In the first months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western leaders took pains to draw a sharp rhetorical line between ordinary Russian citizens and Vladimir Putin. For a while, the phrases «Putin’s war» and «this is Putin’s war» took hold, underscoring that Russians themselves bore no responsibility for the decision to launch it. Over time, however, the tone began to change—and with it, sanctions policy toward Russian citizens grew steadily harsher.
The Russian opposition in exile initially hoped to become a genuine partner to Ukraine and the West in confronting the Putin regime. It expected that cooperation would go beyond the usual humanitarian track. In reality, Western dialogue with Russian civil society was narrowly circumscribed from the outset, focusing almost exclusively on support for independent media, NGOs, and individual activists.
Despite what Russian propaganda repeatedly claimed, Europeans and Americans showed no genuine interest in regime change in Russia—even after February 2022. Consequently, Russian politicians living abroad have never been regarded by the West as real allies. At best, they are treated as useful sources of information about what is happening inside the country. Since 2022, the entire framework for dealing with Russia has shifted decisively toward security concerns, and that priority now governs every contact between Western governments and Russian émigré politicians.
«This Is Putin’s War»
In the first weeks after the invasion began, Western leaders carefully avoided blanket condemnation of all Russians. Their rhetoric targeted Russia as a state and Vladimir Putin personally.
On 24 February 2022, then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared: «President Putin has ignored all warnings and all efforts to find a diplomatic solution. He alone—not the Russian people—made the decision to start this war. He alone bears full responsibility. This is Putin’s war.» The same day, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Russians: «I am speaking to the people of Russia, whose president has just authorised a wave of violence against a brotherly Slavic people. To the parents of Russian soldiers who will lose their lives. I cannot believe this is being done in your name or that you truly want the pariah status this war will bring upon Putin’s regime.» Two days later, on 26 February, Johnson repeated the message in Russian: «I do not believe this is a war waged in your name.» On 15 April, after the atrocities in Bucha and Irpin came to light, he again insisted that «Russians deserve the truth.»
As early as 15 February 2022, then-U.S. President Joe Biden told Russians: «We are not your enemies.» On 22 March in Warsaw he repeated the point: «You, the people of Russia, are not our enemy. I refuse to believe that you approve of the killing of innocent children and elderly people or that you accept Russian missiles and bombs striking hospitals, schools and maternity wards.»
Throughout the first year of the war, Western leaders routinely spoke of «Putin’s war,» «Putin’s invasion» and «Putin’s aggression.» Biden, Scholz and Johnson all used the formulation regularly in 2022−2023. Yet as the conflict dragged on and expanded, «Putin’s war» quietly became «Russia’s war.» In part, the shift was unavoidable. The lack of any sustained, nationwide protest movement inside Russia gave Western politicians ample reason to conclude that Russians either supported the war or had reconciled themselves to it. To argue otherwise would have required spending political capital explaining to their own voters the subtleties of life under dictatorship and the structural reasons why mass protests never materialized.
Western publics, already dealing with a European war, inflation and rising living costs, had little appetite for nuance—particularly when they saw Ukrainian refugees arriving in their cities. As a result, the initially more careful rhetoric of Western leaders gradually gave way to a sharper focus on their own security and the security of Europe. Talk of Russian civil society did not disappear entirely, but it narrowed dramatically, largely reduced to support for political prisoners.
Brain Drain and Visas for Russians: Plans versus Reality
In March 2022, speaking in Warsaw, Joe Biden highlighted the «brain drain» already under way from Russia, noting that roughly 200,000 people had left. Weeks later his administration proposed easing immigration rules for Russian scientists and engineers working in STEM fields. The logic was pragmatic: in the medium term, to bolster American technological strength and deprive Putin of high-tech talent; in the longer term, to erode Russia’s innovative capacity. The idea was written into the draft CHIPS and Science Act but was stripped out during House-Senate negotiations. The final law, signed on 9 August 2022, contained no special provisions for Russian researchers.
No comparable pan-European legislative effort ever materialized. Individual countries and institutions did launch limited support programmed for Russians (alongside Ukrainians and Belarusians), but these were aimed almost exclusively at scientists, journalists, artists and activists and remained strictly humanitarian in scope and scale. There was never any coherent political strategy behind them.
At EU level, concern about Russian passport holders only intensified. First came the suspension of the visa-facilitation agreement in September 2022; later, in November 2025, a ban on issuing multiple-entry Schengen visas to applicants submitting documents from inside Russia.
Political Emigration and the Nansen Passport
Russian opposition politicians and journalists are not ignored by Western leaders. Germany and the United States helped secure the release of several prominent figures—including Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza—through prisoner exchanges. Chancellor Scholz personally greeted them at Cologne-Bonn Airport.
European officials meet regularly with representatives of various opposition groups. Yulia Navalnaya has held talks with Biden, Scholz, Macron and others. A platform for Russian democratic forces now operates within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Yet the dialogue has strict limits. It is conducted with a narrow circle of people and focuses overwhelmingly on humanitarian issues: funding independent media, assisting political prisoners inside Russia, and similar matters. The Russian opposition in exile is not treated as a government-in-exile, nor is it regarded as an equal political partner.
The fate of the so-called «Nansen passport» idea has served as a litmus test of the opposition’s real leverage.
Soon after the full-scale invasion, several initiatives sought to create a special status or travel document for Russian political émigrés modelled on the interwar Nansen passport. The first prominent effort was Garry Kasparov’s «Good Russian Passport» proposal in May 2022. The plan was for the opposition itself to issue a certificate confirming that the holder opposed the war, recognized Ukraine’s territorial integrity and embraced democratic values. The idea met immediate criticism and went nowhere. The core problem was simple: opposition structures lacked any legal authority or recognized legitimacy; there was no credible arbiter to set and enforce clear eligibility criteria.
Subsequent civic initiatives (such as «Nansen Passport 2.0») and expert proposals aimed at EU governments suggested either amending national laws or establishing a pan-European mechanism to issue travel documents to Russians deprived of consular protection. Despite sympathetic articles in respected think tanks, including the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), none advanced beyond discussion.
In 2024 Kasparov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky launched the «Free Russia Passport» project, which envisaged signing a political declaration followed by the issuance of a document that individual states might recognize. Once again, the initiative remained on paper. The obstacles were familiar: lack of international standing for the authors, deep divisions within the opposition over criteria, and—most decisively—the absence of any political will in Western capitals to assume additional obligations.
Legal realities added another barrier. Nansen passports were originally issued to stateless persons or those lacking state protection. Most Russian émigrés today still formally hold Russian citizenship and therefore do not qualify under existing international mechanisms for refugees or stateless individuals. EU countries already have established categories of travel documents for refugees and foreigners; expanding those proved far simpler than inventing a new universal status.
The broader political climate made special arrangements even less likely. Throughout the war the EU has consistently tightened visa rules for Russian citizens, reducing the chances of any eased regime for a specific subset of applicants. In the end, all proposals for special documents for Russians in exile stayed at the level of expert debate and civil-society brainstorming.
Conclusion
It would be unfair to call the European approach to the Russian question unpragmatic. On the one hand, Western leaders see that the regime inside Russia has hardened considerably over the years of war, making large-scale domestic protest increasingly improbable. On the other, the Europe-U.S. strategy from 2022 to 2025 has been consistent: contain Russia without destabilizing it politically. The fear of uncontrolled instability in a nuclear-armed state is genuine and was clearly visible in the cautious Western reaction to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny—especially Washington’s.
Western policy toward Russians since 2022 must be understood in this context. Many Russian émigrés and observers have rightly criticized Western governments for blanket sanctions, citizenship-based discrimination and the effective sealing off of Russian capital and talent inside the country. The facts, however, are clear: neither Europeans nor Americans were ever seriously interested in regime change in Russia. They have said so openly and consistently. Their real objective has been to limit Russia’s military and economic power, reduce the risks it poses, and avoid triggering domestic chaos or a violent struggle for power. In this framework, opposition Russians in exile have found themselves caught between two fires: persecuted by the Russian state on one side and engaged by Western partners almost exclusively on human-rights and political-prisoner issues on the other. Support for the Russian émigré community has never been, and is unlikely ever to become, a Western priority.
Opposition figures have repeatedly called for dialogue that goes beyond human rights to encompass the future of Russia itself. Vladimir Kara-Murza has urged the West to «recognize the existence of another Russia» and discuss the country’s post-Putin architecture. Mikhail Khodorkovsky has openly criticized the fact that regime change has been taken off the table and has called for the opposition to be treated as a political partner. Garry Kasparov has emphasized the need for recognized representation of the anti-Putin emigration so that systematic cooperation can occur. Against this background, interaction limited to a human-rights agenda inevitably feels inadequate to many in the opposition.
The difficulty is that these expectations rest on the opposition’s self-image as the natural ally of Ukraine and the West. As of 2026 the reality is different. Rhetorically, that role may be acknowledged. In practice, both Ukraine and European countries act first according to their own national interests. The most realistic path for the Russian political emigration is therefore to accept that logic and concentrate on the relatively narrow areas where its interests and those of its Western partners objectively coincide. Even there, the margin for maneuvers is tight: overly close identification with European or American structures risks permanently alienating the very domestic constituency the opposition hopes one day to represent.
