You could be forgiven for thinking that everyone in Russia either supports the war in Ukraine or is too scared to do anything about it. A dominant narrative is that Russian civil society is passive, cooperative or has been abolished to the point of being neutralized.
Some elements of this may be true. After the complete conquest of Ukraine in 2022, Russian citizens who criticize the war or express an anti-war stance face severe prison sentences. These fall under extended wartime censorship laws aimed at allegedly spreading “false information” or “discrediting the military”. But this is not the whole picture.
For the past two years, I have been researching Russian resistance against the war. This has included conducting interviews with activists and other people who fled Russia after the outbreak of war and are now scattered around the world. Instead of disappearing into exile, many of these people are mobilizing to voice their opposition to the war and resist the regime in Moscow.
Some Russian exiles are sending money and letters of solidarity to political prisoners in Russia and their families. Others have coordinated legal aid to support war defendants inside Russia and are lobbying Western governments to draw a line between the Kremlin and Russian civil society.
At the same time, elite Russian opposition figures in exile, including Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Kara-Murza, have worked to form Platform for Dialogue with the Russian Democratic Forces. This is a consultative body in the parliamentary wing of the Council of Europe that, established in 2026, aims to give the Russian opposition an international voice.
In the course of my research, I have also come across expatriate Russians who have run independent Russian-language media through Telegram and YouTube channels. Although in recent months, the Russian telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, has severely restricted access to these platforms. He did this in an effort to censors outside information and force Russians to approve the state-controlled Max app.
I have come across cases of anti-war Russians abroad helping people at home escape mobilization by providing safe haven and passage out of Russia. One of my interviewees, a 22-year-old Russian now living abroad, had even established transnational networks across Europe, the Caucasus, and Russia to help prosecuted anti-war Russians leave the country before they stood trial.
Indigenous diaspora networks have also informed local communities in regions of Russia with large ethnic minority populations such as Tuva, Tatarstan, Buriyatia and Chelyabinsk about the realities of war. These include the use of child soldiers and heavy recruiting from ethnic minority regions.
But they also include the extent of Russian and Ukrainian casualties, for which the Russian government has given almost no official figures. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US think tank, said in early 2026 that Russian forces had almost suffered 1.2 million casualties since the start of the war.
These indigenous networks have posted videos on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, as well as messages on Telegram and Signal, to counter official state narratives about the war.
Moscow has justified its war in Ukraine by saying it is protecting Russian-speaking citizens there, countering Western expansionism and returning Russia to its former great-power glory.
Meanwhile, anti-LGBTQ+ laws introduced in December 2022 have banned any perceived propaganda about non-traditional relationships in Russia. This was followed by a decision by the Russian supreme court in 2023 to define the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organization. This decision has made any association or support for LGBTQ+ communities a criminal offense.
In response to this oppression, Russians in exile have stood in solidarity with LGBTQ+ compatriots at home who have faced discrimination. My research has uncovered cases of people providing shelter and safe passage abroad, creating safe digital spaces for Russian LGBTQ+ communities, and lobbying for the protection of these communities in European countries.
Russian resistance
Russians do not fall into a single, orderly, complicit mass. Since the beginning of the war, a diverse resistance movement has worked to oppose the Kremlin’s authoritarian practices and propaganda.
It reflects a wider variety of voices, values and attitudes than is currently possible in Russia, providing crucial insight into the future political aspirations and hopes of ordinary Russians.
This move will not topple the Russian government. But the ability to deliver regime change should not be the only measure of resistance. The movement is challenging the narrative that all Russians support the war, while also helping to keep democratic political ideas alive for Russians at home when change becomes possible.
As one of my respondents told me: “We have to stay in touch with supporters in Russia and plan for the transition. There will be no time to strategize, so the plan has to happen now. We try to do as much as possible.”
The resistance of exiled Russian dissidents is not only important for understanding Russia today. It also shows us how opposition survives in authoritarian regimes more broadly, highlighting the role that the diaspora can play in supporting democratic civil society internationally.
Dissent does not disappear when it is suppressed at home. It shifts, adapts and reconfigures across borders.
Oula Kadhum is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, University of London
This article was reprinted from Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read on original article.
