands, Putin and his accomplices have driven a nail in the lid of the coffin of the Russian Empire and condemned ‘the Third Rome’ to rapid destruction.” On the rubble of this state will have to be formed “a new state” and this will require a broad range of new institutions and new symbols, including “a new hymn, a new coat of arms, and a new flag.”
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has “forever transformed the Russian tricolor into a symbol of military aggression and the loss and suffering of a peaceful population.” In its place, Russians must raise e a new flag, a white-blue-white one, which is “a symbol of the struggle against Russian military aggression and of solidarity with the heroic people of Ukraine.”
“It is completely possible,” Tyutrin says, “that in a short time this flag will become the state symbol of a new, free and democratic Russia.”
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