Kremlin Gives Non-Russians New Holidays as It Steals Their Present and Threatens Their Future

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 5 – Students of imperial systems frequently speak of what they call “the folklorization of robbery,” the practice whereby the imperial center offers minorities the chance to flaunt their cultural traditions as a way of covering that center’s suppression of the rights of these peoples and threatens their survivals.

            That is exactly what is happening in Putin’s Russia, Valery Panyushkin says in a commentary for The Moscow Times where he suggests that that is exactly what the Kremlin leader is doing with his two new holidays for minorities at a time when Moscow is stealing ever more from the minorities (moscowtimes.ru/2025/11/05/folklorizatsiya-grabezha-a179222).

            The journalist who identifies himself as being from Ingria, the land around St. Petersburg in Russia’s Northwest, says that allowing people to flaunt their culture two days a year does little to make up for what the state is doing against them on those days and on all the other days of the calendar.

            And in confirmation of that, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin almost on the same day Putin was announcing the two new holidays for minorities confirmed a new plan for the development of the Russian Arctic that will put at risk even the survival of minorities there (echofm.online/stories/mishustin-utverdil-novyj-plan-razvitiya-arktiki-on-stavit-pod-ugrozu-korennye-narody-regiona).

            Very few Russians or non-Russians will have any doubts about what is going on. The only ones who can be counted on to believe the Kremlin’s version and overlook what the Russian government is doing are useful idiots in the West who will celebrate the holidays and suggest that they show that Putin and his regime are in fact concerned about minorities.

            That could hardly be further from the truth. To paraphrase a Russian general who said in the 19^th century that Russia needs Armenia but it doesn’t need Armenians, Putin needs the resources in the regions where non-Russians live and the non-Russians themselves as cannon fodder. He doesn’t need the non-Russians and is no respecter of their legitimate rights. 

Putin’s Governors Come from Narrow Range of Institutions, ‘Club of the Regions’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 6 – Much attention has been paid to the governors’ school the Kremlin has set up as a source of these cadres that more than half of the governors now in place are its graduates (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/05/putins-governors-school-playing.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/more-than-half-of-heads-of-russian.html).

            Now, analysts at the Club of the Regions have done a deeper dive and considered what were the last positions of the heads of federal subjects had before Putin named them as governors. The Club’s analysts found that these officials came from a remarkably small range of institutions (club-rf.ru/theme/616):

·       Five came from each of the two houses of the Federal Assembly, the Council of the Federation and the State Duma.

·       Four came from the Presidential Administrtion.

·       Three came from the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.

·       And two came from each of the following structures: the Political Representation of the North-West Federal District, the ministry for economic development, the ministry for industry and trade, and the All-Russian Peoples Front.

Kremlin Plan to Bring Ukraine War Veterans into Duma will Further Degrade Russian Political Life, Reznik Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – Maksim Reznik, a former deputy of the St. Petersburg parliament and now a Russian opposition figure in emigration, says that the Kremlin wants veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine to occupy 40 percent of the seats of the Duma after next year’s country-wide parliamentary elections.

            Reznik and his colleagues at the Anti-War Committee say that such an outcome would not only reward those who have behaved badly in an aggressive campaign but lead to the further degradation of the Russian political system which is already in a pathetic state (pointmedia.io/story/6909b95ce657f59b666dce46).

            As the result, the Russian Anti-War Committee plans to launch a campaign against the election of any and all veterans of the war in Ukraine to the Duma, an effort that parallels but is distinctly different from plans by the Foundation for the Struggle against Corruption that was founded by the late Aleksey Navalny to oppose United Russian Party candidates.

            It isn’t clear what impact these efforts will have but the introduction of hundred of veterans of the Ukraine war will mean that the Duma won’t have people with political experience and the Kremlin will be able to use the parliament as a tool to advance its goals without any risk that it will serve as a check and balance to executive power.

            While Reznik does not mention it, what Putin appears ready to try to do recalls Stalin’s orchestration of “the Lenin levy” at the time of the Bolshevik leader’s death, an action that brought in many workers and peasants who overwhelmed the politically skilled Old Bolsheviks and set the stage for the rise of Stalin’s untrammeled dictatorship. 

Civil War Only One of Challenges Now Facing Russia’s Leaders, Kremlin Sociologist Warns

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 5 – When Aleksandr Kharichev, head of the Presidential Administration’s sector which monitors social processes and who serves as the Kremlin’s senior in-house sociologists published an article which among other things suggested that Russia now faces the challenge of a potential civil war, that was quickly picked up to the exclusion of all else he said.

            But in an article for the second issue of the new Russian Academy of Economics and State Service journal The Government, Kharichev pointed to five other challenges he says Moscow is currently facing and must address to prevent disastrous outcomes (ehorussia.com/new/node/33600).

            In addition to the possibility of a civil war, the Kremlin sociologist says, Russia faces he potential “loss of political, territorial and cultural sovereignty, depopulation, loss of public trust in the government, and the collapse of the political system, as well as ‘dehumanization’ and the transformation of Russians into ‘consumer subjects.’”

            His suggestion that Russia faces the possibility of a civil war guaranteed that his words would attract widespread attention, but these other challenges both singly and collectively are likely a more important part of his message to the Russian political elite generally and Vladimir Putin personally.

            The second issue of the journal containing his article has been published but not yet posted on its website and comments on it have depended on the readings by those with access to that (t.me/agentstvonews/12580  and vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2025/11/05/1152177-chinovnik-kremlya-sformuliroval-spisok-vizovov).

            When the second issue is posted, a more thorough commentary will be possible; but his article also has the effect of calling attention to this new publication; and a brief perusal of its first issue which has been posted suggest it is one that those who follow Russian politics will want to read regularly. For the first issue, see runivers.ru/gal/today.php?ID=643816.

 

Putin Says that ‘Without the Ethnic Russian People, Russia Cannot be Russia’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 5 – In yet another step toward further elevating the status of the ethnic Russians and forcing non-Russians to defer to them, Vladimir Putin who has been pursuing this line for some time said bluntly that “without the ethnic Russian people, Russia cannot be Russia” and that non-Russians must recognize that attacks on ethnic Russians are attacks on them too.

            In an address to his Presidential Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations, the Kremlin leader softened these remarks slightly by suggesting that “of course, the culture, customs and languages of every people in our vast country are also important and necessary.” But that was not the thrust of his remarks (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/78409).

            Instead, Putin suggested that because of the centrality of the ethnic Russian people, “the Russian identity, tradition, culture and language of our nation-forming people require the utmost care and protection” and that members of other nations in Russia must recognize that attacks on Russians from abroad are thus attacks on them as well.

            His sop to the non-Russians was his announcement that he has created two new holidays for the non-Russians, Indigenous Minority Peoples’ Day to be marked on April 30 and the Day of the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation to be celebrated every year on September 8.

            But Putin’s comments about the special role of the ethnic Russians means that these are little more than a further folklorization of these peoples and that Russianization and Russification of non-Russians who form more than a quarter of the population will continue as long as Putin is in power. 

Russian Schools in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg to Train Chinese Skippers of Ships Plying the Northern Sea Route

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang have signed an agreement under the terms of which Chinese pilots of ships plying the Northern Sea Route will be trained to do so at Russian universities in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg.

            The two sides hope that such Russian training for Chinese pilots will dramatically expand the number of Chinese ships which can pass along this route between Asia and Europe and thus help boost the amount of trade carried along the NSR (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-11-03/v-peterburge-budut-uchit-kitaytsev-prohodu-po-sevmorputi-5501194).

            That is not an absurd expectation, but Russia’s willingness to train Chinese ship captains in this way highlights both Russia’s own problems with building enough ships to come anywhere close to meeting the cargo goals Putin has set and China’s assumption of an ever larger share of the shipping along this route.

            In the short term, Moscow will likely be able to claim success if the amount of shipping goes up; but over the longer term, the increasing dominance of Chinese ships and crews will likely allow Beijing to dictate terms and ultimately Russia aside from what Putin views as a key Russian artery. (On that possibility, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/10/as-russia-falters-in-north-china.html and jamestown.org/program/china-exploiting-russian-weakness-in-arctic-and-moscow-has-reason-to-worry/.)

New Russian Office on Svalbard Headed by ‘SpitsGirl’ who Says Norway Restricting Moscow’s Rights There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – In the latest ratcheting up of Russian pressure on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, the Russian Geographic Society has opened an “expedition and tourist center” in Barentsburg. The RGS has close ties to the Kremlin and Russian defense ministry, and the head of the new office clearly speaks for them.

            She is Darya Slyumyayeva, is employed by Arktikugol, the Russian coal company with interests on the archipelago and hassmained fame as Spitsgirl for setting up and running a social media page (vk.com/spitsgirl)  that has promoted Moscow’s line on Svalbard and the Arctic more generally (thebarentsobserver.com/news/russian-geographical-society-opens-office-on-svalbard/439759).

            Last year, she laid out what is her and Moscow’s position on Svalbard. Arguing that that archipelago “plays an important role in the strengthening of Russia’s positions,” she complained that Moscow faces problems because Norway seeks “to establish its full and absolute sovereignty” there in violation of the 1920 treaty (arcticyouthnetwork.org/2024/02/19/near-the-north-pole-spitsbergen/).

            The new office opened just one day after Vladimir Putin spoke to the Russian Geographical Society and stressed that the Arctic is along with Ukraine “now among the Society’s main foci of attention” (rgo.ru/activity/redaction/news/vladimir-putin-predlozhil-sozdat-muzey-geografii-i-obyavit-2027-y-godom-geografii/).

            For background on Moscow’s efforts to expand its role on Svalbard, efforts to which the new office is likely to make both overt and covert contributions, see jamestown.org/program/moscow-using-svalbard-to-test-natos-readiness-and-resolve/ and jamestown.org/program/moscows-first-move-against-nato-could-take-place-in-norways-svalbard-archipelago/.