Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends!
I sincerely thank each one of you for coming to this event today. London is one of the centres of world democracy, so it is important to talk about freedom and about those people who are paying the highest price for it today.
Today’s event is dedicated to the exhibition “Putin’s Real Prisoners”. It tells the stories of people who ended up in prisons in modern Russia simply for speaking the truth, fighting for freedom, or refusing to submit to the empire. Oleg Vitvitsky, the executive director of the ABN, will tell you more about the exhibition itself. I would like to say a few words about our organisation, which is behind this event.
The Anti-Imperial Block of Nations is not just a modern initiative. It is an international movement with a long history of struggle. It was created in 1943 in Ukraine, in the territories controlled by the Ukrainian liberation movement, particularly, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Stepan Bandera. At that time, it was called the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. It was created by representatives of many nations who found themselves under the rule of the Soviet empire – the nations of Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, many in the West believed that the imperial problem had disappeared. But today we see that this was only an illusion.
The Russian Federation has preserved the main feature of its history – it remains an empire. An empire that holds on to control dozens of nations. An empire whose power is based on the exploitation of the human, natural and economic resources of the nations enslaved and colonised by Moscow. An empire that wages wars, destroys cities, deports people and throws into prison those who dare to speak out against it.
That is why, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our organisation was renamed the Anti-Imperial Block of Nations. After all, one of the main threats to world democracy was a new form of Nazism – Russian imperialism. It has always existed in Russia. Both during the Tsarist era and during the Soviet regime and has now become especially frequently manifested during Putin’s rule.
And it is here, in Great Britain, that it is appropriate to recall an important historical lesson. The British Empire was also a great empire. But Great Britain found within itself the political wisdom and strength to give its colonies freedom. Today, many former colonies are independent states, partners of Great Britain and part of the international democratic community. This is an example of how empires can transform and give nations a chance for their own future.
Russia, on the other hand, has taken a different path. It has not been able to – and, it seems, has not wanted to – abandon imperial logic. Instead, it is trying to maintain the empire through force, wars, repression and fear. That is why we are convinced that true and lasting peace in Europe is possible only after the decolonisation of Russia. When the nations who today are under the rule of Moscow, will receive the right to self-determination and the creation of their own states.
This is not a radical idea.
This is the same principle on which the new world order was built after the Second World War. The world becomes safer when empires disappear and nations become free. That is why today we are not only talking about political prisoners. We are talking about the future freedom of the people represented on these posters. Also, about the responsibility of the democratic world to not close its eyes to the imperial nature of modern Russia.
Thank you for your presence, for your solidarity and for your support for the struggle of nations fighting for freedom.
Freedom for nations! Freedom for the individual!
