Putin Putting Survival of Russian Federation at Risk by Exploitation of Regions, Kachalov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Apr. 1 – The Kremlin wants to rule an eternal empire and believes its control over the federal subjects is “unshakeable,” Konstantin Kachalov says; but in fact, the center is putting the survival of the Russian Federation at risk by its colonial policy of harsh exploitation of the regions and republics.
    According to the Russian analyst, Moscow views the federal subjects only as “a resource for its imperial ambitions.” Indeed, it has been guided by that vision to the point that the question now is only “how soon will they turn against the center” and seek independence (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67EC0B1814472).
    As a result, Kachalov concludes, “the Kremlin itself is creating the conditions of its own” and the country’s “collapse,” outcomes that are increasingly likely in the next five to ten years unless the regime changes course, something under Putin at least, it gives absolutely no signs of doing.
    In 2023, Moscow took 70 percent of the tax revenues from the entire country, spending most of that on war but also on the city itself and leaving regions with less than a third of the taxes they had paid to spend on local needs. That left the governments of the federal subjects in deficit and meant that their GDPs dropped three to five percent, while Moscow grew 2.1 percent.
    People in the regions and republics are angry, and the governors “whose job is to serve the center not the residents” have used force to prevent protests. But, Kachalov continues, “this is not governance but a colonial policy with the regions turning into controlled territories without the right to protest.”
    Not surprisingly, “centrifugal forces are already gaining strength,” he says. Both in Moscow and in the federal subjects should recall what happened to the USSR in 1991, when the center lost the ability to support the periphery, and parts of the periphery then left. Unfortunately, the Kremlin is “ignoring” this precedent and believes “repression will save ‘the vertical.’”
    Kachalov is blunt: “Moscow is preparing its own end by building a system where the regions are just fuel for the imperial machine.” That is “unsustainable” because “economic plunder, political oppression and growing protests are opening fault lines that can no longer be repaired” by force alone.
    “In five to ten years, these forces could tear the Russian Federation apart unless the Kremlin changes course. But it won’t do that because it is incapable of operating in any other way,” Kalachev continues. And the regions, “from Sakha to Krasnodar are increasingly recognizing that their future is not with Moscow but outside of its control.”