Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
The ECR group in the EU Parliament says the international community should seek a re-federalisation of the Russian state.
It states, “For many who have experienced Russian oppression in the past, the war in Ukraine can only end when the Russian Federation is completely repulsed and defeated.”
It says “re-federalisation” is needed “in order to finally remove the threat to peace that the Russian Federation still poses.”
To take the idea further, ECR Foreign Affairs Coordinator Anna Fotyga, together with ECR MEP Kosma Złotowski, will host a conference next week.
Called ‘Imperial Russia: Conquest, Genocide and Colonisation. Prospects for Deimperialisation and Decolonisation’ it will be held in the European Parliament in Brussels on 31 January.
The event will cover topics such as ‘Imperial Ideology (From Muscovy to the Russian Mir) & Conquest and Exploitation (from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin)’, ‘Impact of Moscow’s attack on Ukraine on Nations and Regions in the Russian Federation’, ‘Deimperialisation and Decolonisation. The Prison of Nations after the war’ and ‘Western Policy Towards Russia – Beyond the Status Quo’.
A press conference with Janusz Bugajski, Pavlo Klimkin, Ilya Ponomariov, Edwar Lucas (tbc), Ahmed Zakayev , Marina Khankhalaeva, and ECR MEPs Anna Fotyga and Kosma Złotowski is also scheduled.
The ECR statement adds, “Tsarist, Soviet or under Putin, Russia has not changed over the centuries. It is driven by the same imperial instincts, repeating the same pattern: conquest, genocide, colonisation, and then seeking a silent acceptance of the status quo, bribing the international community with the mirage of economic cooperation or the illusion of a vast Russian market. It is naive to think that the Russian Federation can remain within the same constitutional and territorial framework,” it goes on.
“Taking into account the national and ethnic map of the territories of the Russian Federation, we should discuss the prospects for the creation of free and independent states in the post-Russian space, as well as the prospects for their stability and prosperity,” the statement adds.
“The international community has a duty to support the rights of the indigenous peoples who, as a result of Russian conquest and colonisation, now exist within the borders of the Russian Federation,” concludes the ECR.
