U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

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RUSSIA’S IMPERIAL IDENTITY 

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 

Printed for the use of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

[CSCE118–9] 

( 

Available via www.csce.gov 


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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 Member 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

EMANUEL CLEAVER II, Missouri 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

MICHAEL LAWLER, New York 

VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland CoChairman 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi Ranking 

Member 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

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 


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C O N T E N T S 

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 


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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 [DTN], Ranking Member, Commission for Security and Cooperation 

in Europe, presiding. 

Committee Members Present: Representative Steve Cohen [DTN], 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 


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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. 


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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 chilVerDate Mar 15 2010 13:51 Nov 20, 2024 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\USERS\KKEY\ONEDRIVE - US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES\DOCUMENTS\118TH 

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dren 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. 


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[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. 


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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 

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tacts 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. 

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tinent’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 


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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 


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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. 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
11 

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 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
12 

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. 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
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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. 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
14 

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 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
15 

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. 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
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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 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
17 

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. 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
18 

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 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
19 

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. 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
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[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.] 


CSCE18-11 with DISTILLER
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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. 


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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 


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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. 


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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. 


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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 


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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 antiwar 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. 

Æ 


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