Kremlin’s Failure to Define Extremism Forcing Moscow to Train Specialists who Can Testify about It in Court, Nisnevich Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – If the Putin regime had defined extremism in a legally defensible way, there would be no need to have specialists who can come into court and testify as to whether it exists, Yuly Nisnevich says. But because it hasn’t, the powers that be have decided to train a new generation of political science specialists on this issue.

            Presumably, they will be able to follow the changes in what the regime views as extremism, changing their definition to fit whatever the powers that be want, the political analyst at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics says (newizv.ru/news/2023-10-20/inoagentam-boy-universitety-gotovyat-spetsialistov-po-politologicheskoy-ekspertize-421974).

            As such, the regime’s decision to create this academic specialty is as much a confession of failure as of success; and it is likely to create problems for the regime as new graduates in this field and those teaching them discuss the issue and create definitions of extremism that the regime may not like.

            It is thus perhaps not surprising that instead of giving the creation of this specialty headline treatment, the Russian government has played down what it is doing  and limited its announcements about it to media directed primarily at the regions (e.g., interfax-russia.ru/siberia/news/specialistov-po-politologicheskoy-ekspertize-nachali-gotovit-v-rf).