The research body with Russia’s Security Council will soon present a detailed plan of action aimed at preventing forced regime changes through mass unrest, known as the “color revolutions,” a popular daily reported.
The research center is headed by the Security Council’s secretary Nikolai Patrushev, who was the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, between 1999 and 2008 – during Vladimir Putin’s first two presidential terms.
According to Kommersant daily, the center is in charge of evaluation and forecasting various external and internal threats that could affect the country’s socio-economic development and national security.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed source close to the top law enforcement command, saying that Russian officials are taking the threat of a “color revolution” in the country more seriously, and the issue will likely be on the agenda of the nearest session of the Security Council dedicated to international relations.
The Security Council prepared a list of proposed measures that could negate the possible threat.
READ MORE: ‘Anti-Maidan’ movement launched to oppose color revolutions in Russia
The daily quoted one of the experts, former security officer and now a professor at Moscow State University, Andrey Manoilo, who said the council supports a complex approach to the problem that would include measures against “network protest activities” and propaganda work against “romantic revolutionary stereotype,” which attracts a lot of people in the protest movements.
“Any color revolution presents itself as a natural manifestation of the people’s will, while in reality it is a chain of actions pre-planned from abroad on a very precise pattern. We can fight it only by breaking the technology chain,” Manoilo told reporters.
President Vladimir Putin again addressed the dangers of color revolutions at Wednesday’s session of the Interior Ministry’s committee. “The extremists’ actions become more complicated. We are facing attempts to use the so called ‘color technologies’ in organizing illegal street protests to open propaganda of hatred and strife on social networks,” he said.
READ MORE: Putin urges tougher measures to counter extremism, color revolutions
In November last year, Putin named color revolutions as a main tool used by forces that seek to reshape the world.
“In the modern world extremism is used as a geopolitical tool for redistribution of spheres of interest. We can see the tragic consequences of the wave of the so-called color revolutions, the shock experienced by people in the countries that went through the irresponsible experiments of hidden, or sometimes brute and direct interference with their lives,” the Russian leader said.
Putin also noted in his speech that everyone advocating the freedom of assembly and expression must remember the responsibility that comes together with these rights.
However, Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that the fight against extremism must not turn into a campaign against dissidents. “All people have the right to suggest solutions for and approaches to current problems, and they have the right to form parties and groups, to participate in elections and fight for power,” Putin told the Security Council members in November. “The most important thing is to ensure that the process of realizing citizens’ political preferences is civilized and strictly within the framework of the law,” he said.