Decision by the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, adopted on 29.04.2025, published on 6.05.2025

After three years of war, our main task remains to achieve a ceasefire and stop the daily killing of people.

However, when this happens, the situation in the country will remain being extremely difficult, requiring responsible actions and an understanding of perspectives.

Besides serious economic problems accumulating since the beginning of the special military operation, the country will face new acute social problems.

New problems will arise from the demobilisation and return to civilian life of hundreds of thousands of participants in the special military operation, who will need to heal physical and mental wounds, find their place in the new reality, and will no longer receive their previous incomes. Having gone through war, neither they nor the country as a whole can simply return to former living.

The potential for escalating fear and political repression in society remains relevant and ominous, as do conflicts on interethnic and interreligious grounds; and the terrorist threat persists.

Traditional mechanisms and factors of political influence in Russia and worldwide are being supplemented by social networks and other new information technologies, whose current forms of functioning contribute to the growth of populism and extreme views. Meanwhile, attempts to constrain their negative effects risk creating a “digital concentration camp” – the systems of total state or oligarchic control over society and individuals.

Our country faces a very complex period. We need clear targets and a vision of the future to go through it with minimal losses.

The concept of a “state-civilisation” as a besieged fortress with such specific allies as Iran and North Korea cannot be the foundation for the country’s prosperity. Preserving a war mentality means a dead end, leading to continued isolation. This will inevitably lead either to new conflicts, fraught with national and global catastrophe, or to a new stagnation, degradation and long-term backwardness of the country, increased inequality and stratification, entrenched poverty and destitution. The disintegration of the country is also possible.

Our vision of Russia’s future is different – a country oriented towards freedom, human rights and human dignity.

We must consider the following:

• the peculiarities of our country’s history and culture, the mindset of the Russian people;
• global changes related to the end of the world order established in the middle of the past century, and technological development.

We insist that key humanistic values, the natural aspiration for respect for human dignity, and the development of human capabilities become the foundation for our country’s future development. We are convinced and have no doubt that most people in Russia, as in the world, strive precisely for this.

The best examples of Russian culture, especially literature, which forms the basis of our national culture, are about the significance, multifaceted nature, and value of the life and freedom of each person. People must finally be given a chance to believe that the state as a bureaucratic structure in Russia can truly serve the individual, not the other way round.

The second component of our vision for the future is that modern digital technologies should work for people. At any level of technological development, it is humans who must determine their application, chart a forward-looking course, and create meaningful dominants.

We understand that in current conditions these goals appear challenging, distant, and difficult to achieve, but the situation today is such that a vision of the distant future is required to stop the civilisational U-turn imposed on the country in recent years.

An additional complexity on the path to the future is created by the fact that while previously the vision of the future was associated with democracy, freedom, rights and human dignity both in Russia and in Western countries, today the global trend is changing:

– human life is valued increasingly less;

– the world is fragmenting, with an increasingly rigid division into “us” and “them”, challenging the universal understanding of human rights, including the right to life;

– the future development of humanity is increasingly associated not with human reason but with artificial intelligence.

In such global conditions, Russia’s success is impossible without allies, and forward movement requires common foundations and goals, a direction for integration.

China as a possible ally does not share the goals we set. The country’s orientation “towards the Orient”, with China as the centre of global development, has no positive perspective for Russia and contradicts the country’s historical experience. We should not forget the disparity in resources – a tenfold difference in population and a growing (currently fivefold) difference in economies. For China, Russia is a source of resources, and it has many potential territorial claims against our country. We must maintain business partnerships with China, avoiding conflicts and contradictions.

The Trump administration’s current interest in Russia is not humanistic but purely practical, aimed primarily at securing American interests and using Russia as a factor balancing the influence of China and other US competitors.

Our obvious and natural partner in building a future oriented towards people is Europe.

Today, Europe is experiencing an identity crisis, but its historical civilisational foundation (and Russian culture participated in its creation) remains. These are European humanistic values.

We are certainly not talking about today’s Russia joining today’s European Union, and the latter is experiencing difficult times. Euro-integration in its current forms is hardly possible in the future. We need to create a new quality – a new Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

For Russia, the concept of Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok is close and natural, because Russia is part of Europe, a country of European culture.

This also resolves the question of a peaceful future for Russia and Ukraine, and for the European post-Soviet space as a whole.

The partnership between Europe and Russia can ensure peace, development and prosperity for all participants.

We reaffirm the position of the Yabloko party regarding the future of our country, stated in the decisions of the Federal Political Committee of the party of 20 October 2022, 24 March 2023, and 21 November 2024.

European integration from Lisbon to Vladivostok is not a utopia but a real, albeit not immediate, prospect. However, movement towards it requires a change in public sentiment, societal demand, and political will from leaders.

Our task in Russia is to promote this idea in public consciousness, in hope for the future.

Grigory Yavlinsky,

Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee