Moscow Tries Yet Another Bureaucratic Arrangement to Manage Nationality Issues

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 30 – At Putin’s direction, the Russian government has created a government commission on issues about the carrying out of its nationality policy; but in doing so, it has not abolished the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, thus leaving open the question as to what each will do or even whether the latter will survive.

            For the Russian government document creating the new commission, see static.government.ru/media/files/iyAApcIqeFUDNEsuRB4Fy7VDPHlVnJOv.pdf; for a media report about this action, see nazaccent.ru/content/45006-mihail-mishustin-sozdal-pravitelstvennuyu-komissiyu-po-voprosam-nacionalnoj-politiki/.

            Like its Soviet predecessor, the Russian Federation has not found any long-term solution to the dilemma that nationality issues present: Creating any government agency strong enough to address all such issues would be to create one that could threaten the Kremlin, while not having such an agency means that numerous issues either are ignored or have to be addressed at the top.

            For a discussion of the chronology of bureaucratic changes in this area since 1991, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/like-its-tsarist-and-soviet.html.

Nearly 80 Percent of Russians Want Nationality Line Restored in Internal Passports, News Agency Poll Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 30 – Earlier this year, the Rex News Agency, which generally follows the Kremlin and takes a Russian nationalist line, asked its readers whether they favored restoring the nationality line in internal passports, something that was dropped in the early 1990s. 718 took part, and 79.1 percent said they would like to see the line restored (iarex.ru/votings/234.html).

            In Soviet times, the nationality line was notorious for the ways in which officials used it to discriminate against ethnic groups, including most prominently against Jews. And after the USSR fell apart, there was widespread support for the idea of doing away with such lines to promote a common identity.

            But more recently, both non-Russians and ethnic Russians have called for it to be returned, the first because ethnic identity can secure benefits (as in the case of the numerically small nationalities of the north) or help them maintain their groups’ size and ethnic Russians because many don’t declare a separate nationality at all, threatening the size of that nation.

            While many have argued that the Putin regime has de facto restored the line because of the way it treats non-Russians, in fact the Kremlin has been consistent in opposing the restoration of the nationality line, something that it appears as with the Rex poll is largely coming from ethnic Russians and thus likely overstates the share of the Russian Federation population favoring this step. 

            For a more detailed discussion of the nationality line in recent years, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/10/ever-more-rf-residents-going-to-court.html and for the Russian government’s reaction, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/06/russian-government-opposes-latest-duma.html.

As Many as 50,000 Crimean Tatars have Left Their Homeland Since Russia Occupied It in 2014, Chubarov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 29 – Rufat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people (an organization Moscow has declared “an extremist organization”), says that between 30,000 and 50,000 Crimeans Tatars have fled Crimea since Russia occupied it in 2014. Prior to that action, there were between 300,000 and 320,000 Crimean Tatars on the peninsula.

            A large share of those who have done so left in the fall of 2022 when Moscow sought to draft them to fight against Ukraine, Chubarov continues (youtube.com/watch?v=wg8Dgt_EyoE in written text reposted at echofm.online/news/glava-medzhlisa-krymskotatarskogo-naroda-za-period-okkupaczii-poluostrov-pokinuli-do-50-tysyach-krymskih-tatar).

            The Mejlis leader adds that Moscow has worked to flood the peninsula with ethnic Russians so as to change the ethnic composition of the population there, an action that means what Moscow has done qualifies as genocide according to the UN declaration about that crime against humanity. 

Moscow’s Ranking of Universities in Terms of Graduates’ Employment May Lead to Closures that will Hurt Regions Now and All of Russia in Future, Komkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 29 – The Russian Ministry of Labor and Social Security has prepared a national ranking of the employment rates of graduates from educational institutions, a survey that will be used to identify both the 100 best institutions by this metric and the 100 worst and ultimately lead to the reorganization or closure of some of the latter.

            The idea behind this survey, Sergey Komkov says, is both reasonable and consistent with the directions for Russian higher education that Vladimir Putin has called for; but there is a great danger that such a survey will be misused and hurt many federal subjects immediately and Russia as a whole eventually (svpressa.ru/economy/article/497072/).

            The vice president of the Education for All Movement says that such a ranking is inherently problematic not only because the higher educational system in Russia is multi-tiered with schools in the megalopolises serving the country as a whole and those in the regions serving primarily the regions.

            Such surveys ignore that distinction and thus understate the role of regional universities and overstate that of those in the big cities.  To the extent that this survey leads to reorganizations or even closures of universities in the regions, they will suffer disproportionately, Komkov continues.

            But there is another and more serious problem: such surveys which focus on employment immediately upon graduation ignore the fact that education is not just about the first job graduates can get but lifetime long. Many who might not find it easy to get a first job may prove to be critical to the development of Russia over the longer term.

            In short, Komkov argues, the reasons for such surveys are obvious; but the dangers they pose need to be kept in mind before such rankings are used in ways that will hurt the regions and the country’s future. 

Another Part of Kremlin's Negotiating Strategy over Ukraine: Moscow Says Its Geologists Found 251 New Deposits of Minerals in 2025, Seven Times More than a Year Earlier

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 29 – The Russian natural resources ministry says that Russian geologists have found 251 new deposits of minerals in 2025, seven times more than a year earlier. While exploiting many of these new sites will be difficult, this announcement is likely to boost optimism among Russian industrialists and interest in Russia among foreigners.

            Indeed, those two goals may be why the ministry has headlined this development in its year ender reporting, a conclusion especially justified by the enormous coverage that Russian government media outlets have devoted to it (interfax.ru/interview/1065629 and regionvoice.ru/cifra-vzorvala-nedra-v-rf-vnezapno-nash/).

            Russian businessmen have become increasingly pessimistic about the future, and the Kremlin has particular interest in underscoring Russia’s potential as a site for economic investment and profits in order to build support in other countries for improving ties with Russia even if that means selling out Ukraine. 

Moscow Spent about 150 Billion US Dollars to Occupy Just One Percent More of Ukrainian Territory over the Last 12 Months, Krichevskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 28 – There are many ways to construct a balance sheet about the costs of Putin’s war in Ukraine, including combat losses, the disordering of Russian life at home, and the further undermining of the international order in order to advance the Kremlin leader’s agenda including the seizure of Ukrainian territory.

            But Russian journalist Vera Krichevskaya offers one that does not capture all of these dimensions but highlights some of the direct costs as compared to the nominal Russian gains (facebook.com/vera.krichevskaya/posts/pfbid0RjBaFrnyR8p2sy6Lge7WYFNpy27VQzDRfNicB6tsj7zgCbXvBwSShCjfkx1mCV6ml reposted at echofm.online/opinions/itogi-2025-goda-v-kvadratnyh-kilometrah-i-v-dollarah).

            She points out that during 2025, Russian forces occupied between 4600 and 6600 square kilometers of Ukraine, just under one percent of the land of that country. But to do that, it spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 billion US dollars, an enormous sum given Russia’s needs for a relatively small territorial addition to the largest country in the world.  

            As she remarks in conclusion about such enormous spending with remarkably little gain “well, what’s there to comment?”

New Law Specifies that Moscow will No Longer Obey Any International Courts Not Set Up by UN Security Council where Moscow has a Veto

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 29 – According to the terms of a new law just approved by the Duma and signed into law by Vladimir Putin, Moscow no longer feels itself obliged to obey any decision of an international court not established with the approval of the United Nations Security Council where the Russian Federation as a permanent member has a veto.

            The new law (publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202512290002) gives legal format to what had become Russian practice and means that Moscow will no longer obey the orders of the International Criminal Court or the findings of any tribunal set up to examine Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

            That Moscow should do so is no surprise – it was highly offended when the ICC ordered Putin’s detention and trial earlier – but it represents yet another step by Moscow to remove itself from the international legal order that had been coming into being in the last several decades and provides cover for other governments that don’t like such international supervision.

            Thus, what may appear to be a small step, in fact is a giant leap toward undermining the international legal order that had emerged and throws the world back to one where the reconstitution of this order anytime soon will be difficult if not impossible, something that will further untie the hands of dictators and other authoritarians. 

Baku Asks Turkey to Get Involved in Responding to Falling Water Levels of Caspian Sea

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 28 – Rapidly falling water levels of the Caspian are forcing Azerbaijani ships to reduce the amount of cargo they carry by 50 percent, with Azerbaijani experts saying that they expect the sea’s level to continue to fall in the future and the problems arising from that to increase.

            As a result, Azerbaijan has asked Turkey to get involved in dealing with this problem, likely to dispatching more dredging barges or new ships with shallower drafts so that east-west trade across the Caspian will not collapse in the future (casp-geo.ru/v-baku-byut-trevogu-iz-za-snizheniya-urovnya-kaspiya/).

            Azerbaijan’s appeal was made by Rakhman Gummetov, the deputy minister for digital development and transportation at a meeting of the Azerbaijani-Turkish Investment Forum in Baku; and while it has not yet attracted widespread attention, it is likely to further exacerbate relations among the Caspian littoral states.

            That is because Russia, one of the five, has sought to keep all non-littoral states out of such operations; and if Ankara responds positively to Baku’s appeal and dispatches ships to deal with the increasingly shallow waters of the Caspian, then it appears likely that this will be another source of tension between Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation.

Two World Orders have Collapsed in Less than 40 Years, Sergey Medvedev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 29 – Perhaps the most remarkable thing about recent history is that in less than 40 years, two world orders have collapsed, the first in 1989-1991 and the second now, Sergey Medvedev, the host of Radio Liberty’s Archaeology Program which looks back to the recent past in order to better understand the present and the future.

            In many respects, he argues, what is taking place now is a reversal of 35 years ago. “Then an era opened up; now it is closing.” Then walls and dictators fell, leading to “naïve” ideas about the end of history; now, new walls are going up and democracy is being destroyed (svoboda.org/a/god-velikogo-pereloma-sergey-medvedev-ob-itogah-2025-go/33634292.html).

            “Today,” Medvedev says, “Today it is becoming clear that the era between 1989 and 2025 was not the norm, but an exception, a unique opportunity” for the expansion of freedom. “The possibilities seemed endless;” and events like 911 and Putin’s Munich speech in 2007 were dismissed as bumps on the road rather than harbingers of a new direction.

            But 2005 became the watershed, because the current epochal shift “did not being with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but with Donald Trump’s second coming to the White House and the radical reversal of American policy. It was Trump rather than Putin who closed down the previous era and became “the embodiment of the spirit of the new age.”

            That turn above all marked “the end of the American myth and the American century, a time when America was the pillar of the world order, a gobal model, a global benefactor and a global policeman” which “committed many injustices … but overall remained a normative force that maintained order based on values, rules, and faith in freedom and responsibility.”

            According to Medvedev, “That America is no more, and Trump's second presidency confirms this fact. For too long, we have ignored the social and demographic shifts in the US, the rise of inequality and resentment (read J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy), the hatred of elites, "intellectuals," and the deep state, and the sclerosis of the political and party system.”

            And he continues: “The problem is not with Trump's personality, but with the fact that his revolution was brewing, and his re-election with a convincing majority is the best proof of this. The Trump phenomenon is objective and inevitable just as the Putin phenomenon is objective and inevitable.”

“Regardless of how one feels about them both,” Medvedev says, “both are figures born of national culture, who legally rose to the head of superpowers and are changing the course of world history. Such individuals appear at the intersection of historical trends and personal characteristics, however accidental, willful, or inadequate they may seem.”

Both Trump and Putin “pursue the same goal,” he continues, “the destruction of the liberal world order that emerged after the Cold War which they believe is unfair to their countries: Trump is convinced that the liberal world order exploits America and Putin believes it humiliates Russia.”

“In this sense then, the two are strategic allies; and Ukraine and Europe stand as annoying obstacles in their path.”

Medvedev argues that “Putin is not winning in Ukraine, but he is currently winning the war against the West. He imposed this war on the world, forcing everyone to play by his rules, he holds the strategic initiative and always makes the first move, to which the West is forced to respond.”

            With the blood of Ukrainians, Putin is “reclaiming Russia’s place in the world and his own right to exist.” But despite that, “it doesn’t even occur to anyone to raise the question of defeating Putin’s Russia in the same way as the allies did with Hitler’s Germany some 80 years ago.

            For most Western leaders, “Russia is too big to fail; Russia is too big (and too nuclear, and too belligerent, and too unpredictable) to simply abolish it or raise the question of its military defeat and regime change: there is only one thing that Western politicians fear even more than the fall of Kyiv – the fall of Moscow and the subsequent hypothetical chaos.”

            In much of the “old” West, rightwing populists are either in power or close to it, Medvedev suggests, a reflection of the way new media have played up the hostility of ordinary citizens to the complexities of modernity and their belief that all their problems are the work of elites, leftists, minorities or immigrants.

            According to Medvedev, “The result is MAGA-Trumpism in America and Brexit in Britain, where the disappearance of the political center and the strengthening of radicals on both flanks threatens to tear apart the political body of democratic countries.” Other examples of this danger can easily be found as for example in Israel.

What awaits us in 2026?” the commentator asks rhetorically. “ It's easier to say what won't happen: there will be neither stability nor peace (neither in Ukraine nor on a global scale), nor a return to the previous, pre-war state – we are in a situation of polycrisis, where different systems are failing simultaneously, causing cascading effects.

"Last year was difficult for all of us, but don't worry, next year will be even worse," Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promised in her Christmas address, like in the old joke about the pessimist and the optimist, where the former gloomily says "it can't get any worse," and the latter joyfully replies: "Oh yes, it can!"

Today, what hope there is is to be found “where it would seem there should be the least of it: in Ukraine,” a country and a people “now resisting the impending chaos both of the Russian horde and global disorder, and it is Ukraine that is the focal point of international solidarity, faith institutions and in justice, the foundations of which are now being tested.”

“Ukraine stands guard over Western civilization and European values,” Medvedev argues. “It is not so much that it seeks protection from NATO and the EU, but rather that it itself protects the EU and NATO from Russian barbarism, and that is why it deserves membership in both institutions as a provider, not a consumer, of security.

Consequently, the Radio Liberty commentator concludes, despite everything “we should not be afraid of the future but should meet it with dignity as the Ukrainians have met the Russian invaders.”

October 1993 Events Put an End to Moscow Patriarchate’s Hopes to Become a Force Independent of the Russian State, New Book Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 27 – At present, when the Moscow Patriarchate is slavishly obedient in all things to the Kremlin, it is difficult to remember that at the end of Soviet times and the beginning of the post-Soviet period, many in the Russian Orthodox Church hoped and believed that their denomination could be an independent actor.

            But those hopes and beliefs were dashed, Kseniya Luchenko argues by what happened in October 1993 when Yeltsin used force to crush his opponents in the Supreme Soviet despite efforts by the Moscow Patriarchate to mediate between them (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2025/12/27/dve-tserkvi-dva-litsa-i-dve-very).

            In a new book, Good Intentions. The Russian church and the Powers from Gorbachev to Putin (in Russian), the former employee of the patriarchate who now writes about religion in Russia as an independent journalist says the October 1993 events forced Patriarch Aleksii II and Metropolitan Kirill “to accept the reality that the ROC could not become an independent force.”

            Indeed, she says, they were compelled to acknowledge that “their moral authority and influence on society was insufficient to be a source of power;” and as a result, they made the final and fateful “choice in favor of ‘a symphony with the state,’” one in which the state and not the church was in charge.

            Luchenko provides details about other key events and especially about the key personalities in the ROC MP, in particular Kirill and Putin’s favorite churchman Metropolitan Tikhon who has played a key role in supporting Putin’s own vision about an uninterrupted history of Russia and the way in which Russian civilization differs from all others.

            Despite all that has happened, the author of the book says there is still some hope for the future because while the MP hierarchy has accepted its role as handmaiden to the Kremlin, many priests and the faithful have not and continue to distance themselves both from Putin and the patriarch.

            Priests of this second living church don’t read the pro-war prayers they are supposed to and do support those of their parishioners and others who oppose the war. Such people are in a weak position compared to the pro-Kremlin hierarchs, but their existence means that dreams of Father Aleksandr Men of 35 years ago for an independent Orthodoxy may yet be realized. 

In 2025, Russians Protested against Putin’s Policies but Not Against Putin, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 26 – Over the course of the last 12 months, a time when Moscow increased repression to stamp out any protests, Russians nonetheless in many regions did engage in protest actions, although in most cases, they were about local issues and not against Putin, even though what they were protesting about was typically the result of his policies.

            The Horizontal Russia portal, which tracks developments in Russia, has published a list of some of the most important of these actions, most of which because they took place far from Moscow and were not directed against Putin personally, have received relatively little attention (semnasem.org/articles/2025/12/26/akcii-protesta-2025).

            Among the protests in Russia’s regions over the last 12 months, the portal provides details on actions against restricting abortions, against using parkland for other purposes, against mining, against the crackdown on street musicians, and against the liquidation of local self-government.

            For a broader discussion of this issue and the way in which such protests could become politicized and directed against Putin if Russians begin to connect the dots, see my article, “Russians Protesting Mounting Problems, but Not Yet Against Putin,” EDM, Dec. 22 at jamestown.org/russians-protesting-mounting-problems-but-not-yet-against-putin/.

Ending Use of Migrant Labor Would Lead to Economic Collapse of Moscow ‘Under the Guise of Populism, Sobyanin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 26 – While everyone can agree that “in an idea world,” Russia could “do without migrants,” Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin told his city council, ending the use of migrant labor “under the guide of populism” would quickly lead to the collapse of key branches of the economy of the Russian capital.

            At present, he says, the city has a labor shortage approaching half a million people and needs immigrants to fill the gap. If the influx of migrant workers were to be stopped or reversed, that would “immediately affect prices, construction rates, logistics, and ultimately, the standard of living of Muscovites” (asia24.media/news/sobyanin-otkaz-ot-migrantov-vyzovet-kollaps-v-ekonomike-moskvy/).

            According to Sobyanin, “the task of the authorities is not to restrict immigration as such but to create a manageable, transparent and safe system” as “bringing order does not mean prohibiting but rather moving away from spontaneity, closing channels of illegal employment, strengthening control over compliance with Russian law, and preventing attempts at speculation on inter-ethnic and inter-religious grounds.”

            And he said that given that the labor shortage in the capital is likely to grow even if the economy stabilizes. Instead, “the need for labor will only increase” and “to ignore this reality would lead the city to economic collapse under the guise of populism” and thus be counterproductive.

            Sobyanin’s words are perhaps the clearest indication that the Russian authorities generally and not just the Moscow mayor are now interested in reducing the temperature of debates about migration, debates that in many places have triggered ethnic and religious conflicts that the Kremlin doesn’t want to see emerge.

Information on Russian Combat Losses in Ukraine More Available and Reliable than That about Deteriorating Demographic Situation at Home, Raksha Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 27 – It is commonly assumed that the Kremlin’s decision to restrict or even block entirely large swaths of demographic statistics has been driven by the desire of the Russian leadership to hide the number of deaths and wounded among Russians involved in Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine.

            But if that is so, independent demographer Aleksey Raksha says, the Kremlin’s approach has failed because journalists both Russian and foreign have found ways to come up with data on combat losses using other sources than government statistics. As a result, such information is now more readily available than is data on other demographic issues in Russia (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/12/27/territoriia-bez-dannykh).

            This in turn suggests two things, he and other independent demographers say. On the one hand, it means that the demographic decline of Russia is now so serious that the regime is only too willing to use the war as an excuse to stop publishing data not just about it but about births, life expectancy and other measures.

            And on the other, they suggest, restricting the release of data means that the state itself is decaying because even if senior people have access to secret data, they often don’t know how to interpret it without the advice of experts and thus make ever more policy mistakes, exacerbating the problems Russia faces rather than solving them.

            Unfortunately, while the number of analysts focusing on Russian combat losses is large and their data are generally recognized as accurate – all experts rely on them – the number of analysts examining Russia’s broader demographic problems is much smaller – and so information about them is less widely available.

Moscow Threatens Activists from Numerically Small Nations with Up to 20 Years in Prison

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – When Moscow arrests activists in the capital or in one of the major non-Russian republics, journalists and diplomats generally will at least cover the story; but when the center does so against numerically small indigenous nations who live far beyond the ring road, that often does not happen.

            As a result, the Russian authorities can be especially brutal in their cases, confident that they won’t face outrage and that what they do to these human communities will serve as a warning to others that a similar fate awaits even larger communities as ever more people in the West accept as normal what the Putin regime is doing. 

            That makes the case of nearly two dozen activists from these numerically small groups who were arrested a week ago and charged with being members of a terrorist organization especially important (sibreal.org/a/mogut-dat-do-20-let-k-zaschitnikam-prav-korennyh-narodov-prishli-s-obyskami-i-arestami/33630043.html).

            Such trumped-up charges are intended to keep them from being able to develop contacts with the international community and call attention to Moscow policies that could leave those charged with up to 20 years behind bars and snuff out any chance that these small groups will get the support they need to continue to resist.

            Three things lie behind this latest Moscow effort to “criminalize” the work of activists among the numerically small peoples of the north and far east – and none of them involve the secessionism that the Russian legal system is charging them with in an effort to stop their activities and eliminate what little support they do get abroad.

            First, Moscow is angry that these groups have continued to form their own organizations rather than become part of Kremlin-controlled bodies. Second, the center is furious that these groups have succeeded in taking part in UN conferences where they have been able to expose the falsehood of Kremlin claims.

And third – and this may be the most important cause of all – the Kremlin is upset that these groups have exposed the environmental depradation Putin’s development policies have inflicted on the north and far east and sometimes have been able to slow if not stop what Russia’s largest corporations want to do.

The International Committee of the Indigenous Peoples of Russia and the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center has called the persecution of these activists “unprecedented political repressions” against small ethnic minorities few in the West have ever heard of, according to the SibReal portal.

In its statement, Memorial said that there is no evidence that the activists were guilty of any of the things Moscow is accusing them of and declared that these attacks represented “an effort by the authorities of the Russian Federation to criminalize activism and human rights actions” among peoples too small to be able to defend themselves effectively (adcmemorial.org/novosti/glavnoe/svobodu-dare-egerevoj-i-vsem-korennym-aktivistam-zhertvam-politicheskih-repressij-diskriminaczii-i-kolonialnogo-podavleniya-korennyh-narodov/).

Main Divide in Russian Political Life ‘Not Between Ethnic Russians and Non-Russians but Between Imperialists and Regionalists,’ Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 26 – Putin’s demand that Moscow scholars focus on the ethnic Russian nation is likely to backfire by highlighting the regional differences among Russians and demonstrating that the main divide in Russian political life is “not between ethnic Russians and non-Russian nations but between imperialists and regionalists,” Vadim Shtepa says

            The editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal says that both Muscovite imperialists and many non-Russian nationalists fail to understand that and so take positions that are increasingly indefensible (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2025/12/26/ne-russkie-protiv-nerusskih-a-regionalizm-protiv-imperii-a183822).

            On the one hand, it causes many in Moscow to fail to understand how diverse the ethnic Russian nation is and how most of the issues in non-Russian republics are less about ethnicity than about how the center rules both them and the more numerous predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays.

            And on the other, it leads many non-Russians to conclude that the ethnic Russians are the enemy rather than fellow victims of Muscovite imperialism and thus not only spark the development of radical Russian nationalist groups like the Russian Community but also lose allies who can help them achieve their goals.

            According to Shtepa, “this empire should more precisely be called not ‘Russian’ but Muscovite because it is precisely Moscow that has all the levers of power and that gets the larger part of the resources of both Russian and non-Russian areas.” As a result, “ethnic Russian regions are precisely the same colonies of Moscow as are the non-Russian republics.”

            As historian Aleksandr Etkind pointed out in his 2013 study Internal Colonization. The Imperial Experience of Russia, the Russian state “as an empire began not with campaigns against Kazan and Siberia but much earlier with the seizure and subordination by the Muscovites of Tver, Novgorod, and Pskov” and sought to make their residents Russians like any others.

            But enormous differences remain among them not least of all because Moscow not only treats all of them much worse than it treats Muscovites but treats them differently and in ways that are more similar to the ways it treats the non-Russian republics than the ways in which it treats the Moscow population.

            Unfortunately, many non-Russians ignore these differences among Russians as well, something that helps Moscow pursue its divide and rule policies and in fact “repeats the very same imperial-unitarist treatment of ‘Russianness’ [as that of the Muscovite state] but with the opposite sign.”

            This compromises the ability of non-Russians to form alliances with ethnic Russians within their own republics but also to do so with neighboring Russian oblasts that could become the basis for joint action against the imperial center, the regionalist writer continues.  Both non-Russians and ethnic Russians need to change their approach if either is to succeed. 

Moscow Meetings on Siberia ‘Talking Issue to Death’ without Plans to Do Anything More, Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 25 – This week, Russian scholars met in Moscow to talk about Siberia; but talk is all they did, apparently committed to “talking this issue to death,” Dmitry Verkhoturov says, rather than actually doing something constructive like suggesting actual steps that could be taken.

            Of course, for the participants in such meetings, which are baldly named after Siberian cities like Tobolsk in this case, the senior Siberian economics commentator says, meeting in Moscow is far more convenient, especially on the eve of the new year’s holidays, than travelling to distant parts of Russia east of the Urals (https://sibmix.com/?doc=19326).

            He discusses several of the presentations – on the meeting itself, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/12/unless-moscow-changes-course-russia.html – and points out how they do little more than highlight how out of touch the Muscovites are from Siberian realities (sibmix.com/?doc=19326).

            They talk about corridors without asking what these would connect or how they could be constructed given both the problems of the region itself and the problems of industries like shipbuilding or railroad construction over which Moscow certainly should be devoting itself to solving, Verkhoturov says.

            But he adds: “Commenting on this meeting is very difficult without violating the restrictions imposed by Russian media watchdogs. But nonetheless, “it has become clear that the sole purpose of these meetings and the idea of ​​‘Siberianization’ in general is to talk the topic of Siberian development to death, a topic they have no intention of actually addressing.a

            There are at least three reasons why this commentary is important: First, it is in stark contrast to officialdom in most predominantly ethnic Russian regions who welcome any talk about them in Moscow that suggests the center will help them even if history makes it clear that isn’t going to happen.

            Second, such sharp language suggests that Siberians like Verkhoturov are very close to adopting a position like the one the Baltic nations did at the end of Soviet times and many non-Russians have taken since – “nothing about us without us” – or at least in our regions rather than in distant Moscow.

            And third, it highlights something Moscow has good reason to fear but that it is exacerbating rather than helping to overcome by meetings like the one in the capital: the growth of Siberian regionalism extending beyond the borders of this or that federal subject in the enormous space east of the Urals.

            When experts like Verkhoturov begin to talk in this way, Moscow needs to pay close attention rather than assuming it can get its ways on all things and control the future by having meetings within the ring road that pledge to do something but in fact have no real plans to do more than that. 

Belarusian Catholics Told What Pope John Paul Once Told Their Polish Co-Religionists – ‘Be Not Afraid’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – When Karol Vojtyla visited his homeland of Poland in 1979 after being elected Pope John Paul II, he electrified that country by repeatedly declaring “do not be afraid,” words he had been advised not to use because lest they prompt a Soviet intervention but which, when he did so, helped to trigger the rise of Solidarity and the end of the communism.

            The words, of course, as all Christians know and as Pope John Paul II stressed in his first homily as the Holy Father are those of the angels announcing to the world the birth of the Christ child; but as he and many others also believe, they are also a call “not to be afraid” of those who seek to suppress the Savior’s message and those who accept it.

            That makes the decision of any senior Roman Catholic cleric to make these words the centerpiece of his message especially at Christmastime noteworthy and potentially fateful for those who hear it. That is especially true of churchmen in countries where the political leadership continues on a repressive course.

            Such parallels justify calling attention to the words of Archbishop Joseph Stanevsky, the leader of Belarusian Catholics, who in his pastoral message for Christmas this year put the angels’ message not to be afraid at the center of his remarks (catholic.by/3/news/belarus/18744-pastyrskae-paslanne-artsybiskupa-stane-skaga-na-naradzhenne-pana-2025-goda).

            Of course, Belarus is not Poland, and the Catholic church in the former is not in the dominant position that it is in the latter. But the archbishop’s choice to call attention to these words will have an impact on Catholics there and consequently make a potentially serious contribution to those who would like to see Belarus free rather than under Lukashenka’s thumb.

Soviet Place Names Still Dominate Russian Landscape, Elevating Soviet Period Above All Others, ‘Dzen’ Commentary Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 24 – “To judge by the names of streets, the thousand-year-old Russia was born only under Lenin and the Bolsheviks,” according to an unsigned commentary on the Dzen news agency, something that keeps the Soviet legacy alive and legitimate while ignoring the larger contributions of earlier leaders.

            At the present time, the commentary notes, there are still 5781 streets in Russian cities and towns named for the founder of the USSR; but there are only 52 named for the tsar who founded the Russian empire. And that pattern holds for lesser figures in both periods (dzen.ru/a/aUqRbyhR5FNUVD4Y).

            For example, there are 2811 Kirov streets, 2260 Kalinin streets, 2071 Chapayev streets, 1496 Karl Marx streets, 1151 Sverdlov streets, and 1141 Frunze streets; but there are only 849 Suvorov streets, 488 Kutuzov streets, Aleksandr II, no streets but one square, and 52 streets names in honor of the founder of the empire, Peter I.

            “Thirty years ago, in the 1990s, a massive renaming took place throughout the country,” the commentator says. “Gorky became Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk Yekaterinburg, and Leningrad St. Petersburg … part of a historical catharsis as society freedom from ideological oppression sought to remove its traces from daily life.”

            “But today there is no such energy.” On the one hand, renaming is viewed by the bureaucracy as an expensive luxury, something which at a time of stringency there is now money or time. And on the other, the authorities oppose renaming because they see it as breaking the continuity of Russian history they celebrate.

            Talk about continuity seems noble, “but then the question arises: if we really respect all the leaders from Rurik to Putin, then why have Russian rulers, who created a centuries-old power almost disappeared from the map?” The reason is “simple: toponomy isn’t a mirror of history but an archive of ideology.”

            And as such, “Soviet ideology has turned out to be very much alive. It has been removed from the Constitution but remains in the names of streets. And today, under the cover of ‘uninterruptedness,’ it is being legitimated anew” but now requires “not faith in communism but only silent acceptance of the Soviet inheritance” as “natural” and greater than all others.

            But the commentator continues, “It is impossible to simultaneously revive churches, erect monuments to Emperors, and at the same time claim that renaming is a ‘break in continuity.’ Continuity lies not in preserving the imbalance, but in restoring proportion.” And that isn’t happening.

 

And he concludes: “As long as Russian cities remain a museum space where Lenin is the main character, and the Emperors are rare exhibits, talking about ‘continuous history’ means misleading people. True continuity is not cultural schizophrenia, when we pray to saints and walk down Dzerzhinsky Street.”

What must be recognized and acted upon is this: “True continuity is the harmonious presence of all eras in the urban fabric. And for now, yes, you haven't gone crazy. But perhaps it's time to stop pretending that ‘everything is normal’when the urban environment still lives in a Soviet way.”

Russian Economy Increasingly like the Soviet One at the End of the 1980s, Rybakova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 25 – The Russian economy by the end of this decade will be very much like the Soviet one at the end of the 1980s, Russian journalist Tatyana Rybakova says, a trend raises the question as to “whether the story will end in the same way or whether Russia is headed toward a different kind of finale.”

            Increasingly, Russian leaders from Putin on down have been sounding like Soviet ones in the last decade of the USSR, a pattern reflecting that the Russian economy has ever more problems which recalls those of that earlier period (themoscowtimes.com/2025/12/25/russias-economy-in-the-late-2020s-will-look-a-lot-like-the-late-soviet-economy-a91550).

            Like their Soviet predecessors, Russian leaders now are increasingly disposed to compare what is happening now not with last year but over a much longer period so that they can suggest things are getting better when they are not and pushing off the dates for the completion of plans ever more distantly into the future so they won’t be held accountable sooner.

            Both propagandistic moves now resemble those of the 1980s, Rybakova says. The problem is the same as it was before: while “official statistics invariably proved that citizens were living better and happier lives than ever before” but few believed tat then, and few believe it now.

            As some have forgotten, “Soviet decline was accompanied by triumphant propaganda. The language has changed but not the function. Soon,” the journalist continues, “Russians will be told daily how Ukrainian and European ‘militarism’ obstructs Russia’s desire for peace. The euphemism of ‘forcing peace’ requires no invention; it was tested long ago.”

            But behind this propaganda is the potential collapse of oil prices, something that played a key role in the demise of the USSR. “Oil prices collapsed in 1985. Though the Soviet Union survived until 1991, its economy became effectively nonviable by 1989.” And as oil prices fall, Moscow has ever fewer resources to prop up the rest of the economy.

            To be sure, she continues, “Russia is starting from a stronger position. A market economy offers greater flexibility, and the population has shown remarkable tolerance for harsh measures like sky-high interest rates, rising taxes and growing tariffs. But the Soviet example suggests that public patience can end suddenly and collectively” especially if military spending keeps rising.

            “Whether this story concludes suddenly and almost bloodlessly, as the Soviet collapse did, or drags on in a long and painful decline is impossible to know,” Rybakova says. “History does not repeat itself exactly. But when economic narratives begin to sound this familiar, it is hard not to start counting the years.”

At Putin’s Order, Russian Scholars Launch First Major Research Program since 1950s on Ethnic Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 24 – Vladimir Putin has ordered the ministry of science and higher education to organize a new ethnographic study of the ethnic Russian nation over the next three years (vz.ru/news/2025/12/22/1382532.html), the first such country-wide study of that subject since the 1950s. 

            The program which will be led by the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and involve scholars at ten universities is something Russian nationalists have long wanted and will further tilt Russian academic attention away from the non-Russians, the traditional focus of ethnographic research there, toward the ethnic Russian majority. 

            Ethnic Russian nationalists for decades have been alarmed that the country’s ethnographic institute has focused on the non-Russians and neglected the ethnic Russian majority, a position that defines how many there think and how their intellectual progency spread across the country do as well.

            For the latest example of such criticism and of delight that Putin is changing the direction of ethnography in the Russian Federation in a “correct” direction, see Olga Andreyeva’s passionately expressed article,“The Russian People Returns” (in Russian, in Vzglyad, Dec. 24, at vz.ru/opinions/2025/12/24/1382853.html).

            At one level, of course, one can only welcome expanded attention to ethnic Russians as a community; but at a more fundamental way, this shift, ordered from on high, almost certainly at a time of budgetary stringency will mean that scholars in the Russian Federation and the Russian government following them will devote less attention to the non-Russians.

            But this increased scholarly attention to ethnic Russians may backfire on its Kremlin author, on the one hand, by increasing public awareness of how diverse the Russian nation is, something Putin doesn’t like to admit, and on the other, by encouraging Russian nationalists to take an even harder line against non-Russians, something likely to provoke strong reactions.

In Restricting Release of Statistics, Moscow Now Focusing Above All on Demographic Data, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – Over the last decade and especially since Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has cut back on the release of statistics on a wide variety of issues. In the past year, the To Be Precise portal says, it has restricted or even stopped the release of demographic data in particular.

            Since 2024, it reports, neither Rosstat nor the Unified Inter-Agency Statistical Platform (which may close in 2026) has published summary data on causes of death or regional data on life expectancy. And it has reduced release of data on births and deaths (tochno.st/materials/v-2025-godu-iz-otkrytogo-dostupa-ubrali-bolee-300-datasetov-cashhe-vsego-skryvali-demograficeskuiu-statistiku).

            These government statistical outlets have not published data on immigration; and some fear that they will stop publishing data on all changes in the size of the population of the country, thereby allowing the Kremlin to make claims that scholars won’t be able to challenge and that officials will have to act without knowing that key variable, To be Precise says.

            Demographers say that restrictions on the release of data appear to be a reaction by the powers that be to news stories that show conditions in Russia in a negative way; but the powers forget that without this information, their own bureaucracies won’t be in a position to come up with adequate policies or apply them effectively.

            Just how far the Kremlin is prepared to go in closing down this window on Russian life will become evident in the next few weeks when Rosstat and other Russian government agencies are scheduled to release annual reports. If those don’t contain new data – and that unfortunately is likely to be the case – demographic information from Russia is going to be much harder to get.

Russia Will Continue to Inflict More Violence on Its Peoples and the World than Demise of that Muscovite State would Entail, Buryat Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – The Kremlin and most of the Russian opposition insist that the decolonization of the Russian state will involve more violence than its preservation, Anna Zuyeva says; but in fact, that state now and in the future regardless of who controls it will continue to inflict far more violence on its own people and on the world.

            And even if the departure of some republics and regions does involve some violence because pro-Moscow forces, including many now in the opposition will resist, the Buryat activist now living in exile in Estonia says, “a horrific end is better than horrors without end” which will be the case if the Muscovite state continues to exist.

            In an extensive interview with the Sibreal portal, Zuyeva makes a number of additional noteworthy points. First, she says targets of repression in republics like Buryatia are identified by local siloviki and then confirmed by Moscow because locals know the situation better (sibreal.org/a/kak-zhurnalistka-iz-buryatii-otkazalas-zhit-po-pravilam-imperii/33629303.html).

            Second, she says that the Russian opposition may be against the war in Ukraine and against Putin; but they are not prepared to break with the Kremlin over the maintenance of Russia in its current borders and will thus set the stage for a recrudescence of violence and aggression however “democratic” they promote themselves as being.

            And third, Zuyeva, whose teenage son now speaks Estonian and goes to an Estonian school, says she won’t return to live in Buryatia even if it does become an independent state. Estonia is now her home, she says; and while she will visit Buryatia, neither she nor her son is ever likely to live there. 

 

Christians Not Affiliated with Moscow Patriarchate Increasingly Targets of Repression in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – Vladimir Putin keeps saying that the Russian government supports “all traditional religions on the territory of Russia” (nazaccent.ru/content/44965-vladimir-putin-zayavil-o-podderzhke-vseh/); but in fact, he and his government don’t do so but rather limit what support they give to religious structures that cooperate with the state.

            The clearest example of this, Point Media journalist Ivan Zheyanov says, is to be found in the case of Christianity where the Russian state, supported by the Moscow Patriarchate, is increasingly targeting Christians not affiliated with or subordinate to the ROC MP (pointmedia.io/story/694986c5e657f59b666dce95).

            The repression of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has been going on for some time and continues unabated. But other Christian groups within Russia are also being fined by the government for activities that are not coordinated with the ROC MP or the Russian government including but not limited to the Gideons and those who hold services or sing songs independently.

            This pattern makes a mockery of Putin’s claim to support traditional religions. Instead, the Kremlin leader and his regime are prepared to support only those who are part of religious structures that have agreed to work with the state and often, as has been well documented, are in fact run by state agencies for their purposes rather than the religious for theirs.

            Unfortunately, Russian propaganda to the contrary on this point is only rarely challenged, and many people in Western countries, including perhaps most prominently the United States, have accepted the notion that Putin’s Russia is a bastion in the defense of traditional values rather than being simply an authoritarian state on the way to the restoration of totalitarianism.

Building a Ship in China Now Costs 60 to 70 Percent less than Building the Same One in Russia, Moscow Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – China enjoys an enormous advantage over Russia when it comes to shipbuilding. Its yards can build the same ship that Russia wants for 60 to 70 percent less than Russia can, and that advantage hurts Russia in another way too Mikhail Burmistrov says: it means China isn’t prepared to sell Russia the electronics needed for modern vessels.

            The Infoline-Analysis expert says that Russian wharves have become so uncompetitive that that problem, along with corruption, sanctions, and the inability to come up with financing means that Russia cannot realistically expect to meet its shipbuilding targets for the next decade at a minimum (vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2025/12/23/1165527-plan-grazhdanskogo-sudostroeniya).

            It almost certainly also means that Chinese ships rather than Russian ones are likely to come to dominate the Northern Sea Route in the next several years, an outcome that will in turn mean that Beijing rather than Moscow will have the whip hand for the development of the Arctic and its natural resources, all of Putin’s boasts notwithstanding.

Russians who Never Fought in Ukraine are Identifying as Veterans to Get Benefits but Police are Doing Nothing in Response, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 22 – As has happened after wars in the past, many Russians now who never fought in Ukraine are declaring themselves veterans of that conflict and even wearing uniforms and medals to get benefits. But in contrast to the past, Russian police are doing nothing to hold them to account for this fraud lest they call too much attention to it.

            Just how many Russian men are doing this is unknown, but the problem, which seems to be concentrated in areas close to the battle lines and thus may be part of a strategy to avoid being dragooned into military service rather than anything else, is attracting ever more attention in Russia, with many there saying something should be done. 

            This has outraged many genuine veterans, some of whom have taken action. Others are angry as well. Kirill Kabanov, a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, says he wants those making false claims about being veterans to be charged with discrediting the army and punished accordingly (svpressa.ru/war21/article/496006/).

            Other observers, like Aleksandr Chistyakov of the Russian Literary Society, are calling for a different approach. They say that those who falsely claim to be veterans are suffering from mental disorders and should be confined in psychiatric facilities, a step that would both discredit the practice and make it less likely that others will follow in their wake.

‘Unless Moscow Changes Course, Russia will Lose Siberia,’ Academician Tulokhonov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 23 – At a Moscow conference on transportation routes east of the Urals, Academician Albert Tulokhonov argued that unless Moscow quicky changes its approach to this issue, “Russia will find itself without Siberia” and will suffer all the political, geopolitical and economic problems such a loss will entail.

            The geography and former senator told a Higher School of Economics conference chaired by Sergey Karaganov who has long urged that Moscow refocus its attention from European portions of the country to areas east of the Urals that in recent years, what the center has done has “led to the degradation of the eastern regions” (business-gazeta.ru/article/690798).

            “Over the last 30 years,” Tulokhonov continued, “our country has not created a single major enterprise in this regard equivalent in scope to those we built in the past.” The authorities in Moscow have limited themselves to coming up with ever new strategies but not mobilized the country to realize them.

            And he said he was especially concerned by “the loss of technological and cadres sovereignty” that this approach had led to. In Soviet times, Moscow cooperated with other republics of the USSR and fraternal countries, but now “Russia remains without these competences and partners, and its own cadres have been shifted to other regions.”

            In reporting this and other speeches to the HSE conference, Kazan’s Business-Gazeta portal says that it has a draft of the Paths and Roads of Siberia planning document that was prepared by Karaganov’s team of experts and that participants in the December 19 meeting were called upon to discuss.

            Among the most important conclusions they reached was that unless Moscow develops the shore support capacity of the Northern Sea Route quickly, even that national project will be remain unfulfilled and even that “without railways” and river transport connected it to the rest of Russia, “the Northern Sea Route will remain isolated” and at risk of being taken over by others.

The More Putin Seeks to Russify the Non-Russians, the More Actively They will Resist, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 22 – The more Putin seeks to Russify the non-Russians within the Russian Federation both directly and via Russian nationalist groups he supports or are allied with the Kremlin, the more nationalistic the non-Russians will become and the more they will resist, according to Igor Eidman.

            The Russian sociologist who now lives in emigration in Berlin says that the interaction of these two trends points to an approaching explosion (idelreal.org/a/chem-silnee-davyat-tem-silnee-soprotivlenie-igor-eydman-o-rusifikatsii-roste-natsionalnogo-samosoznaniya-i-buduschem-rossii-posle-putina/33626670.html).

            In the past, the Putin regime understood this interrelationship and both limited its own Russification policies and cracked down on Russian nationalists. But since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the Kremlin leader has decided he needs the Russian nationalists more and thus has changed course.

            Since 2022, Eidman continues, “Russian nationalism has become part of the official discourse and already not just civic but also ethnic.” This isn’t widely advertised, “but never the less, it is the case.” That reflects not only Putin’s views but those of “the ruling hierarchy” dominated by the siloviki who “always have been nationalists, xenophobes and anti-Semites.”

            By their actions, he suggests, the Kremlin leadership is creating new challenges to itself among both Russian nationalists who will never believe the top has gone far enough and non-Russians who are convinced that Moscow will only get worse as far as they are concerned and that they must seek independence to ensure their survival.

            In fact, both Russians and the world need the non-Russians to succeed in doing so because “as long as the Russian empire exists, its expansion can stop only for a limited time before inevitably resume. Consequently, to eliminate the threat to European and world security, this empire must collapse.”

            That is because “as long as it exists, this threat will inevitably reappear eventually. That is not some personal wish of mine,” Eidman says; but rather in general a trend of logic of history. All empires collapsed in the 20^th century … but the Russian Empire has survived. That is an historical anomaly, but it will eventually be eliminated.”

            “That is the logic of history,” the Russian sociologist concludes,” regardless of whether anyone likes it or not.” 

Putin Opening the Way to ‘Creeping Islamization’ of Russian Traditional Values, Furman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 21 – At his recent open line press conference, Vladimir Putin declared that “all the peoples of the Russian Federation have common traditional values” and that God “doesn’t know that people on earth are divided into various churches” because it doesn’t matter what faith one has, “when people together are being shot at.”

            Such an approach appears to lie behind efforts in the Duma to impose fines on those who discredit whatever the Kremlin believes are “traditional values” and work in the Kremlin itself to create an ideology embracing both Orthodox Christianity and Islam, commentator Lera Furman says (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/12/21/krestom-i-polumesiatsem-po-traditsionnym-tsennostiam).

            That the Kremlin is moving in this direction, she says, is suggested by a telegram channel post by Kirill Kabanov, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, who says that “technologists in the Kremlin are seriously working on the integration of Islamic components in ‘the national spiritual-moral values” of Russia (t.me/kabanovkv/6450).

            According to Kabanov, “it has become clear why the state still cannot give a firm rebuff to the radical Islamism spreading throughout the country” and that “at the very top” of the Russian political system, it has been recognized that “the main vector of the new traditionalism’ is the East, Eurasianism, and the Golden Horde” because of “decadence” in Christianity.

            Furman says that her sources “believe that the Kabanov leak may have originated with Sergey Karaganov, a veteran of Putin’s geopolitical thinking, a professor at the Higher School of Economics and the long-time chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy” who has written about the need to make a radical turn to the east.

            “Among other things,” Furmanov says, “’creeping Islamization,’ not at the level of non-religious practices but in the format of the ideology of ‘common traditional values’ is now considered by the authorities as an antidote to the inevitably anti-immigrant sentiments that may flare up in the event of a mass return” of veterans from the war in Ukraine.

            Many Orthodox Christians and even more Russian nationalists will be appalled and infuriated by such a development, Furman suggests; but the official hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has shown that it is willing to “accept anything” that the Kremlin asks for – and so it will likely go along.

            After all, Patriarch Kirill once declared that Putin himself had once said that “we are closer to Islam,” adding that he thinks that too. (On the complicated relationship of Islam and Orthodoxy in Kremlin thinking and its potential to backfire among Russians, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/02/moscow-patriarchate-said-opening-way.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/05/russian-orthodox-patriarchs-words.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/rise-of-orthodox-russian-nationalism.html.)