Putin Regime Not Only Russianizing Non-Russians but Russifying Non-Russian Languages

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 16 – Vladimir Putin has long sought to get non-Russians to use Russian instead of their native languages as their primary means of communication, an effort that has reduced the number of non-Russian speakers of those languages and one that has attracted enormous attention.

            But there is a second process going on that also has fateful consequences for non-Russians who continue to speak their native languages and that is the Russification of these languages among people who speak both and go back and forth between them, a process that has so far attracted little attention.

            That gap in the investigation of the language situation in the Russian Federation is about to be rectified at least in part in Tuva where scholars have launched research into the ways in which Russian is having an impact on the vocabulary and even the syntax of Tuvan (tuvaonline.ru/2025/12/14/uchenye-tigpi-vyigrali-grant-rossiyskogo-nauchnogo-fonda-na-izuchenie-tuvinsko-russkogo-bilingvizma.html).

              Scholars at the Tuvan Institute of Humanities and Applied Social Economic Research say that up to now, this impact, while noted by speakers, “has not become the subject of complex scientific analysis.” They say that they hope to correct that at least in part, an effort that may prompt researchers in other non-Russian republics to do the same.

            Their goal is “to conduct the first multi-faceted study of how the Russian language influences the speech of Tuvan bilinguals at all levels, from pronunciation to syntax,” a comprehensive approach that “will not only allow researchers to identify interference phenomena but also to understand the mechanisms underlying them.”

            And they argue that the results of their study “will have great practical significance,” helping to improve instruction in both languages and serving as “a serious scientific basis for a balanced and effective language policy aimed at maintaining balance and preserving the purity of the Tuvan language.”

Another Step away from Russian Scripts toward a Common Turkic One in Central Asia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 16 – On December 15, Turkic peoples and their friends celebrated the first World Day of Turkic Languages that UNESCO created. In honor of this day, Turkey released two books from Central Asia that have long appeared only in Russia’s Cyrillic alphabet in a common Turkic script based on the Latin one of the West.

            The four Turkic countries of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – have taken steps to develop and then introduce Latin-based scripts for their national languages which the Soviets insisted from the 1930s on use only Cyrillic ones. But the dream of many in the region and in Turkey is for them to have a common Turkic script.

            Were such a script to be introduced, it would function in much the same way as the Persido-Arabic script did in pre-Soviet times, making it possible for speakers in one country to read and otherwise interact with speakers in another without translation and thus promoting a new union and overcome the narrow nationalisms that arose after Soviet linguistic engineering.

            To demonstrate the possibilities that a common Turkic alphabet offers, Turkey and its allies in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan published two works, Kazakh enlightener Abai Qūnanbaiūly’s Words of Instruction and Kyrgyz novelist Chingiz Aitmatov’s The White Boat in the common Turkic alphabet Ankara has developed.

            While this is a small step, it follows on the heels of Turkey’s decision to refer to Central Asia from now on by its former name Turkistan, “the land of the Turks;” and many Russians are outraged by what this will mean as far as Russia’s influence in the region is concerned, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports (ng.ru/cis/2025-12-15/1_9401_alphabet.html).

Aleksandr Kobrinsky, the director of the Moscow Agency of Ethno-National Strategy, reflects such concerns when he argues that “it is obvious that the transition to a common Turkic alphabet is intended not only and not so much to simplify communication among Turkic peoples and strengthen cultural cooperation” as to split off Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from Russia.” 

 

Moscow Urges Iran to Ratify Caspian Convention It and Other Littoral States Signed in 2018

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 16 – When the five Caspian littoral states signed a convention in 2018 that delimited the sea and committed its signatories to keeping the forces of other countries from using that body of water, many saw this as a new day for that sea and the countries living around it.

            Four of the five countries involved – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan – relatively rapidly ratified the accord; but one did not – Iran – something that has blocked the full implementation of the agreement and forced Moscow to try to work around Iran’s failure to ratify (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/moscow-tries-to-work-around-tehrans.html).

            Now, given the warming of relations between Moscow and Tehran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed he hope that Iran will complete the ratification of the 2018 agreement by August of next year when the next summit of the Caspian five is scheduled to meet (akcent.site/novosti/43533).

            If Iran does so, that will represent a major victory for Russia which is very much interested in ensuring that Turkey does not use its close ties with Azerbaijan and Central Asian states to introduce forces on the Caspian, something its ties with Baku and shipbuilding prowess makes entirely plausible.

            Tehran appears to have dragged its feet not because it differs from Russia regarding Turkey. If anything, it is even more opposed to any Turkish expansion  than Russia is. Rather, Iran’s failure to ratify is clearly an effort by Tehran to extract more concessions from a weakened Russia.

            Thus what happens in the coming months regarding Iranian ratification of the Caspian Convention will be a useful measure of how far Russia is prepared to go to keep Iran in its corner and how willing Tehran is to try to force Moscow to adopt or move toward Iranian positions on other matters.

Anti-Putin Opposition Increasingly Deeply Divided between Those Wanting Russia to Remain in One Piece and Those Backing Decolonization, Free Udmurtia Leader Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 16 – The anti-Putin opposition is divided over many things, but it is perhaps most profoundly split on whether Russia should remain a single country after Putin departs the scene or whether the country should disintegrate into a number of new independent states, Sergey Antonov says.

            The former is certainly has received more attention in the West, the leader of the Free Udmurtia Movement says; but Putin’s war in Ukraine is changing the balance as ever more people are recognizing that preserving Russia as a single state poses a greater threat to the world than having it come apart (region.expert/regions-vs-center/).

            Those favoring the preservation of a single Russia after Putin leaves rely on the following arguments, Antonov continues. First of all, those taking this position say that “democratization is possible within the framework of the preservation of the federation as long as there is a restoration of constitutional norms and the redistribution of authority to the regions.”

            Second, they argue that “the disintegration of the state will lead to chaos, inter-ethnic conflicts, the threat of civil war and the expansion of influence of third countries” on the region. Third, the centralists say that “the international community is not prepared to support the idea of the disintegration of a nuclear power with unpredictable consequences for security.”

            And fifth, they claim that “Russia must be preserves as a single subject of international law for participating in the global architecture of security, control over nuclear weapons and the fulfillment of international obligations” that Moscow has already undertaken to do, Antonov concludes.

            Those positions, which echo the views of many in the West before the USSR came apart, “are actively promoted by a large part of the liberal emigration, individual groups of experts, many media outlets, and also part of Western analytic centers which are focused on the preservation of the geopolitical status quo.”

            Those who favor the decolonization of Russia, of whom Antonov is one, have a “diametrically opposed” logic. They argue that the Russian Federation “from the outset” was never a federation and cannot become a democracy, that it has been and will remain repressive at home and aggressive abroad.

            Further, they suggest, “democratization is impossible without the destruction of the very architecture of the imperial state and the recognition of the right to self-determination for peoples and regions. Only if these are able to achieve independence is there a chance for this region to be democratic at home and peaceful abroad.

            Since Putin launched his expanded invasion of Russia in 2022, those favoring decolonization have gained in influence at home and abroad, but they to this day remain “underrated” by Western politicians, even though “ignoring these movements means to copy the imperial optic” the Kremlin uses.

            It is long past time that Western governments and analysts as well as members of the Russian opposition recognize that independence movements in what is now the Russian Federation “are not a threat to stability but represent a chance for the restoration of justice after centuries of colonial oppression” and for international peace as well.

Internet Outages Hitting Russia’s Regions Far Harder than Russian Cities with Far-Reaching Consequences for Demography, Media Use and National Security, Nisnevich Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 11 – Until a year or two ago, Moscow celebrated the extension of the internet to ever more cities and villages of the Russian Federation; but now, there are ever more cases when providers are turning off the internet to these places, with far-reaching consequences for the country as a whole, Yuliy Nisnevich says.  

            Even more than television, the extension of the internet to small towns and villages in the Russian Federation reduced the differences between life there and life in the cities because rural Russians could get things local institutions couldn’t supply, a development that helped tie the country together, the HSE scholar says (newizv.ru/news/2025-12-11/smysla-zhizni-bez-interneta-net-kak-provintsiya-perezhivaet-otklyucheniya-seti-438158).

            Without the internet, Nisnevich says, “residents of villages and rural settlements now live as they did in Soviet times. There is no telephone, people can’t use banking services, televised media don’t work, and one can’t even call  taxi.” Older people sink into their old ways, but younger people are increasingly inclined to flee to the cities.

            As a result, over the last five years, the rural population of the Russian Federation has fallen by 804,000, three times the size of the decline of the population of cities, Rosstat satistics show. There are many causes for this, of course; but the increasing unreliability of internet services in rural areas is certainly one of them.

            According to Nisnevich, internet outages are leading to “a new fragmentation in the country,” one in which young people are fleeing to the cities and older age groups are returning to television, not because either especially wants to but because they had been increasingly relying on the Internet and now can’t.

New Presidential Elections in Ukraine will Not Only Further Unite that Nation but Lead It to Recommit to Joining Europe, Kolesnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 13 – Vladimir Putin has insisted that Ukraine commit to holding new presidential elections as part of any peace deal, confident that he will be able to subvert them, oust Volodymyr Zelensky, and bring to power in Kyiv a new leader who will turn away from Europe and back to Russia.

            But according to Novaya Gazeta observer Andrey Kolesnikov, Putin is completely wrong; and any new elections whoever wins will result in a Ukraine more united and more committed to joining Europe than has ever been the case in the past  (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2025/12/13/posmotrite-na-nas).

            That outcome, he continues, reflects not only the sacrifices that the Ukrainian people have made to resist Russian aggression but also the idea that Zelensky himself articulated in 2019. He told the Ukrainians then that their vote had shown them and the world that “everything was and is possible.”

            That is one of the most important reasons behind Putin’s decision to launch his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He could not afford other countries, including his own, that have emerged from the disintegration of the USSR to reach the same conclusion. But nothing that he has done, Kolesnikov suggests, can shake the confidence of Ukrainians that that is so

Russian Society will Continue to Degrade Even after Putin Leaves the Scene, Gudkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 15 – Despite the hopes and even expectations of many that Russia will fundamentally change directions after Putin’s departure from power, Lev Gudkov argues that the degradation that Russian society has experienced under him will almost certainly continue long into the future.

            The senior sociologist at the Levada Center argues that there are two reasons for that. On the one hand, given the disappointments Russians have suffered from the failure of reforms in the 1990s, they do not see any real alternative to the authoritarianism they defer to (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/kak-vygljadit-rossyskoe-budushee-posle-putina-otvechaet-nauchnyi-rukovoditel-levada-centra-lev-gudkov).

            And on the other, Gudkov continues, “all preceding culture which we have had was a hypocritical adaption to the existing order and to a repressive state.” That state weakened somewhat in the 1990s, “but our people then wanted not freedom but an increase in consumption and wanted to live as in Western countries.”

            Even then, only a few organizations largely supported by grants from abroad wanted democracy; and as a result, “the main institutions of a totalitarian society, that is, the army, the KGB and the judicial system” remained in place even if they were renamed And the Russian population accepted that “as a given” rather seeing this as something that must be changed. 

            The Putin regime has done everything it can to encourage such attitudes, the sociologist says; and consequently, any change in the bureaucracy or the population is unlikely anytime soon. There is a chance, of course, “but it is weak” – and expecting that it will happen without some cataclysmic event is almost certainly an illusion.

            Indeed, he continues, Levada Center polls show that “80 to 85 percent of Russians do not want to take part in politics viewing it as ‘a dirty business’ or something for which they don’t have time.” Consequently, they are unlikely to mobilize and put pressure on the state for real change and will continue to defer to it, something Putin’s successors will exploit as he has.

            Given that, Gudkov concludes, “the most likely scenario is a gradual decline of Russia to the status of a regional power, weak and corrupt, a type of pariah state dependent on more powerful countries like China. In response, democratic countries will erect some kind of fence, a barrier, to isolate this disaster zone.”