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While the FRL and RVC claim to have fought on several fronts in the war, their military utility is overshadowed by the political and propaganda role – especially their headline-grabbing border raids.
There was a clear though carefully calibrated demonstration of support from the Ukrainian government at Sunday’s conference in Kyiv.
Ms Chirikova posted a photograph of herself and other delegates with Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser and spin doctor in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration.
Kyryllo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief and the man thought to ultimately run the FRL and RVP’s cross-border operations, made the political agenda clear in a video address.
“Your struggle is entering a new phase and you now bear more responsibility: your duty to your mother country is not only to battle against the fascist regime, but to unite all healthy opposition forces into one powerful fist and save the country from falling into the abyss,” he said in an address published later online.
That’s easier said than done, even in war time.
Ilya Ponomarev, an exiled former Russian MP, tried to forge the groups at a conference in Irpin in the Kyiv region in 2022.
That meeting produced a joint declaration, but the RVC immediately denied signing it, rejected the white-and-blue flag it mandated rebel groups adopt, and said it would never accept Mr Ponomarev’s leadership.
It is not surprising. Mr Ponomarev is a liberal leftist, not a nationalist, and as a former member of the Duma is viewed with suspicion by some as a system insider.
His claims to represent an armed resistance movement inside Russia called the National Republican Army have been met with scepticism.
Constellation of liberal oppositionists
Nonetheless, Mr Ponomarev was present again at Sunday’s meeting alongside several other veterans of Russia’s often fractious constellation of liberal oppositionists.
Ms Chirikova was an anti-road campaigner from the Moscow suburb of Khimki who emerged as one of the many leaders of the 2011-2012 anti-Putin protest movement.
Also present was Mark Feigin, for years the go-to defence lawyer for liberal opposition activists. Gary Kasparov, the chess champion turned exiled opposition activist, joined by video link.
Notably absent was any representative of Yulia Navalnaya’s movement, which has the best track record of actually attracting votes inside Russia.
A pessimist might observe that it looks like a who’s who of a movement that peaked more than a decade ago, struggled even then with internal divisions and found it difficult to rally support beyond Moscow and St Petersburg.
It is unclear whether they command the loyalties of the fighting men and women in the Free Russia Legion, Russian Volunteer Corps or Siberian Battalion.
“The time for peaceful protest is unfortunately over,” Ms Chirikova said in her address.
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