Putin Regime Often Seeks to Take Over Opposition Groups Rather than Just Suppress Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 27 – Given the Putin regime’s attacks on various opposition groups, many assume that the destruction of the latter is the only goal the Kremlin is pursuing. But in fact, Putin has often chosen to take over groups so that their past reputation helps him to sow confusion in the ranks of these groups and of their supporters.

            The Russian leader has done so with Circassian groups and even with some internet portals, and he has recently achieved a similar goal in the case of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) which has been changed “from a nation-based change agent to a weapon of state-controlled propaganda.”

            That is the conclusion of a detailed 20-page report by two former RAIPON leaders that has been released by the International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia about this Russian practice (indigenous-russia.com/archives/38572), one that is far more dangerous than the complete destruction of a group.

            It deserves far more attention than it is likely to receive both as a study of what Moscow is up to in the Russian North and as an indication of what it is likely to be doing elsewhere as the Russian powers that be moves to undermine growing opposition to Moscow’s repression and aggression.