Born in Bobruisk, Mikhail Kukobaka was the last political prisoner to leave the Soviet Perm-36 penal camp. In 1968, he openly condemned the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and was subsequently arrested four times on political grounds. He spent a total of 17 years in prison. Kukobaka pleaded not guilty and refused to write a petition for pardon, so he was released only on December 2, 1988 by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1991, after rehabilitation by the Supreme Court of the BSSR, he left for Moscow, where he lives to this day. He shared his assessments of current events with DW.

DW: Mikhail Ignatievich, what do you think about Russia’s war against Ukraine and Belarus’ role in it?

Mikhail Kukobaka: Putin has a maniacal idea of ​​the “Russian world”, he wants to restore the former USSR with a five million man army and countless weapons by any means. His aim is to dictate his whims to the rest of the world. Because of this megalomania, he began the destruction of Ukraine.

Lukashenka is helping Putin fight the war with technical and logistical resources, but having experienced popular uprising after the rigged 2020 elections, he doesn’t dare directly send the army. Like a dictator with blood on his hands, he understands that he will be judged if he loses power. On the other hand, the surrender of Belarus and the move to a dacha in the Moscow region under Putin’s protection does not suit him.

– If we talk about what is happening inside Russia and Belarus, what a Soviet dissident feels living today, for example, in Moscow?

– I believe that fascism has returned to both Russia and Belarus. And he returned to Moscow after the dissolution of parliament in October 1993. And in Minsk, Lukashenka carried out a similar action with relatively fewer casualties in 1996. Both regimes rely on the special services and the army. All other “authorities” are pure imitations of a supposedly legal system. From the old perestroika, there is still freedom to leave, which was not the case from the time of Stalin until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.

As for the dissidents from the period before 1989, that is, the Soviet era, they are all now at deep retirement age. Someone died, others left the cordon and didn’t come back, and only a few, like me, stayed. I am almost 86 years old, I have health problems, although this is not noticeable in appearance. For example, since spring 2017, I no longer participate in street actions.

– When we did an interview 10 years agorallies were held in Moscow, and hipsters called Valeria Novodvorskaya “demshiza” because she predicted Russia’s war against Ukraine. Do you think she was heard, in general, Soviet dissidents fulfilled their mission?

– The influence of dissidents in the politics of the country with a fascist at the head is an illusion. The most that the dissidents of the past were capable of was enlightenment. There was a naive belief, and I didn’t escape it myself, that if people had information, if they were told what was what, it would incite them to civil resistance. All of us, including Novodvorskaya, were wrong.

The experience of fascist regimes, not only in Russia but also in Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea and other countries, shows that they are not subject to the influence of the opposition. It just doesn’t exist, it’s on the ground or in prisons and camps. Who will be in charge of calculating how many people Putin has killed in 22 years? But even US President Joe Biden, let me remind you, was forced to publicly call him a “murderer”.

And now in Moscow, two prominent, in my opinion, politicians and publicists, Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin, were sentenced to life imprisonment (currently in a Moscow pre-trial detention center. – Ed.). And don’t think I made a reservation about a life sentence – I remember well how I was tried three times in a row without being released. This is a life sentence.

– In December 2021, the Memorial human rights center was closed in Moscow. How did you react to this event??

– As for the protection of human rights, it is only possible in a democratic state. “Memorial” and other so-called human rights organizations are not able to protect anyone under the current regime. They are only involved in statistics, collection and publication of various rights violations.

For real protection, justice is needed. But in Russia and Belarus there are no courts, no prosecution, no investigation. Everything is subject to a person’s whim. But even any collection of information, statistics on violations of rights are already dangerous for the authorities. All this activity prevents Putin from rewriting history, adjusting it to his fantasies. That’s why the Memorial was closed.

For the same reason, I never had access to my confidential file from 1970 – then I spent six years in a colony and in a special prison-type psychiatric hospital for anti-Soviet activities. For 11 years I fought for the right to at least know your materials, but to no avail.

– In the 70’s when you were arrested, excerpts from your rehearsals aired on the Deutsche Welle (now Deutsche Welle.–Ed.) airwaves from July 1, 2022, broadcast DW for Russia and Belarus resumed in medium waves. Is that a sign for you?

– Unfortunately, we returned to the USSR again during the “stagnation”. Radio channels used to be blocked, but today they also block the Internet, censorship has been introduced everywhere. The only thing left of Gorbachev’s time is, again, the freedom to leave. There’s nothing left. And everyone faces a purely personal issue – either live in such a state or leave.