Press Release, 29.11.2015

On 27 November, YABOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin participated in the conference “Russia’s Role in the World Community: Towards Mutual Trust or Distrust?” which was held at Christiansborg, the Danish parliament, the Folketing. Mitrokhin also made met with the students of the University of Southern Denmark in Odense within the framework of the conference.

The 17th Annual Conference on topical issues of the Russian-Danish cooperation was organized by the Danish-Russian Association in cooperation with Danish UN Committee and the International Committee of the social-liberal party Radikale Venstre (which, like YABLOKO, is a full member of the pan-European liberal party ALDE) and the Hermod Lannung Foundation.

Sergei Mitrokhin’s speech was devoted to the fundamental interests and motives of Russia’s foreign policy.

Mitrokhin noted that the main agenda of Russian foreign policy, as well as the domestic policy, was “maintenance of Vladimir Putin’s life-long power and the political and economic elite depending on him.”

Therefore, the key and vital vector of Russia’s foreign policy today is based on the desire to maintain and strengthen Russia’s authorities. For this purpose, the regime has been actively exploiting the complex of the great super power rooted in the mass consciousness of the population since the Soviet period.

“Vladimir Putin’s political course can be formulated as follows: adventurism in foreign policies instead of internal reforms,” Sergei Mitrokhin said.

“Setbacks and failures of the economic policy during the reign of Putin, led to the fall of revenues and decline of living standards. In this case foreign policy actions are used so that to divert public attention from these problems, demonstrate the power of Russia in international affairs. This is the main meaning of the annexation of the Crimea, the war in East Ukraine and unilateral actions in Syria, ” YABLOKO leader stressed.

Talking about the war in Syria, Mitrokhin indicated that Russia entered the war without making any preliminary political agreements with the interested parties. The declared aim of protecting Bashar Assad could not but irritate the region.

Sergei Mitrokhin, condemned the attack by the Turkish Air Forces on the Russian bomber aircraft, while not denying that Russia had largely provoked Turkey by its negligence and violation of its airspace.

The conference also raised the issue of a dialogue between Russia and Europe. Mitrokhin said that “Russia is a European country and dialogue should be based on European values”. Consequently, we should not leave out the topic of human rights and respect for democratic norms.

In this regard, the YABLOKO leader particularly focused on two issues. First, release of political prisoners, such as Evgeny Vitishko, member of the YABLOKO party and environmentalist from the Sochi region, who had got imprisoned for protecting public lands from Governor’s seizure.

Second, repressive legislation on non-profit organisations (the law on “foreign agents”). He stated that it had been very difficult for Russian NGOs to get financing from the state, while oreign funding, even getting international awards, was virtually prohibited.

Copenhagen is a sister city of the city of Perm, so Mitrokhin raised the issue of restoration of the museum of GULAG that was closed in this city.

Mitrokhin also held several meetings, in particular, with Maritin Lidegaard, Danish MP and ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (until end of June 2015) with whom YABLOKO leader discussed the problems of sanctions against Russia