Moscow has Charged 9,000 Russians with Extremist Crimes over Last Decade, Draft Anti-Extremism Strategy Document Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – The Russian interior ministry has posted online a draft project of a new Strategy for Countering Extremism. A replacement for the 2019 measure, the draft focuses on Ukraine, migrants, and foreign use of ethnic and religious groups to destabilize the Russian Federation.

            To a large extent, the new draft simply sums up what Putin officials have been saying over the last several years, but it does provide statistics that highlight just how sweeping Moscow’s counter-extremism program has become. (For a summary and discussion of the new draft, see sova-center.ru/misuse/news/lawmaking/2024/07/d50188/.)

            Over the last ten years, the draft says, “Russian law enforcement organs” have identified and brought charges against Russians for extremist behavior. They have brought criminal charges against 9,000 people. (The difference between these two figures likely reflects the fact that some have been charged with more than one crime.)

            Moreover, SOVA says the document shows, Russian courts have banned more than 70 organizations and identified more than 170 foreign structures as “undesirable.” The authorities have also declared “more than 3,000” texts “extremist” and thus to be excluded from circulation in the Russian Federation.

To ‘Normalize Being at War,’ Kremlin Plans to Re-Establish Soviet-Style Control over Russia’s Cultural Life, ‘Dossier’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Having first worked to suppress opposition to the war in Ukraine and then sought to heroize Russians fighting there, the Kremlin has now decided to make the war a normal part of the life– and to do that, it has concluded it must revive Soviet-style control over the arts and demand complete obedience by those getting state funds, the Dossier Center says.

            According to the center’s investigative journalists, Sergey Novikov, the had of the Presidential Administration office for social programs, reached that conclusion at the end of 2023 as the war lengthened and has been authorized to put his ideas into practice in the arts sphere (dossier.center/svo-culture/).

            Novikov, a longtime ally of Sergey Kiriyenko has been called “a hunter of ideological enemies” (https://meduza.io/feature/2024/07/08/ohotnik-na-ideologicheskih-vragov), who has long been responsible for compiling “black lists” of artists who fail to hew to the Kremlin line about the war and other issues.

            But now, Dossier says, he is pursuing a much large goal – “the introduction of the Putin war in Ukraine into the lives of Russians” so that that war and war in general will become part of their lives and thus be viewed by them as inevitable and natural rather than something out of the ordinary that might be changed.

            The only way to achieve that, the investigative journalists say Novikov has concluded is to restore the system of carrots and sticks that the Soviet government used to ensure that its messages were repeated by writers and other artists to the population. The Putin regime has taken some steps in that direction, but now Novikov promises to take additional ones.

Duma Votes to Put Justice Beyond the Reach of Poorer Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – The Duma has approved a measure that will significantly raise the cost of almost all court filings both initial and appeals, effectively putting any hope for justice from that quarter beyond the reach of the poorer segments of the population of the Russian Federation.

            The new measure, likely to become law, raises the amount of money anyone turning to the courts must pay, by as much as 15 times, an amount that will be beyond the means of many Russians to pay (istories.media/news/2024/07/23/vlasti-vveli-novii-obrok-dlya-grazhdan-poshlini-v-sudakh-povisyat-v-10-15-raz/).

            That means that ordinary Russians won’t be able to bring suits in court to protect their rights and property or to appeal decisions against them, although the amounts are not so great – the largest of these new fees – 900,000 rubles (nine thousand US dollars) – is not so great that Russia’s better off citizens won’t be able to pay.

            The measure thus represents yet another example of the way in which the Putin regime is creating a social and political system in which there are two classes of people – the wealthy allies of the Kremlin who are able to enjoy at least some of the rights ostensibly guaranteed by the constitution and everyone else who lacks that possibility.

Just as after 1945, Russia Likely to Become More Repressive after War Ends, Malgin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Many Russians expect that when Putin’s war in Ukraine ends, they will face a crime wave, declining incomes, and an economy incapable of making the transition to peacetime needs, Andrey Malgin says; but they have not focused on an even more ugly prospect:  that their country will become even more repressive, just as happened in 1945.

            Because of government propaganda, the Russian commentator says, “the level of hatred” among Russians “towards the external enemy is extremely high.” But if the war ends, the government will tell its people that Russia “has achieved its goals” (moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/24/repressii-v-rossii-kak-neizbezhnoe-prodolzhenie-voini-a137559).

            “But the level of hatred [among the Russian people] will not go away,” Malgin says. Instead, it will begin to focus on other and domestic targets – and the government will have its own reasons for ensuring that happens lest popular discontent be directed instead against the powers that be.

            Indeed, the government has already “begun to prepare” for this reality and is “increasingly drawing the attention of the population to internal enemies,” targets that represent “an inexhaustible source of evil” because the government can portray almost anyone inside the country except itself as an enemy.

            As a result, Malgin concludes, “the end of the war, no matter how it ends, will hit the country with a level of repression it has not seen for decades” because “for the authorities this will be the only way to direct hostility” away from the people in power towards others and allow those in power to remain there.

            At the end of World War II, many Soviet citizens expected that after the war, the Kremlin would reward them for their efforts in fighting the Germans. Now, many Russians believe that once the war ends, things will get better at home. Malgin’s article is a useful reminder that just the reverse may happen again. 

Duma Proposal Sets Stage for Broad Attack on National Autonomies in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Mikhail Matveyev, the KPRF deputy who is deputy chair of the Duma Committee on Regional Policy and Local Self-Administration, has proposed replacing the term “national-cultural autonomy” with the term “national-cultural union” and allowing the government to ban any of these groups which received financing from abroad.

            Not only would the passage of this proposal represent a serious downgrading in the only formal status that more than 200 ethnic communities across the Russian Federation but it would give the state an additional whip hand over them by allowing Moscow to ban them almost at will (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/legal/2024/07/d50194/).

            The likely trigger for this proposal, however, is not so much a broad attack on national autonomies as such but rather to block calls by some Central Asian diasporas who want to form them in regions near Moscow (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/russians-alarmed-by-calls-for-tajik.html).

            In the current overheated atmosphere concerning immigrants, this proposal is likely to pass for that reason alone; but if this measure does become law, the Kremlin almost certainly will employ it to further restrict or even bad the only corporate bodies ethnic communities have if they are not located within a non-Russian republic of the same nationality. 

            For background on the national cultural autonomies that arose in the 1990s and have had a checkered history since then, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/russias-national-cultural-autonomies.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/russification-and-assimilation-of-non.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/12/national-cultural-autonomies-failing-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/russias-national-cultural-autonomies.html.

Putin’s War in Ukraine has Divided Russian Protestants and Reduced Change that They will be Added to ‘Traditional’ Religions There, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – Russia’s 1.5 million Protestants are as divided about Putin’s war in Ukraine; but because of the nature of Protestantism, pastors and bishops of Protestant denominations have generally tread lightly either in their support of the war or their opposition lest they be removed by those who elected them, the Horizontal Russia news portal says.

            But both that caution and the long tradition of close contacts between Russian Protestants and their co-believers in Ukraine have angered the Kremlin and undermined the chances which seemed very good before 2014 for Protestantism to become the fifth “traditional” religion in Russia (semnasem.org/articles/2024/07/24/mezhdu-propagandoj-i-pisaniem-kak-vojna-v-ukraine-izmenila-zhizn-rossijskih-protestantov).

            That is no small thing because Russia’s Protestants who don’t identify as such unless they are active in the faith form roughly the same number as Russian Orthodox Christians who attend church and follow church rules. Thus, what the war has done has likely blocked any chance that Protestants will enjoy the state support and protection that the four traditional faiths do.

            And in some regions, such as Siberia and the Far East, where Protestants are especially numerous – and it is estimated that they now form as many as 10,000 congregations across the country – that means that large numbers of Christians are likely to be subject to increasing persecution by the Putin regime.

Kazakhstan Becomes More Kazakh and Less Russian as Ethnic Russians Continue to Leave and Kazakhs to Return Home, Statistics Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – Despite the influx of ethnic Russians after Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine and the decision of ethnic Russians already there not to move to Russia in wartime, the departure of ethnic Russians has now resumed at roughly the same rate and the influx of Kazakhs has continued as well.

            As a result, the slight uptick in the share of ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan’s population in 2023 has been replaced by the pattern of earlier years, with the Russian share of the population continuing to decline and the Kazakh share again increasing, Aleksandr Shustov says (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-07-24--ottok-russkih-iz-kazahstana-rezko-sokratila-svo-74637).

            To make his case, the Russian analyst cites data from the Kazakhstan government as well as from the Russian embassy in Astana. In 2022, 16,000 ethnic Russians left Kazakhstan, while 4,400 arrived. That meant that the ethnic Russian share of that Central Asian country’s population fell by almost 11,700 even as the war began.

            In that year, he continues, Kazakhs continued to return home far more often than to leave, with 7200 registering their return and only 1400 departing, for a positive increase of 7200, further shifting the ethnic balance which has been moving against the ethnic Russians since the 1980s.

            In 2023, the situation changed, with the exodus of Russians falling “almost six times,” Shustov says. Specifically, the outflow of ethnic Russians fell sharply, with 10,100 leaving the country but 8100 entering it, meaning that the number of Russians there fell by only 2,000 (stat.gov.kz/ru/industries/social-statistics/demography/publications/157454/).

            Ethnic Kazakhs, however, continued to arrive, with some 10,000 returning in 2023; and because only 1100 left, that meant that the Kazakh share of Kazakhstan’s population increased by 8800, further increasing their majority. They form almost 75 percent of the population, while Russians who once held a majority are down to less than 14 percent.

           A large number of Russian "relocaters" did come to Kazakhstan but many of them returned or went on to other countries rather than register as permanent residents. As a result, they have not been counted by Astana in its summary data on migration in and out of the country.

            Russian flight occurred in all regions of Kazakhstan except the three Western oblasts and the capitals. In those there was an increase in the number of ethnic Russians, Shustov says, but only an “insignificant” one that likely reflects the arrival of Russians leaving Russia because of the war.

            Figures from the first quarter of 2024 suggest that Russian flight has accelerated and the return of Kazakhs has continued, he says. During those three months, 608,000 more Russians left than arrived; and 3500 more Kazakhs arrived than left (stat.gov.kz/ru/industries/social-statistics/demography/publications/158501/).