My colleague and a friend recently went to an event in London where Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a known Russian opposition figure, was speaking. My colleague directed the following question to Mr Khodorkovsky:

„In your book "The Russia Conundrum" which was published after the full-scale invasion against Ukraine you write, and I quote - "it would be a mistake to try to weaken or break up Russia", so have you since changed your position or do you still remain de facto supporter of the Russian Empire because, of course, it is not Federation [Russia], it is an empire?”

Khodorkovsky answers:

„I am absolutely confident that this desire to turn Russia into a series of smaller states is not just something which cannot be done, it is actually very dangerous. The reason why it is dangerous to even to talk about it because it is the worst fear of Russian society and the Russian army, it's their worst nightmare. As soon as you are an activist, you are marked, you are labelled an enemy, you don't need to do anything else, just say that and you're an enemy straight away.

But let's imagine this has happened. To begin with, you'll get a least seven new states, nuclear states. You will also have several societies with very strong centripetal attempt trends. And any politician who comes about and says "They have destroyed us, they fragmented us, let's unite, lets rally round” will straight away get 40% of votes in society and 70% of votes in the army which will give them a mandate to become a new dictator. Easy. And then you will have to deal with a mobilised and a very very very hostile country. I don't think it's a very good idea.“ (laughter in the room)

IMPERIALIST DISCOURSE IN RUSSIAN OPPOSITION’S POLITICAL RHETORIC

My main academic work is on imperialist discourse (language) in Russian opposition’s political rhetoric. I focused particularly on Alexei Navalny in my dissertation. In my research, I found that imperialist discourse presented in Navalny’s rhetoric in two ways, through denial and victimhood (Kaminskaite, 2024b).

Denial refers to failing to acknowledge Russia’s nationhood as closely intertwined with imperialism and colonial expansion. It is also a failure by Russia to recognise itself as a colonial empire (Chernetsky, 2007). When polls in Russia showed that the majority of Russian society support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Navalny (2022) concluded that this is due to Putin’s authoritative regime and fear to answer honestly, not because of deeper socio-historical themes at play, such as the culture of violence and expansion is engrained in the Russian society through centuries of imperialist state policies (Plokhy, 2017).

Victimhood refers to Navalny whitewashing Russian society’s complicity in imperialism by declaring that Russians also suffer from Putin (Navalny, 2023). This is a problematic conflation because while it is true that Russians suffer from authoritarianism, Ukrainians (and other dozens of nations and indigenous peoples that Russia colonised since the 13th century) suffered or continue to suffer from imperialism. Authoritarianism limits your freedom but imperialism erases your existence (Kaminskaite, 2024b). When Russians hyperfocus on their victimhood, they negate or, most often, even erase Russia’s colonial crimes.

Such examples are many and are also present in day-to-day life. Just a few weeks ago, Russian DJ Kedr Livanskyi’s performances were cancelled in London, Paris and Manchester due to Livanskyi’s links to the Kremlin. However, Livanskyi in her social media wrote that the performances were cancelled due to her nationality, because she lives in Russia, and because she is performing and is not abandoning her country. Whilst one could argue that an average Russian artist is suffering due to her country’s authoritarian politics and danger to protest, the problem is that this suffering is given more importance than the daily airstrikes on Ukrainian civilians, committed by Russia. Indeed, Livanskyi did not mention Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at all as the reason why her performances were cancelled. Both, denial and victimhood are clearly visible here. Both themes reinforce Russian imperialism because they both sideline or deny Ukraine’s suffering making it unimportant, allowing Russia to continue to wage a colonial war against Ukraine and its artists to perform as if nothing major is happening where the status quo perhaps should be reconsidered.

The above summary is only a very brief explanation of my research. If you would like read the full empirical analysis on how denial and victimhood are part of imperialist discourse and how they present themselves in Navalny’s and other Russian oppositions political rhetoric, please read my full dissertation here (and a version with less academic jargon here).

I am confident that the knowledge I accrued during my research as well as my own background as a Lithuanian provides me with an original standpoint to comment on Khodorkovsky’s answer I copied earlier. I will be deconstructing his answer with the concepts of postcolonial theory in mind. Postcolonialism understands the world as the legacy of colonialism, past and present. Postcolonial theory also deals with knowledge production and values the knowledge of the marginalised, even if it does not fit the Western academic standards (Said, 1979). Indeed, I would highlight here that the marginalised often are marginalised precisely due to exclusion of their voice from the Western knowledge hegemony. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians reported that their voices were sometimes excluded in academia as „too emotional”. However, postcolonialism explicitly denies that there is one objective form of knowledge and especially denies that this objectivity can be achieved by excluding the colonised from the enquiry. Thus, „emotional” knowledge is often marginalised knowledge, frequently by those who do not wish to accept that under the „mysterious Russian soul” hides a nation whose sole aim is to kill, mutilate and erase free nations (Eristavi, 2024).

russian colonialism 101

the first and only newsletter expanding russian colonialism awareness from the russian colonialism storyteller-in-chief.

By maksym eristavi.

In this essay, I will use my subjective voice as Lithuanian, as a national whose country was violently occupied by Russia three times in history, and I will utilise the concepts of postcolonial theory, developed in the Western science. My positionality is thus transparent and the reader can form his own conclusions, hopefully taking into account his own biases, privileges and assumptions.

DECOLONISATION – THE WOST NIGHMARE OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIETY?

Khodorkovsky states:

„I am absolutely confident that this desire to turn Russia into a series of smaller states is not just something which cannot be done, it is actually very dangerous. The reason why it is dangerous to even to talk about it because it is the worst fear of Russian society and the Russian army, it's their worst nightmare. As soon as you are an activist, you are marked, you are labelled an enemy, you don't need to do anything else, just say that and you're an enemy straight away.”

The perception of decolonisation of Russia as dangerous and as something that all Russian society would condemn you for suggests that the imperialist sentiment is entrenched across Russian society. Imperial might appears to be favoured over real solutions towards a truly democratic Russia. Mr Khodorkovsky (2022) cannot claim that Russia wants peace and can be democratic as he does in his book The Russia Conundrum, and at the same time say that any person who promotes decolonisation would be immediately deemed an enemy of the state and of the people. A society that does not wish to free its citizens from colonial chains is not a society that promotes freedom, it’s a society that promotes imperialism, oppression and authoritarianism.

What is more, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is costing Russia billions. Whilst the existing colonies provide resources, wealth and physical bodies that the Moscow can extract to continue its colonial wars, the Western sanctions and increased military spending nonetheless is having a significant impact on the Russian society as a whole. The reason these imperialist campaigns continue with popular support, regardless of the dictator in charge (Russia engaged in colonial wars prior to Putin), is because Russian nationhood and its survival is directly linked with territorial expansion. Catherine the Great back in the 18^th century already said that the only way to defend Russia is to extend its borders. Balakhonov (1989, 6) claimed that “among Russians the imperial instinct is tremendously strong, and we [Russians] cannot as yet imagine any form of existence other than our current empire”. However, nationhood is a construct that its people are responsible for. Instead of seeing Russia’s existence only through colonisation and imperialism, it can also be seen through development, human rights, economic security and overall welfare of the citizens. These are the themes that Russian opposition figures often claim are the aims of their democratic Russia. This shift, however, is not possible if there remain occupied, neglected and impoverished nations and indigenous people in Russia. The nation dictates its own nationhood and if decolonising and moving towards democratic future remain Russian peoples’ worst nightmare, it does not appear that such nation or its supposed democratic leaders truly wish Russia to become democratic and free.

IS DECOLONISED RUSSIA WORSE THAN THE CURRENT RUSSIA?

Mr Khodorkovsky continues:

„But let's imagine this has happened. To begin with, you'll get a least seven new states, nuclear states. You will also have several societies with very strong centripetal attempt trends. And any politician who comes about and says "They have destroyed us, they fragmented us, let's unite, lets rally round” will straight away get 40% of votes in society and 70% of votes in the army which will give them a mandate to become a new dictator. And then you will have to deal with a mobilised and a very very very hostile country. I don't think it's a very good idea.”

If Russia was to decolonise, it is natural that new states would emerge due to principle of self-determination. Currently there are over 190 different ethnic groups in Russia. Mr Khodorkovsky explains that secession of territories would incline a rise of new dictator (I assume, an ethnic Russian) who would seek to reunite the lands and that such leader would gain a lot of public support (I assume, from ethnic Russians). This reinforces that the Russian nationhood is imperialist. Instead of seeing the benefits of decolonisation and ability to really start the democratic process in Russia away from expansionism and with the focus of internal Russian stability and prosperity, it appears that the return to the historical imperial status would be more appealing to the Russian society. Perhaps it needs to be assessed not how decolonisation is not favoured in Russian society but ascertain why that is and how it can be changed because as long as Russian nationhood remains closely linked to Russian imperialism, there will never be a democratic Russia.

If my earlier assumption is not correct and Mr Khodorkovsky believes that non-ethnic Russians would also not support Russia’s disintegration, it is really not up to Mr Khodorkovsky to make those assumptions and guesses but perhaps, using his reach, to give voice and allow this cohort to speak for themselves, instead of speaking for them. When Lithuania demanded independence from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s after the illegal occupation in the 1940s, the Soviet authorities were vehemently opposed despite Gorbachev being a proponent of democratic reforms (there are perhaps some similarities here?). Soviet authorities claimed that Lithuania was too small and, therefore, it needed Russia to provide the essential infrastructure for Lithuania to survive. Gorbachev later ordered Russian tanks to Lithuania to stop the independence movement which killed 13 thirteen unarmed Lithuanian civilians on January the 13th, 1991. This act of aggression on Lithuanian society revealed that Russia’s reluctance to free Lithuania from imperial chains was not an act of care as USSR claimed but an attempt to hold onto its colonies, by any means necessary. The claim that Lithuania could not survive without USSR was just a cover. In fact, when Lithuania declared independence and other nations followed, it was the USSR that subsequently collapsed in 1991. Therefore, it wasn’t Lithuania that needed USSR to survive – it was the USSR that needed Lithuania to keep its empire alive. Today, Lithuania is an independent state and its GDP is twice the size of Russia’s. Therefore, I do not believe that the newly independent regions would advocate to remain under Russian occupation, where Russia impoverishes the region, neglects the local development and uses men in the region for war to meet Russia’s imperial objectives in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy also made it clear a few years ago, when Russia deliberately bombed Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, that the Ukrainians would rather live without water, electricity and heat than with Russia. If Mr Khodorkovsky believes that the colonised regions would choose to return to oppressive colonial stability and Russian occupation over uncertain freedom, it may be that he is projecting Russian society’s centuries-long complacency to dictatorship and fear of freedom onto other ethnicities.

Mr Khodorkovsky also hints that the newly formed states would become nuclear, however, he does not expand what would this mean. Just because the new states would acquire nuclear weapons does not mean that these weapons would be used. Ukraine inherited a large nuclear arsenal from USSR in 1991 and gave it away for security guarantees (a treaty that has since been questioned in light of Russia’s, one of security guarantors, invasion of Ukraine). Furthermore, the current Russia’s nuclear rhetoric is extremely reckless and so is Russia’s disastrous dumping of nuclear waste in the North Sea (Eaton, 1994, Kaminskaite, 2024a). Therefore, nuclear weapons dispersing to other newly-formed states might, in fact, reduce the current threat the Russia’s possession of nuclear weapons poses to the global geopolitical order. These new states are also more likely to be more responsible nuclear weapons holders because they do not have historically and socially engrained imperialist ambitions that Russia has. Their perceived danger appears to be unfounded and created solely to maintain the status quo of the Russian empire.

As to the emergence of a hostile country and a hostile dictator, there would really be no significant change as there is a dictator in Russia already who committed crimes against humanity and human dignity in Donbas and Crimea, Georgia, Syria and Chechnya just in the last 20 years of power and continues to deliberately target Ukrainian civilians today. It appears that Mr Khodorkovsky implies that the situation would be worse than it currently but worse for whom? Russia is currently waging a colonial war and has put the world on the brink of the Third World War. Putin has denied right to exist to 44 million Ukrainians and continues to kill civilians in an attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation as a whole. Mass graves and summary executions were discovered in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine. There is evidence of extreme sexual violence and rape, committed by Russian soldiers. There are cases of Russian soldiers executing Ukrainians POWs, some of them beheaded alive. These are just some of the examples of the vast scale and proportion of Russian war crimes and I only covered Ukraine here - Russia’s most recent colonial war. Russia in its current form is a „very very very hostile nation” and, on the contrary, with Russia decolonised and its nuclear arsenal dispersed, it would have less means to continue its violence in Ukraine and threaten the rest of the world with nuclear weapons.

CONCLUSION

To answer the question posed in my title, the Russian opposition does not want to decolonise Russia because they support the idea of the Russian empire. Mr Khodorkovsky’s assumptions, such as that the disintegration of Russia would be unacceptable and lead to chaos, that it would lead to new states possessing nuclear weapons and that it would eventually produce a worse state and a worse dictator all appear just a form of denial of reality in order to maintain the status quo for Russia to remain a colonial empire. Mr Khodorkovsky implies that disintegration of Russia is a factual impossibility and any such attempts would lead to a fictitious more dangerous Russia. He also produces some unfounded assumptions about the supposed danger of the new states and their possession of nuclear weapons when, in fact, it is the current Russia that remains the greatest danger to the democratic world. Khodorkovsky wishes for Russia to change, yet is not willing to change Russia. Russia cannot be a colonial empire and a democratic state; this is just an illusion that the Russian opposition is unable to shake off. Until this changes, little progress can be expected and Russia will continue to pose an existential threat to the global international rules-based order.

References:

Balakhonov, V. (1989). Sokhranenie imperii ili samosokhranenie na puti natsional’nogo suveriniteta – glavnaya natsional’naya problema russkogo naroda segodnya. 23^rd of June. Russkaya mysl (Paris). 6-7.

Chernetsky, V. (2007). Mapping post-communist cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the context of globalisation. McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.

Eaton, J. H. (1994). Kicking the Habit: Russia's Addiction to Nuclear Waste Dumping at Sea. Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y, 23, 287.

Eristavi, M. (2024) Russian colonialism 101: How to occupy a neighbor and get away with it: An illustrated guide. Kharkiv: ist publishing.

Kaminskaite, G. (2024a) "Nuclear weapons in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: A postcolonial perspective." Political Perspectives (2024): 34-48.

Kaminskaite, G. (2024b) "Imperialism in Contemporary Russian Liberalism: Alexei Navalny’s Rhetoric." E-IR.

Khodorkovsky, M. & Sixsmith, M. (2022). The Russia Conundrum: how the West fell for Putin’s power gambit—and how to fix it. London: WH Allen.

Navalny, A. (2022) [Twitter] 14^th of April. Available at

https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1514589944467140611 [accessed 10th June 2025]

Navalny, A. (2023). [Twitter] 17^th of January. Available at

https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1615258156912852992 [ accessed 10th June 2025]

Plokhy, S. 2017. The Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation from 1470 to the Present, Basic Books: New York, 2017.

Said, E. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

I am a Lithuanian researcher and I write about Russian imperialism, currently in particular about the imperialist discourse in Russian opposition’s political rhetoric. I mainly work with postcolonial theory. I have a Masters degree in International Relations (Research) from the University of Manchester. I graduated with a distinction and my dissertation was published on the E-IR.

Here are the links of my published articles:

My research article links *

*I also attach separately the PDF of my article published in Political Perspectives titled “Nuclear weapons in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: A postcolonial perspective” as the website link is not working properly for some.

As you can see, I am perhaps not a “real” academic as I do not have a PhD (yet). However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted me to use my voice, my background and my education to raise awareness about Russian imperialism. It is my way of resistance to Russian imperialism. My writing is a mix of my subjective voice and unique standpoint (I spend half of my life in Lithuania and half in the UK), and objective (if objective really exists) academic analysis, as perWestern academic standards. I hope this way my research will make its way into Western academia whilst allowing me to retain my subjectivity.

Where my writings cannot be published due to more personal style or content, I will upload it here. Where my writings are published, I will share the links. This page will not be busy as I normally write when I really feel I need to say something.

I will focus exclusively on research here, my social account is on Instagram.

I am very open to opinions, discussions and comments, so all engagement is very welcome. If you share my content, I would be very grateful. If you use my ideas, please attribute them. If you have any collaboration ideas, please reach out.

Thank you!

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