To achieve serious disturbances in Russian society and start the process of disintegration of the last empire of Europe, it is necessary to press on separate sore points specific to each region. Somewhere this will be problems of chaotic construction, somewhere environmental problems.
In a new interview, Oleg Magaletskyi told why the whole civilized world should not only help Ukraine on the battlefield but also actively work on the collapse of Russia and what painful areas of Russian society need to be pressured.
Saint Petersburg. “Ingria will be free”
— Which regions should be focused on to push Russia to collapse?
Changes in certain regions of Russia can trigger cascading effects across the country.
You don’t have to go far in history for examples to understand how this will happen. During the last 100 years, the same events happened twice in this empire. In 1991, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, primarily and to a lesser extent Sakartvelo (Georgia. — Ed.), Ukraine and Azerbaijan waged a national liberation struggle, thanks to which they became independent. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, in which centrifugal movements were not so active, also gained independence.
All this became possible not only thanks to the dissident and national liberation movements in the mentioned already independent states but also thanks to the fact that events related to the GKChP took place in Moscow, the metropolis. Although the People’s Movement advocating independence was active in Ukraine at that time, its supporters were in the minority.
But when the context changed in the metropolis, all those party functionaries, who were part of the imperial vertical structure and bureaucrats of the empire to the extreme, changed their Communist Party badge to the badge of independent Ukraine in three days and voted for the independence of Ukraine.
World practice shows that large cities and capitals play an important role in our industrial society. Any liberation movements in the North Caucasus, in Buryatia, are of course important, they must also be supported, but globally they do not change the picture.
Several large cities can initiate large-scale changes. These are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk. Key cities will be most important.
Changes can hardly start from Moscow, because it is the centre of imperial administration, all the security forces and special services are gathered there, and there is no conventional Yeltsin who could lead the opposition.
The second logical option is St. Petersburg because the construction of an independent state of Ingria is gaining more and more popularity in this region. St. Petersburg is a post-industrial city with a modern, developed economy, home to a creative middle class who are used to traveling to Tallinn and Helsinki more often than to Moscow.
This city has the economic capacity to develop its own state quickly enough and in 10-15 years to reach the same standard of living as Estonia or even Finland. And, most importantly, there is a team of people in this region that sincerely strives and works to provide subjectivity to St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.
Over the last 30 years, an urban subculture of people who have a common vision of the future of the region, their own flag, and mass culture has emerged around this idea. For example, the authors of the popular Russian cartoon “Masyanya” created two videos dedicated to the future, where there is an independent Ingria. The cartoon brought this idea to the masses.
The famous Russian rap artist Oksimiron recorded the track “Oida”, which contains the line “Ingria will be free”. The track has gained 20 million views, and at the artist’s concerts (which take place outside of Russia), the full hall sings these words in unison.
In addition, Ingria is not a national republic, there live those who we can call “ethnic Russians” (yes, this term is a cliché, and the question of who are “ethnic Russians” is still open, but still for clarity I will use this term). If the “ethnically Russian” region is the first to declare independence from Moscow, this may force the rest of the regions to do the same.
Kalmykia Oirat Republic
Another key region could become the Oirat Republic (the colonial name used by the Kremlin to designate this region is Kalmykia). The Oirats are the only people practicing Buddhism in Europe. The Mongoloid nation with a very specific and ancient history, a special culture, which it partially managed to preserve, despite all the acts of genocide. The Oirats, like the Crimean Tatars, were deported in 1944 by order of Stalin, and they remember this historical trauma.
The Oirat Republic is located in an extremely important geopolitical region for us — between the Caspian and Black seas. The independence of this republic will cut off from Russia the entire Caucasus, the Kuban and the Southern Passage to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It will be a state that will be able to unite Ukraine with Kazakhstan.
The territory of the republic itself is not very large. 240,000–270,000 people live there (according to inaccurate Russian statistics), and about half of them live in the capital Elista — 110,000–130,000 people. So, it is a very dense community where everyone knows each other.
In Kalmykia, there is a Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people, which is something similar to the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. The representative body of this republic has existed for several years.
The leaders of the Congress are very educated people, candidates of historical sciences. Some now work in Germany, some are former ministers of the republic, and the whole small population knows them. So the region will be able to quickly ensure the transition of power from the imperial centre of management to an independent state.
In addition to Ingria and the Oirat Republic, there are several other key points that, if separated from Russia, will provoke large-scale changes in the empire. These are the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Bashkortostan, Smolendia (modern Smolensk region) and the Ural Republic.
Active minority
— Do these regions have ideas of secession from Russia? We have a stereotype that the entire Russian society is quite passive, that it cannot protest against the central government and has no self-awareness. So how will they be able to break up Russia?
We cannot look at Russians through the lens of Ukrainian history. We cannot think that Russians, Tatars, Kalmyks or Ingermalans will have their own Maidan. They will not. But it is not needed. The idea of the collapse of Russia doesn’t need to be supported by 70, 50 or even 30 percent of the population. This idea must be supported by 2-3 percent of the passionate minority.
As experience shows, due to the slave mentality that was nurtured on the territory of the Russian Empire, modern residents of Russia are ready to accept anything. Half a year ago, observing the “Prygozhin paradox”, we saw how people quickly came to terms with the fact that the Wagnerites would rule the state. So whether the active minority comes out with the flags of NATO or the flags of the Ingermaland or Oirat Republic, the people will not care.
The majority of the population of Russia are not conscious political citizens. Therefore, it is critical now to cooperate with leaders who can lead the process of separating the states from the empire, so that they can implement it.
It should be remembered that many countries, even more politically mature ones, had a similar situation when they gained independence. 100 years ago, the idea of independence of Latvia and Estonia was supported by dozens, at most, hundreds of people. No one took it seriously, because the statehood of Latvia and Estonia did not exist at that time. The people who first declared the independence of these states were perceived as provocateurs.
Similarly, when Mikhnovsky declared the need to fight for independence on the territory of Ukraine occupied by Russia, it was perceived as some kind of strange idea. In 1916, a year before the announcement of the Third Universal, there was the Brusyliv breakthrough – millions of Ukrainians fought in the tsarist army, and no one then thought about the independence of Ukraine. A year later, everything had changed.
Therefore, we do not need 1 million people to support the idea of separating some regions from Russia, we need to cooperate with organized groups of activists. In Bashkortostan, Kalmykia, Ingria, and the Urals, there are such people, they know that the subjectivity of their regions exists, and they seek independence from Moscow.
Sore points
— When you say “we”, who do you mean? Is it about the Forum of Free Nations, Ukrainian special services or intelligence?
When I say “we”, I am talking about the position of the entire Ukrainian society and the state, including the special services. But the whole civilized world should also deal with this, primarily representatives of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland, because if Russia wins and Ukraine falls, they will be next.
Other countries should also be interested in this because if Russia attacks a NATO country, the rest of the countries of this alliance will be drawn into the war. Russia’s neighbours in the East, such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Japan, should also do this.
They should already establish relations with potential new states. After all, if new states emerge in the eastern and northern regions of Russia, it will be much better if they start cooperating with Japan, the USA and Canada, and not with the People’s Republic of China.
— What are the dividing lines of Russian society and how do losses at the front affect Russian society?
Unfortunately, Russian society is very tolerant of any problems and is ready to endure anything. For example, the inhabitants of Yakutia, which has huge reserves of diamonds, gold, oil and coal, have to cut the ice in the lakes and then melt it to wash, because water and sewage are not provided in some “deeps”. And they tolerate it.
In the same way, losses at the front have almost no effect on the approval of the empire’s actions. Russians still live in their comfortable world “out of politics”. Only when the residents of big cities, instead of going to a restaurant and a nightclub on Friday, go to work at military factories, then something will change for them.
But there are several points at which we can aim to cause a split in Russian society. These are the wives of fallen Russians who are outraged by the loss of their husbands or the lack of payments for their deaths.
We can also put pressure on the middle class, which has a lot to lose. For example, in St. Petersburg, young people are concerned about the chaotic development of the city. In Bashkortostan, the population is worried about environmental problems.
In areas with a low level of education, in particular in Yakutia itself, we can show that it is not necessary to cut the ice in the lakes, which can be different.
Pseudo-opposition
— Then what should the passionate minority do to gain independence? Because I do not see active speeches for independence from the centre. All the opposition activity I see in Russia boils down to calls to vote for anyone but Putin in the next election.
You won’t be able to see it. The opposition you mention is a pseudo-opposition created and controlled in whole or in part by the Russian special services. Their goal is not to change the system, but to change the name of the king.
In addition, they are not the Russian opposition, they are the Moscow opposition, and they look at all Russian territory through an imperial lens. Among these oppositionists, there are no representatives of ethnic minorities in Russia. Even if the current oppositionists were not born in Moscow, they still have a Moscow-centric worldview.
Neither Navalny nor Khodorkovsky are liberal oppositionists, they are representatives of “educated absolutism.” If Putin is a representative of this “Hopov” direction of imperialism and can be compared to Stalin, then what Khodorkovsky and Navalny want to do can be compared to the tsarism of Nicholas II.
Russia has had an authoritarian regime in recent decades. In recent years, especially after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this regime has turned into a totalitarian one. And for any real oppositional activity, they are immediately arrested. Therefore, the way it was during the fall of the Soviet Union when people massively demonstrated in Baku, Vilnius, and Kyiv, held marches and chains of unity, will not happen in Russia now.
Today, the situation is similar to the years 1916–1917, before the collapse of the Russian Empire, when nothing happened, and in February 1917, the tsar was deposed. The empire that existed for 300 years was no more.
It is now important for Ukraine that these entities, which will arise after the collapse of Russia, do not turn into the same states with imperialistic ambitions as the Russian Federation, and do not want to attack us again. Therefore, we need to build connections with potential leaders of new countries and help these countries become successful.
If conditionally independent Ingria will not live like Estonia and Finland after a few dozen years of its independence, and the majority of its population will be nostalgic for life in “great Russia”, if there will be poverty, criminality, and rampant “private military companies”, then to us with the war, the same empire will return.
Ukraine must moderate this process. Our country must become for new state entities what Poland has been for Ukraine for the past 30 years. That we should be such civilizers and promoters of democracy. If we do not invest in this, an enemy state will constantly be near our borders, and even in peacetime we will spend a lot of money and human resources on militarization. Or we will be able to have friendly states with which we will trade, exchange experiences, and receive tourists from there.
If it seems to us now that we will never be able to make friends with the states that will emerge after the collapse of Russia, then here too we have the historical example of France and Germany. Between 1870 and 1945, these two states were constantly at war with each other. Five years after the end of the Second World War, the Schuman Declaration was signed on the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which became the basis for the European Union. Although a few years before that, it seemed that there could be no union between France and Germany.
So if after the collapse of Russia, civilized states will emerge on its territory, then I see no problem with Ukraine having normal relations with them.
Dismantling the empire
— Let’s imagine an ideal scenario in which Ukraine wins the war, and Russia collapses. We would probably like to receive some reparations from the Russian Federation. How will we receive these funds from the newly formed states?
There is a very important aspect: Ukraine will win only when Russia collapses. We must understand that the disintegration of Russia is not a consequence of our victory, but its prerequisite. Ukraine is a worldview alternative to Russia — what it could become if it chose a different path of development. Russia will not allow such a state on its borders.
So even if we manage to reach the borders of 1991, it will not be a final victory, because in 3-5 years Russia will restore its stock of weapons and equipment and attack us again. They have more people (and still do not value the lives of their population), more resources and will fight to the last.
— That is why we need the dismantling of the Russian Federation because this is exactly what will provide us with peace.
Let’s return to the topic of reparations. If Russia exists as a single state, it will either be too weak, disorganized and poor to pay us these reparations, or it will be too strong and have tools of influence such as nuclear weapons not to pay these reparations. Perhaps a new “liberal” tsar will come to power in Russia, who will pay reparations for 2-3 years, and then stop, because how can a tsar pay someone money?
The payment of reparations continues for decades. Germany, for example, finished paying reparations to France for the First World War only in 2010.
In my opinion, it is much more likely that newly formed adequate states will pay us funds. We should focus on the main thing now — to help the Russian republics gain independence and protect their interests. For example, we can set a condition: recognize their subjectivity only if they give up nuclear weapons. And as a person who communicates with representatives of national liberation movements in Russia, I can say that they adequately perceive these perspectives.
Valeriya Pavlenko
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