Media Diversity Institute

By Clara Greenwood 

Earlier in April, an avalanche of protests from Russia’s indigenous journalists, bloggers and activists descended on the Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza for his quote of an unnamed colleague’s opinion about racist recruitment tactics of the Russian Defence Ministry. According to Kara-Murza, the Russian Defence Ministry allegedly believed that it was easier for non-Russians to kill Ukrainians.  

Kara-Murza is one of the fiercest opponents of Russia’s president and one of the most fearless critics of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. Yet, indigenous opposition activists were furious with him for his failure to distance himself unequivocally from racist views. Worse still, Kara-Murza made his offending remarks in French parliament. Repeating racist tropes to an international audience looked like adding insult to injury.    

“The leading so-called liberal voices of Russian politics continue to reproduce racist narratives that dehumanize us”, wrote Indigenous of Russia Foundation in its open letter published by an independent newspaper “The Moscow Times”.  “There is a widespread colonialist tradition in Russia of accusing representatives of Asian and Caucasian peoples – in fact, all non-white people – of being partic...Read more