Russian Women Increasingly Pushing Husbands and Even Ex-Husbands to Join Russian Army as Bonuses Rise, Studies Find

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 2 – According to a survey conducted by the Greetings. You’re a Foreign Agent telegram channel, increases in the amount of bonuses offered to those who join the Russia army to fight in Ukraine have won the Kremlin an important ally in its effort to fill the depleted ranks of its army there: Russian women.
    The survey found that ever more Russian women have become interested in pushing their husbands or even their ex-husbands (from whom they receive alimony) to join the military because of the large and increasing bonuses that Moscow and the regions are offering those who sign up (t.me/privetinoagent/653; discussed at holod.media/2024/12/02/sposob-otpravit-muzhej/).
    The telegram channel reached this conclusion on the basis of examining how many people asked the question “how to send a husband to war” on the Yandex news portal. In the second half of 2023, about 200 such queries were registered each month. Now, the number of such questions has risen to “approximately 5,000 monthly.”
    Beginning in October when the size of bonuses exploded, Russian women also began to ask “how to send an ex-husband to war,” the telegram channel reported, a finding also noted by researchers at the Scythe portal (kosa.media/2024/12/rossiyanki-stali-chashhe-iskat-kak-otpravit-muzhej-i-byvshih-na-vojnu/).

Buddhist Cossacks Appear to Be Making a Comeback in Buryatia, with Ulan Ude's Support

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 30 – Many in Moscow and the West assume to this day that all Cossacks are Russian Orthodox in religion and Russian-speaking as far as language is conerned, but in fact, many have been and some remain followers of Islam, Judaism and Buddhism and speak other languages (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/10/not-all-of-russias-cossacks-are.html).
    In trying to mobilize the Cossacks for its own purposes, the Putin regime has sometimes tried to wipe out these attachments and at other times has made concessions to them because most Cossacks regardless of faith and language are quite prepared to fight for Russia against enemies foreign and domestic.
    Moscow has been relatively tolerant of Buddhist Cossacks in Kalmykia, a republic that adjoins the North Caucasus (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/kalmyk-cossack-leaders-must-now-receive.html); but it has been less so to Buddhist Cossacks in Buryatia in the Russian Far East.
    Now that may be about to change, as Moscow needs more soldiers for its war in Ukraine, the Russian authorities appear to be ready to look to those who are ready to serve regardless of their religion and even language. That is giving both “registered” Cossacks who are part of Putin’s regime and genuine, unregistered ones a chance.
    Not surprisingly, reporting about this is scarce. But the Buryat government is proudly reporting that its Cossack community has been named the second best among those regions with a smaller number of Cossacks relative to population (egov-buryatia.ru/press_center/news/detail.php?ID=185817 and asiarussia.ru/news/43680/).
    Ulan Ude reports that there are now 21 Cossack stanitsas in the republic, 14 of which are part of the Transbaikal Cossack host that is recognized by and supported by Moscow and seven of which are not part of that body and presumably more traditional and likely, in this case,  more Buddhist.
    Significantly, Buryat officials say they are supporting both, an indication that Moscow’s manpower demands related to Putin’s war in Ukraine are giving Cossacks less affected by the center’s procrustean approach to the Cossack tradition. And what that means is this: in the short term, Moscow benefits; but in the longer term, it may find itself the loser.  

Ever More Russian Women Being Sent to Prison for Political Crimes and Then Mistreated, OVD-Info Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 1 – Since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, ever more Russian women have been convicted on trumped-up political charges and sent to prison where they are routinely mistreated by guards and other officials, according to experts at the OVD-Info monitoring organization.
    More than half of all women sentenced to prison following conviction for political charges since 2012 have been sentenced since February 2022, 412 of 735, the monitoring group says (rfi.fr/ru/россия/20241201-в-россии-десятки-женщин-политзаключенных-за-что-их-отправляют-за-решетку-каково-им-приходится-в-системе-фсин).
    In contrast to men’s places of imprisonment, those were women are held are controlled exclusively by prison officials rather than power being shared between the guards and groups of ordinary prisoners. On the one hand, that means that direct physical abuse is less; but on the other, it means that the guards are exclusively responsible for the level of mistreatment.
    According to OVD-Info, women prisoners in Russia suffer from all the other kinds of mistreatment that their male counterparts do; but in addition, they suffer because in most cases, the guards refuse to adjust their schedules or provide medicines and supplies that women specifically need.
    That seldom gets much attention, the experts say; but it is a violation of the rights of women prisoners in Russia and should be exposed and condemned by those who track the state of the incarcerated in Russia today.  

Kremlin Warns Regional Officials Russians will Remain Divided after War in Ukraine Ends

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 1 – Officials of the Presidential Administration have told deputy governors who are responsible for domestic affairs and propaganda that Russians will remain divided when the war in Ukraine ends and that they must prepare for that in order to boost support for whatever Putin arranges.
    At a recent meeting, PA officials told the deputy governors that the war in Ukraine is coming and that while its outcome “should be regarded in society as a victory,” the reality is that “different social groups already perceive this differently: for ‘angry patriots,’ it means one thing; for ‘liberals,’ it means something completely different” (kommersant.ru/doc/7344159).
    As a result, the PA officials said, the deputy governors must “focus on ‘the quiet majority,’ which will be satisfied with the achievement of the goals outlined by the president – de-Nazification and demilitarization of Ukraine – as well as the preservation of new territories for Russia. And this majority must be preserved and expanded.”
    These declarations are significant for three reasons. First, they are a rare acknowledgement by Kremlin officials that the war is viewed differently by different groups of Russians who include both those committed to an expanded war that will achieve all of the initial goals Putin outlined and those who want an end to the conflict even if sacrifices have to be made.
    Second, these statements suggest that the Kremlin expects at least the hot phase of the conflict to end soon and wants to make sure that its representatives in the federal subjects are prepared to take action lest these current divisions deepen once some settlement, admittedly partial, is ready to be announced.
    And third, they indicate that the war is going to continue to divide Russian society even after the guns go silent at least for a time and that those divisions are something that the Presidential Administration hopes it can overcome by relying on the silent majority who will support anything Putin does.  

Russia Opens what It Calls ‘Second Trans-Siberian’ Railway to Take Pressure Off Its Namesake

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 30 – Two weeks ago, Russia opened a 531-kilometer rail link between BAM and the Pacific coast, thus completing a project Moscow has called “the second Trans-Siberian railway” and taking the pressure off its namesake with regard to trade between European Russia and the Pacific rim.
    Moscow has been talking about constructing such a link and a new port to handle its ties to the Pacific since the 1950s, but the current push to construct both began only four years ago – and the port itself remains as yet unfinished (fondsk.ru/news/2024/11/30/vtoromu-transsibu-pora-prirastat-severo-sibirskoy-magistralyu.html).
    But Russian sources are already viewing this route as ensuring expanded trade in coal and other minerals with China and other Asian countries and giving Russia new capacity and redundancy in trade with the east and thus supporting Vladimir Putin’s much-ballyhooed turn to the east (vostok.today/52048-pervyj-sostav-s-uglem-proehal-po-tihookeanskoj-zheleznoj-doroge.html).
    What they are not yet talking about at least in public are two other consequences of this new railway, one domestic and the other international, that may ultimately prove more economically and even politically significant.
    On the one hand, this railway almost certainly will lead to the expansion of extractive industry in the Sakha Republic, boosting that region’s  economy and also linking it with Asia more directly and thus reducing its almost total dependence on Moscow, something that could lead to more demands there for radical autonomy or even independence.
    And on the other, it gives Moscow a railway to the Pacific much further north from the Chinese border than the Trans-Siberian, thus ensuring that Moscow would have a fallback position in the event of some future Chinese move into Russian territory.  

What’s Needed Now: A Calm Conversation about Whether World would be Better Off without Russian Federation and What is Needed for That to Happen, Chernyshov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 30 – No one should be surprised that Moscow is persecuting those who openly call for the demise of the Russian Federation, Sergey Chernyshov says; but at least equally surprising is the failure of opposition leaders and the media “are categorically refusing to talk about the liquidation of the Russian Federation in its current form.”
    Such a conversation is “extremely necessary,” the Radio Liberty analyst says; because “if it is shown that a world without Russia in its current form would be better than the world with it, then why should we cling to this political formation?” (sibreal.org/a/kak-rasselit-barak-rossiyskaya-federatsiya-istorik-sergey-chernyshov-o-razumnom-separatizme/33219637.html).
    Of course, it is the case that “a conversation about the liquidation of the Russian Federation is extremely difficult to begin, as difficult of beginning a conversation about sex in a Puritanical family.” And thus it is not surprising “but true” that in Russian history, “there has never been a single significant political force that has raised the issue of dividing the country.”
    “Even the numerous ‘national movements’ which arose in the 19th century across the entire empire in fact raised the question not about the liquidation of a single  country but about its ‘reformatting,’” Chernyshov says. And those who have wanted to do that have first wanted to seize power in the center.
    There is an entirely understandable reason for that: “outdated countries have been effectively liquidated only in one case when this has happened at the behest of the supreme central power which has then acted decisively and effectively in this field,” the historian continues.
    “The British empire was liquidated in the British parliament in London and not in the jungles of Africa,” Chernyshov points out; and “the USSR fell apart not because three nationalist politicians assembled in Beloveshchaya and signed something there but because a fourth politician in Moscow agreed with them.”
    That needs to be recognized as must be recognized something else, he argues: until that condition is met, the population will overwhelmingly talk about reforming the country of which they are a part rather than seeking to go their own way. The latter option is almost always the choice of local elites with their own calculations.
    Such elites will succeed initially if they have an ally in Moscow, but they will succeed over time only if they are able to give their peoples a better life, one that others will envy. If the first doesn’t arise, dissolution is unlikely; if the second doesn’t happen, there will always be those who will want to restore the past, Chernyshov concludes.

Having Ramped Up Anti-Immigrant Passions, Kremlin Appears to have Decided It Must Reverse Course, Persyev Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 30 – After the Crocus City Hall incident and in an effort to distract attention from problems arising from Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Kremlin decided to ramp up anti-immigrant passions in the population, a campaign that has worked exceedingly well and led to various governmental moves against them.
    But as the war drags on and labor shortages intensify, Meduza observer Andrey Pertsev says, the very same people appear to have concluded “they may have gone too far” and as a result, they’re  “backpedaling … and attempting to reshape public attitudes” in the opposite direction (meduza.io/feature/2024/11/29/rossiyskie-vlasti-posle-terakta-v-krokuse-sdelaem-zhizn-migrantov-nevynosimoy-administratsiya-prezidenta-seychas-kazhetsya-my-proschitalis).
    Certain sectors in cities like taxis have been hit particularly hard by restrictions on immigrants, but rural Russia has been hit across the board because so many of its men, taking advantage of bonuses, have gone to fight in Ukraine and either not returned or returned with injuries that prevent them from working.
    These problems have been compounded by combat losses more generally in the Russian army and by Moscow’s need to dispatch more Russians to impose control on portions of Ukraine that the Russian military has managed to force the Ukrainian authorities out of, Pertsev continues.
    He says that t his has forced the Kremlin to conclude that its anti-immigrant campaign has entailed far more significant costs than it had expected and that “scaling back anti-immigration initiatives and softening the rhetoric would be prudent.” Some officials have backed off, but others are continuing to push a hard anti-immigrant line.
    Pertsev suggests that one of the clearest signs that the Kremlin will soon change direction and issue the kind of statements Russian officials and propagandists won’t ignore is the statement of Kremlin ally Duma deputy Olet Matveychev, who has declared that criticism of immigrants is a Western plot designed to “tear apart the Russian people from within.”
    But whether the Kremlin will find it as easy to turn off the anti-immigrant effort as it was to launch it very much remains an open question, the commentator suggests.