Putin Policies Undermining Unity of Non-Ethnic Russian Nation, Remizov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 13 – Russian officials have been pleased that polls conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Center for Research on Inter-Ethnic Relations found that 84 percent of all Russians last month identified themselves first of all as citizens of Russia and that in some places such as Tatarstan and Karelia the figure was above 90 percent.

            But Mikhail Remizov of Moscow’s Institute for National Strategy says that these figures are more about what the respondents think they are supposed to say as responsible citizens rather than being an indication of the state of non-ethnic Russian national unity as the authorities think (kommersant.ru/doc/3850532).

            He tells Kommersant that “after Crimea, citizens were ready for economic difficulties but they did not expect that the burden would be allocated in an unequal fashion” and that this is undermining a sense of a common Russian identity. People sense that no only are some groups bearing less of a burden than others but that people on top are taking advantage of those below.

            This sense, Remizov says, “is making the moral climate in the country worse and negatively influencing the unity of the nation.”