Russian-Iranian ‘Weapons Corridor’ Means the Caspian is No Longer Safe for Shipping or for Littoral States, Baku Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 17 – The sinking of an Iranian ship in the Turkmenistan sector of the Caspian Sea may or may not have been the result of hostile action, Baku commentator Nurani says; but it has called attention to the fact that “the weapons corridor” Russia and Iran have established there means that the Caspian and its littoral are no longer safe.

            Both on the surface of the sea and in the air above it, Nurani says, Russia and Iran have established a weapons corridor first to deliver weapons to Armenia during the 44 Day War with Azerbaijan and now from Iran to Russia to attack Ukraine or from Russia via Iran to allies like Venezuela (minval.az/news/124511371).

            “Strictly speaking,” Nurani continues, “the use of the Caspian Sea in the Ukrainian war is not limited to this. From here, Russia launches Kalibr missiles at targets in Ukraine, and these are most often civilian targets. Even earlier, before the start of the Ukrainian war, targets in Syria were attacked from the Caspian Sea.”

            Moreover, “Ukraine is already openly striking Russian targets in the Caspian Sea. The base of the Red Banner Caspian Flotilla in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, was attacked by Ukrainian drones. Oil platforms in the Russian sector of the Caspian have repeatedly come under attack. Finally, there were also attacks on a Russian control ship in the Caspian.”

            And, he suggests, “it is even possible that tomorrow the US and its allies will enter the game. The issue of strikes on Iranian targets is on Washington's agenda” and “this means that the calls made in Aktau at the time of the signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea to ‘make the Caspian a sea of ​​peace and friendship’ have remained just calls.”

            Nurani concludes: “Russia, which is accustomed to considering the Caspian Sea almost its own internal body of water, like Ladoga or Baikal, openly uses the Caspian for military purposes. And this already seriously threatens the security of other Caspian states, with all the consequences that entails.”

            For background on the increasing military competition in the Caspian, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/three-distinct-blocs-among-caspian.html and the sources cited therein.

Putin's Russian World and Trump's MAGA Ideologies ‘Significantly Similar, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 18 – “Unfortunately,” Vladimir Pastukhov says, “we have reached the point where it is no longer possible to ignore the significant similarities between the political and philosophical foundations of the MAGA [Make America Great Again] ideology and the ideology of ‘the Russian World.”

            “Their general ideological principles coincide,” the Russian analyst based in London says. First, they “prioritize ‘national interests over ‘universal human values, in which they do not believe.” Second, both consider “ultra-conservative clerical principles as universal and the only acceptable ones” (t.me/v_pastukhov/1791 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/ideologii-maga-i-russkogo-mira-shodstvo-politiko-filosofskih-osnovanij).

            Moreover, third, “both view all other values as hostile and subject to eradication along with all media outlets which disseminate them.” Fourth, “both are inherently anti-democratic or rather democratic in the purely Leninist understanding of the world.” And fifth, “both are apologists for the right of force in both domestic and foreign policy.”

            According to Pastukhov, the Russian World and MAGA ideologies are aligned even more closely when it comes “to solving specific political problems” as the cases of Crimea and Greenland show. Both argue that they are faced with a problem created by others that they must solve. Both treat the territory in question as something artificial and hostile. And both see a military solution as justified historically and in terms of national interests.

            The Russian analyst says he wrote this to call attention to “the sad fact that the simultaneous dominance in both former superpowers of two ideologies with obviously similar nature can hardly be considered an historical accident,” that this situation isn’t going to “simply disappear” and that this is very much the case “when the sleep of reason produces monsters.”

Fake Charges of Extremism Powering Rise of Extremist Attitudes, Memorial Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – The number of extremist actions in the North Caucasus has declined significantly over the last two decades, but fake charges of extremism by Russian law enforcement bodies to justify themselves and their budgets have helped to power the rise of extremist attitudes, especially among the young, Aleksandr Cherkasov says.

            That is because young people can see how unjust the authorities are being and are thus prepared to listen to radicals who criticism them, according to the Memorial society expert (kavkazr.com/a/igilovtsy-kadyrovtsy-i-molodezhj-aleksandr-cherkasov-o-borjbe-s-terrorizmom-na-severnom-kavkaze/33637182.html).

            Indeed, he suggests, the sense of injustice is a more powerful driver in this regard than poverty or anything else. As a result, many of those in the North Caucasus who adopt what might be called extremist attitudes come not from the poor and dispossessed but from wealthier and more powerful people, a pattern that adds to the seriousness of all this.  

            In response, as some of these people do turn to extremist actions, the Russian law enforcement bodies ramp up their efforts to bring extremist charges as well as increase the use of repressive force, thus putting the region on a dangerous spiral that won’t end until the authorities change their approach and could lead to an explosion.

            That pattern is compounded by three other developments, Cherkasov says. First, like the worst of their Soviet predecessors, many of the law enforcement agencies have decided that it is enough to find someone to be a member of a group to accuse him or her of extremism even if the individual charged has nothing to do with any extremist action.

            Second, the authorities are so ignorant of these individuals and groups that they often act as did prosecutors in Stalin’s time and combine groups that are completely at odds with other another, further compromising their charges. Thus, Stalin attacked a supposed union of mensheviks and monarchists; and Putin’s police do something analogous.

            And third – and this may be the most important and dangerous development Cherkasov points to – Russian siloviki today send their reports to Moscow rather than keep them locally, making it likely that the center will order attacks against groups it doesn’t understand and thus make the situation worse.

            In Stalin’s time, the Memorial expert says, all reports about extremism went to the center and that led to campaigns that rapidly got out of hand. Then, after his death, siloviki in the regions retained the reports and thus reduced that risk. But now under Putin, the siloviki have lost that power – and broader and more absurd attacks have again become likely.

Western Sanctions from 2014 Killed Off Russia’s Lunar Flight Program, Moscow Space Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 16 – Until 2014, Rusia had plans to fly men to the moon that were “even more advanced than those of China and the US,” Ivan Moiseyev says; but then, when Western sanctions were introduced as a result of Putin’s moves in Ukraine, the Russian space agency removed “almost all lunar elements” from Moscow’s space program.

            The reason was simple, the head of the Moscow Institute of State Policy says. The sanctions introduced after Putin seized Ukraine’s Crimea prevented the Russian space agency from getting most of the avionics needed for a flight to the moon; and once that became obvious, “almost all lunar elements were removed from the federal space program for 2016 to 2025” (svpressa.ru/science/article/499014/).

            For the time being, Russia can only watch as other countries make the kind of progress it can’t; and restarting a Russian lunar effort will be difficult and take time because the whole project has been suspended for so long.  Moiseyev doesn’t say why China, which produces its own avionics, isn’t providing them to its Russian ally.

Regional Elites Now Profiting from Immigrants Getting in the Way of Regulating of Even Closing Down ‘Multitude’ of Ethnic Enclaves across Russia, Kabanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 17 – The Russian government has ordered the interior ministry, the FSB, and the economic development ministry to prepare a draft law to eliminate existing foreign ethnic enclaves and prevent the addition of more to what is already “a multitude” of such places operating outside the Russian legal space (garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/413296322/).

            But this effort is currently being subverted by regional business and political elites who profit from the migrant workers and thus are willing to have such enclaves exist continue to exist or even grow in number and size, according to Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee (svpressa.ru/society/article/498962/).

            There have been some successes in shutting down or changing the nature of such enclaves, he says; but these are far too few. And if serious progress is going to be made, Moscow rather than regional officials are going to have to take control of the situation and override the latter who are happy to make money and denounce opposition to the enclaves as “xenophobic.”

            Up to now, the Russian authorities have failed to define just what an ethnic enclave is and have issued decrees, policy statements and even laws that act as if the task is primarily to prevent such enclaves from emerging, Kabanov says, when in fact everyone knows that there are a lot of them across the country and taking control of them must be a priority task.

            That will require the regions to change their approach and limit the attractiveness of their territories to foreign workers and to work hard to control those who are already present. If the regions don’t do that quickly, the anti-corruption chief says, then Moscow including the FSB must intervene against them.

            This is perhaps the clearest indication yet that the Kremlin plans to expand its anti-immigration effort and use it as a way to clean house in those regions and republics where elites have welcomed and continue to welcome migrant labor. 

Moscow's Plan to Boost Number of Doctors across Russia Won't Work Quantitatively or Qualitatively, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the Kremlin does not see improving the health care of the Russian population as a priority; and the steps it has taken in this sector only give the impression that it is does, an impression that will quickly dissipate, Russian healthcare experts say.

            The new law that will require graduates of medical schools to go where they are assigned for three years will do little good and may even do harm, these experts say. On the one hand, the new doctors will be assigned to regions rather than smaller areas and so will concentrate in the capital cities there. And on the other, they won’t be supervised and trained as the law claims (regaspect.info/2026/01/15/goryachka-vmesto-strategii/).

            The additional doctors may allow officials to claim that they are addressing the shortage of medical workers, but in fact, in many places throughout the country and in numerous fields, that won’t happen both because people outside of the regions won’t get any more doctors and nurses who will then leave the profession and because those in the regions won’t get well-trained medical staff.

            Because of the commercialization of medical education in Russia since 1991, many graduates don’t have the skills they need and require close supervision to become good doctors and nurses. But the government is doing nothing to improve instruction at medical schools or to ensure that graduates will have much chance of getting the ongoing training they’ll need.

            This will soon be apparent even to even those who are currently enthusiastic about the new law because either they won’t have the doctors they need or the doctors available won’t have the skills needed to treat them adequately, those with whom the Regional Aspects portal spoke say. 

Suleymenov Came to Baku during Black January and then Told Moscow that Soviet Forces in Azerbaijan had Acted Like Fascists

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – As the anniversary of Black January approaches, Olzhas Suleymenov, a prominent Kazakh poet and activist, has published a brief memoir of his visit to Baku at that time in which he recalls his subsequent statement to a closed meeting of the USSR Supreme Soviet that the forces Moscow had sent to crush the Azerbaijanis had acted like fascists.

            In Novaya Gazeta v Kazakhstane, Suleymenov says he was in Moscow for a meeting of the Supreme Soviet and had become very ill. Nonetheless when he received a call from an Azerbaijani friend describing what was happening in Baku and asking him to come, he could not . He camerefuse (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/4106-январь-в-баку).

            Initially, he hoped to use the good offices of the Azerbaijani SSR Permanent Representation in Moscow to somehow get a flight – all regular ones had been cancelled – but crowds there blocked him. Then he turned to the military and using his Supreme Soviet membership got on a Soviet air force plane, arriving late on the second night of the attacks.

            After some difficulties in getting to his hotel, he was visited by among others, Abulfaz Aliyev, a philologist and Arabist who became better known under the pseudonym Elchibey when he became leader of the Azerbaijani Popular Front. He visited Suleymenov to tell him what was happening and to get protection against arrest given that the Soviets blamed him for the events.

            Because of his status as a Supreme Soviet deputy, he was able to meet both with the representatives of Soviet power there, including Yevgeny Primakov, then head of the upper house of the Soviet parliament, and defense minister Dmitry Yazov, on the one hand, and Azerbaijani activists and especially print workers, on the other.

            He expressed his horror about what was happening to the former and called on the latter to resume publishing their newspapers and journals so that Azerbaijanis and then the world would know what was happening. They did so and that helped calm the situation, Suleymenov suggests.

            Later in Moscow, he recalls, “speaking at a closed session of the Supreme Soviet, I openly spoke about what I had seen and called the actions of the tank group fascist,” thus becoming one of the first in the USSR to equate what the Soviet leadership was doing in the last decade of power with what the Nazis had done in the 1930s and 1940s.