"Who made this corrosive regime grow? It was us!"

As Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky predicted in his opening speech, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, there will be war. Maybe it will sometimes be hotter, sometimes colder. “But it won’t end!” With these words, Khodorkovsky set the tone for his so-called anti-war committee, which he holds every six months. Sometimes in Strasbourg, sometimes in Brussels, to show where he sees the committee and the Russian opposition in exile: in the West, in Europe, in democracy.

Khodorkovsky is controversial. In the 1990s he was considered an oligarch; various oil deals made him the richest man in Russia. When Putin came to power at the turn of the millennium, Khodorkovsky criticized the new president and ended up in prison shortly afterwards. After ten years in prison, he was pardoned by Putin and flown to Berlin. From there he moved to London, from where he has been attacking the Putin system ever since.

When the Ukraine War began in February 2022, he created the Anti-War Committee, an association with the goal of building a democratic Russia. To this end, he gathered prominent Russian opposition politicians, lawyers and economists around him, including the world chess champion Garry Kasparov and the historian Vladimir Kara-Murza.

About 150 Russians traveled to Brussels last week for the meeting. They are all working towards the goal of transforming their homeland, from which they were expelled or fled, into a democracy, interweaving it with Europe and getting rid of dictator Putin.

This time the participants include Mikhail Kasyanov, Russian Prime Minister from 2000 to 2004; Dmitry Gudkov, former MP; Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of the Russian exile newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe based in Riga, Latvia; and human rights activist Andrei Pivovarov, who was released in the major prisoner exchange in 2024.

Almost everyone in the conference room has been imprisoned in Russian prison camps, witnessed house searches, been interrogated by secret service agents or threatened by the state. Anyone who is here knows what they are fighting for or against.

But the path to democratic Russia is not an easy one. The opposition has colossal problems. On the one hand, because the fight against Putin is being waged from Europe. In fact, the opposition has no influence on the course of events in Russia: it is located far away from Moscow and usually far outside the perception of its own compatriots. Most Russians don't even know that Brussels is fighting for their future.

In addition, the already small exile opposition is fragmented into various groups, led by different actors, each pursuing a different approach to saving Russia. Ilya Yashin has founded his own party in Berlin, Yulia Navalnaya is trying to continue the legacy of her murdered husband Alexei Navalny, Khodorkovsky has his committee. But they can't and don't want to work together.

So if they can't influence Russia, they at least want to work with Western politicians. Khodorkovsky and several members of the Anti-War Committee have been anchored in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for several months through the “Platform of the Democratic Forces of Russia”.

This is important in order to make your voice heard in Western politics, even if the international law organization Council of Europe is not part of the EU or the European Parliament.

The consensus: Putin is too firmly in the saddle to fight him in his lifetime. And if the 74-year-old steps down or dies, there will be upheavals in Russia. Then you want to help shape it from the very first hour. You want to be prepared for this time and be sure of Western support.

Khodorkovsky calls for careful action in the post-Putin era: “We have to tell the Russians that they too are victims.” And you have to reassure them that everything will be better after the war. "Many want revenge. A tribunal, Putin on trial, something like the Nuremberg trials. But that won't happen."

The war has been going on for five years and there are now millions of people in Russia who are somehow involved in the war. “If we tell them you’re all going to court, then these are people who will defend themselves against us.”

One should therefore neither plan nor announce the persecution of regime supporters after Putin. "We want national peace. Therefore, we should think about institutional de-escalation," says Khodorkovsky.

For two days there will be discussions and lectures at the Anti-War Committee from morning to evening. There are regular coffee breaks in between, because the opposition members have come from Berlin, Paris, Belgrade, Tel Aviv or New York and have also come to chat with old companions.

At bar tables, the guests exchange business cards, discuss Putin's environment, shake their heads, tell each other prison camp anecdotes and give each other tips for safe travel.

Many of those present are classified by the Russian government as foreign agents or extremists, others have arrest warrants against them, and Russia has declared some of them to be wanted worldwide as terrorists. The opposition members therefore have to think very carefully about which countries they should travel to and where they might be extradited to Russia.

The topics of discussion in the conference halls are “How useful are negotiations with Putin?”, “Scenarios for ending the war,” “Youth and war” and “Europe: From the cold to the hot war.” Many assessments are pessimistic.

In a discussion with Sergei Aleksaschenko, who was once Russia's deputy finance minister, a participant asked whether there were still sanctions that could stop Russia. “No!” says Aleksaschenko firmly. "This question has been around for five years. Everything has been tried. If it existed, do you think it wouldn't have been imposed yet?"

The consensus is that Russia has too much oil, gas and coal in the ground to go under. Putin will not run out of money. And if he has to cut social benefits and education, then it doesn't matter to him - money for the war will always be found.

As the conference draws to a close, the members make a few closing statements that range from contrite to pessimistic. “Putin will not be satisfied with just the Donbass,” says former MP Gudkov. "Not in the fifth year of the war, not after all the deaths. Putin will want to carry on. And he might be interested in testing Article Five of NATO."

It is wrong to want to continue to stop Russia with sometimes senseless sanctions. “Russians can hardly come to Europe anymore,” said Gudkov. This plays into the hands of Putin, who tells his citizens that Europe no longer wants them.

But this is not a protection for Europe, warns Gudkov: "Putin's agents still come, with all kinds of passports in their pockets, even Ukrainian ones. Our relatives are locked out of it." It is therefore good that we are now represented in the Council of Europe so that we can have a bit of a say.

Then a woman speaks up. "Whoever of those present here feels like a victim: No! We are not the victims. The victims are the Ukrainians!" she shouts, visibly outraged, and promises the toughest times for Russians.

Then she asks: "Who allowed this corrosive regime to grow? Who allowed it to become so powerful? That was us! In the nineties we had the chance for a change, a new country. But we screwed it up." What is happening today is not just Putin's war, she concludes. “We are all to blame!”