Last week, five members of Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament were in Washington to meet with members of Congress and Trump administration officials. The delegation — the first since Russian dictator Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in March 2014 — was headed, symbolically, by Vyacheslav Nikonov, a lawmaker from Putin’s United Russia party and the grandson of Joseph Stalin’s Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Russian visitors were hosted on Capitol Hill by a bipartisan group of House members — four Republicans and one Democrat — led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), a longtime opponent of U.S. assistance to Ukraine and a supporter of normalizing relations with Moscow, who vowed to “continue to foster this dialogue.”
To make the meeting possible, Luna had to secure a special exemption from the State Department: All visiting members of the Russian Duma are sanctioned by the U.S. for supporting — and formally authorizing — Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A return visit by U.S. lawmakers to Moscow is being planned for June of this year.
Nikonov described the visit as “historic” and said that the issues discussed included the war in Ukraine, the potential easing of U.S. sanctions, the release of frozen Russian assets, as well as economic and cultural cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. The meetings had at least one concrete result: According to Nikonov, the U.S. House of Representatives will soon form a dedicated Russia Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers that will work to institutionalize dialogue with their Russian counterparts.
As could be expected, the welcome given to Putin’s puppet lawmakers in Washington drew strong bipartisan outrage. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina), the co-chairman of the Helsinki Commission, compared hosting the Russian delegation on Capitol Hill to “having a visit by the Third Reich.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the visit granted Putin’s regime “access and legitimacy at a time when we should be doing the opposite.” Lawmakers also pointed to the fact that, while members of the Russian Duma were hosted on Capitol Hill, their political master in the Kremlin was helping the Iranian regime more accurately strike U.S. targets.
If the 20th century taught us anything, it is that appeasing an aggressor in hopes for peace always results in the opposite. But even for those in Washington who adhere to the long-discredited 1930s logic, the choice of interlocutors was downright bizarre. In the dictatorship Putin has built over his 26 years in power, Russia’s legislative branch acts as little more than a Kremlin stamping office. The so-called parliamentarians who came to Washington last week represent no one but themselves. Under the standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, no national election in Russia since 2000 has been judged free and fair. The latest Duma election, in 2021, had no OSCE monitors at all after Russian authorities imposed prohibitive restrictions on their work.
If Congress wants to foster dialogue with Russian society, there is a better way than socializing with Kremlin lapdogs. Russia is not limited to Putin; there are many people in my home country who oppose his dictatorship and his brutal war in Ukraine. One of the most vivid testimonies to this came two years ago when, amid the circus of Russia’s preordained presidential “election,” one opposition politician, Boris Nadezhdin, stepped forward as the anti-war candidate — and hundreds of thousands of Russians lined up across the country to sign his ballot petitions. Needless to say, he was barred from the ballot — but Putin’s claim of universal support for his war collapsed in a matter of days.
Vladimir Putin turns 74 this year, well past the average male life expectancy in Russia. Personalistic dictatorships rarely outlive their dictators — and Russian history has always developed in cycles, with periods of repression and belligerence followed by eras of liberalization and reform. In a foreseeable future, Russia will likely look very different — and it is important for Western leaders to be preparing for that opportunity.
It was precisely with this aim that the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, which brings together lawmakers from 46 European countries, established a Platform for Dialogue with Russian democratic forces, inviting representatives of Russia’s opposition to participate in its meetings. A similar proposal has been made in the European Parliament, which has already hosted Russian opposition leaders at public hearings.
The best response to Putin-friendly lawmakers on Capitol Hill and their planned Russia Caucus touted by Vyacheslav Nikonov would be to create a Free Russia Caucus (modeled on the existing Free Belarus Caucus) that would foster a dialogue with Russia’s pro-democracy movement and civil society. By reaffirming the long-standing American principle — and national security interest — of supporting democracy, such a bipartisan group could make an important contribution to the success of democratic reform in a post-Putin Russia — and, ultimately, to making the world a much safer place.
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