Lukashenka’s Remark about Jews Echoes State Anti-Semitism of Late Soviet Period

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – Speaking to a conference on corruption in Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka pointed out that “more than half” of those accused of this crime are Jews while insisting that he personally is “not an anti-Semite,” precisely the kind of remarks typical of state anti-Semitism in in Khrushchev’s times and more generally, Khaim Ben Yakov says.

            The general director of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress gives five examples from the 1960s to show how similar the Belarusian leader’s comments are to the ones Soviet officials and commentators made then (moscowtimes.ru/2024/06/18/aleksandr-lukashenko-i-istoriya-gosudarstvennogo-antisemitizma-a134279).

            At that time, such comments preceded and accompanied discrimination against and repression of Jews, Ben Yakov says; and that means that the international community must protest against the possibility that Lukashenka and then perhaps Putin will follow the same path Khrushchev and other Soviet officials did.

            If Lukashenka’s remarks pass without such protests, there every chance that he and other leaders in the region will conclude that they can get away with using anti-Semitism in order to divert the attention of their populations from the problems they are now facing. The Jews will be the first victims if that happens, but they won’t be the last. 

Russia Needs Fewer People if It Remains a Petrostate and Far More if It Becomes an Expansionist One, Kulbaka Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – If Russia remains a petrostate whose oil and gas exports provide enormous wealth for its elites, that country needs no more than 40 million people. 100 million fewer than now; but if it becomes an expansionist one, then it will need vastly more than it now has to guard its lengthy borders and enormous territory, Nikolay Kulbaka says.

            That sets the stage for a fundamental conflict in Moscow between wealthy elites and Putin, one the two sides are unlikely to be able to resolve, the independent economist says. That will create the kind of uncertainties that threaten the existing system and the country (moscowtimes.ru/2024/06/20/buduschee-rossii-petrokratiya-ili-ekspansionizm-a134491).

            Over the last two decades, Russia has become a petrostate, whose exports of petroleum have given the elite enormous wealth, even though most of the population has become poorer. Indeed, to function as a state of this kind, something the elites very much like given the high level of consumption it guarantees, Russia needs only about 40 million people.

Thus, such elites are quite happy to see Russia’s population decline toward that number because besides everything else that will mean that there will be fewer unhappy people and thus fewer protests and challenges to an arrangement that could continue to work for their benefit long into the future, Kulbaka continues.

            But Vladimir Putin has put the country on a different track, one focused on expansionism. And for that, the economist says, Russia needs far more people, both to control and develop its economy and territory and to guard its borders which after all remain the longest of any country in the world.

            For that policy to have any chance to succeed, Putin needs more people not fewer, including immigrant workers from Central Asia, exactly the opposite of what the supporters of petrostate arrangements want. The latter will have to give up some of their consumption as higher wages and salaries will be required to attract immigrants and boost the birthrate.

Russian Environmental Activists Won 73 Victories in 2023 Against Government and Business

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – The Putin regime and its business allies have won victory after victory against Russian civil society, but there are exceptions. Last year, according to the Ecology Crisis Group, Russian environmental activists across the country won full or partial victories in 73 cases.

            In 40 of these cases, the government or business simply abandoned projects that the environmentalists opposed; and in 33 more, the former have been forced to change their plans or are still fighting with the environmentalists in court (semnasem.org/articles/2024/06/17/kakuyu-rossiyu-my-sohranili-regionalnye-ekopobedy-2023-v-illyustraciyah-nejrosetej).

            This doesn’t mean that the depradation of the Russian environment has stopped or that the Russian government has changed its approach, but it does show that in at least this area, concerned Russian citizens can act and act effectively even against what sometimes seems to be an increasingly all-powerful state.

            And these victories, typically small-scale and far from Moscow as the Horizontal Russia portal suggests in its coverage of the Ecology Crisis Group report, should inspire other Russians to seek to defend their rights and interests rather than continuing to fall into apathy and assuming nothing can be done.

 

Russia’s Disintegration Could Well Begin in Far East, Romanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 19 – The disintegration of the Russian Federation could well begin in the Far East where ever more people are talking about how different that region is from European Russia, looking abroad for allies and even positing the existence of something they call “a coastal civilization,” Igor Romanov says.

            The director of the Bereg Rus Center on Church-State Relations whose portal covers and promotes an Orthodox Christian version of Russian nationalism says that supporters of “coastal civilization” have as their main but concealed goal the presentation of such a civilization as “non-ethnic Russian, non-civic Russian and non-Orthodox” as well (beregrus.ru/?p=15039).

            The object of Romanov’s anger in this case is a series of articles on a Vladivostok portal that describe unique features of the life and history of the region and argue that these are sufficient to justify calling the people there are constituting a unique “coastal civilization” (primamedia.ru/news/1763356/).

            On the one hand, such articles could easily appear to be nothing more than an example of the focus on local news that is typical of many regions of the Russian Federation. But on the other, describing the situation in the Far East as a separate “civilization” goes far beyond what is normally the case of such coverage elsewhere.

            It is clear, Romanov says, that “’the Non-Russia’ project, which has been taking shape for many years in the spiritual and cultural space of the Far East is a long-term undertaking and has support not only from a broad but also from some ‘foreign agents’ in the federal government of the Russian Federation” who fail to see that this could convert the region into a new Ukraine.

            According to the commentator, that includes some who are supporters of the BRICS alliance who are prepared to sacrifice Russia and its historical culture in the pursuit of a larger union. Russia needs good relations with China but not at the price of the loss of its unified culture and territory.

            If this danger is not recognized, Romanov says, and those pushing for a separate “coastal civilization” are not blocked, then “the threat of the collapse of our country may begin to take place on the territories of the Far East,” something that will hurt Russians living in that enormous region first of all.

            “Those who today are actively promoting the strengthening of ‘Non-Russia’ there, all these small corrupt journalists and short-sighted businessmen and politicians with a limited point of view should remember that if a negative scenario for the Far East and Russia comes to pass, they are unlikely to be needed by the new owners and will be instantly erased.”

            “Just as dust is wiped off from an old cabinet,” Romanov concludes.

Gas Deal with China Becoming Ever Less Favorable to Russia, Morokhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 18 – Moscow and Beijing have been discussing a pipeline to carry Russian gas to China since 2006; but they haven’t been able to reach an agreement. Worse, from Moscow’s point of view, China has continued to increase its demands on the Russian side, something it feels free to do because of Russia’s loss of other gas markets abroad.

            That trend is likely to continue unless and until Moscow can begin to sell more gas to others and thus not be forced as now to grudgingly accept Beijing’s ever more extreme demands, Denis Morokhin, the economics observer for Novaya Gazeta Evropa, says (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/06/18/poslednee-kitaiskoe-trebovanie).

            He suggests that China is now making demands that Moscow can hardly afford to meet including selling gas to China at domestic Russian prices, credit arrangements unfavorable to Gazprom, Chinese involvement in gas exploration inside Russia, the routing of pipelines, the amount of gas to be delivered and the formula for setting prices.

            According to Morokhin, Moscow does not want to meet any of these demands because they would effectively give China enormous power over Russia’s internal economic arrangements; but at the same time, he suggests, the Kremlin may not be able to resist much longer given the absence of other sources of money it needs for its war in Ukraine.

Moscow Now Targeting Federalists as well as Nationalists in Non-Russian Republics

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 18 – Under Putin, Moscow has long targeted nationalists in non-Russian republics because it sees them as a threat to the territorial integrity of the country while leaving those who advocate federalism largely alone, viewing them as a lesser evil or even allies in it fight with the nationalists, a view about the federalists that many nationalists share.

            Now, however, the situation has changed, Buryat activist Marina Khakhalayeva says. Moscow is still going after the nationalists, even though most of the prominent ones have been imprisoned or have left the country. But central authorities are increasingly attacking federalists in the republics as well (idelreal.org/a/vazhno-preodolet-v-sebe-travmu-i-chuvstvo-viny-aktivisty-o-tom-kak-vystraivat-federalizm-v-buduschey-rossii/32996111.html).

            The consequence has not been to intimidate the federalists into silence but rather to drive them into the hands of the nationalists because the former have increasingly concluded that no Moscow promises can be trusted because the center opposes recognizing the rights of the republics and regions.

            The development Khakhalayeva points is less about the non-Russians than about Moscow’s concerns about developments in the regions and its decision taken earlier this year to attack federalist ideas wherever they appear (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/russian-justice-ministry-calls-for.html).

            What remains to be seen is whether these expanded attacks on those in predominantly Russian regions who advocate real federalism for Russia will lead such people to draw similar conclusions to their counterparts in the non-Russian republics, become radicalized, and decide that only an exit from under Moscow’s control will give them the futures they want. 

Fragging Appears in Russian Units in Ukraine, ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 17 – Fragging -- attacks on officers by soldiers under their command and a phenomenon that was notorious in the US military in Vietnam as well as in Soviet forces in Afghanistan as well -- is now taking place in Russian units in Ukraine, data collected by Novaya Gazeta suggest.

            The independent paper examined military court records in the occupied territories between February and October 2023. It identified more than 135 cases in which Russian soldiers were charged with killing either civilians or other Russian military personnel (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/06/14/ruzhe-streliaet-po-svoim).

            These figures are necessarily incomplete both because of the limited time and territory they covered, the paper acknowledges, and because not all crimes of this type are brought to the courts or correctly categorized. Consequently, the real numbers may be far higher, the paper suggests.

            But even these numbers are indicative of breakdowns in command and control and unit cohesion that threaten the ability of the Russian military to carry out its mission, prompting officers to avoid giving orders that might lead to their own deaths at the hands of their own soldiers.

            And to the extent that such cases become more widely known, fragging of this kind will certainly prompt discussions among Russians in general and those in the political elite about the potentially dangerous consequences of continuing to pursue the Kremlin’s military goals and could even lead to demands for changes in both tactics and strategy.