Kremlin’s Latest Moves Likely to Accelerate the Demise of the Russian Federation and Make It More Violent, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Two new moves by the Kremlin including plans to send evacuees from Ukraine into Bashkortostan and Tatarstan and the creation of new force structure commands within the regions and republics of the Russian Federation are likely to work in precisely the opposite way the Russian leadership hopes, Kharun Sidorov says.

            The Prague-based Tatar commentator says that Moscow hopes to use the population shifts to reduce the share of the titular nationalities in the population of the two Middle Volga republics so as to set them on the stage to being abolished as part of Putin’s amalgamation campaign (idelreal.org/a/32094706.html).

            And, he continues, plans to create a new siloviki vertical extending into the federal subjects also reflects Kremlin hopes to increase Moscow’s control over the national and regional battalions it has created to fight in Ukraine and thus protect the Russian Federation from separatism and disintegration.

            But both moves are likely to backfire on the center, Sidorov argues. On the one hand, the population shifts now being planned will enrage Bashkirs and Tatars and alarm other non-Russians as well, increasing suspicions of what Putin is really about and feeding nationalist and independence sentiments.

            And on the other, the creation of special siloviki commands in the regions and republics will provide regional leaders in the event of a further weakening of the center with precisely the kind of command structures that such leaders will use as a means to advance their own agendas, including to independence.

            That also means, Sidorov says, that the coming disintegration of the Russian Federation will likely be far more violent than was the demise of the USSR 30 years ago, yet another example of the counterproductive actions of Vladimir Putin.