Keynote speaker – Alexander Cherkasov

“The main method of Russian political election technology is war”, said Aleksandar Cherkasov from the Human Rights Defense Center Memorial. As a prominent peace activist and human rights advocate, he explained the mechanism of violence that, according to him, has been passed down for decades, resulting in today’s war in Ukraine.

But it wasn’t just one war, nor one election cycle that led to the new wars we see today. Political technologists, Cherkasov explained, are the ones who identified the weak points in the system, starting with the defeats of Boris Yeltsin, and later developed and adapted them for Vladimir Putin.

“Putin transformed the electoral system so that elections no longer exist in our country, and we don’t have election monitoring organizations”, he said at the beginning of his speech, reminding that Vladimir Putin came to power 25 years ago – as a clerk who previously had only a two percent approval rating. The second Chechen war in 1999 was the turning point.

“With brutal statements, he started gaining points, and with a seven percent rating increase every week, he soon became unreachable for all competitors”, said Cherkasov.

The “lessons” from the Chechen wars were passed on further. The processes that led to today’s situation in Russia, Cherkasov said, began at least six years earlier, in 1993.

“The methods of the special services during the First Chechen War were valuable experience, and they also took the experience of previous generations who fought in Afghanistan – destroying cities and villages, killings… That practical experience was passed on to the second generation during the Second Chechen War. This chain of violence was transmitted from one group of uniformed men to another”, Cherkasov said, concluding:

“In the end, what we see in Ukraine is a direct continuation of the chain of wars, crimes and impunity for those crimes”.