“Putinists from Italy, if they knew Russia, they would lose all illusions”: Nobel Rachinsky says

A hybrid regime, almost liquid. That “mixes Stalinism and fascism, eliminates human rights and proposes the death of international law”. It is the photograph that Yan Rachinsky, who has just received the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Memorial organization of which he is president, takes of Vladimir Putin’s political system.

“The number of prisoners of conscience is now the same as in the Soviet era,” he explains to Fanpage.it. “I hope the war in Ukraine leads to the collapse of the regime in Moscow.” But even then, “it will take more than a decade for my country to become civilized again,” he says. As for the Italians who support Putin, “they would lose all illusions if they knew the Russia of today”.

The award recognizes the Memorial’s upholding of human rights and the sacrifice of its members. One of the founders, Andrey Sakharov, received the Nobel Prize in 1975 for his campaign against repression in the Soviet era: it cost him internal exile. After the dissolution of the USSR, the Memorial continued its work documenting human rights violations in the Russian Federation. His handler in Grozny Natalia Estemirova was murdered in 2009 for exposing war crimes in Chechnya.

In 2016, authorities labeled the organization a “foreign agent”. In 2021 she was accused of aiding terrorism. After the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Memorial was declared illegal and its offices confiscated. Currently, the government is moving to seize their files as well.

“Nobel money will be used partly to help Russian political prisoners and their families and partly to help the families of Ukrainian civilians killed in the war,” reveals Rachinsky, who we reached by phone from his home in Moscow.

Is it true that the Russian authorities pressured the Memorial to refuse the Nobel?

It wasn’t really pressure. Just comments from a government official, the head of the Presidential Council on Human Rights Valery Fadeyev. He was not happy that a Ukrainian NGO also received the award. But we don’t take it seriously. We never even remotely thought about turning down the Nobel.

After the recent Kremlin liquidation of the Memorial, you continue your work as a human rights defender in Moscow. Repression against those who create problems for the regime is increasingly harsh. Aren’t you afraid of prison?

I work as usual. They closed Memorial’s two main branches. But it still has other assets. For now, let’s move on. Fearless.

Meanwhile, the government is also calling for the closure of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which has dealt with human rights since 1976 and which had among its founders the famous Soviet dissident and then political activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva – who died in 2018.

And this shows the deep hypocrisy of Vladimir Putin. Who met with Alekseyeva several times. To show that he is interested in rights, when his every action demonstrates otherwise.

How is the human rights situation in Russia today?

Human rights in Russia no longer exist. Freedom of assembly was eliminated, freedom of association suppressed, and freedom of expression severely limited. The media is under the total control of the state, which imposes its unique point of view on programming and editorial lines. And as far as justice is concerned, there is no right to a fair trial. The most serious situation is catastrophic.

As for the political use of justice: the number of prisoners of conscience increases. Opponents were arrested on ludicrous charges and then charged under laws requiring long prison sentences. Some names are famous: Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin. Others, less. What can the international community do to help free them?

It is unlikely that they will be released as long as this regime exists. But something can be done. We must not forget them. Its fate must be discussed in any negotiations with the Kremlin: it is a way of putting pressure on power. Perhaps one day there will be the desired effect. Putin’s mind is inscrutable.

How Stalinist is the current regime?

We have as many political prisoners as before Gorbachev’s perestroika. The Stalinist legacy is part of the Putin regime. It is worrying that the extrajudicial powers of various bodies are expanding, as they were under Stalin. It doesn’t take a court to decide that you are a “foreign agent”, for example. And it’s back to suing people for the words they speak. The post-Stalin Soviet laws that rehabilitated victims of the dictator established that the right to speak cannot be repressed. Recent laws that provide sentences of up to 10 years for anyone who says things that differ from the government’s official line on Ukraine’s “special military operation” do exactly that: cancel the right to speak.

Russia has never really buried its past. He never seems to have come to terms with Stalinism, with the gulags. There’s nostalgia for the Soviet period and a kind of amnesia for what that entailed. Why?

Soviet rule lasted 70 years. And when the USSR opened up with perestroika, it lacked people capable of transmitting the experience of a life different from that taught by the Party. Furthermore, there has never been an accurate assessment of crimes committed under communism. After Stalin, the regime rehabilitated the persecuted. But he never brought the criminals responsible for the persecutions to trial. Because these criminals identified with Soviet power itself.

The Kremlin calls all those who oppose Putin’s Russia “fascists” or “Nazis”. But some characteristics of the regime, such as the reference to “traditional values”, autarkic and anti-liberal nationalism, revanchism in international politics, seem typical of fascism. In addition to being Stalinist, is Putin’s system also fascist?

Using labels was a favorite technique of Soviet propaganda. Labels reach the public immediately. And for Russians the “Great Patriotic War” (World War II, ed) against Nazi-fascism is a page of history that cannot be forgotten. Paradoxically, however, the same labels can be applied to the current Russian regime. That when he claims that there is no Ukrainian people and denies Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation, he is applying a typically fascist concept.

Russia’s history seems to have a circular tendency that constantly draws it back to authoritarianism and totalitarianism. When will it be possible to break the circle? Will it ever become a normal country? Did the window that opened in the 1990s close hermetically?

It is not true that our history is cyclical. There were several times when the circle was broken. As in perestroika and during the nineties of the last century. Unfortunately, attempts to change the trajectory have encountered several obstacles. But I don’t think we’re hopeless. We continue to work for Russia to become a normal country.

Could the war in Ukraine be fatal for the regime of Vladimir Putin?

I hope that Ukraine will be able to defend its independence, which would certainly be a very serious shock for the Russian Government.

Would the change be sudden or would a transitional period begin, as in post-Franco Spain?

Changes in Russia often happen suddenly. Suffice it to recall perestroika and what followed. Reworking what happened after February 24, 2022, however, will be a long journey. Russia will have to follow the path post-Nazi Germany did, to metabolize its recent history. Returning to a civilized way is not a task for just one decade.

What would you like to say to the many Italians who admire Putin and current Russian policy, with its reference to so-called traditional values, opposition to the US and NATO and the tension for a “multipolar” world? To begin with, more than 50% of our citizens would like to stop the supply of arms to Ukraine.

I want to tell you that the situation seen from a distance is very different from how we Russians see it up close. Even a brief acquaintance with Russia would dispel any illusions. On the other hand, I don’t think many Italians want to come and live here. However, the problem is not only the internal situation, not only Putin, although he is the main culprit of the current crisis. The problem is much broader. Ukraine and its supporters are fighting to preserve international law. If we accept that borders can be changed at the whim of a country, situations like the one experienced by the Ukrainian people would be repeated all over the world. This conflict is creating difficulties for European and Italian citizens. But this is nothing compared to the catastrophe that would follow the abandonment of international law. This, I feel like telling you.