Moscow Struggles to Come Up with List of ‘Historical Peoples’ of Russia

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 8 – The Russian government does not have an agreed-upon list of “the historical peoples of the country,” those nations whose members either now or in the past had such a status and therefore whose members currently abroad have the right to return as compatriots, Nezavisimaya gazeta says (ng.ru/politics/2024-12-08/1_9151_migrants.html).
    A major reason such a list does not exist is that the Kremlin doesn’t want to see an influx of people from some nations such as the Circassians because that would change the ethnic balance in various parts of Russia and could generate social and political instability (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscows-compatriots-program-allowing.html).
    But without such a list, Moscow must continue to rely on Russian language knowledge as the primary basis for deciding who can quality as a compatriot and who cannot, a reliance Putin favors but that has the effect of blocking the return of favored groups and allowing the return of some the regime would prefer not to have come back.
    Thus, the current struggle to come up with such a list, although unlikely to yield one anytime soon because of the political sensitivities involved, will remain an important indicator of where Russian official opinion now is regarding who’s in and who’s out as far as the formation of Putin’s favored “Russian world” is concerned.   

Beijing Rapidly Expanding Its Influence across Russian Far East -- with Putin’s Help, Nemets Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 8 – Beijing has been rapidly expanding its influence in the economy and government offices of the Russian Far East, often with Vladimir Putin’s help because the defeats he has suffered elsewhere mean that he has no choice but to give in to what the Chinese want, according to Aleksandr Nemets.
    The US-based Russian analyst says that this trend began more than a decade ago but is accelerating because of Putin’s problems in Ukraine, Syria and with the Russian economy (m.kasparov.org/material.php?id=674D9776C7941&section_id=444F8A447242B&subject_id=230 and kasparov.ru/material.php?id=675449E4EA866).
    Not only are there more than three million ethnic Chinese in the Russian Far East, far more than the 40,000 registered residents the Russian authorities admit to, Nemets begins; but China now makes no secret of its aspirations for control of the region and has already achieved great success in dominating the economy and even regional governments.
    And this has happened with Putin’s help because he needs China given his weakened position and therefore is deferring to Beijing on issues large and small in the Far East, including but not limited to accepting border changes in China’s favor, expanding the ability of Chinese firms to rent land, and extending extraterritorial rights to Chinese operating in that region.
    Officials in Russian regions, whatever they may feel personally, take their lead from the Kremlin, and as a result, China is finding it easier and easier to rent more land for longer and longer terms and to act as a neo-colonial power, confident that no one locally or in Moscow will show any resistance.
    Nemets sees Moscow’s willingness to extend virtual extraterritorial status to the Chinese working and living in the region as the most serious development because it gives both the Chinese and the local Russians the sense that the Chinese are already the more important of the two, despite everything Putin says about Russians and Ukrainians elsewhere.  

Russian Parents Pulling Their Children Out of Public Schools to Escape Brainwashing and Other Problems

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 7 – Tens of thousands of Russian parents are pulling their children out of public schools because of overcrowding, the dumbing down of the curriculum and the brainwashing about the war and the Putin regime children are now subject to, aga according to a study of the situation in St. Petersburg by the Bumaga news agency.
    While the number of pupils in expensive elite private schools remains relatively small, the covid pandemic led to an explosive growth in the number of “economy class” informal schools that parents could send their children to instead of the state schools or home schooling (paperpaper.ru/bez-propagandy-i-s-uvazheniem-k-chelovek/).
    Now, the Bumaga study estimates that there are far more youngsters in these schools, which cost about 30,000 rubles (300 US dollars) a month, than the official figures for the northern capital of just over 50,000 given that the government does not include a large number of schools very much in operation.
    Parents in smaller cities and villages have fewer opportunities to send their children to such institutions, but the fact that those in the megalopolises do suggests that parents now view such schools as a way to protect their children from what the Putin educational reformers are doing.

War in Ukraine No Time to Talk about Fixing Elevators Even in High-Rise Buildings, Officials Tell Residents of Nine-Story Apartment Building without Them

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 8 – Vladimir Putin has worked hard to convince Russians that his war in Ukraine is being carried out by professionals and that it doesn’t affect them. But increasingly, that conflict is coming home to roost, albeit often in ways that likely seem marginal to outsiders but have a profound impact on the population.
    An example of this is to be found in the case of a nine-story apartment building in Tula where neither of the elevators works and people have had to use the stairs since 2005 when the elevators stopped functioning. Officials have told residents who’ve asked to have them fixed that wartime isn’t the time to talk about that (thenewtab.io/lifta-net-no-vy-derzhites/).
    Worse, these same officials have suggested that it may be another decade before either of the elevators will be fixed. Such comments may not lead residents to go into the streets to protest the Putin regime, but they will fuel anger at the state he heads and make it less likely that they will enthusiastically support it, especially if they have to use the stairs every day.

Western Sanctions Mean Northern Sea Route Carried Only Half the Cargo This Year Putin had Called For, Rosatom Chief Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 7 – The Northern Sea Route carried only 38 to 40 million tons of cargo this year and not the 80 million Vladimir Putin had called for, largely the result of the impact of Western sanctions on the ability of Russia to build enough icebreakers and ice-capable ships to handle larger amounts, according to Aleksey Likhachyov, head of Rosatom.
    He and other Rosatom officials say that Russia needs at least 13 icebreakers to handle the ice, not the ten it currently has operating to keep the NSR operational, and as many as 90 ice-capable ships, far from than it has or can build soon because of the sanctions regime (nakanune.ru/articles/122915/).
    Russian experts were also dismissive that global warming will soon leave the Arctic ice-free especially in the eastern portions of the NSR and said that Russia must devote more effort to building icebreakers and ice-capable ships if it is to meet Putin’s targets. Given sanctions, Russian yards must develop whole new sectors of construction if they are to do that.

Just like a Century Ago, Moscow’s Intelligence Services Working Hard to Penetrate Wide Swath of Émigré Opposition Groups

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 9 – The case of Nomma Zarubina, whom the FBI has accused of working with the FSB, has called attention to something many in Russia and the West prefer not to focus on. Just like a century ago, Moscow’s intelligence services are working hard to penetrate émigré opposition groups.
    Because Lenin went from being the leader of a small émigré clique to the ruler of Soviet Russia in a matter of months, Soviet and now Russian leaders have always been more obsessed with émigré activists than those activists in most cases deserve, seeking to penetrate them to know what is going on and use them for Moscow’s purposes.
    In some cases, these agents promote Moscow’s line and work to disorder the émigré groups. In others, they push for radical agendas so that the Kremlin can discredit the groups or use them as propagandistic scarecrows. But in every case, the involvement of Russian agents has the effect of disordering the groups by sowing suspicions that they are totally penetrated.
    Smaller ethnic groups are generally more able to resist than are larger regional or pan-Russian organizations because the former find it easier to identify agents than the latter, but they are not immune from such penetration and often find themselves victims in ways they don’t expect (idelreal.org/a/uchastnitsu-dekolonialnogo-meropriyatiya-nommu-zarubinu-obvinyayut-v-svyazyah-s-fsb-chto-ob-etom-dumayut-v-natsdvizheniyah-/33229067.html).
    The best defense is to be aware of the problem and work to counter it gain knowledge about Operation Trust, the early Soviet effort to penetrate and disorder the first Russian emigration  (On the Trust as precedent for Putin’s approach to nationalist and regionalist groups now, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/regionalists-in-russia-find-common.html.)

Putin has Given Assad Asylum But is Unlikely to Allow Syria’s Circassians to Return Home

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 9 – Moscow has given overthrown Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad political asylum, but it seems unlikely that the Russian government will allow more of Syria’s estimated 50,000 Circassians to return to their homeland in the North Caucasus, despite the opportunities Assad’s ouster has given them for leaving.
    Prior to 2011, Syria had an estimated 200,000 Circassians; but during the civil war there, roughly half of them fled abroad. But of those, only around 2,000 were able to return to their homelands in the North Caucasus from which their ancestors were deported by the Russian Empire in an act of genocide.
    Given the uncertainties and instability following the departure of Assad, many  more will want to leave; but they are likely to be blocked by Moscow’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the return of compatriots abroad like the Circassians who do not speak Russian (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscows-compatriots-program-allowing.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-tightening-screws-on-circassians.html).
    Nonetheless, many are likely to try and both Circassian organizaations and the governments of the three Circassian republics – Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabadino-Balkaria and Adygeya – may very well help them given labor shortages and a history of allowing more Circassians in thanMoscow likes (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/circassians-appear-to-be-returning-to.html).
    That could easily create a new conflict situation in the North Caucasus and help mobilize the seven million Circassians against Moscow which seems always ready to help the enemies and oppressors of that nation but not members of a group that the Russian government itself has been fighting for three centuries.
    Two years ago, Memorial released a report on the Circassians of Syria and their plight. For the report, see memohrc.org/ru/announcements/desyat-strashnyh-let-narusheniya-prav-cheloveka-i-gumanitarnogo-prava-vo-vremya-voyny. For a discussion of that study, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/04/allowing-circassians-to-return-from.html.