Interview with Andreas Umland
In Russia, independent public life has either been crushed or brought under state control. In the current situation, the Russian diaspora is no longer merely a community of people living outside the country: it has become a space where free speech, independent institutions and discussion of Russia’s future are still possible. Andreas Umland – an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and an associate professor of political science at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy – explains why a free Russia is linked, first and foremost, to the diaspora.
— You said that an independent Russia today exists primarily outside its borders. What has happened to the independent media, human rights organisations, the political opposition and culture within the country itself?
— In Russia, they have either been destroyed or reduced to mere window dressing. The authorities have systematically dismantled everything that might have existed autonomously: editorial offices, civil society organisations, independent platforms, political organisations and cultural institutions. Where some form of activity still formally persists, it exists under conditions of self-censorship and constant fear.
Russia’s true voice exists only abroad. It is only there that one can speak without state permission, publish what cannot be published within the country, and set up organisations without fearing that tomorrow one will be forced to fall silent.
— From you point of view, for a Russian why is freedom precisely related to leaving the country?
— All those who remain in Russia have been intimidated by the propaganda machine. They do not merely live under an authoritarian system, but within a state that claims control over their speech, their work, their family, their children’s education and even their perception of reality. Only by leaving do they become free. Outside Russia, they gain the opportunity to speak frankly, without weighing up every sentence against the threat of criminal prosecution. It is precisely these people who will build a new, free Russia. This is not a question of geography as such, but a question of liberation from Russian state coercion.
— The Russian authorities continue to hold elections and present them as an expression of the will of the people. But under these circumstances, can we really say that the elections genuinely ensure political representation for citizens?
—No. We do not believe in fair elections in Russia. The system has long since mapped out the outcome. It determines who has the right to participate, who shall be excluded, who is to be imprisoned, who shall be forced to leave, who shall have access to the media, and who is to be erased from the public sphere. Under such conditions, the ballot paper is not a tool for free choice — it becomes part of the scenery. And the people who live in Russia do not count: not because they do not exist, but because the regime has deprived them of the opportunity to be heard and to influence the outcome.
— You refer to Russians who have left the country as the ‘ambassadors of European Russia’. What do you mean by that?
—Those who have left are the bearers of a European-oriented Russia, and they are those whom will be in demand after a change of power. For the most part, they are educated people who had the possibility to leave: journalists, researchers, academics, lawyers, entrepreneurs, creative professionals and activists. These are people for whom freedom of speech, dignity, the rule of law, openness to the world, respect for facts and an aversion to war are second nature.
Their departure is their act of responsibility. They do not want to raise their children in a culture of war and lies. They do not want to perpetuate a society in which aggression is called patriotism and censorship is called the defence of the state. And the more people leave, the weaker the Kremlin becomes. The regime is losing its expertise, its independent voices and its future. Mass emigration is the only referendum they are capable of brining to life.
—Why do you believe emigration represents a political alternative to today’s Russia, rather than simply a community of people who have fled repression?
— Emigration is important not because people who found themselves abroad – for example, in Berlin, Vilnius or London – automatically understand Russia better, but because there they have something that merely exists within the country: the opportunity to act openly and to come together. Russian politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, experts and activists can set up media outlets and organisations, debate, seek allies, work with European institutions and develop alternative programmes — having no threat of criminal prosecution. Any independent organisation within Russia is vulnerable: it can be shut down, declared extremist or ‘undesirable’, thus deprived of funding, and its staff – and even its audience – intimidated.
That is why emigration is the only source of an alternative for Russia. And those are precisely the people that Europe must be ready to support — not out of charity, but because without them, a free Russia would simply lack both the human capital and the institutional foundations necessary for its revival.
