Will Estonia Be the Site of Another Compromise Arrangement for Orthodox?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Estonia, which since the 1990s, has had two Orthodox churches, one subordinate to Moscow and a second subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, may be on its way to offering a second compromise agreement to deal with disputes over the fate of the Russian church abroad.

            Until recently, many observers felt what has become known as “the Estonian compromise” might be a model for the way in which other post-Soviet states might handle Orthodoxy (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/10/does-estonias-history-with-two-orthodox.html).

            But the Moscow Patriarchate’s increasingly aggressive line since the start of the expanded war in Ukraine has killed off that possibility even in Estonia let alone anywhere else (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/tallinn-pushes-hard-to-end-estonian.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/moscow-patriarchs-policies-making.html)

            Now, however, Estonian media are reporting about conversations between the Estonian Apostolic Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Estonia Orthodox Church which is linked to Moscow that might point to another compromise albeit one far less welcome in Moscow.

            Tallinn’s Postimees newspaper is reporting that the EAOC had proposed to the EOC “the creating an additional ‘vicarate of parishes of the Russian tradition’ within the Patriarchate of Constantinople” that parishes and bishoprics of the EOC could enter after a genuine and complete break with Moscow (https://rus.postimees.ee/8099905/estonskaya-pravoslavnaya-cerkov-hochet-pomoch-epc-mp-otdelitsya-ot-russkoy-pravoslavnoy-cerkvi).

            According to a statement by the EAOC, “this would mean that the EOC MP will remain an independent church entity which will be able to continue to follow its own church practice, use its own language and calendar and be fully financially independent.” Further, the EAOC said it would seek the support of the Estonian Council of Churches for such a move.”

            Russian Orthodox groups linked to Moscow have been savagely critical of this proposal, arguing that it is simply a fig leaf to cover what they say would be the destruction of their church in Estonia (raskolam.net/en/81328-konstantynopolskyj-patriarhat-zaproponuvav-epcz-stvoryty-vikariat-v-estoniyi-shhob-vidokremytysya-vid-rpcz/ and rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=118882).

            But the fact that talks between the two churches are continuing does suggest that there is interest on both sides in an outcome which could preclude a decision by the Estonian government to follow Ukraine’s lead and seek to ban Russian Orthodoxy in that Baltic country altogether.

Lithuanians in Siberia Publicly Hide Their Identities, Back Putin and His War, But Fear a Bloodbath after It is Over, ‘People of Baikal’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – The People of Baikal portal, based in Irkutsk, has begun a new series of articles on what is happening to Lithuanians who were deported to Siberia by Stalin and those of their descendants who remain there or even have returned there after trying to reintegrate into Lithuania.

            The situation the portal paints is truly depressing. Many ethnic Lithuanians in Siberia have been cut off from their homeland since Putin’s war in Siberia began, they have stopped identifying themselves in public as Lithuanians, and they express support for Putin’s war (baikal-journal.ru/2024/09/23/v-rossii-ne-govori-chto-ty-litovka-a-v-litve-ne-govori-chto-ty-russkaya/ and baikal-journal.ru/2024/09/23/konkretnoe-tabu-kak-zhivut-potomki-ssylnyh-litovczev-v-sibiri/).

            What makes this trend especially sad is that until Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine, there was an active Lithuanian community in the Irkutsk region and much travel back and forth between there and Lithuania. Now, that has all but ended. Community organizations have been shuttered, the people silenced, and once again they are living in fear.

            Many Siberian Lithuanians with whom the People of Baikal portal spoke defended their own silence and even support for Putin’s actions by saying that they now lived in the Russian Federation and had no basis for criticizing its leaders or their policies. But it is clear that their behavior reflects intimidation and fear rather than anything else.

            Some with whom the portal met said that criticism of Moscow would not have any effect on Moscow but would lead to serious negative consequences for them. And several expressed the fear that once the war is over, there will be a bloodbath inside Russia with returning veterans striking out at any critics of minorities.

            Only a few hundred ethnic Lithuanians are left in Irkutsk Oblast of the thousands who were deported there. In Soviet times, they interacted with Lithuania which was under Soviet occupation; and after independence, this expanded and included serious research about them and flowering of interest in language study and culture.

            For examples of that, see the remarkable collection of oral testimonies and other studies of the Lithuanians in Siberia (as well as of other groups deported there by Stalin) at gulagmemories.eu/ru/MEDG-publication. Tragically, those efforts ended when the current war started, and the new series of articles about this group could be one of the last testaments.

‘Russian Community’ Now Largest Extreme Right Group in Russian Federation, ‘Bumaga’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – The extreme right Russian nationalist group, the Russian Community, which includes many veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine and has been terrorizing the North Caucasus as an adjunct to the police there, has now spread to and expanded in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities.

            Now, according to the Bumaga portal, the Russian community has become “the largest ultra-right organization in the country,” supporting the war in Ukraine, attacking LGBT and abortion activists, and thriving as a result of its close contacts with the Russian security services (paperpaper.ru/migranty-bary-aborty-a-teper-i-seks-v/).

            Many of the leaders of this group are closely connected with Konstantin Malofeyev, widely known as “the Orthodox oligarch,” and there are unconfirmed rumors that he has financed the group and its expansion not only online but into the realm of public actions against those deemed not reflective of traditional Russian values and support for Putin.

            As of now, the group has more than 600,000 subscribers on its telegram channel, more than a million on YouTube, and another 440,000 on VKontakte and is increasingly prominent in news reports for its attacks on its enemies and its work to collect aid for the Russian military in Ukraine.

            Until recently, the largest bastions of support for this group were among ethnic Russians in non-Russian regions and especially in the North Caucasus where the Russian Community works closely with the police to suppress ethnic activism (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/clashes-between-ethnic-diasporas-and.html).

            The group was organized in 2020 but by 2023 it had spread to numerous Russian cities including St. Petersburg where it has attacked various groups it doesn’t approve of. Recently, for example, it acted against what its members called “a sex evening” in a hotel in the northern capital.

            While the group has increased its recruitment among Russian nationalists, many of the latter do not approve of it, either because they disagree with its tactics or because they are wary of any group that is so obviously linked to the police (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2024/07/d50132/).

 

Many Territories within the Borders of the Russian Federation are Much Less Russian than Crimea, Kashin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Oleg Kashin, a Russian nationalist who wants to see the creation of a Russian nation state, points out that there are numerous territories within the current borders of the Russian Federation that are significantly less Russian than Crimea, whose annexation Putin justified in terms of defending ethnic Russians.

            Kashin says that “a Russian nation state … is the absolute antonym of an empire” and that both Putin and the liberal opposition are doing everything they can to prevent Russia from becoming a nation state, Putin by reducing the number of Russians living in Russia and the liberal opposition by failing to identify as ethnic Russians (idelreal.org/a/oleg-kashin-russkoe-natsionalnoe-gosudarstvo-eto-absolyutnyy-antonim-imperii/33115913.html)

            Instead of identifying as ethnic Russians and being concerned about the fate of that people, Kashin continues, “when the typical anti-Putin activist is asked ‘who are you?’ he won’t reply ‘I am a Russian.’ That simply doesn’t come into his head;” but for many non-Russians, there is no question that they will identify as members of their nation.

            That pattern, he says, reflects the continuing impact of Soviet times when the communists ruled over all nations. It was never the case that the Russian nation oppressed others. Instead, it was oppressed as they were even though many non-Russians mistakenly identified what Moscow did as what the ethnic Russians wanted.

            Because the Russian Federation retained the same borders as the RSFSR and the same non-Russian autonomies which had more rights than this or that predominantly ethnic Russian oblast or kray, Kashin argues, “this is not my motherland; this is not Russia.” Instead, it remains an empire and that must end.

            “The Soviet Union was an empire in which the ethnic Russian people never was the leading core,” he argues; and “the Russian people have never been the authors of oppression. Instead they were oppressed to the same extent as most but perhaps not all non-Russians some of whom like the Chechens were deported.”

            And unlike the non-Russians who at least had some institutions to protect their languages and cultures, the ethnic Russians in the oblasts and krays did not – and as a nation they have suffered as a result. They may have been Russian speaking but they were Soviet and thus imperial in their identities. That continues.

            Much as he would like to see Russians shed the non-Russians and acquire their own nation state, Kashin is not optimistic at least in the short term. Instead, he expects Putin to be succeeded by a Putinist or even by a member of his own family, neither of whom is likely to promote the end of the empire and the rise of a Russian nation state.

Moscow Promises Veterans of Ukrainian War Suffering from Disabilities All Possible Help But Fails to Deliver, ‘To Be Continued’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Russia has long had a bad track record in providing assistance to those suffering from physical or mental disabilities, a group that numbers 11 million Rosstat says, but the Putin regime has made promises that this will not be the case for the thousands of Russians who have become invalids as a result of service in Ukraine.

            If one judges by the declarations of the authorities, the To Be Continued portal says in a new study, the invalids from this war will live in almost a paradise; but if one examines what is happening, the picture is very different and increasingly disturbing (prosleduet.media/details/how-disabled-people-live-in-russia/).

            The millions of rubles in bonuses, the cars, the large pensions and residences with elevators and other provisions invalids need simply aren’t being delivered. Some veterans never get them, and others are now waiting in line for what appears likely to be decades before they can hope to see what they have been promised.

            The portal continues: the government explains these delays by saying it needs to spend the money now on defeating the Ukrainians and their NATO backers; but the reality is that the veterans who have been left invalids after fighting in Ukraine are joining the millions of other invalids in Russia as people other Russians and the Russian government try to ignore.

            Indeed, even the most famous invalids in Russia, those who have won medals in the Para-Olympics, suffer in exactly the same way. They are on waiting lists for invalid-accessible housing and cars, despite all the media hype they are given. Tragically, the same or even a worse fate appears likely to befall those Russians who fought in Ukraine and lost limbs or eyesight.

Putin and the Russian People Both Angry at the West but for Different Reasons, a Divide that is Now becoming 'an Abyss,' Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Russian rulers and those they rule have always felt themselves to be fundamentally separate groups, but now this gap has become “an abyss,” Abbas Gallyamov says, because even the “the only thing uniting Putin and the bulk of the population – resentment towards the West,” means something very different to the two sides.

            The Russian population is offended by the West because it did not see its incomes rise more or less automatically as they expected after they had renounced their imperial status and communist ideology, the Russian commentator says (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/6102 and charter97.org/ru/news/2024/9/25/612073/).

            According to Gallyamov, despite all the media talk about NATO expansion to the east as the reason for their anger, the Russian people in fact “did not care about that.” Indeed, “the entry of the Baltic countries into the Western alliance passed almost completely unnoticed” by most of the groups in the population.

            Putin’s anger at the West is different and even puts him at even greater odds with the population. For him, “it wasn’t the matter of a drop in living standards instead of a ‘promised’ increase.” Instead, he expected that he would be able to continue to rule Russia “in accordance with the formula cujus regio, ejus religio.”

            As a result, he was “deeply offended” when the West having “favorably accepted his gifts including the support of American actions in Afghanistan at the same time began to criticize his domestic political course. From his point of view, this was the real ‘scam’ – ‘Why are you bothering me with your freedom of speech and human rights? … This is my country and here I rule as I see fit.’”

            Putin, of course, “couldn’t present this conflict as justification for confronting the West. After all, you can’t say ‘I’m in conflict with the West because they want to prohibit me from rigging elections.’” He had to come up with “surrogates – first the expansion of NATO and then ‘traditional family values’ allegedly trampled by the West.”

            But those are just substitutes for what Putin really cares about and do not bring him any closer to his own population given that most of what he talks about is “banal homophobia,” and Russians have historically been more tolerant of that than have many in the Western countries they are told are seeking to impose this on them.

Moscow Gives Heads of All Federal Subjects Right to Form Regional Detachments, Unwittingly Creating Participants for a Future Russian Civil War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – The Russian government supports a proposal before the Duma to allow the heads of all federal subjects to create their own regional detachments to deal with extraordinary circumstances, thus expanding a right it had earlier given to regions in and adjoining Ukraine and large corporations.

            The new measure is intended to allow regions to deal with extraordinary circumstances both in the event of military conflict and during peacetime, but it has the potential to give regions and republics the kind of armed forces that could be deployed in the event Russia descends into a civil war.

            The Russian government on September 16 approved amendments to laws governing military units that have been proposed by Andrey Kartapolov, an army lieutenant general who is a member of the ruling United Russia Party and heads the Duma’s defense committee (kommersant.ru/doc/7159852).

            Presumably Moscow intends that these units will be trained and armed by the Russian military so as to ensure central control. But the increasingly independent stance of Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, shows that units created by a regional leader are more likely to be loyal to him rather than to Moscow.

            At present, that may not matter. But if Russia does have a civil war at the end of Putin’s reign or after his exit from the scene, such units could play a major role in such a conflict. Indeed, some in the regions have indirectly discussed that possibility (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/ukrainian-drone-attack-on-tatarstan.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/06/if-regions-want-moscow-to-meet-their.html).

            According to The Barents Observer, veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine may be the first to be recruited; and it notes this is already happening in Murmansk where the right-wing Russian Community is behind the effort(thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2024/09/lawmakers-green-light-governors-establishment-regional-militias and https://vk.com/wall-222118912_1779).

            Some may assume that drawing on veterans of the Ukrainian war will ensure that these groups will be loyal to the center, but the experience of the Prigozhin revolt shows that may not be the case. And the involvement of the Russian-nationalist Russian Community means they could become something like the German Freikorps groups at the end of World War I.

            On this increasingly active and dangerous group and what it is already doing in the North Caucasus already, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/clashes-between-ethnic-diasporas-and.html.

Even Those over 60, Age Cohort Most Supportive of Putin, Now Depressed and Worried, New Poll Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – More than half of all Russians over age 60 and the cohort most supportive of Vladimir Putin are now depressed and worried, according to a study prepared by the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service on the basis of data gathered by Rosstat, the government’s statistical agency.

            Fifty-four percent of the elderly said they were now depressed and worried, although a further study concluded that more were depressed and seriously so than claim to be (kommersant.ru/doc/7179947 and moscowtimes.ru/2024/09/23/rossiyane-starshe-60-let-massovo-pozhalovalis-na-depressiyu-i-trevogu-a142872).

            Women, those over 80, those living alone, those having less education, and those with lower incomes tended to be more depressed than others, according to the researchers. That pattern suggests that much of the depression and worry is driven by these demographic and economic patterns.

            But one observers, Nina Ostanina, the KPRF member who heads the Duma committee that deals with the elderly, suggests that the war in Ukraine also plays a role. She says older Russians are worried about how things are going but predicted that “after victory,” the share feeling that way will decline.

            She could be right, but the figures now being reported suggest as well that there has been a softening in support for Putin and his war among the age group most people assume will always be in the Kremlin leader’s corner and will always support his aggressive policies in Ukraine and elsewhere. 

Moscow’s Plan for 2030 Census Likely to Produce Even Less Accurate Data on Nationalities and Languages than Earlier Enumerations

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – The Russian government is planning to carry out the 2030 census entirely in a digital format, to prefill in census blanks using tax data, and reduce the number of census takers by 60 percent, all moves that will result in even less accurate data on the ethnic composition of and the languages used by the population.

            The Russian government took these actions at a meeting last week, actions that reflect both financial stringency and Moscow’s focus on economic data rather than on ethnic and linguistic data for which the census had been a primary source (government.ru/news/52721/ and rbc.ru/economics/23/09/2024/66ef04409a79473e7331b674).

            Some 25 million Russians used electronic means to fill in their census forms in 2020/2021, and the Russian government has concluded that their success in doing so will allow Moscow to require that all Russians do so in 2030. That will likely result in many people not filing, especially in the poorest cohorts, and require officials to come up with data on their own.

            The government’s decision to cut the number of census takers will only exacerbate that problem, but perhaps the most worrying aspect of this decision are Russian government plans to prefill census forms using data from the Federal Taxation Service, an arrangement that will further depress participation by causing many residents not to answer other questions at all.

            And all these things will inevitably mean that the 2030 census if the Russian government doesn’t change direction before then will provide less data on ethnic composition and language use than any previous census and mean that what data it does release will be less accurate and reliable.

            That will be a disaster for researchers who have relied on Russian censuses for information on these issues because other branches of the Russian government and many regional officials do not collect such data at all. But it will be an even greater disaster for the non-Russians who are being shown just how low their standing has sunk in Putin’s Russia.

Islamist Radicalism Continues to Spread from Eastern North Caucasus into Bi-National Republics in the Middle

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Since 1991, most of the Islamist violence in the North Caucasus has occurred in the three republics in the eastern part of that region, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, while the surviving bi-national republics in the middle and the national republics in the west have remained relatively quiet.

            But since last spring, radicalism has been spreading into the bi-national republics, a development that could trigger a new wave of unrest in the region and lead to more questions about the capacity of the local authorities and Moscow to maintain effective control (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/attacks-on-officials-spreading-from.html).

            Last April, after almost three years of quiescence, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, a republic dominated by the Turkic Karachays but with a significant Circassian (Cherkess) minority, there was a deadly attack on a police outpost there by militants (newizv.ru/news/2024-04-22/v-kchr-neizvestnye-rasstrelyali-treh-politseyskih-vveden-plan-sirena-429518).

            This week, the FSB said that it had forestalled violence in Kabardino-Balkaria, a republic dominated by the Circassian Kabardins but with a significant Turkic minority, the Balkars, by arresting 15 local residents (fsb.ru/fsb/press/message/single.htm%21id%3D10440083%40fsbMessage.html).

            That action has attracted some attention as a sign that Islamism may be again on the rise in the region (themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/23/russias-fsb-detains-15-in-north-caucasus-for-spreading-extremist-ideology-a86432 and sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2024/09/d50458/).

            But the most important aspect of this development has not been stressed enough: Islamism is spreading to the central and western regions of the North Caucasus, areas where the Russian authorities have repressed national movements only to see Islamist protest arise in their stead. 

New Moscow Study Condemns Central Asians for Increasingly Nationalistic and Anti-Russian History Textbooks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 19 – Scholars at the Moscow Institute for Scholarly Information on the Social Sciences have published a new book in which they sharply criticize school textbook writers in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia for their increasingly nationalistic and anti-Russian positions.

            The book, Russia in the School History Textbooks of the Countries of the Middle Est, the Post-Soviet Space and China (in Russian; Moscow: 2024; 155 pp.), the full text of which is available online at inion.ru/site/assets/files/8575/092024_rs_rossiia_v_uchebnikakh_istorii.pdf), has been reviewed by Tatar orientalist Azat Akhunov at business-gazeta.ru/article/648695.

            According to Akhunov, the Russian authors are especially critical of the Central Asian textbook writers because they treat Soviet policy toward their peoples as a continuation of tsarist imperial policy, downplay the enormous differences, and thus promote increasingly nationalistic and anti-Russian views.

            What that means is that the rising generation in the countries of Central Asia is likely to be more anti-Russian than its forefathers, a evolution that will make it ever more difficult for the two sides to work with one another, whatever the leaders of these countries may say about cooperation with Moscow.

 

Ukrainian President Seeks Patriarchal Status for Orthodox Church of Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 20 – President Volodymyr Zelensky says that he has asked representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to raise the status of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine by making its leader a patriarch and thus the church itself a patriarchate equal in dignity to the other patriarchate churches.

            At present, even after being granted autocephaly, the OCU is only a metropolitanate under Constantinople. Zelensky says he made that request at the end of August when representatives of the Universal Patriarchate visited Kyiv (spzh.live/ru/news/82147-zelenskij-prizval-fanar-podnjat-status-ptsu-do-patriarkhata).

            The Ukrainian leader adds that these representatives of Constantinople promised to raise the issue with the Universal Patriarch who is the only figure who could make such a change. Russian commentators are suggesting that Zelensky has gone public with this because he expects rejection and hopes to put pressure on Constantinople (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=118873).          

            Such an elevation would likely make it easier for the OCU to absorb congregations and even bishoprics from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which no longer styles itself “of the Moscow Patriarchate” but which remains the Moscow church there and may be banned as early as next spring.

            The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate will move heaven and earth to prevent such a change in the status of the OCU and this week used a meeting of other Orthodox patriarchates in the hopes of keeping them on its side in the fight with Constantinople over various issues, including likely this one (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=118874).

Russians Paying Ever Less Attention to Ukrainian Military Presence in Kursk, Poll Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 20 – Immediately after Ukrainian forces moved into Kursk Oblast, 39 percent of Russians said they were paying close attention to what was going on there, a reflection of their shock at such a development; but now, a month later, the share of Russians doing so has fallen to only 12 percent, according to surveys by the Public Opinion Foundation.

            These figures, available at media.fom.ru/fom-bd/d372024.pdf, might strike some as evidence that Kremlin propaganda which has sought to down play the importance of Kursk and has not shifted troops from Ukraine to the defense of this Russian oblast; but Abbas Gallyamov says that is not the case (charter97.org/ru/news/2024/9/20/611456/).

            The former Putin speechwriter who now is a Putin critic says that in fact what is going on is this: the Russian people have recognized that Moscow has suffered a defeat in Ukraine and are now looking beyond it. That is hardly good news from the Kremlin, however much Putin may want to see it that way.

            For the population of a country to accept the loss of its territory by the military action of another is exactly the opposite of what its government should want. Ukrainians haven’t accepted the loss of their territories in Crimea and the Donbass, but the Russians seem quite prepared to accept the loss of Kursk Oblast as something entirely normal.

            That points to a fundamental weakness not just in the Russian world Putin likes to talk about but in that of the Russian nation he and most others assume is united and ready to defend itself against all outsiders. And that weakness must haunt a regime that acts as if it can count on national unity no matter what.

No One Knows if the Finno-Ugric Peoples in Russia are Actually Declining in Number, Estonian Ethnographer Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 20 – It is an article of faith among Russian officials and a proposition widely believed by many scholars that the numerically small Finno-Ugric nations now within the  borders of the Russian Federation are on their way to extinction and that each succeeding Russian census shows this.

            But Art Leete, an ethnographer at the University of Tartu, says that Russian censuses are so inaccurate especially with regard to nationality and language that no one can say for certain  how fast or even whether the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia are declining in number (sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c21-teadus/aga-akki-soomeugrilased-ei-haabugi/ in Estonian; summarized in Russian at mariuver.com/2024/09/20/finno-ugry-ne-ischeznut/#more-78617).

            Russian and Western writers have long believed that it is the fate of numerically small peoples to be assimilated into larger ones, a belief that shapes the observations they make and the data they collect and interpret. This may be true in general, but its truth is not confirmed by Russian census data for the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Russian Federation.

            In the Estonian journal Sirp, Leete offers a close analysis of how the 2020/21 Russian census was conducted in regions where the Komi and Nenets nationalities live. Not only did the census takers fail to contact at least a third of the residents there, but they were actively discouraged from doing so and told the numbers would be inserted later.

            Some of the errors introduced reflected simply the difficulties of conducting a census during a covid pandemic, but many more, the ethnographer argues, reflected the prejudices of the regional and central Russian government, prejudices that in general Western researchers failed to challenge or assumed were about the same for ethnic Russians and non-Russians.

            But that was not the case. Regional officials have little interest in gathering ethnic and language data among non-Russians between censuses and thus when census takers don’t talk to residents and officials rely on intercensal data sets, there is a much larger distortion of reality for the non-Russians than for the ethnic Russians.

            Leete urges all those who care about the Finno-Ugric peoples to do a close analysis of the latest Russian numbers. They are not accurate and in some cases they are internally inconsistent, the best possible evidence that census officials came up with numbers that fit their assumptions rather than reported what was actually there to be found.

 

Russian Prosecutors have Already Cancelled Rehabilitation of More than 4,000 People Because They had Cooperated with Nazis During World War II

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 19 – Having examined the cases of 14,000 people who were repressed during Stalin’s time and then rehabilitated in the 1990s and early 2000s, Russian prosecutors over the last two years have cancelled those rehabilitation orders because the individuals involved cooperated with the Nazis during World War II, Andrey Ivanov says.

            The spokesman for the Procurator General’s office said these people had been found to have worked with the SS or served in occupation administrations or worked in groups that Moscow classified as Banderites, Vlasovites, and other anti-Soviet organizations (kommersant.ru/doc/7166201 and istories.media/news/2024/09/19/za-2-goda-prokuratura-otmenila-reabilitatsiyu-bolee-4-tis-zhertv-politicheskikh-repressii/).

            Ivanov told Kommersant that the cancellations have come only after careful and exhaustive examination, but he added that such examinations and cancellations will continue. Indeed, recent Russian government statements suggest they could expand exponentially (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/moscows-plan-to-revisit-rehabilitation.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/as-part-of-its-war-against-ukraine.html).

            If that happens, this Moscow effort will be unlikely to unite Russians as the Kremlin clearly hopes but rather deepen divisions by reopening old wounds and raising new questions about the vast number of Russians and other Soviet citizens who were wrongly repressed during Soviet times.

            That is especially likely because Ivanov did not make clear whether their participation in pro-German anti-Soviet groups was the original reason for their repression or whether they were repressed for other supposed “crimes” and their rehabilitation now is being cancelled because they can be charged with having cooperated with the invader.

Tehran Sees Talk about Zengezur Corridor as Threat Stability in South Caucasus., Kaleji Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 19 – Iran is very worried that loose talk about establishing a “Zengezur corridor” across Armenia’s Syunik Oblast to connect Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhichevan would have negative economic and even military consequences that would threaten the stability of the broader region, Vali Kaleji says.

            The Tehran-based specialist on the Caucasus says Iran favors opening transportation links across that region but only if the sovereignty of the country involved remains untouched and the borders between it and other countries remain where they are (eurasiatoday.ru/chto-bespokoit-i-ne-ustraivaet-iran-v-proekte-sozdaniya-zangezurskogo-koridora/).

            Since Putin’s visit to Baku earlier this month, many Azerbaijani and Turkish commentators have suggested that Yerevan earlier agreed to the opening of a corridor but was now reneging and even that this corridor would involve the transfer of sovereignty from Armenia to Azerbaijan. Baku has denied having such plans, but Tehran is far from certain about that.

            Kaleji says that Tehran has two groups of concerns regarding the reopening or development of a transport corridor through Armenia’s Syunik Oblast. The first is military, he says; and the second is economic. And these concerns are driving Iranian policies regarding the region.

            The Iranian commentator that any corridor arrangement that does not allow Armenia to maintain control over the corridor through its territory will “in fact cast doubt on its territorial integrity and sovereignty.” And that would threaten Iran because it would give Azerbaijan and Turkey an unrestricted ability to move military forces from east to west and west to east.

            And he adds that whatever Baku and Ankara are saying now about passage through Armenian territory, the two would likely move to transform such a military corridor into the basis for taking over Armenia’s Syunik Oblast and thus to create a greater Azerbaijan that would cut Armenia off from Iran and Iran from the rest of the Caucasus.

            At the same time, Kaleji insists that “Tehran will not block the creation of a transportation corridor if it remains under the sovereignty of Armenia and if control of the route will be carried out by Armenians because this is their territory.” But whatever happens, its name “must not be ‘the Zengezur corridor’” because that is an Azeri and a Turkish term.

            He also observes that for Tehran, the proposed Arax corridor through Iranian territory has importance only until Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a peace treaty and agree to transit through Syunik. Once that happens, the Iranian authorities recognize, the importance of any Arax route would be reduced to “zero.”

            Kaleji does not address the implications of this observation, but others in the region will certainly be alive to them. If Iran can count on the Arax corridor only if no peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan is signed, might it not be the case that Tehran will do what it can to torpedo or at leas seriously delay any such agreement?

Russia's Aggression in Ukraine an Imperialist War that Few Russians are Ashamed Of or Will Anytime Soon, Golubyov Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 18 – The share of Russians expressing shame about their country’s invasion of Ukraine has never exceeded eight percent, a clear sign, Aleksey Golubyov says, that this action is an imperialist war and that that is accepted by most Russians and promoted by the Russian state even though both go to great lengths to deny that fact.

            The Russian historian who now teaches at the University of Houston says that he has not been able to find a single instance when the population of an imperial power has felt shame about such actions at the time when they took place and only two – in Australia and Canada -- even such acts of imperialist end (sibreal.org/a/pochemu-bolshinstvu-rossiyan-ne-stydno-za-voynu-v-ukraine-/33123886.html).

            The Kremlin fully understands just how powerful emotions like shame can be and has done what it can to prevent their emergence, Golubyov says, including seeking to control the narrative by controlling both the media and the political space and not declaring war in Ukraine lest doing so lead those who take part to use their arms against the Putin regime.

            Up to now, Putin has been successful but not just because of his own efforts. On the one hand, by turning away from Russia, the West has made his job easier because one can only feel shame relative to someone else and the West is no longer this “other” – and China is certainly not going to replace it as far as Russian culture is concerned.

            And on the other, the Russian opposition is infected with the same “great power chauvinism” as is the population. Both look down on the former imperial possessions, believe that things were better when Russians were in charge, a form of structural racism that is unlikely to disappear until long in the future.

            Golubyov observes that “when the Bolsheviks established themselves in power, they made an effort during the first 10 to 15 years to reexamine imperial history. Then, for the first time, the ruling party recognized that the entire history of the country up to 1917 was a history of colonialism and mass crimes toward the indigenous peoples.”

            But that did not produce shame as a sense of guilt because “when we speak about past crimes, this is guilt not shame. Shame besides everything else presupposes direct contact with what we are ashamed of.” Consequently, even when the war ends and Putin leaves power, it will be a long time before Russians are likely to feel shame about what they are doing in Ukraine.

Russian Businesses Owe More Back Taxes than Ever Before, Rosstat Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 19 – Russian companies and especially those involved in the export of raw materials have seen their profits decline in recent months; and as a result, they are not paying their taxes in a timely fashion. Indeed, according to Rosstat, their tax indebtedness has now set a record.

            During the first half of 2024, business tax indebtedness in Russia increased by 3.3 times to 176.2 billion rubles (1.7 billion US dollars), of which raw material exporters were responsible for three quarters of this amount (rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/osn-07-2024.pdf and moscowtimes.ru/2024/09/19/rossiiskii-biznes-rezko-perestal-platit-nalogi-dolgi-pered-byudzhetom-dostigli-istoricheskogo-rekorda-a142712).

            In part this reflects the impact of sanctions generally – only two percent of Russian managers say sanctions haven’t affected them – but more importantly, it reflects the problems these companies are facing in repatriating profits from the sale of raw materials given increasing restrictions on transfer payments.

            On the one hand, this non-payment is adding to Moscow’s budgetary woes and increasing inflationary pressures; on the other, it may help explain why some in the Kremlin appear to want to renationalize some companies. Were that to happen, the government would be able to pull more money out of these firms than it is at present.

            But what is perhaps most striking about this report is that it suggests the Russian government has avoided the kind of draconian pressure on businesses that it has put on other sectors of Russian society, an indication that the Putin regime doesn’t want to alienate that group regardless of the consequences to its budgetary needs.   

Wanting to Keep Russia in One Piece Not the Same thing as Wanting to Keep Putin in Power, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 18 – There are legitimate reasons for believing that the Russian Federation should come apart but there are also legitimate reasons for believing that it would be better for it to remain in one piece, Vladimir Pastukhov says. But there is one aspect of this debate that is not legitimate.

            And that is this, the London-based Russian analyst says. Far from all those who believe Russia should remain in one piece want Putin to remain in power (t.me/v_pastukhov/1248 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/stremlenie-sohranit-rossiyu-ne-tozhdestvenno-stremleniyu-sohranit-putinskij-rezhim).

            The debate between those who favor disintegration and those who oppose it has reached “the boiling point” and threatens to become a serious headache for Russia’s political class, he continues. It isn’t helped by suggesting that support for the territorial integrity of Russia is all about supporting Putin  

            It is time to lower the temperature, Pastukhov says. The arguments of those favoring disintegration ultimately rest on “the idea that such a vast territory cannot be governed except with the help of a hyper-centralized machine of violence that will sooner or later start a war with its neighbors in the interest of self-preservation.

            “There are, of course, also purely decolonizing motivations, but they are not of a specific nature, and the logic of those favoring independence for the Basque country is unlikely to differ from that of backers of independence for Sakha. Sometimes, however, additional “toys” are hung on this “Christmas tree” in the form of accusations that Russians are innately aggressive.

But, Pastukhov argues, “I would not focus on Russians alone here, because in similar situations the same thing was written about other peoples experiencing a cultural default such as the Germans in the last century. And over time this goes away. That is, the dispute about the influence of the territory on culture, political system and foreign policy is fundamental.”

“Who and under what circumstances will argue on this topic? If they win, Putin or his successors will obviously not “dissolve Russia” themselves. In the event of Russia's defeat in any nuclear war, the subject of dispute will most likely disappear. And if something does remain, the occupation authorities will divide the ruins without asking anyone.”

Pastukhov continues: There “thus remains only the chance that some victorious revolutionary party will independently divide Russia into parts after coming to power. But I have some doubts that a party which openly writes on its banners that its goal is the dismemberment of Russia has a real chance of victory in the coming Russian revolution.”

And that reduces to a theoretical discussion any debate about this issue among Russians, the commentator suggests.