Russian deputy living outside the Russian Federation announces his intention to make the Smolensk region independent

Russian MP Vladislav Zhyvitsa plans to restore the independence of the Smolensk region.

He announced this at a press conference at the Belarusian House in Warsaw, the Tatar-Bashkir office of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.

Zhyvitsa has a plan to "recreate an independent Smolensk statehood in an alliance with future free Belarus and other countries whose territories were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth."

The first step is to create a special unit in the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, which is fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Zhyvitsa became the only sitting MP in Russia who openly advocated the independence of his region.

After the conference, Vladislav Zhyvitsa's lawyer in Smolensk received a call from the Russian special services warning him that the charges against him would "be filed soon."

In 2021, the deputy was expelled from the regional branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and called an "agent of Polish influence."