Russian ‘Foreign Agent’ Mark Feygin on the Only Way the War Ends
In an exclusive interview with Kyiv Post, popular blogger Mark Feygin warns that human losses and destruction are not arguments that influence people in power.
Kyiv Post
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On the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, popular blogger Mark Feygin hosted a stream titled “When Will He Stop?” The reference was to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
I asked Feygin how he would answer that same question nearly four years later.
For Feygin, it is pointless to expect Moscow to end the war because of casualties, economic strain, or simple war fatigue.
“He will not stop on his own.”
Feygin argued that the Russian state has long shown that human losses, destruction, and moral cost are not arguments that influence the people in power.
Becoming a “foreign agent”
Mark Feygin, 55, is a Russian-born human rights activist and lawyer who gained prominence representing high-profile clients in politically charged cases, including the punk group Pussy Riot, Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, journalist Roman Sushchenko, and Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. In 2018, he was disbarred by the Moscow Chamber of Attorneys, officially for alleged unethical conduct and “foul language on social media.”
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Feygin has become a voice for Russians who openly condemn the war and express solidarity with Ukraine. His stance has been especially irritating for the Kremlin because he speaks not as an outsider, but as a well-known Russian lawyer once active inside the system. Shortly after the launch of the war, Russian authorities designated him a “foreign agent.” At the time of the interview, Feygin’s YouTube channel had nearly 2 million subscribers, with hundreds of thousands of Russians regularly tuning in to hear analysis of events that state propaganda carefully leaves out.
Ukraine needs $52 billion in foreign funding this year to cover defense and social costs, following a record $52.4 billion received in 2025.
When he realized law no longer worked
I asked Feygin when he came to understand that law in Russia was no longer a meaningful tool of defense.
He said there was no single moment of revelation because, for him, the answer had been clear for years.
“I did not need some moment of revelation. I understood this long ago. Even back then, when I was defending clients, it was obvious there were no real rights. There were only certain political instruments a lawyer could use to protect a client. But the law itself did not work.”
By the early 2010s, and especially in politically sensitive cases, Feygin said it had become obvious that outcomes were driven not by legal argument but by political decisions.
“You could try to defend someone, yes. But you understood that this system was not about justice. It was about control.”
He said the system no longer permits honest judges, independent officials, or other “foreign elements” to remain in positions of influence.
“The system does not allow that. It gets rid of such people quickly.”
For that reason, he does not believe change can come from within official institutions.
Fear defines life inside Russia
Asked how he sees the public mood in Russia now, Feygin said fear outweighs everything else.
Public silence, he argued, should not be mistaken for genuine support.
“People already see the war as something unnecessary and harmful. But they cannot express it. Fear governs their reactions.”
As the war grinds on, Feygin said, even the illusion of triumph has faded. Any early imperial fantasies about a quick victory have given way to exhaustion, repression, and a deep sense of uncertainty.
“What is there to be proud of? Twenty percent of occupied territory, and it is scorched earth.”
He said dissatisfaction also exists within the elite, among officials, security structures, and wealthy insiders, but fear prevents that discontent from taking political form.
Why censorship matters – “Control over information is control over society”
I asked Feygin why censorship is so important in Russia and what, in his view, would happen if that censorship were removed.
He said censorship is not simply a wartime tool. In his view, it is one of the foundations of Putin’s power. Without it, Russians would be forced to confront the true human cost of the war, especially the scale of battlefield losses.
“Control over information is control over society.”
Feygin said that if information moved freely, the situation inside Russia would look very different.
“If people spoke openly about the real losses, about how many the Russian army has lost, mobilized men, contract soldiers, conscripts, then of course the situation would be different.”
He argued that the Kremlin understands exactly how politically dangerous uncensored information can become, which is why repression only intensifies during wartime.
“During war, the system becomes even harsher, even more irreconcilable. The authorities use this for control over society.”
What the “foreign agent” label is meant to do
Since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, Russia has sharply expanded its “foreign agent” list. The unified register stood at 493 entries in December 2022 and had grown to more than 1,000 by early 2026, showing how aggressively the label has been used against critics of the war and the Kremlin.
Feygin was labeled a “foreign agent” in April 2022. He said it did not change his life much because he had already left Russia. He now lives in France and has also faced criminal cases in absentia. But he said these measures are meant less to punish him personally and more to warn others.
“It is intimidation. They are showing others: if you behave like this, you will face the same persecution.”
A state shaped by the security services
I asked Feygin whether Putin’s KGB background had something to do with the nature of the system that emerged in Russia. Feygin believes it had everything to do with it.
For him, the defining feature of Putin’s Russia is not ideology but the dominance of the security apparatus.
“The core of this system is the security services.”
Had Russia been shaped by a different ruling class, Feygin suggested, it might still have been flawed, but fundamentally different. Instead, he said, it became a state built around surveillance, coercion, and self-preservation.
Watching him from abroad
In 2020, under mounting pressure at home, Feygin left Russia. Now living in France, he says he is under state protection there.
“I am now protected by France,” he says.
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, many prominent Russian figures have chosen self-exile. But exile no longer offers a total guarantee of safety. In recent years, Russian activists and Kremlin critics have been threatened, attacked, and even killed far beyond Russia’s borders.
I asked Feygin whether he believes he is being monitored in France. He said yes.
“They do not save money on this. This is a priority for them. They would rather cut something else, cut spending somewhere else, than save money on monitoring people they consider a threat. For them, this is a natural part of the work of the special services.”
PACE platform opens dialogue with anti-war Russians
In the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) suspended Russia’s participation. At the same time, it launched the first formal effort to engage anti-war Russian democratic figures in exile. The idea was that the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine should not mean severing contact with those Russians who oppose the war and Putin’s rule. Moscow has closely watched the platform’s creation, seeing any organized engagement with the Russian democratic opposition as a political threat. Feygin was elected as one of its members.
He cautioned, however, against overstating its role.
“This is not some body that can dispose of anything or influence events in a decisive way through its powers. That is not the case.”
Feygin described the platform as an advisory group of Russian opposition figures in exile, created to help European institutions think through how to engage democratic Russian forces.
“For now, it is too early to draw conclusions.”
No return without radical change
After going through the political, legal, and personal costs of exile, I asked Feygin a simple question: what would happen if Feygin returned to Russia.
His answer was immediate.
“If Feygin returns to today’s Russia, that is the end. Feygin will be killed.”
He said there is no sense in returning under the current system, where, in his view, no one has rights except those who belong to power itself.
“Even if they stopped persecuting us, why would I return to a country where I am rightless?”
For Feygin, return would make sense only if Russia underwent deep, radical change.
“Only if the system breaks, if truly radical change begins, then the question of returning could arise. Otherwise, there is simply no point.”
The bread of exile is bitter
At the end of the interview, I asked Feygin a more personal question: what exile and the “foreign agent” label have meant not politically, but in human terms, for his life and for his family.
He said that, of course, he never wanted to leave.
“As for me personally, of course I would not have wanted to leave. What is there to say? No one wants that. As the writer Vladimir Maksimov once said, ‘The bread of exile is bitter, bitter.’ It is bitter in the sense that you are cut off from your homeland, from your society, from everything you spent decades doing.”
Feygin said some of his relatives have also left Russia, while others remain there under pressure.
“As for my relatives, some of them, fortunately, have also left Russia. Those who remain, some have already had searches. What were they looking for? It is unclear. But that is not really the point. They are trying to intimidate, to torment.”
Even so, he said neither he nor his family believe the current system will last.
“Nothing lasts forever. I heard people once say the same thing about communism, that it would last forever. And where is that communism now? This power, too, will pass. And then we will see what comes next.”
