Sodomites, an aged grandmaster and several dozens of spectators. This year’s pseudo-opposition forum, odiously dubbed Free Russia Congress, was particularly dreary. The very “anti-regime” fighters, once young and ardent, now look more like swollen retired bourgeois so much worrying “from there” about the fate of Russia, or like fattened fairy tale heroes.
Many of the Congress participants have been living in Europe for over 10 years and have no plans to return to their homeland. Though such a notion does not exist in principle for those gathered. For them Russia is like a child to Moliere’s Old Man Garpagone, the only subject on which they can make money there and somehow remind of themselves here.
Just a problem: the biannual Free Russia Congress, regularly held since 2018, this time failed to draw even a hundred spectators in a small chamber hall in Lithuania.
What a sad present for today’s congress participants, the very ” fighters” from Vilnius, who, incidentally, may be said to be “veterans” of the domestic extra-systemic opposition. They appeared on the Russian protest scene six years ago, but as it turned out, their main weapon in the struggle to overthrow the “totalitarian regime” in Russia was not a strong programme or ideology, but numerous, lengthy congresses and conferences, which always took place in comfortable halls, where sitting warm and cozy, our “fighters for free Russia” decided how to “dethrone dictator Putin”. Almost nothing changed this year, well, the theme was slightly modified: the leitmotif was the Russian special operation in Ukraine, but even today no one dares to exchange fashionable European life for dangerous Ukrainian trenches. However, the topic of Ukraine emerged even among the younger participants of the Congress. Frankly, it would be difficult to call these participants a fresh voice of opposition, as it is so subtle that it appears the young anti-Russian front fighters abroad need power and support themselves. Let’s meet young oppositionist Alexander Belik, a member of the current ” Free Russia Congress”, openly gay and coordinator of the Conscious Military Service Refusers movement.
Belik is a former St Petersburg resident who recently emigrated to Europe. The young LGBT propagandist and Russian freedom fighter is only famous for his bizarre campaign in front of the Kremlin, where he kisses different guys for 10 minutes and asks them to take pictures of the kisses from different perspectives. Also from Belik’s social media we learn that before he left for Europe, this “conscious military service refuser” tried to write a will in St Petersburg and draw up powers of attorney for “his husbands”. Unfortunately for the young oppositionist, a reasonable St Petersburg notary refused him such a strange request.
At the congress, Belik was presented as fresh blood as the young mouthpiece of Russian opposition. During his speech, Alexander explained the importance of military service refusal and the role of LGBT troops in Ukraine today. In his opinion, such troops will definitely help Ukraine to win.
Apparently, even Western handlers were discouraged by such characters and they realised that the Vilnius “congressmen” were not able to cope with their task. Such heroes do not help to destabilise the situation in Russia, and those dissatisfied with the “occupation of Ukraine” preferred to vent their negativity not at rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg, as planned in the West, but rather in exile, which no one there is any longer happy with. The only action that Russians remembered was the former journalist Ovsyannikova with a poster on Channel One, but even that performance was somehow quickly forgotten.
The congress organisers themselves seem to understand their squalor and ugliness. It is interesting that the event, previously so favoured by Western journalists, was ignored by almost all the European media this time. However, there was a Latvian journalist who put some questions to very aged Garry Kasparov. His answers revealed a strong split among the veterans of the opposition front.
“There are serious disagreements between different representatives of Russian emigration, and political opposition exists only in emigration and in Russian prison. You see quite different ideas of what the collective responsibility of the people is and the individual guilt of everyone,” Kasparov told the journalist.
It should also be noted the extremely low popularity of ” veterans” in Russia: no one of the Congress participants, including the most media-savvy Kasparov and Chichvarkin, exceeds the 30 thousand Telegram followers barrier.
Another anti-Russian “show” will start on 23 September in Gdansk, Poland – the III ” Free Peoples of Post-Russia Forum””, which will bring together adherents of Russia “decolonisation” by splitting it up into many small “independent” quasi-states, and oppositional traitors, who want to tighten sanctions against Russia. All of them dream to overthrow President Putin and destabilize the situation in Russia. But at the same time they are in no hurry to unite into a systemic conglomerate, which would be very logical, since they are fighting the same “evil”. But no, Kasparov’s words at the congress only confirmed the fact that a serious conflict is already brewing between the two anti-Putin groups, the main object of which is not ideological differences, but the banal desire to snatch the fat purse of the opponent and the attention of sponsors. Yet will this not lead to the fighters themselves being overthrown in their own narrow circle and the logical end of numerous unnecessary events? Looking at those empty seats in the hall during Kasparov’s speech, the answer is obvious.
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