If Moscow Restarts Regional Amalgamation Campaign, It is Likely to Involve Russian Regions in Center of the Country, Chablin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 5 – Telegram channels are buzzing with reports saying that the Kremlin is planning to restart its regional amalgamation campaign, despite the fact that its past efforts in that direction haven’t been without problems and that the last effective combination of two regions into one took place 15 years ago.

            If Moscow does decide to do so, Anton Chablin of the Accents analytic center says that the most likely candidates are ethnic Russian regions in the center of the country whose governors lack the political clout to block such a move (mk.ru/politics/2023/01/05/gubernatory-ne-piknut-chislo-rossiyskikh-regionov-mozhet-rezko-sokratitsya.html).

            Moscow may decide, he suggests, that it can combine these poor and overwhelming ethnic Russian regions without being challenged as it has been in the non-Russian areas where it faced resistance in the past. But it is important to remember that the center did not anticipate problems even with them when it carried out its amalgamation plans in the past.

            In his report about the possibility of another amalgamation campaign, Andrey Vladimirov of Moskovsky komsomolets cites the views of Aleksandr Kynyev, a regional specialist whose own research and writing helped put an end to the regional amalgamation campaign of a decade ago.

            Kynyev argues that any amalgamation won’t solve problems but only create new ones and that most importantly it will set ever more regional and republic elites and populations against Moscow, something that in the current situation the authorities at the center can hardly afford to allow to happen.

            “Any unification,” he continues, “is always a catastrophe. It involves reorganization, firings, loss of pass and so on. This is something any normal person understands. Now, there is so much mass depression and frustration” that any amalgamation campaign would generate “mass dissatisfaction and conflicts.”

            He contributed to the 2010 report by the Moscow Institute of Contemporary Development that made some of the same points and put an end to talk about amalgamation. Unfortunately, it appears that some officials are talking about it again, something that will not do anyone any good.