Is Russia falling apart? This is the belief of a man living in Finland, who promotes an independent Eastern Karelia

The disintegration of Russia is now being pursued by a group of activists from different parts of the world, and they are closing their ranks.

Among others, the Union of Free Peoples of Russia speaks in favor of the split. It has brought together Russian opposition forces and parties that demand independence or at least greater self-government for their own regions. In the map drawn by the union, today’s Russia is divided into dozens of independent parts.

According to the federation, one of the parts to be split would be Dagestan, where the video above is from. In a video shot last fall, Dagestanis protest against Russia’s mobilization.

Some of the activists operating within the union have organized internet votes in their own regions on whether their own region should separate from Russia or not. There have been votes from five regions, and the result of all of them has been yes to separation. has not had the opportunity to find out the reliability of the votes.

On the map below you can see the League of Free Nations’ outline of the possible breakup of Russia. Russia is divided into two parts on the map.

According to more and more experts, the disintegration of Russia as a result of the war is indeed one possible scenario, although not the most likely.

– Even a year ago, I would have been suspicious of such an idea. But now, what is possible and what is not, is moving to increasingly absurd scenarios, says Margarita Zavadskaya.

Zavadskaya is a senior researcher at the Institute of Foreign Policy and familiar with Russia’s internal politics.

According to Zavadskaya, the longer the war continues, the more unpredictable the consequences can be for Russia. One of the main messages of Putin’s propaganda is that “the West wants Russia to break up”, and that “Russia’s existence is in danger”. Russians dreaming of independence fit perfectly into this narrative.

However, Putin’s constant talk about the West’s intentions to break up Russia can turn against his goals and turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, says Zavadskaya.

The American think tank Atlantic Council estimates in its reports published at the beginning of the year that Russia will not survive the next ten years. Another US analysis company Stratfor published already in 2015 forecast, which estimated that Russia would break up in the first half of the 2020s. According to it, Karelia would eventually join To Finland.

American researcher familiar with Russia Paul Goble believes that Russia may break up as a result of war in the near future.

– Putin is not restoring the Soviet Union, but he is restoring the conditions that made it possible to destroy the Soviet Union, said Goble of the Lithuanian Broadcasting Company in the interview last in June.

The independence dreams are also affected by the fact that Russia has kept its war machine running by sending its ethnic minorities to the front line.

“People are angry that they are there and their nations are suffering disproportionately,” Goble said.

One of the parts drawn by activists on the maps, breaking away from Russia, is right on Finland’s eastern border, Eastern Karelia. Dreaming about it Dmitry Kuznetsov. He is from Eastern Karelia and has been living in Finland since last February.

Kuznetsov, 48, fled Russia at the beginning of the last decade and received asylum in Spain in 2016. has seen Kuznetsov’s asylum decision.

– Russia has always tried to make Karelia Russian. Everything has been done to destroy Karelia’s culture, historical facts and events. Even the names have been changed, says Kuznetsov.

Kuznetsov wants to organize a meeting in Finland, a congress of Karelians, where it would be discussed whether Karelians have the right to their own state. He wants people with ties to Karelia to attend.

The meeting was supposed to be already, but the money is missing. Kuznetsov has a handful of people in Finland and Estonia involved in his project.

The researchers highlight two important facts that speak against the realization of Kuznetsov’s dream. First of all, the Republic of Karelia is home to just over half a million people, and no more than one in ten of them is ethnically Karelian or speaks Karelian.

So there are probably only a few tens of thousands of people with East Karelian identity.

“Unfortunately, the Soviet Union weakened the Karelian language very successfully,” states Zavatskaya of the Foreign Policy Institute.

According to Kuznetsov, it would not be an insurmountable problem. In his opinion, people do not support Russia so much, but the authority in general.

– When the power changes, they want to become Karelians, Vepsians and so on. This is how everything works in Russia, because people are used to supporting those in a position of power, says Kuznetsov.

Secondly, the land connection between Moscow and the main base of the Russian Northern Fleet runs through Eastern Karelia. The base is located in the Murmansk region. The Northern Fleet is one of Russia’s two ocean fleets equipped with submarine-mounted strategic nuclear weapons.

Sparsely populated Eastern Karelia would hardly be the first place from which Russia’s grip would emerge, he states Marko Eklund.

Eklund is the former Deputy Defense Counselor of the Finnish Embassy in Moscow and works as a background editor at .

– The North Sea region has been one of the most important areas of focus in Russian geopolitics in recent years, says Eklund.

According to Eklund, the idea of ​​isolating this important region from the rest of Russia would certainly not appeal to Moscow.

In the case of Kuznetsov, one has to ask whether he could be part of Russia’s information influence. Could Russia use him to show that there is a desire to move the border in Finland?

Kuznetsov strongly denies this. He emphasizes that he does not seek to pressure Finland into the discussion about the Karelian Isthmus, i.e. whether Finland should demand back the territories it lost to the Soviet Union in the last war. Eastern Karelia is more than an isthmus, Kuznetsov emphasizes.

According to the Protection Police, Finland “is currently not subject to such information influence that would endanger national security”. Supo does not take a stand on individual persons such as Kuznetsov.

Zavadskaya, a researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute, would pay attention to the North Caucasus region. Its population is a patchwork of ethnic groups. According to him, people there have a strong sense of their national identity.

Zavadskaya also highlights Tatarstan, which is rich in natural resources. Most of the four million people of Tatarstan are Tatars of Turkish origin.

Tatarstan voted for the sovereignty of the region in 1992, even with more than 60 percent of the vote. At the time, a large number of Tatars interpreted the vote as a declaration of independence. However, the independence of the region did not happen to Russia.

Now independent Tatarstan is run by someone living in exile Rafis Kashapov. He fled to Ukraine after serving a three-year prison sentence in Russia. He had criticized the conquest of Crimea in 2014.

Kashapov tells by email that his movement is already preparing for the independence of Tatarstan.

– Our soldiers who served in the Soviet Union and Russia are already training in Turkey and Kazakhstan, Kashapov writes.

Kashapov thinks too much attention is paid in the West To Navalny, Kasparov and Khodorkovsky to such opposition politicians.

– They are imperialists. When Russia sent troops to Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, none of them condemned the military attack. It means that if they come to power, they will continue Putin’s policies, Kashapov claims.

Kashapov and Kuznetsov, who are planning new states for Russia, state that the goals of independence will only succeed if all indigenous peoples blow on the same coal.

– Until the criminal empire collapses, we will not be able to create our own independent state, says Kashapov in his e-mail message.

Zavadskaya of the Foreign Policy Institute is on the same lines.

– Most of the activists live in exile abroad, and they are able to influence Russia’s development only a little.

Zavadskaya points out that the disintegration of Russia would be an unpredictable process.

– You should be careful what you wish for. No empire has fallen peacefully.