Putin’s Regional Regiments Could Lead Even Voronezh to Act like Ichkeria, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 2 – “To imagine today a revolt of a notional Voronezh Oblast in the spirit of Ichkeria of the 1990s is completely impossible, Boris Pastukhov says. “But the very experience of forming regional armed structures bypassing all-national ones is a precedent dangerous both with respect to military and civilian affairs.”

            That is because, the Russian analyst says, “just as small dotted lines on paper do not tear when left undisturbed but are easily separated if the paper is pulled, the experience of duplicating national functions [at the regional level] significantly increases the risk of ‘tearing’ at a time of crisis at the center (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=631233C890226).

            Having the regions perform what are inherently national responsibilities not only prevents the consolidation of the nation but promotes exactly the kind of fissiparousness the Kremlin fears and opposes. Doing it now with the military just like doing it with the fight against the pandemic may make short term-sense.

            But if in fact it leads to a Voronezh revolt, this Putin policy may be remembered by some future leader in Moscow as even more destructive of the country than Lenin’s formation of union republics, an action by the founder of the Soviet state that most analysts now argue actually held the empire together for 70 years.