Statement by the Yabloko party, 24.01.2022

Photo: A column of Yabloko party demonstrators during the March in Memory of Boris Nemtsov, 24 February, 2019. / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Yabloko resolutely condemns the militaristic hysteria whipped up by high-ranking Russian officials and propaganda, a demonstration of readiness to start a war.

Never in the modern history of Russia has the threat of a major war been as close as it is now. Demonstrative troop deployments, large-scale concentration of forces on the western border, articles by Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev questioning the statehood of Ukraine and its historical choice, putting forward of ultimatums to the US and NATO with obviously unrealisable demands are the signs that the Russian leadership is losing touch with reality.

The current Russian government, 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, decided to declare its special rights in relation to the former Soviet republics and is trying to apply the doctrine of limited sovereignty to them.

At the same time, it is obvious that Vladimir Putin’s domestic and foreign policy, reproducing Joseph Stalin’s policy, is the main reason for the rupture of the post-Soviet space and distrust of our closest neighbours to Russia. Its direct consequence is virtually taking a neighbouring country hostage, and blackmailing of the world community by the war with Ukraine.

For Russia, the war will result in irreversible destructive consequences. There will be numerous victims, human suffering, which will inevitably affect the vast majority of Russian citizens, and the political consequence will be the collapse of Russian statehood, a national catastrophe.

Preparations for war are not only a natural result of the impasse in Russian foreign policy, but also a consequence of the domestic political events of the past year: the social atmosphere that has developed in the country as a result of the September 2021 elections, including the stance of a part of the Russian post-Soviet intelligentsia, who called to vote for representatives of the “party of war” – The  Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the LDPR and the SR [A Just Russia – for Truth], whose factions are now promoting a draft resolution of the State Duma demanding the annexation of the territories in eastern Ukraine.

False self-confidence, combined with a lack of understanding of the current Russian political situation, promotion of the so-called Smart Voting [non-voting for the ruling United Russia, but voting for all other pro-Kremlin parties, especially communists-Stalinists] led to the strengthening of nationalist and militaristic tendencies in the Russian politics, plunging of society into a sleep of reason, when the understanding of the consequences and the responsibility for one’s actions disappears.

We regard the draft appeal of the State Duma to the President on “the recognition of the DPR and the LPR” [the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine] as a provocation and incitement to war.

The Yabloko party demands an immediate cessation of incitement to hatred against Ukraine and propaganda of war. We consider it necessary to implement the Plan for a Peaceful Settlement in Donbas, proposed by our party back in 2017.

We are obliged to remind to the leadership of Russia of the historical, political and moral responsibility for the unconditional maintenance of peace and saving the lives of millions of people.

The preservation of Russia for future generations, its current and strategic national interests require exclusively peaceful development, economic and political reforms, and not confrontation with Europe and war with neighbours.

The future of Russia lies not in some special invented “separate civilisation”, or attempts to lean against the Asian giants, or constant confrontation with almost the whole world, but in a European vector of development corresponding to our great culture and history, humanistic values, principles of freedom, democracy and observance of human rights.

We call on all citizens of Russia to join our simple and clear demands: no to lies, propaganda and artificial escalation of tension, no to provocations and sabotage, no to war!

Nikolai Rybakov,

Yabloko Chairman

Grigory Yavlinsky,

Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee