Does the USSR still "legally exist?": A controversial statement from a Kremlin adviser

At an international legal forum in St. Petersburg, Russian presidential adviser Anton Kobyakov made a highly controversial statement. According to him, the Soviet Union “has not yet been dissolved from a legal point of view and formally exists.” This was reported by TASS and other Russian media outlets.

“The process of liquidating the USSR was carried out incorrectly”

According to Anton Kobyakov, these conclusions have been advanced for many years not only by Russian but also by international lawyers. The reason is that if the USSR was established in 1922 by the Congress of People's Deputies, its dissolution should have been carried out by a decision of the same body - the Congress of the USSR. However, such a decision has never been made in history.

He also questioned the legitimacy of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Accords, signed on December 8, 1991, which legally consolidated the dissolution of the USSR. According to him, these documents were approved by the Supreme Soviets of the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belarusian SSR, but they did not have such authority.

The controversial idea that “the war in Ukraine is an internal process”

Based on this “legal logic”, Kobyakov assessed Russia’s military actions in Ukraine as an “internal affair”. According to him, in order to fully understand the current events, the legal assessment of the collapse of the USSR should be reconsidered.

“Citizens of the USSR” – a radical movement and measures to counter it

This idea is alive and well not only in the Kremlin, but also in some radical groups in Russia. In the early 2000s, a movement called “Citizens of the USSR” emerged. Their members considered themselves Soviet citizens and tried not to recognize the Russian state authorities.

In 2022, this group was recognized by the Russian Ministry of Justice as an extremist organization, and its leader, Sergei Taraskin, was imprisoned for 8 years.

Putin's attitude to history

It is known that Vladimir Putin has repeatedly expressed regret about the collapse of the USSR. He called this event "the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century."

From the Zamin.uz editorial office:
This statement by Anton Kobyakov attracted the attention not only of lawyers, but also of political scientists and the international community. What do the claims about the "legal existence" of the USSR indicate? Will these ideas become the basis for new strategic directions in Russian foreign policy?

What is your opinion on this issue? Has the USSR really not yet come to an end?