Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 1 – Vedomosti reports that its sources in the Duma and the government say the Kremlin will soon set up a new ministry for the affairs of nationality groups and immigrants, put it directly under Putin rather than under the government, and appoint a senior official from one of the force structures to head it.
This story (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2024/04/01/1029046-v-rf-sozdadut-otvechayuschee-za-mezhnatsionalnuyu-i-migratsionnuyu-politiku-vedomstvonuyu-politiku-vedomstvo) has attracted widespread attention even though it is far from the first one in recent times predicting such an outcome (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/moscow-to-recreate-nationalities.html).
Nor is the Vedomosti story a certainty that the Kremlin will in fact take this step. At various points, the Kremlin has suggested it would do so only to conclude that such a ministry would be ineffective unless given enormous power and dangerous if it were to be invested with that (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-set-to-re-establish.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/11/window-on-eurasia-putin-moves-to-re.html).
Since Stalin disbanded Narkomnats in 1924 he had and used to build his power base, Moscow rulers have found it difficult to know how to handle issues like the nationalities and migrant workers; and after establishing a nationalities ministry and a Federal Migration Service in the 1990s, they have tried many formats, only to discard them one after the other.
One of Putin’s first acts as president was to do away with the Ministry for Nationality Affairs and distribute its functions among the interior, foreign and economic development ministries. And later, in 2016, he did the same thing with the Federal Migration service whose functions were given to a section of the Ministry for Internal Affairs.
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