Ukraine’s Intervention in Kursk Latest Sign Russian Borders aren’t Russians and Many Others Believe Them to Be, ‘Important Stories’ Journalist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – Russia has the longest land border in the world, more than 22,000 kilometers – but despite the huge amounts of money Moscow spends on guarding it, it has never been the impenetrable one that Russians and many in the West imagine it to be, according to Important Stories journalist Irina Dolinina says.

            There are many places where the Russian border is anything but heavily defended, as the Ukrainian move into Kursk Oblast has shown, she says (us5.campaign-archive.com/?u=4ea5740c1fe71d71fea4212ee&id=d982559d40 reposted in abridged form at meduza.io/en/feature/2024/08/28/russia-spends-billions-on-protecting-its-border-so-why-is-it-so-easy-to-break-through).

            Moscow, Dolinina points out, has only 317 checkpoints along its land borders (rosgranstroy.ru),  and the number of troops guarding them has been cut by more than a third from the 200,000 in service when Putin first became president (ps.fsb.ru/fps/smi/appearance/detail.htm%21id%3D10320833%40fsbAppearance.html).

            The Russian government has sought to compensate for the reduction in the number of guards by installing electronic monitoring equipment, but that is so expensive that it hasn’t been put up everywhere – and those who want to evade government control know just where they can go to do so (gazeta.ru/army/2022/05/28/14916248.shtml).

            As a result, and especially since the beginning of Putin’s war in Ukraine, there has been an increasingly brisk flow of people and contraband in and out of Russia, something Moscow seldom admits to but that various groups opposed to the war or in this business simply for the money are more than happy to point out.

            According to Dolinina, Moscow acknowledges it can’t control the border without the help of locals and has launched expensive programs to recruit them, but these appear to be scattershot and with those who agree to help not being paid in a timely fashion (ura.news/news/1052644129, bel.ru/news/2022-07-26/na-podderzhku-belgorodskih-narodnyh-druzhin-napravyat-pochti-90-mln-rubley-353733 and mk-belgorod.ru/social/2023/06/23/belgorodskiy-druzhinnik-pozhalovalsya-na-otsutstvie-vyplat-za-may.html).

“By all appearances,” the investigative journalist says, “the holes in the Russian border won’t be plugged anytime soon.”

Putin’s Cult of Personality Means He Isn't Judged by Many Regardless of What He Does, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 29 – Putin’s cult of personality which has been promoted for years and now is “an inalienable part of the power vertical is however not simply an instrument of propaganda,” Vladimir Pastukhov says. It is about elevating him above the standards others would be judged by and thus making him immune to most criticism.

            The London-based Russian analyst says that because the cult of personality he has promoted about himself, the Kremlin leader is no longer subject to the same standards others are. Indeed, “he can do anything because he is not a man” but a semi-divine being (t.me/b_pastukhov/232 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=66D1643D87380).

            If such a cult is to be effective, Pastukhov continues, it “must separate the leader from the ordinary word. He may or may not know details, appoint officials who then will have to be removed, or commit actions that would cost anyone else dearly. He can do all this because he is not a human punishable for mistakes.” As “a god man,” he is beyond such evaluations.

            As the object of such a cult, therefore, “Putin the god-man is not afraid not to go the front or to ignore other problems. Indeed, it is far more terrible for such a god-man to react sharply to pressing problems and thereby show that he is also a man subject to the agenda dictated by the world around him.”

            Consequently, Pastukhov points out, “the desire to show to the population Putin’s sins, be they his palaces or his mistakes and their impact, is doomed to inevitable failure.” The only way to combat this situation is to fight for those in the elites who aren’t charmed by Putin or wait for time to turn him back into a mere human being who can’t escape either aging or death.

Regional Identities Absent in Predominantly Ethnic Russian Areas but Strong in Non-Russian Republics, Shulga Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – The Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast has highlighted the absence of an all-Russian civic identity given that few Russian citizens there or elsewhere have been inspired to take up arms to repel the Ukrainians, precisely the kind of attitude the Putin regime has wanted to develop lest it result in challenges to itself, Aleksandr Shulga says.

            But the reaction to Kursk also has called attention to something else that may be even more significant as far as the future of the Russian Federation is concerned, the sociologist who serves as rector of the Kyiv Institute for Conflict Studies and the Analysis of Russia says (moscowtimes.ru/2024/08/28/osen-avtokrata-a140539).

            Along with “the complete absence of civic self-consciousness in Russian society,” there has been revealed a striking difference between predominantly ethnic Russian areas and non-Russian ones. In the former, there is “an absence even of regional identities;” but in the latter “and in the first instance the republics of the North Caucasus,” it is “very strong.”

            That means that most of the protests in the Russian areas are likely to remain pre-political, that is focus on issues other than the future of Putin or the country, while those in the non-Russian areas are likely to be about precisely those questions, something that the Kremlin is certain to respond to be growing repression in the latter.

            The implications of Shulga’s analysis are clear: If the Kremlin moves in that direction, it will appear more Russian nationalist than it in fact is, further alienating the non-Russians but doing little to mobilize ethnic Russians to its side, a pattern that recalls what happens when in 1990 Gorbachev turned to the right and ended by losing both groups.

Illegal Drug Use Increasing Problem among Russian Troops in Ukraine and among Veterans Suffering from PTSD, ‘Dovod’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – Illegal drug use is an increasing problem among Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine both because the military is taking in men already identified as drug addicts or convicted for related crimes and because soldiers are turning to drugs after joining the Russian military, the Dovod portal says.

            This is not a problem Moscow wants to highlight and so does not provide statistics or opportunities for gathering them that could provide a comprehensive picture of just how serious this problem is becoming, but the portal, using data from Vladimir Oblast where it is based, provides some useful data (dovod.online/narkotiki-v-rossijskoj-armii-issledovanie-dovoda/).

            A significant share of the 480 Vladimir Oblast residents who have died in the war either had drug problems or even drug convictions that would earlier have disqualified them from service but now do not, Dovod says (dovod.online/na-vojne-s-ukrainoj-pogibli-kak-minimum-480-zhitelej-vladimirskoj-oblasti/).

            Just how serious that problem is becoming, the portal continues, is reflected in the growing number of court cases both criminal and administrative that have been brought against soldiers by military authorities, most of whom appear to have begun using drugs after they were inducted. The portal provides details on several of these.

            An even more serious problem, Dovod suggests, is that a growing number of veterans suffering from PTSD are turning to illegal drugs to try to cope because the Russian authorities are not providing them with the help they need, a problem local doctors are complaining about (t.me/dovod3/12076).

            Even the oblast anti-narcotics commission acknowledges that the problem of illegal drug use there has become worse over the last two years, but it is careful not to suggest that this is because of the war, an observation that would have landed it in deep trouble with Moscow (https://mrb.avo.ru/monitoring-narkosituacii1).

 

Putin’s Attacks on Ukrainian Culture Prompting Young Non-Russians within RF to Take an Interest in Their Own

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – Putin’s war in Ukraine is having yet another consequence for the Russian state that he did not intend or want: it is leading ever more young non-Russians within that country’s borders to take an interest in their national languages and national cultures, according to interviews carried out by the People of Baikal portal.

            They show that “since February 2022” when Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine, “the interest among young representatives of indigenous peoples” in the Russian Federation “in their culture has grown” (baikal-journal.ru/2024/08/28/ne-prinimayut-menya-za-svoyu-iz-za-nemoty-na-rodnom-yazyke/).

            The portal notes that “in social networks bloggers speaking native languages are becoming popular, language schools are attracting ever more students, and the Yandex news service is promising to add to its electronic translation function more than  20 languages of the peoples of Russia.”

            The comments of Naile Mullayeva, 29, are particularly striking.  The product of a mixed Tatar-Slavic marriage, she grew up in a Russian family after her parents divorced but alone among them, she bears the Tatar family name of her father. As a teenager, she was ashamed of that and even changed her name to her mother’s Russian one for her VKontakte account.  

            Mullayeva says that at that time, she “did not recognize or consider significant Tatar culture. [Her] grandfather lives in a Tatar village and knows the language perfectly, but we for some reason always spoke exclusively in Russian. In school in Kazan, we were taught Tatar, and I even took an examination in it but the level of my knowledge was low.”

            “I do not regret that I didn’t study the language as a youth,” she continues. “At that time, I had other thoughts. But better late than never and I began to be interested in my culture when I was about 25.” However, “the chief trigger for studying my native language was February 2022” [emphasis added], the date Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine.

            Mullayeva adds: “I think for many others this also became a reason to turn to their roots. Over the past two years, interest in the culture of the national minorities has increased, although it is unfortunate that the reason for this was a series of tragic events … It is hard to watch another’s culture being attacked and not want to defend one’s own.”

            She says that she uses “difference resources” to study Tatar, including the Tatar TV telegram channel; and she says that she especially likes to see pictures of Tatar costumes and jewelry and listen to Tatar musicians.  But she says that she is against compelling anyone to study Tatar as “radical Tatar nationalists” do.

            “It seems to me,” Mullayeva concludes, “that they have chosen the most unpleasant way to popularize culture, through negativity and condemnation.” Learning one’s national language should be the conscious decision of the individual” and not something anyone else forces upon them.

Despite Moscow’s Denials, Schools in Muslim North Caucasus So Overcrowded that Many Operate on a Three-Shift Schedule

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – Since Putin came to office in 2000, Russia has closed 28,000 of the 68,000 schools it had then. Most of these closures are in predominantly ethnic Russian areas where birthrates are low, and consequently, such schools have too few students to justify keeping them open.

            Every fall when a new school year starts, this phenomenon attracts enormous attention in the Russian media especially because of the way in which Moscow closes these schools down – first threatening closure, then not providing sufficient funds to maintain them, and then arguing that they must be closed for safety reasons (okno.group/school-selo/).

            But while schools in Russian regions are emptying out and being closed, schools in Muslim regions of the Russian Federation and especially in the North Caucasus are busting at the scenes with the number of pupils up dramatically, class size increasing far beyond the norm, and the schools themselves forced to operate in shifts, often two and sometimes even three.

            Moscow officials deny that there are any schools operating with a schedule of three shifts a day, although reports from the North Caucasus suggest that such schools are a commonplace there, with two shifts rather than the normal one being the standard that overworked teachers have to cope with (newizv.ru/news/2024-08-28/rozhayte-a-gde-shkoly-na-yuge-rossii-deti-opyat-budut-uchitsya-v-tri-smeny-432877).

            Sadly, the Russian government in Moscow shows no interest in transferring money to regions where the number of pupils is rising and where they must study at odd hours required by a two-shift or three-shift schedule. Instead, the quality of education in such regions continue to deteriorate.

            Instead, as Novyye izvestiya reports, officials there are happy to continue to lie because to do otherwise would call attention to something that is even more disturbing to the Kremlin than the schools – a demographic divide between the declining number of ethnic Russians and the rising number of Muslim citizens in the Russian Federation.

Clashes Between Ethnic Diasporas and Russian Nationalist Groups on the Rise in Russia’s South

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – Clashes between members of diaspora groups, including Roma, Kurds, Central Asians and North Caucasians, and indigenous ethnic Russians, always a feature of life there, are increasing in frequency and violence as the result of the actions of the Russian nationalist Russian Community organization which wants them expelled.

            Officials in Volgograd Oblast are sufficiently worried that they have set up a council on nationality policy, the first meeting of which took place a week ago. It includes representatives of all parties (kavkazr.com/a/nerusskim-zdesj-ne-rady-mezhnatsionaljnyy-konflikt-v-volgogradskoy-oblasti-i-reaktsiya-vlastey/33094468.html).

            But one former official, speaking on conditions of anonymity, says that tensions are getting worse as a result of the combination of demographic change and the activities of the Russian Community organization; and he predicts that the situation will continue to get worse until both of these issues are addressed.

            According to this official, “there are places in which the ‘indigenous’ population is entirely made up of elderly people. All the young are leaving, and coming in their place are citizens of Central Asian countries … The longer this process continues, the more such conflicts there will be.”

            But like other officials, he argues that there is “no serious nationalism in the region,” only grievances that take on an ethnic coloration largely because of the activities of the Russian Community organization whose branches are growing rapidly and often get involved in what are everyday clashes among residents.

            Developments across the Russian south confirm this pattern and suggest that until the Russian Community is reined in, there is a real risk of a serious explosion of ethnic conflict there (kavkazr.com/a/novye-russkie-kak-ustroena-i-chem-zanimaetsya-obschina-natsionalistov-na-yuge-rossii/33068943.html).

            But instead of moving against the Russian Community groups, officials in these regions all too often are using they as adjuncts to the police, an approach that is not only making clashes between ethnic groups more frequent and violence but also intensifying anger among the non-Russians about the Russian state (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/north-caucasus-officials-reliance-on.html).

 

Putin has Long Thought that Everything is about Money but War in Ukraine is Proving Him Wrong, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – Having risen to power in the 1990s and consolidated his position when Moscow was flooded with petrodollars, Vladimir Putin has long been convinced that he can address almost any problem with a combination of money and repression, Vladimir Pastukhov says.

            The Kremlin leader has even adopted this strategy as far as the war in Ukraine is concerned, the London-based Russian analyst says, believing that he can compensate for the reluctance of Russians to go and fight there by offering ever larger amounts of money to get them to do so (t.me/v_pastukhov/1221 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/postepenno-prihodit-osoznanie-togo-chto-vojna-eto-ne-pro-dengi).

            But two-and-one-half years into this conflict, Pastukhov argues, it is dawning on Putin and his regime that he can’t solve that problem or perhaps many others with money alone. At some point, the Kremlin won’t have enough money to overcome growing popular reluctance to go to war.

            That is bringing closer the day “the critical moment when money will cease to play a significant role in these calculations of life and death,” the analyst says; and “at that very moment, a real war will begin in and for Russia, one in which everything will become different” because Putin won’t have the resource he has relied on so often in the past.

 

Both Russian Émigré Camps Engaging in Wishful Thinking about Russia’s Future, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – Both émigré opposition figures who favor a still-unified “good” Russia without Putin and those who believe that the only way forward is the disintegration of the country are engaged in wishful thinking, Vadim Shtepa says, because they talk only about the goals they want and do not focus on creating the mechanisms that might achieve them.

            In a  new commentary for Postimees, the editor of the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert says the former believe that the replacement of Putin will be enough to put things on the right course and the latter that Russia will fall apart in the near future much as the USSR did in 1991 (rus.postimees.ee/8085438/vadim-shtepa-pochemu-raspad-rf-poka-nevozmozhen reposted at region.expert/impossible/).

            But neither the one nor the other focuses on how their goals will be achieved, not on how Putin will be replaced by someone not like Putin nor on how the Russian Federation will disintegrate like the USSR did in 1991 when the current situation does not resemble that at the end of Soviet times.

            “Those who loudly declare that ‘the Russian Federation will fall apart just as the USSR did’ do not consider these differences,” Shtepa says, despite how critical they are. In 1990, all the union republics had “freely elected parliaments.” None of the federal subjects, not the predominantly Russian oblasts and krays nor the non-Russian republics do now.

            Gorbachev allowed that to happen as part of his effort to shift power from the CPSU to the soviets, the regionalist expert says. Putin is not inclined to do so. Instead, he wants to ensure that the federal subjects are all tightly controlled by Moscow. His opponents aren’t talking about how to challenge that. Instead, they are acting as if specifying their goals is enough.

            To that end, Putin has banned all regionalist parties and imposed control on all pseudo-elections in the regions. Moreover, he benefits from the fact that unlike in 1991 when the creators of the USSR – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus – disbanded that country, none of the current regions or republics are in a similar position to do so now.

            Some émigré opposition figures do suggest that if there are political changes in Moscow, the governors will suddenly shift to the side of the people, although this seems not so much wishful thinking as magical thinking, given that the heads of the federal subjects are all in fact chosen by the current Kremlin.

            One might expect in this situation that emigres would be calling for real elections in the regions, but they aren’t doing so, apparently afraid that “’supporters of the ancien regime’” would win. But if there aren’t such elections, how can one expect anyone different to come to power or lead the regions or republics out of Muscovy?

            According to Shtepa, the real problem is that “Russian opposition figures simply don’t think about such elections. Instead, they live in dreams, either about ‘a beautiful Russia of the future’ as a ‘good’ empire, only without Putin, or about ‘the collapse of the cursed empire,’ but without a clear idea of how and into what exactly it might call apart.”

 

After 30 Years of Failure, Central Asian Countries Adopting More Productive Approach to Region’s Water Shortages, Regional Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – For the first 30 years after acquiring independence, the Centra Asian countries failed to make much progress on adopting a common approach to water shortages, an approach that has made the situation there in that sector even worse, according to a study by five Central Asian and Russian experts.

            But now the situation seems to be improving, the result of just how serious the problems have become, the new approach of the Uzbekistan government, and increasing contacts among experts and officials in the five countries, they say. And they thus express some optimism that breakthroughs may be ahead.

            They make their case in “A New Stage in the Resolution of the Problems of Trans-Border Rivers of Central Asia,” (in Russian), Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Istoriya 87 (2024), pp. 114-120 at journals.tsu.ru/history/&journal_page=archive&id=2453) that has now been summarized at ia-centr.ru/experts/ia-centr-ru/evolyutsiya-podkhodov-k-regulirovaniyu-problemy-vodnoy-bezopasnosti-v-tsa/).

            The article is important not so much for its optimism which may prove to be misplaced given the propensity of the countries of the region to pursue their specific national agendas than for its recounting of the many false starts in talks over the last three decades, failures that have transformed a serious problem into a crisis.

Putin Worried about Falling Water Levels and Siltification of Volga River and Caspian Sea

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – Because siltification of the Volga River and the Caspian Sea threaten both Moscow’s ability to use these waterways for developing its north-south trade corridor and using its Caspian Flotilla against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has expressed concern about this problem and has asked regional officials to contact him directly about what needs to be done.

            The Kremlin leader made those remarks at a meeting with regional officials following his visit to Baku where he said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had pointed out that falling water levels and increasing siltification were increasingly problems for all the Caspian littoral states (ura.news/articles/1036289690).

            The Volga and the Caspian have become increasingly important in recent years. Given problems in the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia, Moscow has increasingly looked to the Caspian to be a major part of its north-south route to Iran and the Indian Ocean (jamestown.org/program/russia-faces-serious-problems-in-developing-north-south-trade-corridor-via-caspian-sea/).

            And the Kremlin has been using its Caspian Flotilla against Ukraine, something that any decline in the water levels either of the Volga or the Caspian will make more difficult and could even block by preventing Russian ships from transiting to the Sea of Azov (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/water-level-of-caspian-sea-falling-at.html).

            While some Russian experts have played down these problems (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/water-level-of-caspian-sea-falling-at.html), others say the threat is real and that Moscow must do more in response or find itself unable to use these waterways in the manner it has planned (fedpress.ru/news/05/society/3335150).

            Putin’s decision to enter this debate suggests that he at least is persuaded that the problems of falling water levels and siltification are very real and threaten his trade and military goals to the point that he needs to do more and wants to use recommendations from the region to push for that even at a time of budgetary stringency brought on by his war in Ukraine. 

 

Moscow Using Minsk to Spread Russian World into Central Asia, Free Uzbekistan Leader Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – Moscow officials are relying not only on their own efforts but exploiting those of Belarusian officials to promote Putin’s “Russian world” ideas into Central Asia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, according to Hasanboy Burhanov, leader of the Free Uzbekistan (Erkin O’zbekiston) movement.

            While the international community not surprisingly has been focusing on Russian aggression in Ukraine, he says, it has paid little attention to what Moscow itself is doing to spread such ideas throughout the former Soviet space and how it is using Belarus to do that (charter97.org/ru/news/2024/8/22/607785/ reposted at erkinuz.democrat/2024/08/29/ekspansiya-russkogo-mira-v-uzbekistan/).

            Overwhelmingly, this Russian effort involved “’soft power’ tactics such as cultural or sporting events and educational cooperation,” Burhanov continues; but “it is particularly important to take note of the military cooperation between Russian and Central Asian officials, something that has significantly intensified in recent years.”

            But the Belarusian role here is important because it allows Moscow to advance without Russia being blamed. “Cooperation between the Belarusian and Uzbek security services is developing rapidly,” but it is obvious that what Minsk is doing is happening as the result of “close collaboration with the Russian security services.”

            This year, Burhanov says, “several senior Belarusian military officials have visited Uzbekistan, and several high-ranking Uzbek military officials have gone to Belarus, a worrying form of cooperation, especially given the contemptuous attitude Belarusian leaders have shown to those they like the Russians still view as their “younger brothers.”

            Even more worrisome, Central Asian leaders who are now focusing on regional cooperation are increasingly calling for Russian to become the second official language across the region, a step that may make cooperation easier but also opens the way to more Russian influence there as well.

Russians Don’t Trust Each Other and, Because That is So, They Do Trust Putin, VTsIOM Head Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Surveys show that Russians don’t trust one another, and that has led many to conclude that they don’t trust the authorities either, Valery Fyodorov says. But that intuitive judgment is wrong because people need to trust someone; and if a leader is clever as Putin has been, they will put their trust in him precisely because they don’t trust anyone else.

            In an interview to the Club of the Regions portal, the head of VTsIOM makes that point, almost certainly one that he is making to those in the Kremlin with which his polling agency is known to be close and one that will go a long way to reassuring Putin and his entourage that they don’t need to worry about low levels of interpersonal trust (club-rf.ru/interview/516).

            Indeed, if Fyodorov is right, then acting in ways that keep levels of interpersonal trust low may in fact be the best strategy for ensuring that Russians will continue to place their trust in Putin and even provide him with a firm foundation for maintaining power by ensuring that the population doesn’t turn to anyone else.

Tengrian Petition to Gain Official Status as Religion in Kazakhstan Faces Uphill Battle

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – Tengrianism, the animist faith of nomadic peoples within the Turkic world, has long attracted attention of scholars and others at last in part because its divinity does not set rules but rather talks about what will happen to an individual or his descendants if he or she violates the universal order.

            But most observers have assumed that with the coming of Islam, the passing of nomadic society, and the urbanization of the population, Tengrism is today of primarily historical interest in Kazakhstan where it is most widespread. (On that, see Marlene Laruelle, “Religious Revival, Nationalism and ‘the Invention of Tradition,” Central Asian Survey 26:2 (2007: 203-216.)

            In recent years, however, some have spoken of its revival there, with adherents claiming as many as a million followers. Among those who see it as growing and becoming more important, albeit among unexpected groups is Ulyana Fatyanova, a Kazakh journalist (cabar.asia/ru/kak-v-kazahstane-zhivut-tengriantsy).

            She argues that many Kazakh intellectuals are turning to Tengrism because it is a national religion but not Islam, a faith that has been discredited in the eyes of many in that Central Asian country because of the behavior of radicals and fundamentalists. By accepting Tengrism, Fatyanova says, they can assert their Kazakh identity without being Muslim.

            Most of those who are coming to Tengrism are urban, Russian-speaking elites, a sharp contrast with the rural, Kazakh-speaking, rural residents who had represented the only surviving Tengrism until very recently. It is thus, Fatyanova says, “the religion of the intelligentsia” rather than the faith of the people.

            Now, some of these people are seeking to have their faith recognized officially as a religion. Earlier this year, they posted online a petition calling for that (orda.kz/tengrianstvo-prosjat-oficialno-priznat-religiej-v-kazahstane-386930/); but to date, it has garnered fewer than a thousand signatures. They have until November 25 to collect 6,000.

            Now, the Kazakhstan media reports, backers of this effort are stepping up their activities in the hopes that more will sign and that Astana will then be willing to grant them the official status they seek (orda.kz/my-ne-protiv-islama-pochemu-tengrianstvo-prosjat-zaregistrirovat-v-kazahstane-kak-oficialnuju-religiju-390899/).

            Erlan Espenbetov is one of the Tengrians leading this effort. He notes that there are 18 different religions in Kazakhstan and that they have registered more than 3960 organizations. Tengrianism is not among them, at least in part because many of its followers view it as a philosophy rather than a religion and note that philosophies can’t be officially registered.

            But other Tengrians insist that it needs to be so that it can distinguish itself from shamanism with which it is often confused and carry out propaganda of its ideas among the population, something that official registration by the government would make far easier, the activist continues.

Moscow Patriarchate Divided about August 1991 Coup Plotters Because They were Divided about the Church, Soldatov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – The leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate was and remains divided about the August 1991 coup plotters because the latter were divided about what to do with the church, some favoring the CPSU’s anti-religious line and others backing Orthodoxy as a potential replacement for communism, Aleksandr Soldatov says.

            The Russian journalist who specializes on religious issues draws that conclusion on the basis of a detailed examination of how the leaders of the ROC MP responded to the August 1991 events and how those who plotted the coup treated religious issues in the run-up to that event (gorby.media/articles/2024/08/27/etoi-ierarkhii-ne-nuzhna-svoboda).

            The ROC MP, Soldatov says, was very much divided in its assessment of the coup plotters and almost certainly came to back the anti-coup forces led by Boris Yeltsin less because they shared his views about religious life in Russia than because he won and he church’s caesaro-papist traditions meant that they wanted to back whoever was in power.

            But the church leaders were never entirely comfortable with the ideas of religious freedom or freedom in general and welcomed the restoration of an authoritarian regime by Vladimir Putin, the journalist says, as evidenced by their comments about the coup later after the Kremlin leader solidified his role.

            Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Soldatov’s latest article, however, is his insistence that the coup plotters were very much divided on religious issues. As he makes clear, while the coup leaders did not have enough time to broadcast a statement on religious affairs, they had in the weeks before the coup made it clear where they stood.

            Many of them did in fact support the communist line that Moscow must promote secularism and atheism, but what is remarkable – and here Soldatov’s article is especially important – many of them appear to have favored replacing Marxism with Orthodoxy as the chief ideology of the state.

            That is clear, he argues, from the June 23, 1991, declaration for the media that was signed by three of the coup plotters; and their arguments in this regard, while offensive to many hardline communists would have been music to the ears of many in the leading positions of the Moscow Patriarchate.

            What may be even more important for an assessment of the future of the Russian church and the Russian state is that Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill appear to have accepted in toto this part of the argument of the coup plotters in their development of a new “symphony” between church and state in Russia today. 

Almost Half of Russians Say It’s Likely Prigozhin is Still Alive, New Poll Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – A year after it was widely reported that Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a revolt against Moscow officials over their handling of the war in Ukraine, had died in a plane crash, one possibly organized by Vladimir Putin, almost half of Russians say that it is possible that he is still alive but in hiding, either in Russia itself or in Africa.

            According to a poll conducted by the New Image Marketing Group, seven percent of Russians say that it is certain Prigozhin is alive, 40 percent more say that it is possible that this is the case, 37 percent say it is certain that he is dead, and 18 percent say it is difficult for them to give an answer (dsnews.ua/world/prigozhin-zhiv-47-rosiyan-vvazhayut-shcho-yogo-ne-vbilo-23082024-506818).

            Not surprisingly, observers are offering a variety of explanations for this phenomenon. Igor Eidman, a Russian commentator now based in Berlin, says that such attitudes are the product of efforts by the Kremlin to ensure that Russians don’t think Putin killed him. After all, “if Prigozhen is alive, this means that Putin didn’t do that” (t.me/igoreidman/1691 reposted at charter97.org/ru/news/2024/8/25/608119/).

            But Aleksandra Arkhipova, an independent Russian anthropologist, argues that the belief that Prigozhin is still alive is part of a long tradition in Russian history in which the population refuses to believe that a leader they believed in has in fact died (https://t.me/anthro_fun/3071 https://echofm.online/opinions/prigozhin-zhivo-utopicheskaya-legenda-vyzhila).

            In the 20^th century alone, many Russians believed the tsar or his childrenhad not been killed by the Bolsheviks but were hiding out somewhere. They also believed that Lenin had remained alive; and some had the same views about Fanya Kaplan, who attempted to assassinate Lenin, and even Raul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved Jews during World War II.

            Arkhipova discusses this tradition in detail, one that the Prigozhin case is clearly the latest example of regardless of whether the Kremlin has tried to exploit it in a 30-page paper available online at anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/012online/12_online_arkhipova.pdf

Replacing Sex Education with Family Studies Course Won’t Boost Birthrate but Will Cause Problems, Russian Psychologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – The Putin regime has replaced sex education courses with classes in family studies, a nod to its traditional values intended to boost the birthrate in the Russian Federation. But not only won’t it do that, Tatyana Chuvilkova says; this change will also lead to more problems in society as a whole.

            The Russian psychologist says this change in fact is “bad for many reasons. If a child isn’t learning from normal sources about anatomy, physiology, where children come from, hiw own health, and bodily limits, he will find out about this from god knows where and it will be impossible to control the content of this information” (currenttime.tv/a/semevedenie-vmesto-seksprosveta/33089044.html).

            School courses on sex education help correct misconceptions children have from their parents or from other sources. But now without them, she argues, “we will not be able to ensure the adequacy of all parents because there are religious fanatics, others not very healthy in psychological terms, and still others who are simply ignorant.”

            Chuvilkova says it is dangerously naïve to think that courses about family life will boost the birthrate. There are too many forces in society working against that and in fact they will continue to drive the birthrate down regardless of what the government may try to do. For better or worse, that is a given of modern life.

            Moreover, some of the ideas children will get about gender differences, LGBT people, and personal space from their parents or the media will lead to move conflicts and even violence within families and in the broader society,  she suggests.

            She also expresses concerns about how teachers will handle the family life courses. If they treat such classes as a place to propagandize traditional values, values that do not correspond with the lives that pupils see about them, that will “only increase frustration among the children.”

            And nothing good will come from that.

Poll Suggests Russians Don’t See Need for School Courses on Foreign Languages or Ideological Subjects, Editors of ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – This year, as it did in 2009 and 2019, the VTsIOM polling agency conducted surveys among Russians about which subjects they felt schools should be devoting more attention to and which they felt they could give less attention to. The editors of Nezavisimaya Gazeta have reacted to the findings with a lead article.

            Their basic conclusion is summed up in the title of that article – “According to a Poll, Russians don’t need ideological subjects or foreign languages” – a position that the editors suggest in the one case could prove seriously harmful and in the other at least troubling (ng.ru/editorial/2024-08-25/2_9078_red.html)

            Regarding foreign languages, the poll found that only nine percent of Russians now say that studying them in schools is important, down from 23 percent in 2019. That likely reflects the change in Moscow’s relations with the outside world, but it also may be the product of the experiences of those surveyed about their own coursework in the past.

            But however that may be, such negative attitudes about foreign language instruction are likely to make it far more difficult for many in other fields, such as information technology, to make Russia able to stand on its own, the editors say. And thus it is counterproductive even given the growing hostility to outsiders.

            The poll also asked Russians what school subjects they did not consider necessary. More than three out of five (63 percent) did not provide an answer. But four percent said that they didn’t see the need for courses on religion and civic ethics, four percent said the same about music, and three percent about “conversations about the important,” which focuses on the war.

            The large share who didn’t answer likely includes many who would share these views if the expression of them was not viewed as potentially dangerous, the editors suggest; and consequently, it seems likely that a significant swath of Russians doesn’t favor such ideological coursework either.

 

Moscow ‘Completely Ignoring’ the Soft Power It Still has in Post-Soviet Space and Thus Rapidly Losing Its Influence There, Shimov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – Moscow is “completely ignoring” the soft power resources it still has in the former Soviet republics, a neglect that has created “an ideological vacuum that “other players, including the European Union, Turkey and even China” are rushing to fill, often with remarkable success, Vsevood Shimov says.

            The advisor to the president of the Russian Association of Baltic Research says that this is clear from the example of Ukraine when “what would seem to have been the closest country to Russia culturally and historically in the course of a few years was transformed into a bastion of Russophobia” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/426680/).

            Other commentators like Dmitry Rodionov of Svobodnaya Pressa and Sergey Prokopenko, an historian at the Belarusian State University agree. They say that all the post-Soviet states have to maneuver between Russia, on the one hand, and Russia’s competitors, on the

            “The ‘cautious’ position of the former Soviet republics regarding Russia and Belarus,” Prokopenko says, “is arising because of the uncertainty of the political elites of these countries about the final victory of Russia in its conflict with the West,” and because they cannot afford to break completely with Russia regardless of their assessment of its prospects in that conflict.

            At the same time, he continues, “none of the elites of these countries needs an unqualified victory of Russia as that would strengthen beyond measure Russia in the international arena and lead to an increase on themselves of pressure by the Russian Federation.” Consequently, they will seek to strike positions in between.

            And Prokopenko concludes: Russia will have “real levels of influence” on this situation “only after the victorious conclusion of its conflict with the West.” But he does not say what will happen if Russia doesn’t manage to achieve that.  

Russian Prisons have Become Breeding Ground of Islamist Terrorists in Russia, Kochegin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – Recent risings in Russian prisons show that these penal institutions have become important breeding grounds of Islamist terrorism, given that none of those who have risen in the name of the Islamic State had done so before being incarcerated, according to Yevgeny Kochegin.

            The former inmate and now prisoner rights activist says that this is the result of two reinforcing trends: increasing repression of all Muslim prisoners and increasing corruption among jailors (kavkazr.com/a/polozhenie-osuzhdennyh-musuljman-teperj-stanet-huzhe-zahvat-zalozhnikov-v-volgogradskoy-kolonii-/33092769.html).

            Mistreatment of Muslims makes credible the arguments of Islamist activists that the Russian state is hostile to Islam, Kochegin suggests; and corruption means that prisoners can easily get cellphones that give them direct access to these messages from outside the prison walls.

            Unfortunately, he continues, the response of the jailors has not been to improve conditions for Muslims or crackdown on corruption among the employees of the prison system but rather to intensify repression against Muslims while allowing corruption to continue to flourish.

            As a result, he and other prisoner rights activists say, the number of prisoners who become Islamists as a result of their incarcerations is certain to rise, the number of prison revolts led by them to increase, and the number of Islamists outside prison walls to grow when some of these prisoners are ultimately released.

Putin has Increased the Number of Political Prisoners from One or Two Each Year at the Start of His Rule to Several Hundred a Year Now, Memorial Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – Between 1999 and today, the Putin regime has put behind bars approximately 1500 people whom rights activists classify as political prisoners. More than 750 of them are still there. And each year, the authorities are incarcerating such prisoners at an increasing rate, from one or two a year early on in this period to several hundred annually now.

            Those are the conclusions of the Memorial human rights group in a report about human rights developments in Russia under Putin, as featured in a lengthy article by the Vyorstka news agency (verstka.media/issledovanie-kak-menialos-kolichestvo-politzakluchennih-pri-vladimire-putine).

            Memorial describes how Russian repression has evolved and predicts that even if the Kremlin does not give new orders for more people to be incarcerated for political reasons, the size of the existing repressive organs is now so great that there is little reason to think they won’t continue to do so to justify their own existence.

            Over the last two years, ever more women and non-Russian activists have become political prisoners; and their associates still outside the barbed wire are calling on the international community to do more for these groups than was the case in the most recent prisoner exchange (idelreal.org/a/my-prizyvaem-obratit-vnimanie-i-na-politicheskih-uznikov-natsionalnyh-dvizheniy-v-rossii-/33088477.html).

After Moscow Slowed YouTube, Russians Watched Fewer Movies but More News Programs, Klimaryov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – In the month since the Russian government slowed YouTube, Russians cut back in the amount of movies and entertainment programs they watched but increased the amount of time they spent viewing news and information programs by 30 percent, hardly what the Kremlin wanted, Mikhail Klimaryov says.

            The director of the Russian Society for the Defense of the Internet says that as a result, the total amount of time Russians spent on YouTube remained just about where it was prior to the Kremlin-ordered slowdown (youtube.com/watch?v=5xGpeGZIvxE reposted in part at semnasem.org/articles/2024/08/23/mesyac-zamedleniya-youtube).

            One factor at work, Klimaryov says, is that the slowdown did not hit all regions equally. Some providers did not know quite how to act, others openly resisted, and some were lobbied hard by users and lobbied the authorities themselves to prevent the ordered slowdown from taking full effect and costing them money.

            It is entirely possible, he continues, that these problems may be overcome and that in the future some current YouTube users will stop turning to that service. But Klimaryov says he is confident that the interest in news is such that most will continue to use YouTube for that or turn to other news providers like Telegram.

            The internet defender says that in his opinion, Moscow will not try to shutdown YouTube completely anytime soon. Instead, they will impose more restrictions in salami-style fashion. But that will allow YouTube’s audience time to find “a new platform for socio-political discussions,” something that will also run counter to the Kremlin’s interests.

By Labeling So Many Terrorists, Moscow Paying Less Attention to Real Ones and making Prison Revolts a Systemic Problem, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – Instead of focusing on real criminals and terrorists, Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid says, the Kremlin and its justice ministry are obsessed with labelling political opponents “terrorists,” an approach that means the real terrorists and their allies are now in a position to spark revolts in Russian penal instituitons.

            According to the blogger, “the justice ministry is too carried away with its focus on internal enemies … and as a result, real criminals and not ones the regime has invented find themselves practically neglected,” inadequately supervised, and thus in a position to revolt (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/20177 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=66C8BAB7C1F45).

            Given that the justice ministry began to label as terrorists many who are anything but, Russian prisons began to fill up with people who are not terrorists or ordinary criminals but instead people in many cases with ideological positions that dispose them to oppose the state, El Murid points out.

            The energy the penal system puts into supervising such people means that it isn’t in fact in complete control of those who may be real terrorists and who are prepared to act and even mobilize others to challenge the powers that be, and that in turn means that more prison revolts are likely in the coming months.

            Prison revolts have become more common in Russia in recent years (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2024/08/23/1057650-krupneishie-bunti), and observers like El Murid increasingly view these actions as a harbinger of changes in the remaining parts of Russian society. 

Regional Parliaments Now Sending Far Fewer Proposals to Duma for New Legislation, Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – At the start of Putin’s time in office, parliaments in Russia’s federal subjects accounted for more than a third of all legislation that the State Duma took up; but now, they account for a miniscule number, the result both of an increasing number of proposals by Duma members and the government and reduced activity in this respect by regional legislatures.

            If the explosion in the number of proposals by Duma deputies and the Russian government have been widely documented and commented upon, with many referring to Russian legislative activity as “the printer,” the waning in the activity of regional legislative assemblies as a source of new laws has not.

            But now that has changed. Pavel Sklyanchuk, a specialist on the Duma who produces a telegram channel about the sources of legislative initiatives, has investigated the declining role of regional and republic legislatures in federal law making and given an interview about his findings (t.me/expertgd/9235 and club-rf.ru/news/63734).

            According to the analyst, in 2022, the legislatures of the federal subjects submitted 293 draft federal laws to the Council of Legislators for preliminary examination. In 2023, this number fell to 190; and during the first eight months of 2024, to only 134. Over the past two years, an average of only 50 bills cleared that hurtle and reached the Duma.

            This trend, Sklyanchuk says, began in the middle of the first decade of this century. During the fourth convocation of the State Duma in 2003 to 2005, “more than 40 percent of all initiatives” came from regional legislatures. But except during the fifth convocation (2011-2016) when an explosion of legislative activity occurred, this figure has declined.

            The constitutional amendments adopted in 2020 accelerated this pattern, he continues,  but other factors are at work as well. Legislatures increasingly consist of representatives of regional business elites who are focused on their own issues rather than all-Russian ones; and governors, who increasingly have experience in Moscow, are lobbying in other ways.

            Sometimes, they simply go to the ministries responsible; and if they have broader proposals, they seek to advance them through the State Council rather than the Duma, yet another reason that is depressing the figures from the federal subjects, the legislative affairs expert says.

            He does note that legislatures in the republics remain more active than do those in the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays, a pattern that may reflect the fact that these are poorer and so business dominates the legislatures less fully and that governors have less experience in Moscow.

            Commenting on Sklyanchuk’s findings, political consultant Aleksandr Semyonov says that he agrees with all these points but thinks the number of legislative initiatives from the regional parliaments may go back up if these assemblies are filled with veterans of the war in Ukraine as Putin has proposed (club-rf.ru/detail/7407).

            Such people will have a different and often broader view of their roles than do the local businessmen now dominating these assemblies. If Semyonov is right, then the regions may play an expanded role in legislative activity, a development that could have unpredictable consequences for politics not only in the regions but in Moscow as well.

Putin’s Deadly Healthcare Optimization Sparking Protests in Russian North

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – Vladimir Putin’s healthcare optimization program is not only reducing the number of medical facilities and personnel in much of the country and sending mortality rates up there but also cutting the quality of those who remain because Moscow is inserting loyalists in place of experts, a practice that is sparking protests in the Russian north.

            Evidence of all this is to be found in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Lukas Zhalalis of the Okno portal says. In Kotlas, he points out, the number of doctors and nurses has been cut back to the point that few can see a specialist and the doctor who had been in charge for many years was replaced by an inexperienced Putin loyalist (okno.group/midicina-arh/).

            These developments, local residents say, have reduced healthcare there to what it was in the 19^th century. But perhaps more important, it has sparked protests by local residents whose relatives have been dying and who themselves are now at risk of premature death as well (vk.com/yarenskchist?w=wall-170660931_18074).

            Because these protests are small and even more because they are taking place in locations far from Moscow or from ethnic regions which typically have more developed online reporting, they have been largely ignored. But this pattern is critically important because it highlights two things that are often given less attention than they deserve.

            On the one hand, Russians are quite prepared to protest about developments that they see as having a direct impact on their lives, even if they do not take to the streets to demonstrate against Kremlin policies like the war in Ukraine because they do not see that they have any chance of changing such “political” things.

            And on the other, they suggest that as Putin pulls more money out of healthcare and other fields to finance his wars, he will trigger more Russians to protest this latest threat to their survival and may eventually lead some of them to connect the dots and see that the Putin regime itself constitutes a threat to their survival and thus is something they should be protesting against.

Moscow Justifies Delaying Voting in Kursk By Region’s ‘Territorial Uncertainty,’ Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – In response to a question about the postponement of elections in Kursk Oblast, a Russian official said that in that region, “territorial uncertainty will remain for a long time, and so it was decided not to have elections in which the victors might not be able to govern and represent the territories involved” (verstka.media/kurskaya-oblast-ediny-dien-golosovania-8-sentiabria-novosti-svo).

            Clearly, independent anthropologist Aleksandra Arkhipova observes, talking about “territorial uncertainty” certainly “sounds much better than saying ‘we won’t be able to conrol the elections’ or ‘we don’t know what the fate of the voters there will be’” (t.me/anthro_fun/3063 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/territorialnaya-neopredelennost-starosti-novoyaza).

            This use of the term is new: it has been applied by Russians at least 100 times in the period since 2004, the investigator says; but typically it has been applied in discussions of territorial disputes between countries over sovereignty such as the one between Russia and Japan over the political status of the Kurile Islands.

            That it should be applied to Kursk likely says more about how officials in the Putin regime actually view the situation there and especially how long they think it may go on than do bombastic public comments that Russian forces will soon drive out the Ukrainian military units there which continue to advance.

Russians May Show Unhappiness about Kursk by Pulling Money from Banks Rather than Demonstrating in the Streets, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – Many Russians are angry about the Ukrainian advance into Kursk Oblast and Moscow’s inability to repel it, but they are unlikely to go into the streets to protest – the situation is too far removed from them and taking part in demonstrations is too dangerous – but they may show their unhappiness in another way, Sergey Shelin says.

            Writing in The Moscow Times, the independent commentator says that if Russians become really worried or upset, they are likely to do what they have done in past crises – pull money out of banks and spend on goods – to protect themselves against devaluation of the ruble (moscowtimes.ru/2024/08/23/rossiyane-i-vtorzhenie-ukraintsev-vo-chto-konvertiruyutsya-rasteryannost-i-gnev-a140114).

            That would almost certainly lead to an acceleration of inflation, something Moscow is very worried about now; but it could also lead some in the elites to decide to make common cause with this angry part of the population and conspire against Putin and his inner circle, Shelin continues.

            Because of this possibility, inflation in the wake of what is going on in Kursk Oblast may be a key early warning indicator of the future of Putin’s rule and hence of Russian policy toward Ukraine and much else. Indeed, if inflation does spike, that could land the Kremlin in the most difficult position it has been since Putin’s launch of his expanded invasion in February 2022.

After Initial Panic, Russians have Largely Adapted to War in Ukraine and Its Consequences as a New Normal They Can Live With, Volkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – When Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russians panicked; but they quickly adapted to the new situation both because of their past experiences with overcoming crises and because of their sense that they could manage to improve their personal lives even if the situation in Russia deteriorated, Denis Volkov says.

            The return to a cautious optimism about their own situations if not about the future of the Russian Federation as such would be threatened, the Levada Center director says, only if there were a serious downturn in the economy that would hit far more groups or if the Kremlin demanded a general mobilization (gorby.media/articles/2024/08/22/dolgaia-adaptatsiia).

            Were either of those things to occur, Volkov suggests, then the positive attitudes most Russians have about their own lives and their confidence that Russia will somehow get through these problems as it has in the past could be shattered with Russians adopting far more negative views about their future and the future of the country.

            Volkov says that the Kremlin also understands this and so has done its best to maintain or improve the standard of living of most Russians by a variety of subsidies and indexation of benefits and to avoid declaring a mobilization that could unsettle the social and political world in Russia today. 

No Armenian-Azerbaijani Peace Accord Likely to be Signed in 2024, Experts in Yerevan and Baku Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – Earlier this year, leaders in both Armenia and Azerbaijan expressed confidence that they had achieved sufficient progress toward a peace treaty between the two countries that such an accord could be signed before the end of 2024, confidence welcomed by many countries involved in the region.

            But now experts in the two capitals say that the prospects for such an accord have dimmed to the point that they do not believe that a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be signed this year, with an Armenian expert saying that the situation now is “closer to war than peace” (rbc.ru/politics/21/08/2024/66c49ca59a7947ef332ddd43).

            Both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan last spring expressed confidence that they could reach agreement before the UN Climate Conference in Baku in November 2024; and as recently as July, Aliyev said the document was “80 to 90 percent” complete.

            The two sides seemed to have been making progress especially when they decided to drop what both had seen as a requirement that a peace treaty address the reopening of transportation routes crossing the territory of the other, an especially sensitive issue for Azerbaijan concerning the Zengezur/Syunik corridor.

            But sticking points remain to this day. Baku wants Yerevan in calling for the disbanding of the OSCE Minsk Group, something Yerevan is prepared to do only after a peace accord is agreed to, and the Azerbaijani side wants Armenia to drop its constitutional reference to Qarabagh, something Yerevan can’t do without a referendum.

            As a result, both Farkhad Mamedov, head of the Baku Center for Research on the South Caucasus, and Armenian political scientist Grant Mikaelyan say that there is unlikely to be any agreement signed this year, with the latter saying that the situation is deteriorating and may even lead to a new round of fighting.

Putin’s War in Ukraine Taking Place Because Russian Empire Did Not Completely Fall Apart in 1991, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – Had the Soviet empire completely disintegrated in 1991, Moscow would not have continued to rule over its subjects as an empire and would not have launched Putin’s monstrous war against Ukraine, according to Igor Eidman, a Russian sociologist now living in Berlin.

            He points out that only those places that the Bolsheviks had designated as union republics escaped; but other nations without such status “remained as provinces;” and their presence defines both how Moscow rules the country and how it approaches the countries that did emerge three decades ago (t.me/igoreidman/1683 reposted at charter97.org/ru/news/2024/8/22/607843/).

            It treats both as imperial possessions, the former still under Moscow’s control and the latter as places to be regained, Eidman says, the result in both cases of the country which calls itself the Russian Federation remaining an empire that did not completely fall apart but existed in a state of only partial disintegration.

            The Russian empire can’t “endure the consequences of this half-life for long,” he continues. “Either it will completely collapse or it will continue to try to expand until that leads to a global war.”

            Putin has frequently said that “the collapse of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century,” but “it is clear for those who think that way that the final collapse of the empire would be an even greater disaster,” Eidman says. This position at least is “internally logical.”

            But the position the majority if Russian liberals on this question is not. Such people “view the collapse of the USSR as a liberation, but they are afraid of its natural continuation, the liberation of the peoples and regions which are part of the Moscow-centric empire which is the Russian Federation.”

            However, “if Turkmenistan or Georgia could leave the USSR, then why don’t Yakutia or Tatarstan, to take but two examples, have the right to secede from the Russian Federation?” Can it be that they don’t have that right because “the Bolsheviks on a whim did not give them the status of union republics” – even though they demanded that status?

            “Having said A, you must also say B. If the collapse of the USSR was right, then the Russian Federation, a similar but greatly truncated empire should not exist. But most ‘good Russians’ do not have the courage to admit this” and thus are defenders of the remaining empire, Eidman argues.

“It is difficult to predict what will happen after the Russian Federation. Perhaps some republics and regions will choose complete independence, while others will create a new, genuine, non-Moscow-centric federation or confederation. There may be other options,” the commentator continues.

But “the main thing is this: the archaic imperial state will disappear, as it can be neither peaceful nor democratic and will remain a threat to international security.” Fortunately, “the collapse of the Russian Empire is fated to end.”

If Putin is Forced to Block Emigration, His Regime’s Demise will be Approaching, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug.21 – The main factor that distinguishes Russian reality now and that of the last years of Soviet power is the openness of borders that allows citizens of the Russian Federation to move abroad, Vladislav Inozemtsev says. If Putin is forced to end that arrangement to ensure he has enough troops and to stop the brain drain, his regime will be in deep trouble.

            According to the Russian commentator, “the most important reason for the collapse of the USSR was that Soviet citizens couldn’t leave the country in massive numbers.” Those who wanted change in their lives and thus had to work for it at home rather than seek it abroad (moscowtimes.ru/2024/08/21/postsovetskaya-dilemma-zakrit-granitsu-ili-smiritsya-s-utechkoi-mozgov-i-begstvom-rekrutov-a139914).

            Insufficient attention has been given to the relationship between the right to leave and political change, Inozemtsev suggests. Because people have been able to leave Russia and other post-Soviet states since 1991, “nowhere have protests generated by economic discontent had significant consequences” on political arrangements.

            As long as exit is possible, “economic difficulties have been viewed as something to which an individual response can and should be sought” in particular by leaving the country “while political challenges” require remaining and coming up with “a collective response” to put pressure on the regimes.

“The behavior of Russians in recent years has not gone beyond this pattern,” the economist and political commentator continues. “The worsening relations with the West during the war signaled the inevitable emergence of economic difficulties and led to the first wartime wave of emigration.” A second was “provoked by mobilization, but the exodus continues.

That means that if the Russian economy slows or even slides into a crisis, “the response will not be mass protests but the sale of existing assets and attempts to leave the counry precisely by those groups most inclined to be angered by that course of developments, Inozemtsev stresses.

Consequently, the Kremlin “should not be afraid of a recession as that will ensure political stability for the time being … at least as long as the borders are kept open.” But keeping them open “will not be easy” as the outflow of labor and potential draftees is likely to continue and make it hard for the regime to carry out its policies.

Since Putin came to power, some 4.5 million people have left Russia; and 70 percent of the most recent wave consists of cities with populations of more than 500,000, Inozemtsev says, precisely the people on whom the Russian economy relies. But had those people not been allowed to leave, there would have been more protests and Putin’s support would be less.

“’Tightening the screws’ and reducing the standard of living are only possible if there is the opportunity for individuals to exit from the paradise under construction,” Inozemtsev says. “If that is eliminated, then the instability of the system will increase radically,” as happened in the late 1980s.

The Kremlin appears to know this and had kept the borders open, but “it may happen that the authorities will have to take extreme measures,” including closing the borders. But if it does so, then “the end of the regime will be very close,” the commentator concludes.

Ukraine’s Moves Against Orthodoxy Make Conflict There ‘a Religious War,’ Dugin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – Aleksandr Dugin, the neo-Eurasianist writer whose ideas have had a powerful influence on Vladimir Putin, says that Kyiv’s moves to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church unless it breaks more completely with the Moscow Patriarchate have transformed the conflict in Ukraine into “a religious war.”

            On his telegram channel, the writer said that “Orthodoxy will return to the holy land of Kyiv only together with our tanks” because “the war is increasingly taking on a religious character. Russia is fighting for Christ, under the banner of Christ and with Christ in its heart” (t.me/Agdchan/17654 and business-gazeta.ru/news/645276).

            Dugin called Ukraine’s latest moves against the Moscow church “the logical end of the rule of the Nazi junta” and said that Kyiv will now “begin to take away churches, disperse monasteries, arrest clergy and persecute believers” and put in place of the true church “a post-modern simulacrum” that will promote “liberal perversions and pseudo-pagan cults.”

            And “this orgy,” one promoted by the Anglo-Americans who are guiding Kyiv in its actions “will acquire special scope and intensity,” a development that Dugin argues “can only be stopped by military means.” His words are likely to inform Moscow’s propaganda not only in Russia but in the West as Putin seeks an alliance with fundamentalists there.