‘Cold Schism’ in Orthodox World Likely to Become ‘Hot’ if Moscow Church Continues to Back Kremlin and Its War at Home and Abroad, Chapnin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – The Moscow Patriarchate’s unqualified support for Putin’s aggression abroad and repression at home has already led to the isolation of the Russian church in world Orthodoxy and the beginning of what may be called “a cold schism” between the ROC MP and Ecumenical Patriarchate and its supporters, Sergey Chapnin says.

            The researcher at Fordham University’s Center for Orthodox Studies says that despite Moscow’ s provocations, both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its supporters in other ancient Orthodox churches have been restrained up to now (okno.group/?p=978&preview=true reposted at sibreal.org/a/rpts-kak-korporatsiya-na-sluzhbe-u-kremlya/32933279.html).

            But Chapnin, a former publications official at the Moscow Patriarchate, says that the situation is deteriorating and that other patriarchates may soon be prepared to attack the Moscow church more directly and turn what has been a “cold” war between them in the past to a “hot” one in the future.

            The potential for such a development is critical because “the ROC MP is not the whole Church” in the Russian Federation, Chapnin continues. “There are also Orthodox communities which are formally part of that Church but ideologically oppose it. They are small, but they persist and everyone hopes that the future lies with them.”

            That is because the ROC MP “in the form in which it has emerged as an ideological institution of a totalitarian state will become of no use to anyone after the regime falls.” Whether it will find the strength to change or simply split and be replaced by others remains to be seen. ROC MP leaders will likely fight to keep things as they are, but they aren’t the only player.

            But it is certainly and unfortunately the case, that “there is no magic wand” and that until the departure of Putin from power “and possibly until the death of Patriarch Kirill, no reforms [in the ROC MP] are possible.” But moves by the Ecumenical Patriarchate could give rise to the emergence of an alternative Orthodox Church in Russia far closer to the Christian tradition.

            (For background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/russian-orthodox-finding-ways-to-break.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/roc-mps-repression-now-means-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/kirills-support-for-putins-war-has.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/orthodoxy-even-more-divided-in-russia.html.)

To Form Dnepr River Flotilla, Moscow Taking Units and Equipment from Caspian Flotilla, Black Sea Fleet and Baltic Fleet

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – To form the Dnepr River Flotilla that will be used against Ukraine, the Kremlin has had to take units and equipment from the Caspian Flotilla, the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet, actions that highlight how hard-pressed the Russian military is and weaken Russia’s presence in those three places.

            On March 20, Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu announced the revival of the Dnepr River Flotilla. That announcement and subsequent reports that the new military grouping would be provided with its own air and marine support have attracted a great deal of media coverage in Russia.

            But what is actually going on may be less than meets the eye because it is now being reported by Vzglyad that the Dnepr Flotilla is at least initially going to consist primarily of ships and men taken from the Caspian Flotilla, the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet rather than raised specifically for it (vz.ru/society/2024/4/28/1265661.html).

Tehran wants to Expand Its Influence in Central Asia and Use Tajikistan to Help It Do So, Tomsk Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Over the last two years, Tehran has sought to increase its influence in Central Asia, convinced that changes in the region and more broadly make that an important goal; and it views Tajikistan, a country with which it shares some but far from all cultural characteristics, as a key player who can help it to do so, Yevgeny Troitsky says.

            According to the senior scholar at the Center for Eurasian Research at Tomsk State University, Tehran has six reasons for expanding its attention to Central Asia and compelling ones to believe that Dushanbe can be an important ally in pursuit of that goal (ia-centr.ru/experts/ia-centr-ru/politika-irana-v-tsentralnoy-azii-v-novykh-usloviyakh/).

            The six reasons behind Iran’s expanded focus on Central Asia are as follows:

·       First, Tehran is worried about the weakening of the position of Russia in that region because of Moscow’s concentration on Ukraine.

·       Second, it is also disturbed by the increasing influence of Turkey on the region especially via Azerbaijan but also in Turkmenistan.

·       Third, it is worried that destabilization in Afghanistan will lead to destabilization in Central Asia more generally and that could lead to clashes on the Iranian border and the flood of refugees into Iran.

·       Fourth, it is concerned about the increasingly pro-Western stance of the Pakistan government.

·       Fifth, Tehran believes that having joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it is now in a better position to reach out to Central Asian countries.

·       And sixth, Tehran has concluded that having normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, it will be able to refocus attention from the south to the north and thus be better able to influence Central Asian countries.

While the Iranian government in the first instance wants to ensure that Central Asian countries do not become allies of Turkey but instead remain neutral and is prepared to expand trade relations with all the countries in the region, it is devoting particular attention to work with Tajikistan, Troitsky says.

The Tomsk scholar points out that “among all the countries of Central Asia, Tajikistan is closer to Iran in a cultural sense,” with a closely related language but with two important differences: Tajiks are primarily Sunni Muslims rather than Shiite, and they were far more secularized by the Soviet authorities than Iran has been for more than a generation.

But despite those limiting factors, Troitsky continues, “over the last several years, the two countries have been developing political, economic and even military-technical cooperation,” including the opening of an Iranian drone factory in Tajikistan and the announcement of plans to agree to a radical expansion in relations over the course of this decade.

Among the steps Tehran and Dushanbe have agreed to already are the renewal of direct flights between the two countries, the formation of a joint investment council, and a dramatic expansion in Iranian investment in Tajikistan, first and foremost in the petroleum sector but also for infrastructure projects like the completion of the Andzob tunnel.

No Real Evidence for Notion that a KGB Conspiracy Brought Putin to Power, Mitrokhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – The idea that some kind of KGB conspiracy was behind Vladimir Putin’s rise to power is almost two decades old and has gained new followers in recent times, Nikolay Mitrokhin says; “but in reality, we have no evidence for the existence of such a conspiracy” – beyond the insistence that the fact that we don’t shows that it does.

            Moreover, the Russian scholar at Bremen University says, those who promote this idea can’s explain why their supposedly grand conspiracy advanced to the presidency “an insignificant representative of one of its regional departments rather than ‘a heavyweight’ like [Yevgeny] Primakov (t.me/NMitrokhinPublicTalk/3392).

            “In fact,” Mitrokhin continues, “Putin at the time of the rapid advancement of his career represented not ‘the clan of the Leningrad KGB’ but first of all and no matter how trite it may seem, Sobchak and his team as well as his own mafia clan, represented by ‘the Ozero cooperative,’ one of the numerous such groups in the Russian political elite of that time.”

            According to the Russian scholar, “were it not for Yeltsin’s naïve belief … that his ‘successor’ should be ‘young,’ then the leader of Russia’s largest and richest clan, the gas clan, Chernomyrdin, would have become president – or the mayor of Moscow and leader of his own clan, the Luzhkov clan, or the real political head of the special services community, Primakov.”

Two Senior Armenian Cartographers Say 1991 Soviet Borders Were Illegitimate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Two Armenian ethnographers say the 1991 administrative borders of the former union republics of the USSR which the successor states and the international community agreed would be the basis for international borders are illegitimate because Moscow drew them without the participation or agreement of the republics involved.

            Their challenge, if it were to be accepted and that is unlikely because the position they take is opposed by both Yerevan and Baku, would make the delimitation of borders in the region far more difficult than it now is and could trigger more conflicts within and between them   (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/399647).

            But their comments are important because Rouben Galichian, a senior Armenian scholar now living in the United Kingdom, and Hranish Kharutian, a former deputy mayor of Yerevan, provide new details on the way in which the Soviet government drew and redrew the borders of the union republics without giving all the republics most immediately involved a say.

            Galichian, who has written numerous books about cartography in the South Caucasus, focuses on the eight villages along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border that are now subject to dispute (jamestown.org/program/armenian-protests-over-return-of-four-villages-to-azerbaijan-threaten-peace-process/).

            He says that Moscow transferred these villages from Armenian to Azerbaijani control between 1936 and 1939 without the involvement of Yerevan and that “Azerbaijan cannot offer a single document about the transfer of these territories to it” as “neither in Armenia nor in Azerbaijan are there any archival documents confirming the transfer.”

            “In those years,” he continues, the USSR General Staff on its military maps marked these territories and designated them as exclaves so as to “put Armenian roads” under the control of the Kremlin rather than for any other purpose.

            Khartyan, for her part, notes that “border issues which were discovered during the period of the Trans-Caucasian Federation up to 1936, according to archival materials of stenographic records of meetings, featured arguments that nomadic herdsmen needed a legal basis for crossing administrative borders.”

            “When nomads drove cattle to pastures in Armenian villages, conflicts arose,” she says. “The issue seemed to be an economic one, but the conflict over land and pasture issues turned into an interethnic one. Enclaves were created so that nomads had the opportunity to move to territories belonging to other republics. This was Soviet policy."

            Kharatyan has a copy of one such decision dated February 18, 1929. At that time, the Trans-Caucasus Federation executive committee voted for changing borders at Armenia’s expense, something it was able to do only by taking a decision when the Armenian representative was no longer present.

            At the present time, the Yerevan ethnographer says, the relevant documents aren’t in Yerevan or Baku or Moscow but only in Georgia. Unfortunately, however, Georgian officials now are denying Armenian scholars like herself access to these materials, something that further complicates the situation and a precise compilation of the historical record.

            (For a broader discussion of just how frequently Moscow changed union republic borders in Soviet times, see my article, “Can Republic Borders be Changed?” RFE/RL Report on the USSR, September 28, 1990, pp. 20-21, at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/borders-in-post-soviet-space-were.html.)

Moscow Now Set to Selectively Enlarge Municipalities, Experts Predict

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Specialists on urban and regional policy tell Stavropol’s Center for the Support of Social and Civic Initiatives that after Putin’s inauguration, Moscow will selectively support the enlargement of municipalities to help governors boost their control over major cities and to improve economic figures if not reality by combining poorer areas with wealthier ones.

            According to journalist Anton Chablin, the experts in what was an anonymous poll say that the first cities to be subject to this policy change will be in the Yamalo-Nenets AD and in Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Pskov and Novosibirsk oblasts. Others will be spared lest any change undermine rather than strengthen governors (akcent.site/eksklyuziv/31315).

            Proposals to expand urban centers administratively has been controversial for the last decade, with Putin rejecting it in 2017 apparently because he did not come up with the idea himself (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/04/putin-rejects-agglomerations-as-focus.html). But talk about such amalgamation continues, and some Moscow officials still back it (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/04/deputy-prime-minister-wants-to-replace.html).

            It is unclear whether the Stavropol survey marks a resolution of this debate or whether it is simply part of that debate and that the fate of settlements near large cities and possibly of republics as well remains open (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/08/agglomerations-not-step-toward-regional.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/agglomerations-not-rest-of-russia-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/06/moscow-counting-on-growth-of-urban.html).

Dugin Not ‘Conservative Russian Traditionalist’ He and Others Insist He Is, Pushchayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Aleksandr Dugin is not the Russian traditionalist many believe but someone who denies there is a Russian philosophical tradition worth saving and approaches the task of creating one by importing from the West not Marxism as Trotsky did but the ideas of Martin Heidegger and European right of the 1920s and 1930s, Yury Pushchayev says.

            The Moscow State University instructor in philosophy says that “many talk about Aleksandr Dugin but few read him and thus mistakenly accept the way journalists and commentators characterize him as accurate (politconservatism.ru/articles/yavlyaetsya-li-dugin-russkim-traditsionalistom).

            If one does read Dugin’s books, Pushchayev says, one sees that the sources of his ideas are to be found in “the European conservative revolution” of a century ago and that they have “practically no relationship to Russian history.” Indeed, he continues, many of these ideas are in open conflict with that history.

            Not only that but Dugin himself is openly hostile to most Russian philosophers, arguing that there is as yet no such thing as “Russian philosophy” and that after what people call that is “swept away as trash,” it is up to him and his young acolytes to finally form one based on these imports and to do so in a revolutionary rather than evolutionary way.

            In his article, Pushchayev cites numerous examples of Dugin’s reliance on the European right and his open contempt for Russian philosophers and ideologues including the Eurasianists with whom he is incorrectly associated. And he stresses that Dugin’s nihilism with regard to Russian ideas and especially the traditional Russian focus on justice will be his downfall.

Moscow’s ‘Chaotic’ Response to Migration Crisis Fragmenting Russian Political System, Rodin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Moscow has been “pursuing a chaotic migration policy,” seeking on the one hand to reassure Russians that it will take a harder line on regulating immigration and on the other to reassure businesses that it will continue to allow enough migrants to come into the country to overcome demographic decline, Ivan Rodin says.

            But the result of this approach, the political editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta says, is a fragmentation of the political system, with regions increasingly going their own way and even the systemic parties taking different positions, a development with real risks for both foreign and domestic policies (ng.ru/politics/2024-05-03/100_03052024_migrants.html).

            More than 30 of the country’s federal subjects have adopted restrictions of various kinds on immigration, and pressure to do so is such, Rodin says, that the number will soon be greater than half of Russia’s more than 80 republics, krays and oblasts. And the systemic parties, not to speak of nationalists, are also splitting on this issue.

            Domestically, that means that the Kremlin is less in control of the situation than it would like; and various components of the system are feeling increasingly empowered to go their own way, developments that call into question Putin’s much-ballyhooed “power vertical” and that could spread to other issues as well.

            And in terms of foreign policy, what Moscow’s various political centers do with regard to immigration from various Central Asian countries is already having an impact on governments there, with many of them ready to protest vigorously about what Russia is doing and likely to conclude that they can no longer count on Moscow to maintain the order of the past.

            If Moscow further mistreats migrants and leads ever more of them to return home, that could certainly destabilize some of the countries in Central Asia. But that will have not only foreign policy consequences for Russia but domestic ones as well as some regions try to work out their own deals and others suffer the consequences of intensified worker shortages.

Putin Homogenizing Even Hymns of Russia’s Federal Subjects, ‘NeMoskva’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Vladimir Putin is homogenizing Russia in large ways and small, including imposing ever tighter controls on the content and messages contained in hymns prepared or at least approved by the governments of Russia’s more than 80 federal subjects, according to NeMoskva.

            The portal, which focuses on developments beyond the ring road, collected and analyzed official hymns written and adopted over the last 30 years and reports that there have been major changes in the style and content of such songs particularly in the course of Vladimir Putin’s rule (nemoskva.net/gimny/page46706469.html).

            Few of the regional and republic hymns approved in the 1990s made any reference to the unity of the region with the Russian Federation as a whole, NeMoskva says; but in the texts of those approved after 2000 when Putin came to power, “almost all of them” include such references.

            “Among the 17 hymns written or approved in the 1990s, specify that a region was certainly united with Russia apparently wasn’t necessary,” the portal says. Only three republics specified that at the time – Adygeya, Kabardino-Balkaria and Mordvinia -- but all the others spoke only about the region or republic.

            However, in the first decade of Putin’s reign, the share making such references rose to 79 percent; and in the second decade, it rose still higher to 84 percent, NeMoskva reports. And that trend has continued: three of the four hymns approved since 2020 specify that the region or republic is “part of a great land;” and the fourth may follow once it is finally approved.

Moscow Declares Committee of Ingush Independence ‘Undesirable Organization’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – The Russian justice ministry has declared the Committee of Ingush Independence “an undesirable organization,” an action that reflects Moscow’s concerns about the radicalization of opinion in that North Caucasus republic and one that likely presages a new wave of repression there.

            The decision, posted on the ministry’s website (minjust.gov.ru/ru/documents/7756/), comes one month after the procuracy called for that move and four months are the justice ministry had included the Committee on its rapidly growing list of “foreign agents” (t.me/fortangaorg/17151).

            Under Russian law, groups classified as “undesirable” are not permitted to work in Russia and any participation in their activities – including reposts of such groups’ statement -- by residents of the Russian Federation is subject to administrative and even criminal penalties (mmdc.ru/blog/2022/07/21/chto-takoe-nezhelatelnye-organizaczii-i-pochemu-nelzya-rasprostranyat-ih-materialy/ and fortanga.org/2024/05/komitet-ingushskoj-nezavisimosti-priznan-nezhelatelnoj-organizacziej/).

            For background on the Committee which is unique in that it does not seek to promote Ingush independence but rather wants to be prepared should independence happen, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/03/creation-of-ingushetia-independence.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/09/committee-for-ingushetia-independence.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/ingushetia-independence-movement.html.

Decolonization won’t Happen Unless Non-Russian Republics View Russian Oblasts and Krays as Fellow Victims of Moscow and thus Allies in This Cause, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – One of the disturbing trends in the national movements of the non-Russian republics is a readiness to blame Russia and Russians for not only the war in Ukraine but the mistreatment of non-Russians more generally, Vadim Shepa, the editor of the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region. Expert says.

            Such attitudes represent both a failure to understand that, just like the non-Russian republics, the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays are also victims of Moscow’s imperialism and that without an alliance between the two the decolonization of Russia (svoboda.org/a/solj-i-peresol-vadim-shtepa-o-vozmozhnostyah-dekolonizatsii/32927221.html).

            It is of course true that “the Kremlin’s striving for total unification and ‘verticalization’ of Russia is especially painfully felt in the national republics,” Shtepa says; but there are some ways in which the oblasts and krays are treated worse: their local specifics are ignored and Moscow far more often imposes officials on them with no links to them.

            And it is also certainly the case that the non-Russian movements can be called “’the salt’ of the decolonization process;” but when these movements concentrated exclusively on ethnic demands, they represent ‘an oversalting’ which ignores political realities,” including demographic realities and the victimhood they share with the other federal subjects.

            Not only do the non-Russians form a far smaller share of the population of the Russian Federation than they did at the end of Soviet times and still retain significant ethnic Russian populations within their own borders, but they fail to recognize the diversity among Russians who are a single unit only in the imagination of the Kremlin.

            In so doing, the national movements today are making two mistakes that the non-Russians in the union republics did not make in the lead up to the 1991 collapse of the USSR. On the one hand, they are failing to reach out to Russians on the basis of a shared interest in opposing their joint enemy in Moscow.

            And on the other, they are not recognizing that Russians are extremely diverse – a sharp contrast with the actions of Lithuania’s Sajudis which supported regionalists in Russia and even went so far as to publish newspapers for Siberians when the latter could not do so in their own homeland (region.expert/siberia-perestroika/).

            The inclusive approach of Sajudis was echoed by both the national movements in the union republics and in the autonomous republics of the RSFSR; and that, Shtepa points out, was a major reason why tens of thousands of people in cities in the Russian republic supported Sajudis and the Baltic independence movements when Moscow moved against them.

            If the present-day national movements do not change course and do not seek allies within what many view as a unified Russian nation and common enemy, the regionalist says, there is little chance that people in Russian regions will support them or that the non-Russians will gain the independence that they seek.

 

Lukashenka Intensifying Repression against Belarusians at Home and Abroad, Korshunov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 1 – Since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been intensifying his repression of Belarusians at home and of Belarusians in the diaspora and will likely continue to do so at least through the presidential elections there in 2025, Gennady Korshunov says.

            The former head of the Minsk Institute of Sociology who now lives in exile in Lithuania where he prepares the Barometer of Repression in Belarus says that the situation in his country is getting worse with each passing month (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20240501-социолог-репрессии-в-беларуси-будут-только-нарастать-впереди-президентские-выборы-2025-года).

            And Korshunov acknowledges that his own hopes at the beginning of this year that Lukashenka’s repressions had reached a plateau and would not get any worse have thus been cruelly dashed, with the Belarusian regime rapidly moving from a harsh authoritarianism to a kind of totalitarianism.

            “In addition to the continuing militarization of the regime,” he says, Lukashenka has moved to liquidate the remaining structures of civil society, closing down 92 NGOs during the first three months of 2024, 35 percent more than he closed during the corresponding period a year earlier.

            The Belarusian dictator is rapidly increasing the number of video cameras with facial recognition technology in public places – there are now more than 35,000 of these -- in order to be able to monitor and then arrest anyone who takes part in any action not approved by the powers that be.

            And Lukashenka is now devoting “particular attention to Belarusians who live beyond the borders of the country” given that his regime views the diaspora as “its enemy.” Minsk officials are especially focuses on cutting off links between the diaspora and the Belarusian population at home lest the former inspire the latter to resist and protest.

‘Two Worlds’ – Cities in Russia and Kazakhstan Face Common Flooding but Respond in Completely Different Ways

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 30 – Flooding has hit with equal force cities on both sides of the Russian-Kazakhstan border, but the responses of the populations to the disaster in Russia’s Kurgan and Kazakhstan’s Petropavlovsk have been entirely different, with the former waiting to be told what to do by officials and the latter acting on its own to combat the disaster.

            Nikita Telizhenko, a Novaya Gazeta journalist who visited both cities, says this division reflects the very different social systems in the two countries, noting that it follows that division rather than any ethnic one given that ethnic Russians in Petropavlovsk behave like Kazakhs there (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/3686-стихия-одна,-а-люди-—-разные).

            He provides details on these differences and concludes that they are among the best evidence that there are now “two worlds” divided by the political border, worlds that respond differently even to tragedies that touch both countries. And even more important, the response in Kazakhstan is proving far more effective than that in the Russian Federation.

New Attacks on Police in North Caucasus Less about ISIS and More about Protests Against the Kremlin, Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 30 – Many have rushed to follow Moscow’s line and blame the recent attacks on police in the North Caucasus republics on a growth of the influence of Islamist radicalism and especially ISIS there. But two analysts say that in fact such attacks are a protest against Moscow and its policies.

            Marat Ilyasov, a North Caucasian specialist now in the US, says that he is convinced that these attacks are in no way connected with the Islamic State. Instead, these attacks are the result of problems in the North Caucasus and Moscow’s failure to address them adequately (kavkazr.com/a/nazad-v-1990-e-ocherednoe-vooruzhennoe-napadenie-na-politseyskih-na-severnom-kavkaze-/32929271.html).

            He argues that “radically inclined young people there view the administration, the law enforcement organs, the official imams and leaders of public opinion as representatives of the imperial power in the North Caucasus.” As a result, “precisely these structures will be the target of those unhappy with Moscow’s policies.”

            “For example,” Ilyasov continues, “young people see that their fathers and older brothers have been forcibly send to war in Ukraine … and killed. The Kremlin is guilty of doing this, but in the localities, it is represented in the form of the police and officials.” And so these are targets for attack.

            But this does not mean that the situation in the North Caucasus is returning to what it was in the 1990s when North Caucasians frequently sought independence. That happened because of the shock of the collapse of the USSR, but at least so far, the war in Ukraine is not likely to bring to the fore similar processes.”

            A human rights activist who works in the North Caucasus and who spoke with Kavkazr on condition of anonymity agrees but argues that the longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the more frequent such attacks on police and other officials by young people in the North Caucasus will become.

            “Two years of war in Ukraine and the general worsening of the socio-economic situation have intensified radical attitudes among young people,” he says. “In the mentality of Caucasian peoples, dignity is key.” That dignity has been insulted by Moscow, and young people see no other way of responding than to attack the symbols of the regime.

            Putin likes to claim that he has restored peace in the North Caucasus, the human rights activist says; but these attacks show that isn’t the case. And as a result, “the republics there can expect a new wave of turbulence that the powers that be there are unlikely to be capable of dealing with.”

Putin Restoring Yet Another Feature of Soviet Past: The Promotion of Showy Giant Projects over Smaller Ones that could Help More Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 30 – That Putin is restoring many of the features of the Soviet past is a commonplace given his increasingly repressive rule. But he is also reviving a feature of the Soviet past that Mikhail Gorbachev committed himself even before coming to power to ending: a clear preference of giant projects as opposed to those which might help more Russians.

            He has promoted giant railway, pipeline and shipping projects, the amalgamation of regions, and other enormous projects while cutting back on spending for repairs and modernization of existing facilities and for things like maintaining the capacity of the state to fight fires and floods and provide healthcare and education.

            The latest example of this is a discussion as to whether Moscow will improve access to Sakhalin by ship, a tunnel or a bridge, any of which would be enormously expensive and not benefit many people except perhaps psychologically (versia.ru/letom-yetogo-goda-dolzhno-byt-prinyato-okonchatelnoe-reshenie-o-variante-transportnogo-soobshheniya-s-saxalinom).

            Such a project will of course allow Putin to divert government money to his cronies and perhaps make Russians as a whole feel that their country is capable of great things. But any successes on those grounds will be undercut by growing  anger over the increasingly obvious fact that the Kremlin isn’t meeting more immediate needs and apparently doesn’t care.

Moscow Expanding Contacts Between Russian Regions and Belarusian Ones, Raising Specter of a Donbass Scenario

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 30 – Moscow has stepped up its effort to expand contacts between regions in the Russian Federation and regions in Belarus, in support of closer integration of the two countries in their union state (rubaltic.ru/article/ekonomika-i-biznes/20240427-sotrudnichestvo-rossiyskikh-i-belorusskikh-regionov-obretaet-strategicheskiy-kharakter/).

            Using border regions to promote larger policy goals has been a long-standing Russian and before that Soviet strategy (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/09/russian-governors-playing-increasing.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/12/cross-border-trade-means-for-russia-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/moscow-expanding-its-influence-in.html).

            But the situation with regard to such regional cooperation in the Russian-Belarusian case now inevitably raises questions about Moscow’s intentions -- especially in the wake of Putin’s war in Ukraine, one that the Kremlin invoked as a casus belli earlier transfers of what it claims as Russian territories, including Crimea and the Donbass, to Ukraine.

            That is all the more so because as one Moscow writer has pointed out, “the most significant land gift from the RSRSR under Stalin” to another republic did not involve transfer of control from Russia to Ukraine but from Russia to Belarus (russian7.ru/post/kakie-territorii-stalin-prisoedinil/).

            Between 1924 and 1926, the Soviet government transferred from the RSFSR to Belarus, almost all of Vitebsk, Mogilyev and Gomel oblasts, moves that increased the size of the Belarusian SSR by three times (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/07/stalin-frequently-modified-russias.html).

            The Kremlin is still pursuing the unity of all of Belarus with the Russian Federation; but by increasing contacts between Russian border regions and the eastern third of its western neighbor, it is clearly sending a message to Minsk that Moscow could pursue a Donbass-like strategy against Belarus if Minsk doesn’t agree to integration on Russian terms.

            Indeed, it is at least possible that Putin might make Belarus its next target if there is any sign of rapprochement between Minsk and the West. 

Fewer than Nine Percent of Pupils in Mari El Now Studying in National Language

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 30 – Putin has sought to Russianize and thereby Russify the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Russian Federation with greater force than he has directed toward speakers of any other language community (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/12/moscow-splitting-finno-ugric-languages.html).

            And among the Finno-Ugric nations which still have their own national republics, none of the peoples in this category has been subject to greater pressure than the Mari of the Middle Volga (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-murder-of-language-and-nation.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/06/mari-el-now-national-republic-in-name.html).

            Just how far the Kremlin has gone is highlighted in a new report by government officials there which shows that only 8.6 percent of pupils in Mari El schools are now studying in Mari even though about 50 percent of republic residents speak Mari (kidsher.ru/ru/society/48164/ and mariuver.com/2024/04/29/menee-10-izuchajut-mari/#more-76847).

            That percentage is down from 16 percent last year and suggests that as the older generation dies out, the share of Mari El residents who speak their national language will fall precipitously and that, without that support of a national language, an increasing share of the republic’s population will reidentify as ethnic Russians.

            That will not only help Putin conceal the demographic decline of the ethnic Russians by adding people from other nations who have reidentified to their number but also and far sooner likely to be invoked by him to do away with non-Russian republics in a renewed amalgamation program (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/moscow-may-restart-regional.html).

‘Criticism of the Russian Government has Fallen but Desire for a Renewed One Exists,’ Fedorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – A new trend in public opinion is making it ever more difficult to understand what is going on in Russia, Valery Fedorov, the head of the VTsIOM polling agency says. “Criticism of the existing elite has declined [since the war in Ukraine began] but the demand for a new one, of course exists.

            On the one hand, the sociologist suggests, the decline in criticism of the existing elite and its policies certainly indicates that that the government has more support than it did; but on the other, the desire for replacing it with a new one shows that many Russians are at a certain level unhappy with Moscow’s current course (business-gazeta.ru/article/631552).

            Fedorov is talking specifically about the government headed by the prime minister rather than the regime headed by Vladimir Putin, but his observations about the first are likely suggestive of what is true about popular assessments of the Kremlin leader and his entourage as well.

            Because of the conflict in Ukraine, Fedorov says, there has been a rallying around the government, “but of course there is a demand for a new elite. Russian society wants to see in it more young, promising and modern people.” At the same time, however, “these people must be our people, real patriots who will stand up for Russia to the last and not betray it.”

            The new elite is likely to come from those who fought in Ukraine, but not all who have fought there will succeed because the skills needed to fight and those needed to modernize a society are different, the VTsIOM head says. Some will succeed but others won’t, and the selection process will be tough.

            According to Fedotov, this process will take place within the elite because ordinary Russians “have simple desires: a family, a decent income, children … We don’t have many careerists. If there were a lot of careerists, that could create serious problems for the country because it would lead to “an overproduction” of people who want to enter the elite.

            “That is what was the case in the 1980s,” he continues, “and it all ended badly, with the collapse of the USSR.”

 

Circassian Flag Day Highlights a National Unity Russians have Never Been Able to Break

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 26 – The Russian state has repeatedly tried to destroy the Circassian nation, first by expelling from the Russian Empire 90 percent of the Circassians in 1864, then by splitting up the Circassians on the basis of subethnic groups, and most recently by promoting divisions among Circassian groups not only in the homeland but in the diaspora as well.

            But despite those efforts, Russia has not been able to destroy the national unity of the Circassians, something highlighted at the end of April every year by the celebration of the Day of the Circassian Flag, a banner that as Circassian historian Adel Bashqawi notes emphasize what unites Circassians not what divides them (justicefornorthcaucasus.info/?p=1251684904).

            The Circassian flag, he points out, features “twelve golden stars and three golden crossed arrows. Each of the twelve stars represents a major [and equal] Circassian tribe … and the crossed arrows symbolize that the Circassians do not seek war but will defend themselves and their existence when they are exposed to aggression.”

            This year, as in every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Circassians in Adygeya, Kuban, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, and Sochi joined their co-nationals in the diaspora to celebrate this symbol of national unity, again despite efforts by the Russian government to block these events.

            In the North Caucasus, Moscow and its representatives restricted how Circassians could celebrate this day; and in the diaspora, which numbers more than five million people across the world, Moscow’s agents sought to set various groups against each other to limit this celebration (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/399429 and https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/399473).

            But Moscow failed; and its failure to do so highlights not only the weakening of Russian power and influence but also both the growing strength and increasing radicalism of Circassians who are increasingly convinced that the Russian empire by invading Ukraine is committing suicide and that the Circassians and other peoples will only benefit from its demise.

            One of the clearest articulators of that view and why it is spreading is Ibragim Yaganov, who has been a Circassian activist for more than 15 years, has been in the emigration for two years, and now heads Free Circassia and calls on residents of the Muscovite state to fight on the side of Ukraine against the Russian invaders.

            In an interview he gave to Izabella Yevloyeva of the Kavkazr portal timed to coincide with the Day of the Circassian Flag, Yaganov says that “practically all” young Circassians now favor independence (kavkazr.com/a/vosstanovitj-istoricheskuyu-spravedlivostj-cherkesskiy-aktivist-o-borjbe-za-prava-naroda/32914701.html).

            There are some who don’t, of course, he continues; but they mostly work for the government or are “former Soviet people.” And even they now “understand that the idea [of a Russian world and a Russian empire] has outlived its usefulness” and that the future belongs to others.

            “It is quite possible,” Yaganov continues, “that our freedom may fall at our feet.” But if that happens, Circassians and others must be ready to defend it. “Otherwise, someone will come [in Russia] and suppress it; and everything will start all over again.” Only independent statehood will give Circassians and the other nations a chance.

            Yaganov, long an advocate of the federalization of Russia, now believes that only independence followed by the arrangement of confederal relations among some of the successor states can prevent a recrudescence of a Russian empire. “Dreaming of federalization within a rotting empire is futile,” he says.

            One reason he says he is optimistic about the future is the vitality of the Circassian diaspora. It has existed for almost 200 years without losing its language, ethnicity, and sense of mission, a sharp contrast to the first Russian emigration which disappeared through assimilation in less than a century.

            But another Yaganov suggests, is that the Circassians share with the other peoples of the North Caucasus a commitment to adat law; and once the Russian “big brother” is removed from the scene and with him all of Russia’s “divide and rule” tactics, all these nations will be able to resolve any differences peacefully and with justice.

Islam Far More Important for Russia’s Muslims than Christianity is for Russia’s Orthodox, Levada Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – Only 21 percent of Russians who identify as Orthodox Christians say that their religion plays a very important role in their lives and only 38 percent say that it plays quite an important one, for a total of 59 percent, much lower figures than among Russians who identify as Muslims report, according to a new Levada Center poll.

            Among self-identified Muslims, the sociological service says, 44 percent say their faith plays a very important role in their lives and 39 percent more say that it plays quite an important one, for a total of 83 percent (levada.ru/2024/04/27/prazdnovanie-pashi-i-religioznye-predpochteniya-rossiyan/).

            This is yet another indication that Orthodoxy is less strong in Russia than the Kremlin and the Patriarchate like to believe and that Islam is far stronger among its followers in the Russian Federation than many at the center and elsewhere have often thought, a difference that undoubtedly worries the Kremlin and is likely to play a key role in Russia’s future.

With New Naval and Air Exercises, Azerbaijan Highlights Its Growing Power on the Caspian – and Russia’s DeclineThere and across the Region

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – Azerbaijan has announced a series of combined naval and air exercises on the Caspian, yet another development that highlights Baku’s growing power there, the decline in Moscow’s dominance over what many had viewed as a Russian lake, and new possibilities for the expansion of Turkish and Iranian influence there.

            Baku’s moves (casp-geo.ru/azerbajdzhanskaya-respublika-provela-seriyu-voennyh-uchenij-na-kaspii/ and mod.gov.az/ru/news/vms-i-mchs-provodyat-sovmestnye-takticheskie-ucheniya-volna-2024-51508.html) follow similar actions by Kazakhstan (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/kazakhstan-conducts-major-naval.html) and Iran (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/iran-launches-new-flagship-for-its.html).

            These actions highlight the declining role of Russia in the Caspian (jamestown.org/program/russias-caspian-flotilla-no-longer-only-force-that-matters-there/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/russia-not-keeping-up-with-naval-build.html) and open the way for Turkey to play an expanded role there (jamestown.org/program/turkey-planning-to-become-dominant-naval-player-in-the-caspian/).

            And that in turn, in the minds of some Moscow commentators, will only accelerate Russia’s loss of influence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia even as the Kremlin tries to recover it via its war in Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/while-kremlin-focuses-ukraine-rest-of.html).

 

Behavior of Russian Occupiers in Ukraine Recalls ‘Dark Times of Stalin Repressions,’ Nevzlin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – Putin’s war in Ukraine has become not only the occasion for increasing repression there and in Russia itself but also a model for that repression, with the behavior of Russian officials in occupied portions of Ukraine increasingly the model for what the Putin regime is doing at home.

            Indeed, just as Putin’s war against Chechnya at the start of his reign became the occasion and model for his behavior in Russia as a whole, a development that grew into the Chechenization of Russia, so too his war against Ukraine is having a similar effect with the tactics his minions use there bleeding back into the Russian Federation.

            That conclusion is suggested by Russian commentator Leonid Nevzlin in his discussion (t.me/leonidnevzlin/2031of the new OSCE mission on the treatment of Ukrainians by the Russian occupiers (osce.usmission.gov/joint-statement-on-the-report-of-the-moscow-mechanism-to-address-the-arbitrary-detention-of-ukrainian-civilians-by-the-russian-federation/).

            To the extent that is true, those Russian officials are involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity; and the future of Russia under Putin is bleak because, as Nevzlin puts it, “the actions of the occupiers recall the dark times of Stalinist repressions” in the Soviet Union and thus presage an equally dark future as long as Putin and his minions remain in power.

‘Kazakh Russian-Speaking Poles from Ukraine’ Struggle with Multiple Identities in Present-Day Kazakhstan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – The more than 30,000 ethnic Poles now living in Kazakhstan are the descendants of two waves of Soviet deportations of Poles from the Ukrainian and Belarusian union republics of the USSR in the 1930s, an ethnically diverse borderland that Moscow absorbed after the Soviet-Polish war of 1920.

            When the first wave of Poles was deported at Stalin’s order on April 28, 1936, they became the first nation the Soviets deported as a whole and thus the first of the punished peoples. But because of the complexities of the region from which they came and the subsequent deportation of Poles from Poland after 1940, they have received less attention in the West.

            That is remedied in part by journalist Ramil Niyazov-Aldyldzhyan has published on the SibReal portal, an article that explains why many in this group describe themselves as “Kazakh Russian-speaking Poles from Ukraine” (sibreal.org/a/kazahskie-russkogovoryaschie-polyaki-iz-ukrainy-zhizn-posle-deportatsii-/32923041.html).

            She cites the work of Anastasiya Maskevich, a descendant of the first Poles to be deported to Kazakhstan and author of a book and an English-language master’s thesis about them (litres.ru/book/anastasiya-maskevich/anastasiya-36624545/chitat-onlayn/ and nur.nu.edu.kz/bitstream/handle/123456789/6247/Thesis%20%E2%80%93%20full%20draft%20(Maskevich).docx.pdf).

            Maskevich points out that while the Poles deported from Poland were able to return home after the end of World War II, the Poles deported in 1937 were not freed from the status of special settlers until 1956 and were restricted from returning home until the very end of Soviet times and the beginning of the post-Soviet period.

            Because they have remained in Kazakhstan so long and because of problems in Belarus and Ukraine, the Poles from this wave now see themselves as part of Kazakh life and define themselves in many cases as “Kazakh Russian-Speaking Poles from Ukraine,” Maskevich and other experts on this group say both because and despite help from Warsaw and Astana.

            The SibReal journalist also interviews Yury Serebryansky, the editor of the journal of the Polish diaspora in Kazakhstan and the author of a novel about the lives of the first wave of Poles to be deported to Kazakhstan, Altynshash, which has won many prizes and details the struggle for survival and identity of the Poles of Kazakhstan.

            “For me,” Serebryansky says, “the Soviet Union finally ended on February 24, 2022 with the beginning of hostilities against Ukraine.” That action burst the bubble that had arisen in Soviet times for many including himself; but tragically, “there was an is a generation for whom the USSR never ended.”

            Such people, he continues, have “their heads somewhere other than in sovereign Kazakhstan.” And almost all questions about what it means to be a Kazakhstani arise from that. “Russian is a colonial legacy and sore point, but,” he says, “the future of the country belongs to bilinguals at a minimum who know Kazakh and Russian and ideally also English.

While Kremlin Focuses Ukraine, Rest of Post-Soviet Space ‘Disappearing Before Our Eyes,’ Influential Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 27 – The Putin regime’s obsessive focus on Ukraine is not only isolating Russia from the West but it is reducing Moscow’s influence across the former Soviet space, the SytoSokrat telegram channel says. Indeed, it can be said that Moscow’s expanded invasion of Ukraine has “destroyed what was left of Russian influence in the near abroad.

            The influential channel which is directed at Russia’s security elite says that “immediately, in several places, the Russian positions have gone to hell,” a conclusion justified by the fact in that in place after place, Moscow has been forced to pull back or even worse forced to pull back (t.me/sytosokrata/892 reposted at charter97.org/ru/news/2024/4/29/593337/).

            The situation in the Caucasus is especially bad and especially instructive, the telegram channel continues. Moscow is “shamefully” pulling back there. “For the sake of implementing an ephemeral geopolitical project of a southern corridor to Iran, Moscow has treacherously abandoned Armenia.”

            “The GRU and the FSB tried to overthrow the Pashinyan government by trying to implement a pro-Kremlin color revolution,” SytoSokrat says; but for their troubles, they got “hit in the teeth. As a result, the Armenian government not wanting to deal with Putin’s cum began to redirect its foreign policy toward the West.”

            And despite Kremlin hopes, “the Azerbaijanis did not become allies for the Russians. They see their future in the Turkic world and welcome with stormy applause the withdrawal of the Russian contingent from Karabakh.” Baku shares with Turkey a vision of a Turkish world, which represents “a colossal threat to the territorial integrity of Russia” with its Turkic units.

            Moscow also made the situation for itself worse in Georgia. There, “the Russian special services at the direction of Patrushev are pushing through a foreign agents law” and thereby generating “a powerful anti-Moscow popular movement” that won’t let Tbilisi engage in any rapprochement with the Russian Federation.

            Meanwhile, “Putin’s special services have become more active in the direction of Moldova” but with no more promise of success and an increasing likelihood of failure. Moscow orchestrated a meeting of Moldovan opposition figures and stimulated Gagauz succession, all of which are likely to do nothing more than push Chisinau into the hands of the West.

In Declaring Non-Existent Anti-Russian Separatist Movement ‘Extremist,’ Kremlin Opens the Door to Broad Range of Repression, Legal Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 27 – Moscow’s plans to declare the Anti-Russian Separatist Movement, a body that doesn’t exist, is consistent with its general approach of making its charges more absurd and its sentences for those convicted harsher (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/russian-justice-ministry-calls-for.html and novayagazeta.ru/articles/2024/04/27/shtraf-detsadu-sud-nad-bibliotekarem-i-seksualnyi-terrorist-i-arest-vracha).

            But that does not mean that this latest action will collapse of its own weight at least any time soon or that it won’t open the way to a new wave of repressive actions against a variety of people who discuss regional and ethnic issues, Russian legal specialists warn (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/04/26/spektr-repressii-mozhet-byt-ochen-shirokii).

            Russian lawyer Anastasiya Burakova says that at a minimum, the authorities are likely to use this finding against anyone who calls the territories in Ukraine now under the control of Russian forces “occupied” because from Moscow’s point of view that represents a direct challenge to the Kremlin’s definition of Russia’s borders.

            But in addition, she says, there is the danger that the Russian government will bring charges against any discussion of ethnic and federal affairs by national groups within the Russian Federation regardless of whether these discussions call for separatism or are in fact formally organized into groups.

            “Any discussions about nationalities living on the territory of Russia and about their histories which the powers don’t like may be counted as ‘extremist,’” she says; “and the authors of such expressions may now fall under the pressure” of charges of extremism and punishment for that.

            Burdakova continues: “I have no doubt that the justice ministry suit will be satisfied and the specter of repression may be very broad” especially given the precedent provided by declaring LGBTs members by definition in an international anti-Russian body and that the number of people charged and imprisoned is likely to be large.

            Another Russian lawyer, Valeriya Vetoshkina, with whom Novaya Gazeta spoke, agreed entirely, although she said that the decision by the Supreme Court won’t tell anyone much given the way in which the powers that be now treat all legal forms in a highly variable and elastic way.

Despite Fears, Putin hasn’t Restored Soviet-Style Media Isolation for Russians, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 26 – Despite the fears of many, Vladimir Putin has not blocked the access of Russians to alternative media, commentator Sergey Shelin says; but his policies which have included the closure of some internet sites and Facebook and led some media outlets to move abroad have changed the pattern of the consumption of media in Russia today.  

            Levada Center surveys show, he continues, that Russian reliance on and attitudes toward state television have remained largely the same; but use of and trust in Telegram channels has increased, from nine percent to 24 percent and five percent to 18 percent respectively (moscowtimes.ru/2024/04/25/emigrantskie-smi-nuzhni-mnogim-no-obschenatsionalnimi-ne-stali-a129192).

            But use and trust in Internet sites has fallen, not only because telegram channels and YouTube provide more attractive options, Shelin says, but also because many Russians fear that their use of websites is monitored and that if they visit sites the authorities don’t like, they will find themselves in trouble.

            Telegram channels don’t inspire similar fears, and not surprisingly, they have become especially popular among Russians under the age of 25 who read them more than they watch TV. Even their elders are making the same choice, and today 32 million Russians turn to telegram channels and spend on average 5.1 hours on telegram every day.

            Tens of millions of Russians thus have access to information not controlled by the state via telegram or web pages produced by media centers in the West, a situation very different than was the case in Soviet times when far fewer people listened to “foreign voices” or read underground samizdat.

            And that difference from Soviet times must be recognized and hopefully exploited by those who want to challenge the Putin regime, even though the Kremlin leader still dominates the media landscape in his country in ways far greater than in any free and democratic country, Shelin concludes.

Problems in Russian Logistical Networks Boosting Regional Businesses

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 25 – Growing problems with Russia’s logistical networks, including accidents on its troubled railway system (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/102248), has given local and regional businesses the chance to grow more rapidly than country-wide businesses which rely on distribution, statistics show.

            Re-Russia provides a compilation of data showing that local and regional businesses have grown almost ten percent in the last year after seven years of stagnation, with their sales rising 11 percent in real terms, both far greater than the all-Russian companies have been able to achieve (re-russia.net/review/728/).

            If Russia’s infrastructure problems continue to grow and that is likely because Putin has been pulling money out of projects intended to address these problems and improve the networks, then that will mean that local and regional companies will play an expanded role in many local and regional markets and hence local and regional politics.

            That will constitute a fundamental reversal of trends that Putin’s earlier policies had put in place and may mean that regional and local officials backed by regional and local businesses will become more independent-minded in their thinking, confident that their businesses and officials are now in a better position to address problems than ever before.

            In most countries, as residents of smaller cities and towns now, improved transportation networks have nationalized marketplaces and centralized economic and political decision making. But in Russia today, the new data suggests that the situation is going in precisely the opposite direction. 

Moscow Patriarchate’s Moves against Anti-War Priests Undermining the ROC MP and Opening the Way for Renewal of Orthodoxy in Russia, Soldatov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 26 – Moscow Patriarch Kirill is punishing ever more Russian Orthodox priests for anti-war views, an action that may win him support in the Kremlin but that is undermining the authority of his church structure and even opening the doors to the creation of an alternative Russian Orthodoxy to replace it, Aleksandr Soldatov says.

            Kirill’s actions not only violate the rules of the ROC MP but offend believers and have led the Ecumenical Patriarchate to restore the priestly rights of those he has punished and thus create a group of religious who may form the nucleus of a new Russian Orthodoxy within Russia itself, the specialist on Russian religious life says (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2024/04/26/rpts-b).

            (For a constantly updated list of the priests the current Russian patriarch has sought to exclude from church life for their opposition to the war in Ukraine, see shaltnotkill.info/presledovanie-hristian-za-antivoennuyu-pozicziyu-ili-podderzhku-ukrainy-v-zashhite-ot-agressii-so-storony-religioznyh-organizaczij-i-vlastej/).

            As a result of Kirill’s actions, Soldatov says, “a new host of confessors of the Christian faith has appeared in Russia today, one that is suffering in the first instance from its new persecutors in the person of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, its bishops and other church officials obedient to him.”

            One of their number, Andrey Kurayev, who was stripped of his office as a proto-deacon, has gone into emigration and not long ago became a priest subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, says that what is happening shows “the complete powerlessness of Kirill and his satraps.”

            Russian Orthodox publicist Sergey Chapnin who now lives in the United States says that Constantinople has opened the floodgates and the number of those who will follow Kurayev into the ranks of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s priesthood will exceed Kirill’s ability to control the situation in Russia itself.

            “For the first time in many centuries,” Soldatov continues, such priests have a chance to escape serfdom from the patriarchy, and the jurisdiction of the ROC MP on its own ‘canonical territory,’ ceases to be absolute and unconditional – the first step toward the dismantling of the post-imperial totalitarian structure of the ROC in the form it took after 1943.”

Poorer Federal Subjects Forced to Use Compulsion Not Cash to Meet Russian Military Quotas

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 25 –Moscow has been able to meet its goals to sign up men for military service by offering men enormous bonuses that will lift them and their families out of poverty. But because some federal subject governments lack the cash to fund such bonuses, they are falling back on compulsion.

            And in at least some cases, they appear to be using that compulsion to achieve other ends, including destroying smaller local minorities by sending their men to die in Ukraine or possibly by forcing members of those groups to reidentify as members of the dominant titular nationality to escape that fate.

            This behavior seldom attracts much attention not only because the numbers of people involved are likely small and so don’t attract the attention of the central media but also because the media outlets in these federal subjects are typically firmly under control of the governments there who have little interest in having such stories reported.

            That makes a story by Radio Svoboda journalist Fidel Agumava about what is happening to the Soyots in Buryatia especially important not only in and of itself but also because of the light it shines on what is likely far more widespread phenomenon (sibreal.org/a/rubyat-semi-pod-koren-kak-vlasti-zagonyayut-lyudey-na-voynu-po-kontraktu/32920096.html).

            As she documents, Buryat officials working with the Russian military are using compulsion to meet Moscow’s recruitment goals because the republic does not have enough money to offer the kind of bonuses that other regions and republics either on their own or with special help from Moscow are able to do instead.

            And Agumava shows that this use of compulsion is selective in that it is directed more at the Soyots, a Buryat sub-ethnos, than at other Buryats, an apparent indication that Ulan-Ude may be taking advantage of the Kremlin’s mobilization program to engage in its own kind of ethnic engineering.

             This report at the very least should introduce a notion of caution that Moscow can buy its way out of its recruitment problems. Moreover, it also should lead to an examination of exactly what is happening in Russia’s poorest and often non-Russian republics, especially outside the North Caucasus where Moscow provides funds for such bonuses to keep things quiet.

Moscow Increases Quotas for Immigrant Workers Despite Demands by Many Russians that They Be Cut

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 26 – The Russian government has increased the quotas for migrant workers to come to Russia despite widespread demands among officials, commentators, and the Rusisan population that the influx of workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus be significantly restricted (pnp.ru/social/v-rossiyu-khotyat-zavezti-eshhe-bolshe-migrantov.html).

            The quotas themselves are far smaller than the actual numbers of migrants coming in, and what the Russian government is doing may in fact be part of a plan to meet the needs of business and industry by boosting official quotas and satisfying the population by attack “illegal” immigration.

            That approach may have worked before the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, but now almost certainly it is likely to trigger more popular anger at the government, something the Kremlin and its minions certainly do not need at the present time (paperpaper.ru/kvoty-na-trudovyh-migrantov-vyrosli-p/).

Russian Justice Ministry Calls for Declaring Non-Existent ‘Anti-Russian Separatist Movement’ an ‘Extremist’ Organization

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 26 – Last fall, Grigory Golosov, a professor at St. Petersburg’s European University, said that Moscow has come up with a new means of going after those it doesn’t like: first declaring that those the Kremlin doesn’t like are part of an international movement and then declaring that movement to be “an extremist group” even if no such organization exists.

            It did that with the LGBT community, Golosov says, adding that it is likely to do so with feminism, a move many Kremlin supporters already are calling for and noting that such moves will make it easier for Moscow to prosecute those advancing ideas at odds with Putin and his regime (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/kremlin-deploying-two-more-means-of.html).

            The latest victim of such an approach consists of those who promote regionalist and nationalist ideas. They do not form a single organization, but Moscow has decided that they do and thus can be treated in the same way that it has been persecuting the LGBT community in Russia.

            Nine days ago, the Russian justice ministry called on the Russian Supreme Court to declare the Anti-Russian Separatist Movement and it structures extremist organization at a hearing on June 7 (minjust.gov.ru/ru/pages/izveshenie-o-vremeni-i-meste-rassmotreniya-administrativnogo-dela-7-iyunya-2024-g/).

            In its letter to the Court, the justice ministry said that “the Anti-Russian Separatist Movement is an international movement for the destruction of the multi-national unity and territorial integrity of Russia;” but it did not provide any details about just what this Movement is and what its organizations international or local may be.

            The Sova-Center monitoring and analysis group in reporting this development said that the experience of the LGBT movement strongly suggests that the Russian authorities will use this declaration as an “elastic” means of bringing new and additional charges against activists the Kremlin doesn’t like (sova-center.ru/misuse/news/persecution/2024/04/d49736/).

            Russian prosecutors will no longer have to point to specific actions to bring charges of separatism against anyone. Simply declaring that someone is a member of this “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement” will be enough -- even though as the Sova-Center points out no such “movement” exists.

            According to the Sova-Center, Moscow is likely to use such a declaration against regionalist as well as nationalist groups and also against people outside of Moscow who are not interested in separatism at all but rather only in creating genuine federalism in the increasingly unitary Russian state.

           This has sparked a large number of sharply critical comments by Russian independent news organizations and bloggers (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=662C9F2C5D0E6).