[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RUSSIA'S IMPERIAL IDENTITY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
U.S. HELSINKI COMMISSION
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 18, 2024
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Printed for the use of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in
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Available via www.csce.gov
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-809 WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
U.S. HELSINKI COMMISSION
U.S. HOUSE U.S. SENATE
JOE WILSON, South Carolina Chairman
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee Ranking BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland Co-
Member Chairman
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EMANUEL CLEAVER II, Missouri Ranking Member
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas TINA SMITH, Minnesota
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
Department of State - Erin Barclay
Department of Defense - Celeste Wallander
Department of Commerce - Don Graves
C O N T E N T S
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Page
COMMISSIONERS
Hon. Steve Cohen, from Ranking Member............................ 1
Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse from Texas............................... 9
Hon. Victoria Spartz from Indiana................................ 12
OTHER MEMBERS PRESENT
Hon. Mike Quigley from Illinois.................................. 11
Hon. Jimmy Panetta from California............................... 14
WITNESSES
Botakoz Kassymbekova, Assistant Professor in Modern History,
University of Basel............................................ 3
Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale
University..................................................... 4
Philip Obaji Jr., Correspondent, The Daily Beast................. 6
Maria Vyushkova, Buryat Activist and Scientist................... 8
RUSSIA'S IMPERIAL IDENTITY
----------
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN
EUROPE,
U.S. HELSINKI COMMISSION,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Wednesday, September 18, 2024.
The hearing was held from 2:34 p.m. to 3:40 p.m., Room
2358-C, Rayburn House Office Building, Representative Steve
Cohen [D-TN], Ranking Member, Commission for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, presiding.
Committee Members Present: Representative Steve Cohen [D-
TN], Ranking Member; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI];
Representative Victoria Spartz [R-IN].
Other Members Present: Representative Mike Quigley [D-IL];
Representative Jimmy Panetta [D-CA].
Witnesses: Botakoz Kassymbekova, Assistant Professor in
Modern History, University of Basel; Philip Obaji Jr.,
Correspondent, The Daily Beast; Timothy Snyder, Richard C.
Levin Professor of History, Yale University; Maria Vyushkova,
Buryat Activist and Scientist.
OPENING STATEMENT OF STEVE COHEN, RANKING MEMBER, U.S. HOUSE,
FROM TENNESSEE
Co-Chair Cohen: [Sounds gavel.] The Helsinki Commission is
called to order. I thank each of you for being here.
I want to recognize myself for five minutes for opening
remarks and then we will go into--do you want to make an
opening statement? No? We will just go on.
Russia has--we have got some people here from Helsinki I
would like to recognize first, some Ukrainian parliamentarians.
Where are you all? If you all would stand up, please.
I appreciate you coming. Maybe we will meet later but I
wanted you to be here for this hearing.
I understand the Cultural Forces of the military from
Ukraine are also here in Washington. Thank you for attending
and for your contributions to preserving Ukrainian culture.
Thank you.
Russia has been an empire for most of its history. The
empire of the czars created the Soviet Union and it made way
for it, but it was only a temporary thing. They were not
liberators but they were empire builders. Moscow's interests
dominated the Soviet Union and the republics were valuable for
what resources the government could extract from them.
It was Russian culture and the Russian language that
counted. That was it. It was celebrated, respected, and
necessary to advance one's career in society. Entire ethnic
groups in the Soviet Union like the Crimean Tatars in 1944 and
North Caucasus people, the Chechens, and others, were deported
to Siberia or other regions far from their native lands, many
of them not surviving the journey.
No one was ever really held to account for the crimes under
Stalin and throughout the Soviet history. Stalin's policy of
forced collectivization resulted in the Holodomor famine in
Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 and I believe, if I am correct, this
manmade famine also touched southern Russia and Kazakhstan, and
they suffered as well. Five million people totally died of
starvation during that time across the USSR. The majority were
in Ukraine.
This was also a time when Soviet power was going after
intellectuals, writers, artists, and others. In fact, Stalin's
reputation in Russia these days has received a boost from
Putin's patriotic version of history, which he twists to
justify his regime's crimes.
Though Russia's political ideologies have changed over
centuries of empire, the fundamentals are the same--internal
repression of minority groups and external aggression toward
countries that refuse to bow to the Kremlin.
Ukraine has borne the brunt of Russia's imperial rage.
However, Putin's need for domination persists in its military
and psychological operations against Russian neighbors and
discrimination toward any and many colonized nationalities and
ethnic groups.
We will also hear today how Russia is operating in Africa
to spread anti-Western and pro-Russian propaganda while
committing atrocities against the local populations. The United
States has its own troubled past of colonization, of course,
and oppression but, thankfully, we live in a country where we
can openly acknowledge that, discuss our history, and get
better, and we get closer to being a more perfect union. We
still have a ways to go.
In Russia, there is no attempt to have a more perfect
union, only a more perfect Putin, and there is no such thing as
a perfect Putin. He is perfectly reprehensible and disgusting.
In Russia so many who have suffered go unheard because
truth is silenced and because the voices of Moscow have usually
been the loudest of the entire region. That is why it is so
important to listen to the stories of historically marginalized
and colonized people. We will hear some of these stories today
from witnesses.
We will hear from Dr. Botakoz Kassymbekova, an assistant
professor of modern history at the University of Basel, south
Switzerland. Next is Philip Obaji, a correspondent for The
Daily Beast, followed by Dr. Timothy Snyder, whom I know from
television. He is a TV star and I always hear him. [Laughter.]
He also goes to Yale and--or, he teaches at Yale. I do not know
if he went there or not. Where would you go?
Mr. Snyder: I went to Brown.
Co-Chair Cohen: Brown. Okay. Well, that is--the same
league. [Laughter.] Different pew. Same church, different pew.
Finally, Dr. Maria Vyushkova. Yes, thank you. Buryat indigenous
rights and anti-war activist and researcher.
I am here today because Mr. Wilson, who is the chair, is
not up to--is under the weather a bit so I am taking his stead,
and we will recognize whoever wants to go first.
Dr. --thank you.
TESTIMONY OF BOTAKOZ KASSYMBEKOVA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN
MODERN HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF BASEL
Mr. Kassymbekova: Botakoz Kassymbekova.
Co-Chair Cohen: Yes, I have done it once.
Mr. Kassymbekova: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation,
dear ladies and gentlemen, and--
Co-Chair Cohen: Let me say that you are recognized for five
minutes and there will be--
Mr. Kassymbekova: Yes.
Co-Chair Cohen: --a red light--the yellow light will say
you have got one minute to go and a red light says you are
supposed to finish.
Mr. Kassymbekova: Right. Until recently, colonialism seemed
to be a thing of the past. We thought that the idea that one
nation is entitled to dominate and exterminate other nations,
robbing the ability to decide on their future, was gone. Who
would have thought that it would be the Russian nation, which
proclaimed itself the global leader of communism and anti-
colonialism in the 20th century, would lead one of the most
brutal colonial conquests in the 21st century?
If it was once possible to argue that it was missionary
communism against capitalism that led the Russian nation to
expansionism, this explanation is no longer sufficient. The
truth is that Russian colonialism has a long history that dates
five centuries back.
The Russian nation had 500 years to craft a story of
exceptionalism, to grab and rob lands, suppress nations, and
create the largest land empire in the world. The difference
between Russian colonialism from other European empires,
however, is that its metropole never democratized or engaged in
self-critical enlightenment. This means that its colonize knew
no mercy.
Communism itself thrived on Russian colonialism. When the
Russian tsarist empire collapsed after World War I in 1917 and
its numerous colonized nations like Ukraine, Finland, Latvia,
Georgia, Estonia, Armenia, Poland, Bessarabia, Belarus,
Kazakhs, and Buryats, and many others proclaimed independence
or autonomy, communist Moscow brutally reconquered most of
them, killing at least 10 million people.
In the new communist empire, Bolsheviks proclaimed the
Russian nation to be the superior one. Consider this fact. In
their national anthems, non-Russian colonized nations had to
praise and thank the Russian people for the supposedly bright
life under the communist dictatorship.
I was one of the children in Soviet Kazakhstan who had to
sing an anthem with the words "To the great Russian people we
say big thank you. "I sang it without knowing that 40 percent
of Kazakhs died in the 1930s because of the salvation inflicted
on the Kazakh people by Moscow. Moscow stole the cattle of
Kazakh nomads, knowingly leaving millions to starvation. My
grandmother's family perished in that hunger and she was
forcibly taken to a Russian orphanage where 60 percent of
Kazakh children died.
There, she was taught to forget her language, and her
parents, and to praise the Russian nation for communism. As you
know, in the Ukrainian case 4 million people died and today
Ukrainian children are taken to Russia. Russian colonialism was
historically based on the strategy of killing, deporting, and
terrorizing the local population, Russifying them, and settling
the territories with the Russian people.
Consider this quote from a Russian colonial officer about
the strategies of conquest in the northern Caucasus in the
1860s. "The expulsion of half of the mountain people and the
settlement with Russians, these were the war plan. The Russian
population was not only to be the crowning glory of the
conquest of the region; it was to become one of the main means
of conquest."
This strategy continued into the communist period. The
Chechens, Crimeans, Tatars, and many others were killed and
deported from their lands in the 1940s. Terrorized and
forbidden to learn their languages, they were taught to praise
the Russian nation instead.
The Russian people when settling, accepting privileges, and
listening to Soviet anthems, learned to think that the
colonized land was theirs. As a result, in 1989 the last
communist ruler, Mikhail Gorbachev, argued against lending
independence to non-Russian nations which demanded independence
because he said, and "The Russian people are that way."
Although in 1991 communism collapsed, the Russian imperial
identity did not. For many of us who experienced Russian
colonialism firsthand, there were four lessons from the 20th
century.
First, the collapse of the Soviet Russian empire was a
victory for humanity. Millions of people received the
possibility to live in dignity, freedom, and the ability to
decide their own futures. This would not have been possible
under the Russian occupation.
Secondly, although communism failed Russian colonialism did
not. It was never questioned by Russian intellectuals, liberal
or illiberal, its leaders, and by the world at large. However,
we now know that it was not just communism that was
incompatible with democracy, equality, and peace. In fact, it
is Russian colonialism that is not.
Thirdly, in 1991 Moscow argued that without this control
the colonized nations would present a danger to the world. This
was a colonial lie and today we know that it is a colonial lie.
Out of all former Soviet republics, it is the Russian one that
presents the most danger to the world.
Finally, Russian colonialism, just as communism, is not
reformable because it is a system based on ideology. Just like
communism, it has no future. Unlike communism, it can collapse
only if actively defeated.
Thank you.
Representative Panetta: Thank you, Doctor.
Professor Snyder, please. Five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF TIMOTHY SNYDER, RICHARD C. LEVIN PROFESSOR OF
HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Snyder: Okay. [Off mic, technical difficulties]--we are
talking about a particular historical structure. For the last
500 years of world history, the empire has been the dominant
structure. The last hundred years or so have seen a
contestation of that, of which the Russo-Ukrainian war is
probably the latest continuation.
[Off mic, technical difficulties]--a dominant center and
exploited periphery. This very often corresponds to a dominant
nation or a dominant group and exploited national minorities.
[Off mic, technical difficulties]--empires do is to negate.
They carry out policies, statements, and ideologies of
negation. They deny--and this is true of history as well as of
the present war--they deny the reality of other states. Other
states are not real. An empire is real; other states are not.
Other nations are not real. The dominant power or the dominant
center of an empire is real but not other nations.
According to this very brief summary, the Russian
Federation of 2024 is very clearly an empire and its ideology
is very clearly imperial. Russian elites say so themselves
including in official foreign policy documents.
Their idea is that empire has not been consigned to the
past but that empire should continue, that the imperial moment
goes on. The structure of the Russian Federation as well as the
structure of how they fought this war is also imperial. The
center in Moscow and Petersburg exploits a periphery--an Asian
periphery--for its resources.
[Off mic, technical difficulties]--minorities, first of
all, including Buryats and poor people. The occupation has
treated Ukrainians as an inferior people with no right to
exist. Therefore, the structure.
The theory of time is very present in this war. In this
war, Mr. Putin says that Russia has the right to destroy
Ukraine because something happened a thousand years ago. I will
spare you the details but it does not get better if I give you
the details. It just gets worse and stupider.
The idea is that Russia is innocent because of something
that might have happened to a Viking a thousand years ago and,
therefore, can invade Ukraine. I have now given it more dignity
than it deserves.
That is the theory of time, right, because of that Russia
has history laws that make it illegal to question the official
version of history, and because of this theory of time anything
that looks like Ukrainian culture, such as the representation
we just had, is claimed not to have exist and thus we have
imperial negation in practice.
Inside occupied Ukraine the murder of local elites, the
deportation of children for their Russification on the logic
that there is no Ukraine anyway, the deliberate destruction of
publishing houses, archives, and libraries, and I would note
that historically the bandura playing which you just saw was
treated as part of Ukrainian culture that did not exist in the
Soviet Union and bandura players were executed.
Which leads me to a very specific form of negation. Russia
in this war is repeating very specific imperial practices of
the Soviet Union and, indeed, of Nazi Germany while denying
that those things ever happened, which is part of this larger
notion of time.
All right. Therefore, what does that mean for policy? I
will make five very quick recommendations.
Number one, myths of empire can only grow when nobody knows
anything about history which, unfortunately, as a first
approximation describes us.
Number two, if we are going to be anti-imperial we also
have to be reflective.
As Representative Cohen suggested, if Americans are going
to talk about anti-imperialism, they better be ready to talk
about their own imperial past, or else no one in the Global
South will take us seriously, and people from the Global South
have to be brought into this conversation or it makes no sense.
The third thing we need to say is that imperialism directly
contradicts the basic foundations of the international legal
order. It is not just some funny idea. It is counter to
everything we take for granted and that brings us stability.
Fourth, Americans who are against empire should be in favor
of the European Union. The European Union is the way that
European states have found another kind of political
organization, a way to interact that is post-imperial and anti-
imperial.
Fifth and, perhaps most important it is important to note
that empires usually lose their wars. Empires usually lose
their wars. Since 1945 the bigger country, the empire, has
usually lost its wars.
That means that we can expect or it would not be strange if
Russia would lose its war, and then underneath that it should
lose its war even if all you care about is Russia because the
only way that empires in Europe have transitioned into becoming
rule of law states is by losing their last imperial war.
Therefore, an analysis of the history of the empire would
lead you to the conclusion that doing what one can to help
Russia lose this imperial war would be good not only for the
people that Russia is oppressing and whose existence they are
denying but also good for Russia itself.
Thank you.
Representative Panetta: Thank you.
Mr. Obaji, please. Five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF PHILIP OBAJI JR., CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY BEAST
Mr. Obaji: Thank you so much, members of the Commission. It
is a huge privilege to be with you today and it is also a great
honor for me to appear with Dr. Kassymbekova, Professor Snyder,
and Dr. Vyushkova.
Last year I wrote one of the most powerful stories
published anywhere, an in-depth investigation on the operations
of Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic
following the death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin who, by
the way, never said anything good about me.
The account revealed how so-called Russian military
instructors operating under the command of the Russian Ministry
of Defense slaughtered dozens of people to secure access to a
gold mine in the north of the CAR. That is short for the
Central African Republic.
Traveling from my home in Nigeria to Central Africa last
December was not my first. I had spent years highlighting the
plight of people maltreated and abused by Russian
paramilitaries and that has not gone unnoticed by the Russians.
In 2022 I became a target of the Wagner Group after
exposing the wrongdoing of their mercenaries operating across
Africa. Contacts told me that my photo had been circulating on
chat groups used by locals recruited by Wagner, who have
apparently denounced me as an obstacle to fighting extremism in
the CAR and claimed that I am an agent of the West who should
be arrested or killed.
I traveled to the regions of the CAR where militias had
previously attacked outsiders with slingshots, machetes, and
guns. I was held for hours by rebels who initially accused me
of attempting to spy on them.
Days later on the border with Cameroon I was arrested,
tortured, and detained overnight by Central African forces
acting on the orders of Russian paramilitaries after soldiers
saw me interviewing artisanal miners who were attempting to
flee the country following attacks on their community by
Russian paramilitaries. Soldiers beat me and confiscated my
phone and camera.
No amount of intimidation was going to stop me from
continuing my investigation. After the soldiers released me I
crossed into Cameroon, bought new equipment, and returned to
the CAR to finish the work I had started.
The attack by Russian paramilitaries on locals in the
northwestern central African town of Koki in which at least 50
villagers were killed became an obsession for me, all the more
because the victims were ordinary people who had done nothing
wrong.
I managed to interview 16 witnesses to the attack. They all
told me the same thing. Russian paramilitaries slaughtered
their friends, colleagues, family members, and neighbors simply
because the Russians wanted to secure access to Koki's gold
mine.
That was not all. In the middle of December 2023, I
traveled to Bouar in the northwest of the CAR where I
interviewed a dozen girls who told me Russian paramilitaries
led them into a military base on the outskirts of town and then
drugged and raped them before administering contraceptive shots
and pills to them. A couple of other girls described to me how
Russian paramilitaries held them at gunpoint on their farmlands
and then took turns raping them right in front of their family
members.
In Mali, where I recently interviewed women raped and
abused by Russian paramilitaries, the Wagner Group continues to
operate in the country on behalf of Vladimir Putin's regime,
helping government forces in central and northern Mali carry
out raids and drone strikes that have killed scores of
civilians including many children.
Like in the CAR, Russian activities in Mali have
exacerbated long-running lawlessness, corruption, violence, and
human rights abuses with total impunity. Russia continues to be
a primary purveyor of disinformation in Africa, sponsoring over
80 documented campaigns targeting more than 22 countries.
The United States has also been targeted. I recently found
dozens of sponsored articles by pro-Russian media outlets in
western Central Africa making claims like the largest--saying
the largest park in the CAR has been mismanaged by Americans
who have deployed rebels from Joseph Kony's Lord Resistance
Army in the DRC to the Central African Republic.
Finally, Russia has promulgated disinformation to undermine
democracy in at least 19 African countries, contributing to the
continent's backsliding on this front. From Africa, Russia is
also targeting American democracy.
I look forward to your questions and thank you for the
privilege of testimony today.
Representative Panetta: Thank you, Mr. Obaji.
Dr. Vyushkova, please. Five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF MARIA VYUSHKOVA, BURYAT ACTIVIST AND SCIENTIST
Ms. Vyushkova: Thank you. It is a great honor to be
testifying here at this hearing on behalf of Russia's
indigenous activists.
My research focuses on the impact of the Russian invasion
of Ukraine on the indigenous people of Russia's north, far
east, and Siberia. From the very first days of the 2022 Russian
invasion of Ukraine, it has been reported that Russia's ethnic
minorities are overrepresented both in the invasion forces and
among the Russian side casualties.
If we look at the top 10 Russia's regions by per capita
death toll we will see that seven out of 10 are ethnic
republics, or Okrugs, with the Asian republics of Tuva,
Buryatia, and Altai at the very top of the list. The indigenous
ethnic groups living in those regions are very significantly
overrepresented among the Russian side war casualties with
Telengits living in Altai showing 11.5 times greater per capita
death toll compared to Russia's average.
The small numbered indigenous peoples of the north,
Siberia, and far east such as Telengits, Udege, Nganasan, and
Chukchi are hit the hardest, the per capita death toll for
those ethnic groups being much higher than even for Buryats or
Tuvans.
For instance, Nenets living in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, one
of the most economically prosperous regions of Russia, do not
benefit at all from the booming extractive industry there.
Instead, it destroys the environment, threatening their
traditional way of living. Nenets are very significantly
overrepresented among the region's war casualties as well as
among those who were specifically recruited from prisons.
In September 2002, Vladimir Putin announced partial
mobilization in Russia. The indigenous rights activist
organizations such as Free Buryatia Foundation, Free Yakutia
Foundation, and Batani Indigenous Foundation, received multiple
reports of disproportional draft of indigenous men.
Official documents show that Buryatia, my home region, was
hit disproportionately hard by the mobilization. In Khabarovsk
Krai and the Republic of Sakha Yakutia, the small-numbered
indigenous peoples of the north were drafted more often than
the rest of each region's population.
In Khabarovsk Krai, the indigenous men were drafted almost
three times more often than the nonindigenous population.
According to the Batani Foundation, in one Nanai settlement,
the authorities attempted to draft 100 percent of the adult
male population. In the Udege settlement of Gvasiugi, they
drafted 30 percent of adult men. Thus, whole indigenous
cultures are at risk of disappearing within the next several
decades.
Russian legislation, ostensibly meant to exempt small-
numbered indigenous peoples from mandatory military service,
totally fails to protect them. The fact that indigenous people
of Russia's north, far east, and Siberia are overrepresented in
the Russian invasion army has led to the formation of the
warlike, bloodthirsty savage stereotype against the indigenous
people, most notably against the Buryats, Tuvans, and the
Nenets.
Apparently, not just the death toll but also the moral
burden of Russia's aggression against Ukraine was put
disproportionately on the indigenous people. Unfortunately,
such prominent public figures as Pope Francis, the head of the
Catholic Church, started spreading this narrative making the
indigenous people a potential target for hate crimes,
especially given that some of us live in Ukraine or in other
countries abroad.
There were a number of war crime allegations against the
Indigenous troops that turned out to be false, most notably
about the Bucha massacre, which was falsely blamed on the
ethnic Buryat troops. However, it has been established beyond
any reasonable doubt that it was the paratroopers from the
Russian city of Pskov, almost exclusively ethnic Russians, who
were responsible for the Bucha massacre.
However, the Buryats in Bucha myth still persists among the
anti-war Russian public as well as in Ukraine and in the West.
I think that for the Russian anti-war influencers, their
motivation is obviously the desire to shift the responsibility
away from the Russians.
According to a recent study by Dr. Adam Lenton of Wake
Forest University, the Russian public opposed to Putin's regime
and sympathetic to liberal views tends to be significantly more
xenophobic towards Russia's ethnic minorities than the society
in general.
This is a very alarming result, posing a question of
whether the possible regime change would bring a better future
for Russia's indigenous peoples.
In conclusion, let us not forget that there are more than
240 indigenous political prisoners in Russia. Please spread the
message that in any future prisoner exchanges with Russia, they
should not be overlooked. Thank you for your attention.
Representative Panetta: Thank you, Doctor, and thanks to
all of the witnesses for that very powerful testimony.
There is a speaking order. I know the chairman normally
asks questions. However, I am filling in for the chairman so I
do not think it is appropriate that I go. Instead, I am going
to turn it over to Senator Whitehouse for his five minutes of
questioning based on a timing issue that he has and having to
leave.
Therefore, Senator, please. Five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, U.S. SENATE, FROM RHODE ISLAND
Senator Whitehouse: That is very kind of you. Thank you. My
questions will be for Professor Snyder.
Thank you for being here, Professor. Good to see you. I
would like to hear your comments on--something just vibrated
over here that was not me--how the international dark money
network supports corrupt oligarchies that produced Putin.
He is now sort of the oligarch in chief. He either has them
all in tow or he is had them killed or sent off or intimidated,
and it looks to me like a colleague of yours, a historian,
wrote about a clash of civilizations--that our clash of
civilizations is between this kleptocratic oligarchy and
representative democracy.
Is that a context that is worth looking at what led to
Putin's rise to power? That is the question. More a topic than
a question.
Mr. Snyder: No, that is excellent. There is, of course, an
obvious connection between extractive empires and oligarchs or
very wealthy people. Control of hydrocarbon resources as in the
Russian Far East is quite a simple way for a few people, an
individual, or a clan to become very wealthy.
It is a simple extractive process. It can be--the territory
can be controlled by force, and then, as in Russia and other
hydrocarbon states, you see that one clan or one group--one
family, as the Russians say--end up controlling all the wealth.
Therefore, there is in this case a very direct connection
between the processes described here and the power of Putin or
whoever might succeed Putin so long as Russia is an extractive
hydrocarbon regime.
Of course, you are right that this is an international
phenomenon and when so ever the wealth might arise if one is
American or British or responsible for policy in a number of
other states, one should be very concerned about the fact that
there are not just loopholes but giant inviting windows through
which international oligarchs can hold and launder their money.
This is a subject beyond the borders of my own expertise
but I think it is very important to note that international
dark money networks exist because of us and not just because of
the people that we are calling the bad guys.
You are right, of course, as well that Putin's succession
and rise to power involved a kind of parade of oligarchs with
whom at first he was in some kind of agreement and then he
showed by example, most prominently in the case of
Khodorkovsky, who controlled precisely hydrocarbon resources,
that anyone who was not with him was against him and would be
treated as a criminal.
Then there is a final connection, which is maybe the most
interesting. Putin, as one of the richest men in the world,
joins the other rich men in the world in having lots of very
strange ideas about the future, and the very strange ideas that
oligarchs have, Russian or otherwise, tend to bend us into
conflicts which we might otherwise avoid.
It is not healthy to think we are all going to go to Mars.
It is not healthy to think we are all going to live forever. It
is not healthy to think there is no Ukraine, which is Putin's
particular oligarchical fantasy.
Senator Whitehouse: It is not healthy to think that Russia
is an imperium awaiting to manifest itself well.
Well, thank you very much. One of the folks I traveled with
a lot and learned a good deal from was my colleague in the
Senate and quite a dear friend, John McCain, I guess I will
summarize with his famous quote about Russia, which is that it
is a gas station that is run by a mafia that happens to have an
army, and I think you have summarized that very well, Professor
Snyder.
Therefore, thank you and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Co-Chair Cohen: Thank you, Senator.
I think Mr. Quigley has to go somewhere and since I have
been somewhere I am going to let you go somewhere. [Laughter.]
STATEMENT OF MIKE QUIGLEY, U.S. HOUSE, FROM ILLINOIS
Representative Quigley: We are all going somewhere.
Doctor, help me. Maybe I missed it but your facts, while
compelling, lead to conclusions that I was waiting for you to
state, right? At least one of them has to be that this war has
many advantages for Putin.
One is he can, as you described, use it as an assault on
indigenous people but also fight a war of attrition seemingly
much longer than Ukraine might be able to because he can treat
people he does not care for like cannon fodder.
However, would you extrapolate on those and anything else
that I might be missing about how Putin's choice and how he is
conducting this war reflects your facts?
Ms. Vyushkova: Yes. All right. I strongly believe that
Putin's regime just--Putin is trying to reduce the political
risks for himself by conducting this war at the expense of the
vulnerable discriminated groups no one cares about including--
Representative Quigley: [Off mic]--a lot more pushback if
there were other groups he was drawing into--
Ms. Vyushkova: Exactly. Exactly. For instance, such groups
include migrants, prisoners, convicts recruited from prison,
homeless people even, and, unfortunately, ethnic minorities are
one of those discriminated and disadvantaged groups. Therefore,
it is just politically safer to conduct this war at the expense
of--disproportionately at the expense of ethnic minorities.
However, I do not think that it is a deliberate ethnic
cleansing policy, so to speak. Therefore, it is just the result
of the indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities being a
discriminated group so it is just politically safer for the
local authorities, for instance, to draft the indigenous men
three times more often in Khabarovsk Krai, for instance, and
actually 80 percent of the indigenous men from Khabarovsk Krai
who ended up fighting in this war 80 percent of them were
drafted against their will actually and only 20 percent went
there voluntarily.
However, unfortunately, ethnic minorities especially the
small numbered Indigenous nations of the north and far east are
so discriminated against, and their social status is so
significantly lower than their Russian counterparts that it is
totally politically safe to do whatever they want like draft
100 percent of adult men from a Nanai settlement.
Representative Quigley: If anyone else would like to
comment on that.
Mr. Snyder: If I could just come in briefly on the premise.
Of course, it is right that Putin's ability to treat much
of his population or the population of occupied Ukraine as he
wishes is an advantage in some sense. It does not, though, mean
that his troops are motivated the way that troops on the other
side are. It is also a disadvantage to be coercive.
Zelensky and the other side have the advantage that many of
the people in the army are there because they have some notion
of why they are there and they are defending their homeland.
Then just as a factual matter, I would point out that--and
perhaps you would want to comment on this--but as a factual
matter, you do eventually start having to draft people from the
big cities and start having to draft the Russians, which means
that the longer the war goes on the harder it might become to
just continue to carry out what you are calling the war of
attrition because the longer it goes on the more Russians--the
more middle-class people, the more city people--you do have to
bring into the army and they are getting to that point now.
Mr. Kassymbekova: Yes. I would like to add that there is a
huge national awakening among the non-Russian nations within
the Russian Federation. They are nations--21 nations. They have
their own parliament. They have their own constitutions. They
are not ethnic minorities.
There is a huge awakening also because many of them have
left Russia. They went to places like Kazakhstan where they
say, oh, we did not know that one can actually live in one's
own republic with dignity and the ability to exercise one's
culture and learn one's language.
Therefore, the political geography is changing now. There
are very strong voices for the independence of these nations
and we need to look at them, and they are not only ethnic
minorities. There are real nations within the Russian current
empire.
Representative Quigley: Thank you.
Co-Chair Cohen: Do you yield? Mr. Quigley yields.
Ms. Spartz, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF VICTORIA SPARTZ, U.S. HOUSE, FROM INDIANA
As we know, ethnic cleansing, oppression, and racist
policies of superiority have been in Russia for centuries, you
know. However, my question for Dr. Vyushkova, do you think the
ethnic people, like, realize that--you know, that they have
been oppressed?
I mean, do you see on the ground they have an understanding
that they have been screwed in resources and money which
oligarchs have taken from them? They live pretty miserably
poor. Is there that understanding on the ground?
Ms. Vyushkova: Yes, I think there is and actually the
revival of ethnic activism and indigenous rights, activism in
Russia is a very important sign, I believe, and there are a lot
of decolonial activists and indigenous rights activists and
ethnic anti-war activists from Russia but most of them,
obviously, were forced to leave Russia.
However, this war, of course, changed our understanding of
our identity. Probably not the majority of our nations but many
people just realized that this type of imperial aggression
against Ukraine has very similar roots as how--to how we are
treated inside Russia, especially the fact that ethnic
minorities were so much overrepresented among the war
casualties. Like, they had to--the war death toll was put
disproportionately hard on their shoulders. This also made
people realize that, yes, they are actually exploited subjects,
as Professor Snyder put it.
I think there are very significant changes but probably
they are not as fast as we would want them to be.
Representative Spartz: Right. Right. Well, that ethnic
cleansing happening right now in Russia it is very racist, and
policies that they are doing it.
Ms. Vyushkova: Right. Yes.
Representative Spartz: They think that they are superior.
They teach their kids they are superior to everyone--[laughs]--
including Ukrainians. You know, that is been taught,
unfortunately, for generations, sadly, you know, even though
they--a lot of them live a pretty bad life.
Just my question is to Mr. Obaji. [Laughs.] You know, I can
say other names better than yours but I will do my best. I
think what is happening in Africa is disgraceful. It is awful
what China and Russia are doing right now. I mean, it is just
really, I mean, destroying the continent, taking advantage of
resources, and really enslaving people. I mean, it is sad to
see for me that the international community is not standing up
more to see that and, unfortunately, a lot of American
companies are afraid even now to go to Russia.
Therefore, you know, China takes resources. Russia, you
know, is the force there that, you know, with their military
force now. What they are doing is awful, but have you seen any
positive moves happening? I think what Afrika Korps are doing
right now it is brutal, it is awful, and they have been doing
it for a while.
However, have you seen any positive things that people
actually start realizing or some governments, or it is so
corrupt and so bought and people afraid that it is just really
in terrible shape? It is awful. Can you share any positive
things happening in Africa right now that some of those
governments are waking up?
Mr. Obaji: Well, positive, if you say in terms of--if your
question is positive in terms of, you know, Russia being
present in Africa and whether or not some governments are
seeing their presence as being positive the answer is yes if
that is what you mean. Some countries, not all countries.
Therefore, let me be clear. The Russians are mostly active
in the Central African Republic, in Mali, in Burkina Faso, and
in Niger but they have troops on the ground in the Central
African Republic, in Mali, and recently we had--we saw about
300 members of the Bear Brigade make it to Burkina Faso.
The reason why they are able to have a field day in these
countries is that to start with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger
own the military dictatorship and much of the rest of the world
really has cut ties with these countries, even the sanctions by
the African Union, sanctions by ECOWAS as the west African
regional body, and also with the EU, and that has created an
opening for the Russians to get there.
In the Central African Republic for some reason, I do not
even know why the West have completely looked away from that
country and because that happened the Russians saw an opening
to get involved.
However, yes, corruption in these countries, in these
administrations, have made it a lot easier for the Russians to
act with impunity, for the Russians to carry out massacres, you
know, in numbers that no one has ever seen before.
Representative Spartz: Right. Hopefully, we will have
better policies.
As we are talking, Professor Snyder, I know that my time is
up but, you know, unfortunately, the Soviet Union lost the war
but did not win the peace because we did not have Jeffersons
and Washington there to write democratic, you know,
constitution and write the republics and, unfortunately, most
of those republics fell back into dictatorship and corruption,
including--I did not get a chance but maybe some other time. I
do actually see what has happened in Central Asia but it is
very important because people have been oppressed there for a
while, too.
However, I think my time is--I am running out of time, so I
have to yield back. However, thank you for being here.
Co-Chair Cohen: Mr. Panetta?
STATEMENT OF JIMMY PANETTA, U.S. HOUSE, FROM CALIFORNIA
Representative Panetta: Thank you, Chair Cohen. I
appreciate this opportunity to be a part of this hearing at the
Helsinki Commission--with the Helsinki Commission, so thank you
very much. Thanks to--[off mic, technical difficulties]--
recently, past couple months. I have been to Ukraine twice,
including this last weekend. Therefore if I cannot form
complete sentences, it is because I am exhausted. That is the
reason.
However, I have also been to the Sahel, as well, numerous
times, every August. Austin Scott and I, I go on a bipartisan
trip to the Sahel every year. Obviously, what we have seen in
that area and what I saw is that those are countries and areas
that are clearly being affected by much of what you talked
about, the desire of Putin to create and maintain an empire.
Now, when I was in Kyiv in early August I came in through
Moldova. We drove into--it was unlike the regular congressional
trips in that we actually got to stay on the ground for five
nights. Moldova to Odessa, Odessa for a night, and then up to
Kyiv and then around the surrounding areas.
Had a fruitful meeting with President Zelensky, and other
military leaders, and basically allowed to speak to civilians
and one of my takeaways from that trip was the appreciation of
the United States' support for Ukraine but in particular the F-
16s, not just from military leaders but the morale boost that
it provided civilians on the ground how much basically they
appreciated that. Even though they may not know the extent of
what it can do, the fact that we were supporting them with that
particular piece of equipment was very important to the
civilians.
Then last weekend I attended the Yalta European Strategy
Conference. However, beyond that, we actually took a train out
to Kharkiv and saw the destruction that the Russians imposed
upon the people of Kharkiv and actually stood on a burnt-out
gutted, you know, Soviet-style apartment building about 12
floors. Took the stairs to the top and actually looked into
Russia and you could see basically where the Russians were
coming from.
In two of those trips, obviously, the desires that we heard
from most people were that they need air defenses and they need
permissions. Now, when I went to Africa in Sahel, obviously,
you saw the influence in Wagner and in fact we went to Niger
and were able to get in and meet with the leadership of Niger,
and what you are seeing is, obviously, not just in Niger but as
you said, Mr. Obaji, in Mali, in BF, in CAR, in Libya, is the
influence of Russia's and the fact that the Russians,
obviously, starting with Wagner and Prigozhin and then turning
into Afrika Korps now and literally becoming an offshoot of
Russia.
Yet, they are taking advantage of these coups. They are
taking advantage of the corruption. They are taking advantage
of the dysfunction, unfortunately, of these governments at this
point and that is where I believe that we, the United States,
must still continue to engage with these countries and, as you
said, not just pull our stakes but actually try to engage
because I do believe that it is our standards and our ways, I
think, that are everlasting, not the standards of Russia.
However, Mr. Snyder--Professor Snyder, if I could, as you
know next week we are going to see President Zelensky come to
the United States and present a victory plan. Obviously, what
we are seeing right now is a war of attrition where it is
basically kind of a war of butchery, to be honest with you, and
that Putin is just throwing humans at the problem, throwing
these Russians that they are going in and taken advantage of by
paying them an exorbitant amount of money, at least for them,
to be on these front lines.
When you look at this so-called plan, Professor, if you
were to advise Zelensky in dealing with Putin what would your
victory plan entail?
Mr. Snyder: Well, I am an American talking to Americans and
I am going to keep it in those terms.
First, if I could just note there is a very important
connection between the Russian empire and the way the United
States has thought about the Russo-Ukrainian war. From the very
beginning, we have tended to treat Russia as a real country
because we are aware of its big history, big literature, and
big past.
Many of us learned about it in school and many of us
imbibed the Russian imperial narrative according to which the
peoples that we have been speaking about today were secondary,
irrelevant, troublemakers, and nationalists to somehow be
dismissed, and I think that was deep under our skin and had a
lot to do with the misjudgments that Americans made in general
in February 2022 when we took for granted as a society and as a
polity that Ukraine would break within a few days when Russia
invaded.
I think we are still in the process of de-imperializing or
decolonizing our own minds vis-a-vis Ukraine. I think we have
seriously underestimated the potential of the Ukrainian armed
forces and the potential of Ukrainian society, partly because
we have taken in imperial assumptions ourselves and it seems to
me that that should be a part of what we are talking about
today.
Therefore, part of being an empire is controlling the
discourse and to a large degree, the Russians have been able to
control the strategic discourse, setting up for us new rules in
a war that have never existed before like, for example, that
when you invade another country the entire war should take
place on the territory of the country you have invaded.
No one has ever said that before because it is completely
absurd and, yet, somehow it has been accepted in the United
States as normal that this war should be fought on Ukrainian
territory. There is no precedence for that kind of idea.
Another idea that the Russians have that we have accepted
is that it is normal, for example, when you and I were in Kyiv,
for ballistic missiles to rain down on the city where we were
trying to do normal business but it is somehow not normal for
ballistic missiles from Ukraine to go into Russia.
Why is that? Why is it normal for one country and not for
another? It has a great deal to do with imperial thinking,
which we have accepted. There is something precious, special,
et cetera, about Russia and somehow it is okay for Ukrainians
to be victims because they always have been victims.
We need to investigate, I think, that understructure of
thinking, which I believe has guided our policy in the wrong
way.
As far as empires are concerned, I will return to my--to
what I said at the end, trying to respond now to your question
about a victory plan. I believe the Ukrainians are right about
something that they have been--that they are hard-pressed to
convince us of and I think what I am saying now is consistent
with the history of empire.
The Russians are going to negotiate peace when they believe
they are losing, and so if anyone is serious about negotiation
that person should be trying to get the Russians into a
position where they think they might be losing.
The Ukrainians get that but they are having a really hard
time making us understand that pairing. Therefore, when they
talk about a victory plan or a peace plan what they mean is
together the West and Ukraine do enough to get Russia to a
point where it might negotiate sincerely. They are not there
now.
Representative Panetta: Outstanding. Thank you. [Applause.]
If I may just briefly, Doctor--with your indulgence, Mr.
Chair--Dr. Kassymbekova, I have been to Kazakhstan. I believe
that Kazakhstan should be granted permanent normal trade
relations and we should get rid of Jackson-Vanik for
Kazakhstan. I will say that and I will yield back.
Co-Chair Cohen: Thank you. I am going to do something that
I do not think is--it is not normal. I do not think has ever
done. I am going to ask our guests from Ukraine, our four
members of parliament from Ukraine, and our cultural folk from
the military, who I know are here to perform and not to--but do
you have any questions you would like to ask of any of the
panelists or statements you would like to make concerning any
of these issues?
Stand up if you would like to speak and identify yourself.
Yes.
Audience Member: [Off mic.]
Co-Chair Cohen: Sure, you can--yes, sir. Would you stand
up? Tell me your name.
Audience Member: Alexei Stanka, and we are from--[off
mic]--Ukraine.
Co-Chair Cohen: Welcome.
Audience Member: Thank you very much. Thank you for your
support and for everything that the United States does to
Ukraine because, of course, we need to win, and it is--the only
chance for us to live and be alive is to win this war because
evil will never stop. Putin will never stop. Any, you know,
thinking about frozen conflict or something like this, the war
will start in two years, three years, and five years.
You know, I am representative of the Poltava region, and
two weeks ago--it was a horrible thing--Russia bombed the
university in Poltava and more than 60 people died. They were
students. They were 17, 18, and 19, so kids.
Co-Chair Cohen: Was that the military school?
Audience Member: Yes, but they were students.
Co-Chair Cohen: I got you.
Audience Member: However, they were students and they were
not yet soldiers.
Co-Chair Cohen: I got you.
Audience Member: About 200 people were injured and 20
people we could not even find where they are. However, we
understand that when rockets and bombs are, there is nothing
left, especially nothing left from people.
The thing that we really, really need is permission for us
to hit those military objects on Russian territory, because in
the Poltava region, we are 100 kilometers to the border with
Russia and a hundred twenty kilometers to the active war in
Kharkiv. They put those systems that send ballistic rockets
near the border, and it is only 100 kilometers. It is one
minute until the ballistic bomb falls in the Poltava region. In
Sumy region, it is 20, 30 seconds. Therefore, there is no
possibility for the people to run in the shelter.
It was the same situation in Poltava's university. People
just did not have the ability to run in the shelter because it
is not enough time. It was only one-and-a-half minutes starting
from the alarm until the university was already attacked by the
rockets.
Therefore, we really need this permission, and we want to
win. We are doing everything to win, and our best people are
doing everything for us--to fight and to stand--you know, stand
with us, help us. Of course, we want to do everything to win.
Thank you very much and thank you for what your country
does to us. Thank you. [Applause.]
Co-Chair Cohen: You are very welcome.
I was trying to find a report that I saw yesterday, and I
hope you all have seen it, about the drone attacks on the
Russian missile security area. They apparently knocked out 300
or 400 ballistic missiles, and they said it was like an
earthquake and 2.6 on the Richter scale. Take that, Vladimir.
[Laughs.]
You know, I wish I could tell you that we are allowing the
weapons to be used to go outside of Ukraine and to penetrate
Russia. I have signed a letter with about 20 or 30 other
members, most of them Helsinki members and Foreign Relations.
However, we signed that and I support it, and I hope that it is
allowed. I certainly understand it.
Do you have a question, sir?
Audience Member: Yes.
Co-Chair Cohen: Sure.
Audience Member: You know, during--over history Russia
tried to destroy Ukrainian culture.
Co-Chair Cohen: Tell me who you are.
Mikolai Sierga [founder, Cultural Forces]: My name is
Mikolai. I am the founder of Cultural Forces.
Cultural Forces will be in Ukraine, which supports the
morale/psychological state of the soldiers on the front line.
Before the war, we--[off mic]--artists.
Co-Chair Cohen: Dr.--Professor Snyder had to go, so--it is
not because of you. [Laughter.]
Audience Member: Yes. On the first day of the war, we
become soldiers. Then after some period of time, we accumulate
our main weapons: Our poems, our songs, our instruments, and
right now, in Cultural Forces, we have eight artists, and every
day we are working on the front line. We have eight groups,
each group making three, or four concerts per day. Therefore,
every day we are doing about 25 concerts on the front line.
Therefore, during the war, we held more than 4,500 concerts in
front of the troops in the common zones. Right now, we are here
in the United States to say thanks to the American people for
your support in sharing our culture, our emotions, our--
reflecting our experience through our culture.
Russia tried to destroy Ukrainian culture during all of its
history. In the beginning of the 20th century, they collected
all--invited all the bandura players--kobza players--to, like,
festival and killed everybody and burned their instruments. In
the beginning of this event, we made a little performance
before you came in and it was bandura player--[inaudible].
Therefore, all the bandura players in Ukraine at that time were
killed because the bandura was an instrument of freedom, an
instrument of soul. It shows what is--what is Ukrainian soul to
Ukrainian people, and they want to break the--[speaks in
Ukrainian as an aside]--
Audience Member: Chains.
Audience Member: Break the chains, yes, when they have this
music. Therefore, Russia killed them.
Russia killed a lot of young Ukrainian poets and writers.
How did they do that? They invited everybody of them and said,
we will give free flats, and free rooms in a big building,
which is called the Building of S, like S the first word in the
Ukrainian word "word." [Laughs.] Like--
Audience Member: Budenikslava.
Audience Member: Yes, budenikslava. They killed half of all
the citizens in this building. Another half they put in the
jails. Therefore, they killed. It called--
Co-Chair Cohen: Was this the beginning of the 20th century,
too? Same time?
Audience Member: Yes, yes, yes. Therefore, all the time
they are trying to destroy Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian
artists. Right now, we are Ukrainian artists. We are here.
Yurii Ivaskevych, opera singer who lost his leg on the front
line. Sasha Boole, a very famous Ukrainian country singer. Two
more, like Olga Rukavishnikova, violinist. She lost her eye on
the front line. We come here to the United States, and we will
have tour here on the south part of United States.
My Questions: What we can do to help you to convince
American people to support Ukraine more, to do not let Russia
make the new circle of killing Ukrainian artists, Ukrainian
brains, Ukrainian hearts?
Co-Chair Cohen: Thank you for what you are doing. Thank you
for your service and supporting your country in the war. I am
sorry about the injuries that happens and--but committing
yourself to continue to support the troops on the front lines,
and that is admirable. I did not really know about all that so
I appreciate it.
I have had a resolution, which I have tried to pass, and
having declared that Russia is committing genocide now and what
they have done they have destroyed a lot of artifacts--cultural
artifacts in Ukraine and I think they have--you know, that is
part of genocide.
What you can do to help, I think your touring around is
important for Americans to see and to hear your stories, and I
do not know where you are going in the South but that is a good
place to go because there are a lot of people there that are
more likely to be affected by the information put out by Trump
and that world that say that we should be spending our money at
home on domestic.
However, that is an excuse. What they really want to do is
they want to be buddies with Putin. Trump and Putin have got a
relationship, and it is unfortunate.
Therefore, we have got an election coming up, and I think
if they see you I think it is important and good, and explain--
and to understand that if Ukraine goes the Baltics, Poland,
Europe's next, and then Putin's not going to stop and they need
to know that and see that, and eventually if it goes to NATO it
is going to mean American troops on the ground and those folks
are not going to want to see that either because it is going to
be some of their sons and daughters.
Therefore, where are you going in the South? Where is your
tour?
Audience Member: I have a tour list.
Co-Chair Cohen: Do you go to Memphis?
Audience Member: Let me say, could you help us? You know,
your song schedule?
Co-Chair Cohen: Are you scheduled to go to Memphis?
Audience Member: Yes, I think they are--yes, they are
planning to go--
Co-Chair Cohen: Good. Do you know when?
Audience Member: --to Texas, then go to Alabama, to South
Carolina, North Carolina, Florida--
Co-Chair Cohen: When do they go to Memphis?
Audience Member: Texas. Memphis, one second.
Audience Member: We will find out for you.
Co-Chair Cohen: That is my home.
Audience Member: We will find out.
Co-Chair Cohen: It is a great music city. Yes. Hopefully, I
will be there.
Audience Member: If we do not have it in the schedule, we
will put it. [Laughter.]
Co-Chair Cohen: However, I appreciate what you are doing,
and it is admirable. You know, it is hard for me to fathom. I
mean, Putin's--it is all about his ego, and it is--and I do not
know how you change that. Maybe you kidnap his ballerina
girlfriend. [Laughter.] Otherwise, he is not going to stop. He
may let her go. [Laughter.]
Audience Member: Thank you.
Co-Chair Cohen: Do you have--would you like to ask a
question, sir, or make a statement?
Audience Member: We can sing the question. [Laughter.]
Co-Chair Cohen: [Sings: "Old Man River."] Can you do that?
[Laughter.]
Audience Member: [Sings: "America the Beautiful."]
Co-Chair Cohen: Amber grains.
Audience Member: We do not remember the ending.
Audience Member: Sorry. [Laughter.]
Co-Chair Cohen: You are doing good.
Audience Member: [Sings: "America the Beautiful."]
[Applause.]
Co-Chair Cohen: Bravo. Bravo.
Audience Member: Thank you.
Co-Chair Cohen: Thank you very much. I do not think anybody
can top that, so I want to--[laughter]--I want to thank our
panelists for being here, our witnesses and for your testimony,
and everybody, and to the members of parliament, I think you
have some time to come to my office and we can talk some more,
and if you all would like to come you are more than welcome,
too.
With that, this meeting of the Helsinki Commission is
concluded. [Sounds gavel.]
[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the hearing ended.]
Additional Submission for the Record
OPENING STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN L. CARDIN
Thank you to Mr. Cohen for leading this Helsinki Commission hearing
on Russian imperialism. Whether it is Vladimir Putin's repressive
internal governance efforts or his brutal aggression abroad, Russia's
imperial identity has become increasingly relevant to understanding
Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Unlike other European empires, Russia has never reckoned with its
violent colonial past. The invasion of Ukraine and other acts of
aggression and sabotage on the global stage are stark reminders that
this imperial mindset remains a driving force in Moscow's foreign
policy. Russia will not be able to transition to a modern European
State as long as it continues to base its identity on expansionism and
oppression of minority populations.
The Russian State boasts incredible diversity, with over a hundred
indigenous groups. However, Putin's centralization of power has
stripped away much of the autonomy that Russia's regions and ethnic
republics are guaranteed under the Russian constitution. It is no
surprise then, and statistics show this to be true, that Putin is
disproportionately sending these ethnic minorities to fight and die in
Russia's war against Ukraine.
Behind Russia's aggression abroad is a drive to expand Russian
language, culture, and political domination--much of which is rooted in
Putin's imagined past of historical Russian greatness.
The consequences of this Russian colonial mindset are especially
stark in Ukraine. Russians' patronizing view of Ukrainians as inferior
``little brothers'' justifies denying Ukrainians their right to exist
independent of Russia. This rhetoric, coupled with Russia's intentional
attacks on civilians, has led to the savage war we are now witnessing.
As Secretary Blinken said in Kyiv last week, ``The bottom line is
this: We want Ukraine to win.'' I would add not only for Ukraine's
benefit, but also for the democratic future of Russia and the good of
the whole region.
Ukrainian victory will restore peace to a country that has suffered
from Russia's war for a decade. However, Ukraine's victory over Russia
is also essential if Russia is ever going to confront its own
imperialist identity. It would challenge Russia's self-conception as a
great power entitled to control over its neighbors.
Only with the hard reality of Russian defeat, will autocratic
regimes in Moscow and all around the world, see that building empires
by force will not work.
I look forward to hearing our witnesses' insights on this subject.
TESTIMONY OF BOTAKOZ KASSYMBEKOVA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN MODERN
HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF BASEL
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Until recently, colonialism seemed to be a thing of the past. The
idea that one nation can and is entitled to dominate and exterminate
other nations, robbing their people of life, humanity, and the ability
to decide their own future, we thought, was obsolete.
Who would have thought that the Russian nation, which proclaimed
itself the global leader of communism and anti-colonialism in the 20th
century, would lead one of the most brutal wars of colonial conquest in
the 21st century?
If it was once possible to argue that it was missionary Communism
that led the Russians to expansionism, this explanation is no longer
sufficient. Russian expansionism has outlived communism. It is the
imperial framework of Russian national identity--its self-understanding
as endowed with a supreme role in world history--that allowed Russian
imperial identity and practices to outlive communism.
However, communism also thrived on Russian colonialism. Consider
this fact: In their national anthems, non-Russian Soviet republics had
to praise and thank the Russian people for the supposedly bright life
the Russian people had given them through communist dictatorship.
I was one of the children in Soviet Kazakhstan who had to sing an
anthem with the words ``To the Great Russian People we say, big thank
you'' I sang it without knowing that 40 percent of Kazakhs died in the
1930's because of starvation inflicted on the Kazakh people by Moscow.
Moscow stole the cattle of Kazakh nomads, knowingly leaving millions to
starve. Similar genocidal violence was inflicted on Ukrainians and
other non-Russian nations. All in the name of communism and Russia's
special role in building it. My grandmother's family perished in that
hunger, and she was forcibly taken to a Russian orphanage where 60
percent of Kazakh children died. There she was taught to forget her
language and history and to praise the Russian people for communism.
To understand what is happening in Ukraine today, it is crucial to
understand the relationship between colonialism and the historical idea
of the Russian World. Russian colonialism was based on the strategy of
russifying the land by forcibly russifying the local population. If the
local people resisted, they were eliminated and brutally repressed.
Consider this quote from a Russian colonial officer about the
strategies of conquest in the Caucasus in the 1860's:
``The expulsion of the [indigenous mountain people] and the
settlement of the Western Caucasus with Russians--this was the war plan
of the last 4 years. The Russian population was not only to be the
crowning glory of the conquest of the region, but it was also to become
one of the main means of conquest . . . To achieve this, it was
necessary to wipe out half the indigenous population in order to force
the other half to lay down their arms''. At that time, in the 19th
century, Russian colonial officers marked on maps those areas of the
Russian Empire where more than fifty percent of the Russian population
were settled as safe, and those with less than fifty percent as unsafe.
This policy continued under Russian Communist rule. In 1989, a hundred
years later, Mikhail Gorbachev told George Bush that Moscow could not
agree to the independence of non-Russian republics because, and I
quote, ``Fifty percent of Estonia is Russian, over 50 percent of
Latvians are now Russian, Lithuanians are the majority in Lithuania''.
He also spoke of Ukraine and my homeland, Kazakhstan, using the same
old Russian colonial mathematics while ignoring the violence of these
numbers. Today, Putin is using the same rhetoric and strategies. For
example, since 2014, 800,000 Russians have been settled in Crimea in
order to claim that it is Russian. The same is happening in other
occupied territories in Ukraine. Russian conquest has always been based
on violence. When the Russian people carry it out, they propagate that
they are doing it in the name of the great Russian culture.
Although in 1991 Soviet Communism weakened the empire, leading to
the partial collapse of the empire, what did not collapse was the
Russian imperial identity that was rooted in the idea of a special
mission and special right to dominate other nations, while demanding
gratitude and praise.
For many of us, who experienced Russian colonialism firsthand,
there are two big lessons from the twentieth and the twenty-first
centuries. First, the collapse of the Soviet Russian empire was the
victory of humanity in the 21st century. Millions of people received
the possibility to live in dignity, freedom, and democracy. This would
not have been possible under Russian occupation. Second, although
communism failed, Russian colonialism did not. Russian colonialism
outlived communism because the idea of Russian supremacy was never
questioned, either by the Russians themselves or by the world at large.
However, we now know that it was not just communism that was
incompatible with democracy, equality, and peace. In fact, it is
Russian colonialism that is not.
TESTIMONY BY PROFESSOR TIMOTHY SNYDER, YALE UNIVERSITY
A main trend in world history these last five hundred years has
been imperialism, and a main trend these last hundred years has been
anti-imperialism.
An empire tends to have a privileged center and an exploited
periphery, and often a correspondingly dominant national group and
oppressed minorities or neighbors.
Empires deny that they share a contemporaneity--time--with other
states. For imperialists, an imagined glorious past justifies
territorial expansion, and legal borders are meaningless.
Imperialism [generally] meant European powers acting beyond Europe.
For a special period, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union applied
imperial practices within Europe. This included denying the existence
of neighboring European nations and states, creating zones of colonial
domination, and genocide of peoples.
The contemporary Russian Federation is an imperialist State in all
of these senses.
Russia denies that the imperial moment has passed. Its foreign
policy, and in particular its war of aggression in Ukraine, is meant to
re-establish the empire as the normal regime type.
Russia fights its war with a State that is imperially structured.
Wealthy cities in western Russia prosper thanks to the exploitation of
hydrocarbon resources in Russian Asia. In the first instance, Russia
fought the war with Ukrainian citizens forced into combat and with
Asian and other national minorities from within the Russian Federation.
In its occupation of Ukraine, Russian policy is to destroy institutions
of Ukrainian culture, murder cultural and political elites, and deport
children to Russia for re-education and assimilation.
The ideological logic of the war is of a legendary past. Vladimir
Putin has repeatedly cited fables of the ancient origin of Russia and
of an enduring Russian Ukrainian unity as the justification for the
Russian invasion. These fables are historically more than dubious. Even
were they accurate depictions of history, the implicit logic--that
events of a thousand years ago justify changing borders now by force--
would destroy the international legal order.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine recalls the special period of European
colonization--Nazi and Soviet empires--of the 1930's and 1940's. Like
both Stalin and Hitler with respect to Poland in 1939, and like Hitler
with respect to Czechoslovakia in 1938, Putin claims that a neighboring
State has no legal justification, because it is ruled by the wrong
people, or because it is multicultural.
At that time, as today, Ukraine was the center of European
colonization. Both the Stalinist and the Hitlerian projects depended
upon the conquest of Ukraine, for its fertile black earth, and for its
other resources. The Stalinist industrialization project of the 1930's
required the domination of Ukraine, which led to a starvation campaign
that killed some four million people. Hitler wished to imitate Stalin
and exploit Ukrainian agriculture, with the difference that Ukraine was
to feed Germany and Europe. Hitler's aim to colonize Ukraine was the
single major cause of the Second World War in Europe.
Putin's revival of these recent European imperial traditions
overlaps with his portrayal of the Russian past as eternal and
innocent. Putin denies the centrality of Ukraine to the Second World
War, seeking to persuade the Western public that the war was fought and
won by Russians alone. He denies that Soviet policy exploited Ukraine
and that Ukrainians were starved by the million. The whitewashing of
both Nazi and Soviet imperial practices is an intrinsic element of
their repetition by Russia now.
It follows that American policy should involve the promotion of the
history of Eastern Europe, especially the recent history of Nazi and
Soviet colonial exploitation of Ukraine [the subjects of my books
Bloodlands and Black Earth]. A particular problem is the tendency in
Germany to ignore the centrality of Ukraine to Hitler's war and to
incorrectly identify Russia with the Soviet Union.
Critique of empire, of course, requires a certain amount of self-
reflection and openness to dialog. Americans who raise these subjects
will have to be able to set an example by referring critically to their
own history. It should be American policy to help Ukrainians undertake
a larger international dialog with the ``Global South,'' especially
with thought leaders from Mexico, Brazil, India, and South Africa.
Americans should stress, in public pronouncements, that Russian
[and any] imperialism is antithetical to the existing international
legal order, which is based upon self-determination and upon the
general recognition of the legal borders of states. Imperialism is not
just an idea or a way of talking; it is an active plan to destroy that
order.
For the same reason, Americans should understand that the European
Union is the indirect target of Russian imperialism since the EU
represents a peaceful route to cooperation among former imperial
powers. Americans should support the European Union as an alternative
to imperialism because that is what it is.
Most importantly, Americans should take heart and draw lessons from
the arc of imperial history. The collapse of the empire began about a
hundred years ago, after the First World War. It was accelerated by the
defeat of the Nazi colonial project in 1945. Since the third quarter of
the twentieth century, the technological and immunological advantages
that enabled empire have ceased to obtain. In general, empires have
lost their wars since 1945. It would therefore be historically normal,
and unsurprising, for Russia to lose its war in Ukraine.
Empires should lose their wars. Ukraine should be allowed to win
this war because of the wrongs done to Ukraine, because of the right to
self-defense, and because of the global chaos that would follow a
Russian victory. However, defeat in war is also necessary for empires
to become other sorts of regimes. The European states now lauded as
democracies are former empires that lost wars. Losing imperial wars was
a step in their transition to becoming stable regimes of a very
different type. Russia's best chance for a better future, historically
speaking, is defeat in its imperial war.
TESTIMONY OF PHILIP OBAJI JR., CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY BEAST
Last year, I wrote one of the year's most powerful stories
published anywhere, an in-depth investigation on the operations of
Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic [CAR] following
the death of Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The account revealed how
so-called Russian military instructors--operating under the command of
the Russian Ministry of Defense--slaughtered dozens of people to secure
access to a gold mine in the north of the CAR.
Traveling from my home in Nigeria to the CAR last December was not
my first. I had spent years highlighting the plight of people
maltreated and abused by Russian paramilitaries and that has not gone
unnoticed by the Russians. In 2022, I became a target of the Wagner
Group after exposing the wrongdoing of their mercenaries operating
across Africa. Contacts told me that my photo had been circulating on
chat groups used by locals recruited by Wagner, who have apparently
denounced me as an obstacle ``to fighting extremism'' in CAR and
claimed I am an agent of the West who should be arrested or killed.
I traveled to regions of CAR where militias had previously attacked
outsiders with slingshots, machetes, and guns. I was held for hours by
rebels who initially accused me of attempting to spy on them. Days
later, on the border with Cameroon, I was arrested, tortured, and
detained overnight by CAR forces, acting on the orders of Russian
paramilitaries, after soldiers saw me interviewing artisanal miners who
were attempting to flee the country following attacks on their
community by Russian paramilitaries. Soldiers beat me and confiscated
my phone and camera.
No amount of intimidation was going to stop me from continuing my
investigation. After the soldiers released me, I crossed into Cameroon,
bought new equipment, and returned to the CAR to finish the work I had
started.
The attack by Russian paramilitaries on locals in the northwestern
CAR town of Koki in which at least 50 villagers were killed became an
obsession for me, all the more because the victims were ordinary people
who had done nothing wrong. I managed to interview 16 witnesses to the
attack. They all told me the same thing: Russian paramilitaries
slaughtered their friends, colleagues, family members, and neighbors
simply because the Russians wanted to secure access to Koki's gold
mine.
That was not all. In the middle of December 2023, I traveled to
Bouar in the northwest of the CAR, where I interviewed a dozen girls
who told me Russian paramilitaries lured them into a military base on
the outskirts of town and then drugged and raped them before
administering contraceptive shots and pills to them. A couple of other
girls described to me how Russian paramilitaries held them at gunpoint
on their farmlands and took turns raping them right in front of their
family members.
In Mali, where I recently interviewed women raped and abused by
Russian paramilitaries, the Wagner Group continues to operate in the
country on behalf of Vladimir Putin's regime, helping government forces
in central and northern Mali carry out raids and drone strikes that
have killed scores of civilians, including many children.
Like in the CAR, Russian activities in Mali have exacerbated long-
running lawlessness, corruption, violence, and human rights abuses with
total impunity. The same could happen in Burkina Faso, where soldiers
from the Bear Brigade, a Russian private military company, arrived in
May to support the country's military junta, and could also occur in
Niger, where dozens of Russian military instructors arrived in April to
work for the junta, which has cut links with the West.
Russia continues to be the primary purveyor of disinformation in
Africa, sponsoring over 80 documented campaigns, targeting more than 22
countries. The United States is also being targeted.
I recently found dozens of sponsored articles published by pro-
Russia media outlets in West and Central Africa falsely claiming that
the Chinko National Park, the largest nature reserve in the CAR, had
been mismanaged by Americans, who have deployed rebels from Joseph
Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of Congo to
the CAR with the aim of disturbing the peace in parts of the country.
These articles also claim that American cargo planes land in the CAR
every week to evacuate stolen wild animals and mammals to the U.S., and
that the airfield in Chinko is also ``used by private American military
companies to carry out reconnaissance and surveillance activities of
the national territory and certain neighboring areas of the park,
including the border areas of the CAR.''
Russia has promulgated disinformation to undermine democracy in at
least 19 African countries, contributing to the continent's backsliding
on this front. From Africa, Russia is also targeting American
democracy.
I look forward to your questions and thank you for the privilege of
testimony today.
TESTIMONY OF MARIA VYUSHKOVA, BURYAT ACTIVIST AND SCIENTIST
Russian Imperialism: How the Russian War in Ukraine Destroys the
Indigenous Nations of Russia's North, Siberia and Russia's Far East.
1. Disproportionate death toll.
From the very first days of the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine,
it has been reported that Russia's ethnic minorities are
overrepresented both in the invasion forces and among the Russian-side
casualties.
Generally speaking, the Kremlin tries to minimize the political
risks by putting the burden of the war on the most vulnerable and
discriminated groups such as convicts, migrants, remote rural
populations, orphans, homeless people, etc. And, apparently, ethnic
minorities and Indigenous people are one of those vulnerable groups no
one cares about.
If we look at the top ten Russia regions by per capita death toll,
we will see that seven out of ten are the ethnic republics and okrugs,
with the Asian republics of Tuva, Buryatia, and Altai at the top of the
list.
The Indigenous ethnic groups living in those regions are very
significantly overrepresented among the Russian-side war casualties,
with the Telengits living in Altai showing 11.5 times higher per capita
death toll compared to Russia's average.
Generally speaking, the Small-Numbered Indigenous Peoples of the
North, Siberia, and the Far East such as Telengits, Udege, Nganasan,
Chukchi are hit the hardest, the per capita death toll for these ethnic
groups being much higher than for Buryats or Tuvans.
In some cases, the Indigenous are also overrepresented among the
convict casualties drafted from the prisons which might be indicative
of over-incarceration of the Indigenous population.
2. Disproportionate draft.
On September 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the so-called
``partial mobilization'' in Russia. The Indigenous rights activist
organizations such as Free Buryatia Foundation, Free Yakutia
Foundation, Batani Indigenous Foundation received multiple reports of
disproportionate draft of the Indigenous people from their contacts in
Russia. However, the statistics on the ``partial mobilization'' are
much harder to access compared to the confirmed casualties [as the
obituaries are published more often than any information on someone
being drafted].
However, in some cases, the mobilization numbers can be derived
from the official financial reports. For instance, those numbers
confirm that Buryatia, my home region, was hit disproportionately hard
by the mobilization.
For the Khabarovsk Krai and the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, the
local officials have released the numbers showing that the Small-
Numbered Indigenous Peoples of the North were drafted more often than
the rest of each region's population. For instance, in the Khabarovsk
Krai, the Indigenous men were drafted almost 3 times more often than
the non-Indigenous. According to the Batani Foundation, in one Nanai
settlement, the authorities attempted to draft 100 percent of the adult
male population; in the Udege settlement of Gvasyugi they drafted 30
percent of adult men. Thus, the whole Indigenous culture is at risk of
disappearing within the next several decades due to the
disproportionate mobilization of the Indigenous men to Russia's war in
Ukraine.
3. Shifting the responsibility for the war crimes; xenophobia among
the anti-Putin public.
The fact that Indigenous people of Russia's North, Far East, and
Siberia are overrepresented in the Russian invasion army has led to the
formation of the ``warlike, bloodthirsty savage'' stereotype against
the Indigenous people, most notably against the Buryats, Tuvans, and
the Nenets.
Apparently, not just the death toll, but also the moral burden of
Russia's aggression against Ukraine was put disproportionately on the
Indigenous people. Unfortunately, such prominent public figures as Pope
Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, fell for this narrative.
There were a number of war crime allegations against the Indigenous
troops which turned out to be false, most notably about the Bucha
massacre which was falsely blamed on the ethnic Buryat troops.
However, it has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that
it was the paratroopers from the Russian city of Pskov, almost
exclusively ethnic Russians, who were responsible for the mass murder
of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.
However, the ``Buryats in Bucha'' myth still persists among the
anti-war Russian public, as well as in Ukraine and in the West. I think
that for the Russian anti-war influencers, the motivation is obviously
the desire to shift the responsibility away from the Russians.
According to a recent study by Dr. Aam Lenton of Wake Forest
University, the Russian public opposed to Putin's regime and
sympathetic to liberal views tends to be significantly more xenophobic
toward Russia's ethnic minorities. This is a very alarming result
posing a question of whether the regime change would bring a better
future to Russia's Indigenous Peoples.
[all]
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