Russian Victory Day Ceremony on Svalbard ‘Veiled Effort’ to Build Militarized Presence on the Norwegian Archipelago, ‘Barents Observer’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 13 – A small demonstration on Svalbard organized by the Russian consulate general and the Moscow-owned Arktikugol company and featuring four young people wearing Russian uniforms and waving Russian and Soviet flags was “a veiled effort” to challenge Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago, Atle Staalesen says.

            The founder of The Barents Observer says that Kari Aga Myklebost, a scholar at Norway’s Arctic University agrees and used “seemly legitimate war commemorations to normalize warmongering symbols and rhetoric” (thebarentsobserver.com/news/behind-russias-victory-day-ceremony-on-svalbard-was-a-veiled-effort-to-build-a-militarised-presence/450491).

            “Through these events,” she says, “Kremlin foreign policy narratives about victory in Ukraine and a Russian ‘war of defense’ are promoted, while at the same time Norway’s liberal principles concerning freedom of speech and assembly are being exploited and tested.”

            She adds that “Not only liberal principles but also Norwegian and wider European security are at stake. If Russia succeeds in pushing these boundaries and normalizing its militarised presence on Svalbard, we may face a serious and acute security situation.”  And she calls for Norway to push back and encourage others in the West to do the same.

            Norwegian officials on Svalbard, however, played down the event telling Aftenposten that “there is nothing about the demonstration that we find cause to react to” (aftenposten.no/verden/i/aJvOBd/putin-parade-paa-norsk-territorium-en-provokasjon-fra-russland).

            (For background on Svalbard and Russian efforts to exploit the special legal situation there, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/11/putins-special-envoy-for-svalbard-says.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/russia-has-every-right-to-expand-its.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/moscow-increases-its-focus-on-two-north.html.)

Most Russians Feel They are Suffering from ‘Too Many Inconveniences’ and This Sense Both Reflects and is Affecting Their Evaluations of Putin, Levinson Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – Two of the most frequently asked questions are whether the anger many Russians feel about the difficulties they now face in their daily lives will translate into political opposition to those responsible or whether Russians will keep the two separate and support Putin despite the problems they have.

            Investigating those issues are difficult, but Aleksey Levinson of the Levada Center says that the results of a survey in which Russians were asked whether “there are too many inconveniences” in their lives and how this relates to political judgments provide suggestive answers (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/12/byt-zael).

            Despite fears that Russians might not be willing to answer such a question, the sociologist says, the poll found that the rate of those who were not ready to give an answer was no higher than in other polls and that the differences the responses between the poorest segments of society and the wealthiest are thus indicative.

            The survey found that “more than two-thirds of the Russian residents surveyed are now dissatisfied with the sheet volume of inconveniences in their lives, while only 20 percent are inclined to disagree and only seven percent “definitely” do so, with poorer Russians more inclined to agree and wealthier ones less so.

            What this suggests, Levinson says, is that “for the majority of people in the country, life does not feel the way it ought to and therefore it is not merely inconvenient but excessively so.” At the same time, his pollsters asked whether the country was moving in the right direction. As has been true throughout the Putin era, a majority does; but the size of that majority is falling.

            This suggests, the pollster concludes, that feelings about inconveniences are beginning to have political consequences, he continues, with those who oppose Putin, although a minority but a growing one, “more than twice as likely as his supporters to state with absolute certainty that ‘there are far too many inconveniences’” in Russian live under his rule.

 

Caspian Water Level Falling So Fast that New Islands are Appearing and Shipping is at Risk, Russian Specialists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – The water level of the Caspian Sea is continuing to fall so fast that new and as yet-unnamed islands are appearing and shipping lanes and ports are in some places no longer accessible by larger ships, according to experts at the Russian Institute of Oceanology on the basis of an expedition there last month.

            “Over the course of the last 30 years,” one of its participants says, “the level of the Caspian Sea has fallen approximately 30 meters. This trend has occurred in the sea as a whole but the most significant manifestations of the fall … have been in the north” (casp-geo.ru/rossijskie-okeanologi-zafiksirovali-prirost-beregovoj-linii-na-kaspii/).

            There, the sea has always been shallower than in the south; and there too the declining flow of water into the Caspian from the Volga River has had the greatest immediate impact. The appearance of islands, some likely temporary but others permanent, is a manifestation of this pattern.

            According to the Russian investigators, the possibility of seriously reducing the decline in the water levels of the Caspian are slight, at least over the next 25 to 50 years for which scholars have made predictions. As a result, more islands will appear, more ports will be isolate, and more shipping lanes will be limited in their ability to handle large ships.

Fewer North Caucasians have Fought in Ukraine than Many Think, But Chechnya’s Kadyrov has Gained Power from the War, Memorial Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – In a study of the impact of Putin’s war in Ukraine on the North Caucasus, the Memorial human rights organization draws two important conclusions: On the one hand, fewer North Caucasians have fought for Russia in Ukraine than many think; and on the other, Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov has gained new power as a result of the conflict.

            The organization presents both conclusions in its latest quarterly report on the region (memorialcenter.org/uploads/Byulleten_polnyj_2_dce46dc2a0.pdf), a report Radio Liberty’s Natalya Kildiyarova discusses in detail (kavkazr.com/a/kadyrov-poluchil-boljshe-vlasti-pravozaschitniki-ob-uchastii-kavkaza-v-voyne-s-ukrainoy/33754254.html).

            According to Memorial, “Chechnya occupies one of the last places among regions regarding the number of combat deaths per 1,000 residents – 0.30. In Ingushetia, this metric stands at 0.43, in Dagestan, at 0.62, and in Kabardino-Balkaria, 0.67. The figure for Russia as a whole is 1.35; and in Tyva, it is 5.24.”

            The only North Caucasus region where combat deaths relative to population was higher than that for Russia as a whole was North Ossetia. There it stood at 1.80 per 1,000 residents. Memorial suggests that is connected with “a developed tradition of military service” and “the basing in the republic of units of the 58^th army.”

            These figures undercut the widespread assumptions that Chechens and other North Caucasians are fighting and dying in Ukraine in disproportionate numbers and that before their deaths, are responsible for crimes of various kinds against the civilian population of that country, the human rights organization says.

            According to Memorial, there are several reasons for this relatively low level of participation of North Caucasians in Putin’s war, including memories of Moscow’s wars against Chechnya, anti-war attitudes among many nations in the region, and the relatively large shadow economy in the North Caucasus which makes signing up for the military less attractive.

            But Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov has acquired the reputation in Moscow and elsewhere as someone who has mobilized his own people for the war and thus has gained even more support from the Kremlin and thus more power to act as he likes, building up military forces to be used primarily at home against his personal opponents, Memorial suggests.

            The Chechen leader has done so by falsifying figures of Chechen participation in the fighting in Ukraine, reporting multiple short-term visits to Ukraine by his loyalists as separate individuals and thus giving the impression to the world and especially to Putin that he is better at mobilization than in fact is the case.

Moscow Must Combat Increasing Militarization of the Caspian by Diplomacy Not Force, Iranian Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 7 -- Khayal Muazzin, an Iranian political analyst says that the diversification of the security policies of the Caspian littoral states has resulted in the militarization of  that sea by outside powers and that Moscow must combat it by a more active diplomacy rather than by force alone.

            The militarization of the Caspian is “already underway. It is simply tht this process is not always evident on the surface. The naval presence of outsiders is being bolstered, surveillance systems are being modernized, air defense capabilities are being developed, and increased attention is being directed toward the security of ports and maritime routes” (caspian.land/37356-kaspijskaja-voronka-militarizacija-i-strategicheskie-riski-dlja-rossii.html).

            Muazzin says that even taken together, however, “this does not appear to be preparation for an immediate conflict. Rather, it is creating a new reality, one in which the states of the region understand that stability is no longer self-guaranteeing; and they are beginning to fortify their positions in advance.”

            As a result, he continues, “the question is no longer whether militarization will occur but rather what its depth and pace will be and how it will be integrated with diplomatic mechanisms.” Indeed, the Iranian analyst says, “the Caspian is gradually changing from “a tranquil inland sea’ into a theater of strategic balance” over the longer term.

            “The most probable scenario in the near term is the persistence of high levels of tension within the region. A resolution does not appear imminent; rather, it is likely to unfold not as a sudden event, but as a gradual process—taking shape through shifts in the balance of power and successive stages of confrontation," Muezzin says.

            And he adds for his Russian audience: “this represents [for Moscow] a test of its leadership, one however that emphasizes not military might but agile diplomacy.” If the Russian side is successful, the Caspian “may yet return to cooperation free from ‘external advisors.’ But there is a great risk it will instead devolve into a zone of chronic instability.”

Russia’s Shortage of Nurses Seen Growing from 50,000 Now to 250,000 in Four Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – Russia now has a shortage of 50 to 70,000 nurses, a figure that risks growing to as much as 250,000 in only four years, the result of low pay, bad working conditions, and the aging of current nurses, who now mostly are over 40, according to Yan Vlassov, the head of the All-Russian Union of Patients.

            The Putin regime’s response has been to call for expanding the enrollment and nursing institutions, but such a step, Vlassov says, won’t quickly or well. The government must address salaries and working conditions as well. Otherwise disaster looms (mk.ru/social/2026/05/11/k-2030-godu-nekhvatka-srednego-medpersonala-v-rossii-mozhet-uvelichitsya-do-250-tys-chelovek.html).

            The problems the situation of nurses in Russia and the response of the Putin regime to them resemble those in many parts of the Russian economy: a failure to appreciate why people are leaving certain jobs and the conviction of the authorities that simply adding more entrants to work in particular areas will suffice to solve the problem.

            In reality, however many students are trained to do certain jobs, many of them will leave the profession quickly and thus undercut efforts to fill existing gaps – a special case of the more general Russian predisposition to assume that extensive approaches will always work and that intensive ones are not necessary.

Judicial Statistics Gathered by Russian Supreme Court to Remain Classified for 20 Years

Paul Goble

              Staunton, May 12 – In what the Meduza news agency describes as “a catastrophe,” the Judicial Department of the Russian Supreme Court has declared that all judicial statistics it had released in the past will now remain classified for 20 years and all the data it had released since 2005 has been taken down from its website.

              There are more than 2,000 courts in Russia, and individually, they will continue to release information on their decisions; but the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court is the only body that gathers them and had released that data in the past (meduza.io/feature/2026/05/12/v-rossii-zakryli-dostup-sudebnoy-statistike-za-20-let-i-eto-katastrofa).

              Because there are so many courts, no individual or organization other than the department of the Supreme Court is capable of gathering it all together and then using it to track trends like treatment of dissidents, LGBT+ people, deaths in the military, and so on. This decision will thus prevent anyone from having comprehensive data on such issues.

              And because that is so, this decision is far more serious than most of the other cutbacks in statistics that the Putin regime has carried out most frequently since the start of the expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, leaving both Russian officials and independent analysts at a serious loss. 

‘Chief Task for Belarus is Not to Become Part of Russia After Putin’s War in Ukraine Ends,’ Babariko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – The chief task of Belarusians today is to ensure that Belarus does not become part of the Russian Federation after Putin’s war in Ukraine ends, a real risk in that the Kremlin dictator may try to cover his own failings in Ukraine by annexing Belarus, Viktor Babariko says.

            Speaking to  Belarusian emigres in Lithuania, the former presidential candidate in 2020 who now lives in Berlin says that the threat of Russia absorbing Belarus is greater than it was in 2020 and that Belarusians must devote all their efforts to preventing that from happening (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20260511-виктор-бабарико-сейчас-главная-задача-для-беларуси-на-стать-частью-россии).

            Despite what Lukashenka and Putin have done, Belarusians won a major victory six years ago because “before 2020 there was never before such a growth of national self-consciousness in Belarus.” Indeed, one may say that “it was precisely then that the Belarusian nation was born.”

            Babariko who himself was a political prisoner before being released and then expelled and whose son is still behind bars in Belarus as a hostage says that he favors all forms of resistance to Lukashenka and Putin except for taking up arms. That would prove counterproductive, he suggests.

Yerevan Will No Longer Set Up Polling Stations Abroad for Armenian Diaspora

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – Armenian officials say they won’t be setting up polling stations abroad for Armenians living there, although they will allow diplomats and military personnel on assignment there to vote, a decision likely to have profound consequences not only in the June parliamentary vote but beyond.

            This decision was announced by Seda Gukasyan, press spokesperson for the Armenian Central Election Commission, who said that this decision was the result of changes in election law in that country first introduced in 2012 (vz.ru/news/2026/5/11/1417972.html and vz.ru/world/2026/5/11/1418037.html).

            The Armenian diaspora not only is large but is more committed to the idea that their homeland must rely on Russia to defend it against Turkey and Azerbaijan while Armenians in Armenia and especially the government of Nikol Pashinyan believe Armenia’s future depends on ties with the EU rather than Russia and on cooperation with its Turkic neighbors.

            Yerevan has not released figures on just how many Armenians abroad with the right to vote will find it more difficult to do so because they would have to travel to Armenia itself to exercise that right, but even if it is a relatively small share of all Armenians abroad, this restriction could tile the elections in favor of those who share Pashinyan’s views.

Kremlin Narratives Preclude Not only Calling War in Ukraine a War but Conflicts among Nationalities Conflicts, Abramenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – It is universally recognized that Putin propagandists insist that no one must call Russia’s war in Ukraine a war; but it is less widely understood that there are other issues where these same propagandists insist that other things must not be called by their own names, Olga Abramenko says.

            According to the Russian commentator, one of the most significant of these concerns the relationships between the dominant Russian ethnos and the non-Russian minorities which the Kremlin insists must never be referred to as “conflicts” (svoboda.org/a/pryamoy-uscherb-oljga-abramenko-o-sledah-kolonizatsii/33745160.html).

            That not only distorts reality but makes it far more difficult for those involved to talk about what is going on  and then address the problems that this verbal sleight of hand seeks to conceal, Abramenko says; and it is one of the first things that representatives of the non-Russian nations must fight to overcome.

            One of the places where this conflict has been most in evidence is at the UN’s Permanent Forum on the Issues of Indigenous Peoples, which has just held its 25^th annual session. There, representatives of Russian officialdom continue to deny there are any conflicts, while representatives of the non-Russian minorities argue just the reverse.

            The officials typically get more attention, but the minority representatives have the far better argument because their position not only is congruent with reality but also with the way in which most participants in these forums discuss issues concerning the relationship between dominant groups and minorities.

            According to Abramenko, “for those peoples who now live in the Russian Federation, there are several aspects of conflicts in the sense in which it is understood at the UN. There is the war of Russia against Ukraine which has disproportionately involved the indigenous peoples, the continuing impact of the colonial policy of the Russian Empire, the USSR, and present-day Russia and the thieving activities of extraction companies.”

            In addition, she says, peoples in the Russian Federation “who do not belong to the ethnic Russian majority experience racism and xenophobia which in recent decades has become a part of social life and, in the  assessments of experts, is growing; and the numerically small peoples … remain one of the most vulnerable and impoverished groups in the population.”

            This year’s meeting of the UN forum focused on health issues in particular. Representatives of the Russian government argued that any problems the minorities were experiencing in that sphere were the result of Ukrainian actions and those of other outside powers rather than the Russian state or Russian society.

            But non-Russian experts pointed to the consequences of Russian actions and insisted they were not directed solely at activists, as many outsiders assume, but at the non-Russian peoples as a whole. Abramenko offers as an example a recent statement by Eskender Bariyev of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center who makes that point (adcmemorial.org/statyi/vystupleniya-uchastnikov-diskussii-golosa-korennyh-narodov-protiv-repressij-so-storony-rossijskih-vlastej/ ).

With Widening Drone Attacks, Ukraine Driving ‘Wedge’ between Moscow and Federation Subjects, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 7 – Many had expected that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s far-flung regions and republics would generate support for Moscow and demands across the country for a massive Russian response to what Kyiv is now doing, but the reverse is in fact the case, according to Abbas Gallyamov.

            The former Putin speech writer and now Putin critic says that as he at least expected, by attacking Russia’s regions, “the Ukrainians are driving a wedge between Moscow and the federal subjects (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/10415 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/odno-iz-samyh-uyazvimyh-mest-putinskogo-rezhima).

            That is because people in the regions and republics are now having to an increasingly true reality: the defense of Moscow is being carried out on the backs of the federal subjects – and the center is not defending them as it should if Russia were a truly united country.

            According to Gallyamov, “the only effective defense” against such thinking “would be for Putin to make regular visits to the Russian heartland and, while there, publicly announce decisions to supply each of the regions with a new air defense system.” But “the Russian president is incapable of doing that.”

            Indeed, the commentator says, it is clear that Putin “genuinely believes and with absolute sincerity that protecting the citizens of his country does not fall within the scope of duties the president is expected to fulfill.” Instead, his business is to bomb the enemy; as for how his subjects are faring, that is none of his concern.”

            That has been true for some time, Gallyamov suggests; but what the Ukrainians have done with their drone attacks on Russia’s federal subjects is to make that obvious to ever more people there and even in Moscow but clearly not to Putin who remains oblivious to the consequences of this development.  

            Moreover, although the commentator doesn't suggest it, his reference to "a wedge" between Moscow and the regions will cause many Ukrainians and their friends to think about ethnic Ukrainian areas within the current borders of the Russian Federation, areas that many Ukrainians describe as "wedges."  

Women Remain Face of Protest in North Caucasus Even Though They’ve Lost Relative Immunity They had Earlier, ‘Daptar’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – In the North Caucasus, women rather than men are the ones who speak out most publicly “against abuses of power by the security forces, abductions or violations o children’s rights,” according to experts and activists with whom the Daptar portal spoke. And this has continued even though they have lost the relative immunity they had earlier.

            The portal, which tracks the abuse of women in that region, says that women showed that most prominently in 2022 when they dominated the ranks of protests against mobilization for Putin’s war (daptar.ru/2026/05/06/mat-sestra-doch-pochemu-na-severnom-kavkaze-imenno-zhenshchiny-stanovyatsya-golosom-borby-za-spravedlivost/).

            But they have long taken the lead, sociologists who study protest in the region say, in part because they have enjoyed relative immunity from prosecution because defending the weak is viewed by many there as the proper role of women. Now, however, the Russian authorities are changing their approach and arresting more women.

            Despite that, the portal’s experts continue, women in the North Caucasus remain the face of protest in the region because they have earlier experiences in challenging officials when they believe their rights and the rights of their family members have been violated – and they are likely to continue to do so in the future.

            According to Daptar, “a woman can speak from a position of suffering and protection—pleading rather than demanding, appealing to justice rather than engaging in open conflict. This mode of expression proves to be socially acceptable and, therefore, viable.”

            One Chechen activist says that “A woman’s public voice is accepted only as long as it aligns with the image of a mother protecting her child, or an individual seeking justice. But the moment her words go beyond that boundary and become direct accusations, attitudes can shift abruptly—and the risks of facing pressure and intimidation escalate."

            Yet “even now,” Daptar’s Nailya Keldeyeva says, women remain “the most willing to assume the risks and remain active. And while earlier this might be attributable to prevailing notions of ‘female immunity,’ today it is increasing a matter of the wealth of accumulated survival experience.”

With World War II Veterans Passing from the Scene, Kazakhstan Extending Special Benefits to Others who Suffered Then or Later

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – Only 57 veterans of World War II remain alive among the 20 million citizens of Kazakhstan. Astana continues to give them enormous bonuses on the anniversary of the end of that conflict. But now with their passing, it has expanded the reach of this bonus system to others.

            This expansion first involved awards to 31,349 current Kazakhstan residents who worked there during the war, but now, the Bugin news service reports, Astana has extended it to 110 children who were in concentration camps, 2900 who fought in Afghanistan, 2707 who were involved with the Chernobyl cleanup, and almost 10,000 who became invalids because of nuclear testing in Kazakhstan in Soviet times (bugin.info/detail/epokha-zakanchivaetsia-v-ka/ru).

            What this means, the portal continues, is that Kazakhstan is “establishing a unified system of historical social memory into which it is gradually incorporating all groups linked to the major traumas of the Soviet era – war, radiation catastrophes, military conflicts, the Afghanistan war, and nuclear test sites.”

            “Through a system of social benefits, the state is constructing its own historical hierarchy,” it continues. “The inclusion of Chernobyl liquidators and participants in nuclear testing in this system is particularly telling as it remains one of the nations in the world bearing the heaviest historical legacy of the nuclear age.”

            And that shows something else, Bugin says. The Kazakhstan state “is seeking to combine several eras into a single historical line: Soviet industrial heroism, military memory and present-day Kazakhstan statehood,” a move complicated by just how many different traumas its people have suffered in the past.

 

Moscow Wrestling with Multiple Dimensions of Global Warming Especially in the Far North

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – Like people elsewhere, most Russians have accepted the fact that global warming is occurring; but like others, they remain divided and are only beginning to recognize that this trend does not mean that there will be an even warming of all regions but rather introduce “climate chaos” across the board.

            Not only will some regions grow warmer while others remain or even grow colder but there may be wild “swings” in temperature and precipitation both within one region and between it and its neighbors, a pattern that makes predicting what will happen increasingly difficult if not impossible, experts say (akcent.site/novosti/44822).

            In some places, warming may make some kind of agricultural activity more possible but in others, the warming trend may lead to too much rain or too little for that to take place.  And in others, the warming trend may destroy infrastructure or even lead to forest fires and desertification.

            Officials are now being forced to try to predict what they should prepare for in a situation where predictions are far more difficult to make and where errors are likely to exacerbate problems, something that will provoke anger in populations affected who do not yet understand fully how diverse the impact of global warming actually is turning out to be.

Most Expressions of Russian Discontent Still of Loyalist Variety, Dubrovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – The message most Russians now openly expressing discontent remains of a loyalist nature, Dmitry Dubrovsky says, a sign that most still have faith in Putin but not his officials, “although we are beginning to have our doubts” given Internet shutoffs and Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian cities.

            The Russian sociologist now at Prague’s Charles University says that the Kremlin and the population of Russia have long operated under an unspoken contract in which the regime promises stability and growth and the latter agrees to stay out of politics (svoboda.org/a/armiya-poklonnikov-siljnoy-vlasti-ustala/33752858.html).

            But that contract has “cracked” at least a little because it “never anticipated a scenario where the internet would be cut off, cities subjected to regular shelling or people would be unable to pay for things simply by using a bank card,” the Russian sociologist continues.

            Many Russians are upset about these developments, but they don’t have either leaders or the experience of acting collectively that allow them to protest in anything like the traditional ways. And that is why some public figures with “absolutely no  connection to political life” have stepped in.

            That has gotten the attention of the Kremlin and analysts in Russia and abroad, who are very much aware that “an authoritarian regime operates under conditions of a severe deficit of reliable information [because] everyone lies to it.” As a result, “it fears everyone, everyone fears it, and thus everyone lies to everyone else.”

            In this situation, Dubrovsky continues, it is important to remember that only “a limited number of people” in Russia love Putin. Most who support him do so for cultural, ideological or completely practical reasons. Their lack of alternatives mean that they have not turned on him because they do not yet have anyone to turn to.

            Moreover, Russians lack solidarity because, as a result of government efforts, people believe that they do not bear responsibility for anyone “because there is an authority – the government – that is responsible for everything.” Solidarity doesn’t simply exist. It is a skill that requires practice and must be learned.

            Putin and his regime have done and will do everything possible to prevent Russians from acquiring that skill. But until Russians learn it, they may be angry about what is going on but they won’t present the kind of challenge to Putin that some imagine, although their anger may be a precondition for the rise of just such a threat.

Russia Now Reversing Earlier Draining of Swamps to Combat Forest Fires, Air Pollution and Global Warming

Paul Goble

              Staunton, May 9 – Thirty years ago, Russian officials launched a campaign to drain swamplands around the country in order to prevent drownings and to open the way to the harvesting of peat; but as the Province portal says, “they tried to do what was bt but in the end things turned out just as they always do.”

              The number of lives saved by the draining of swamps was microscopically small, and the destruction of these areas did not result in any major increase in the use of peat as a fuel (province.ru/society/4495414-opasno-bez-tryasiny-v-rossii-nachali-vosstanavlivat-bolota/).

              Instead, the destruction of the swamps released dangerous gases into the atmosphere, sparked more and larger forest fires than Russia had ever seen before, and contributed to global warming not only inside the RussianP Federation but everywhere else as well.

              Last year, officials decided to “rewet” the swamplands beginning first in Tver and then in other hard-hit federal subjects (iz.ru/2092251/sergei-gurianov/opasno-bez-triasiny-zachem-v-rossii-vosstanavlivaiut-bolota), a program that is now spreading to other  regions as well.

Moscow Responds to Growing Income Inequality by Changing How It is Measured

Paul Goble

              Staunton, May 5 – Instead of taking measures that will actually reduce growing income inequality among Russians, Moscow has responded in the first instance by changing the way statistics about that are gathered and presented to make comparisons more difficult and the situation look better than it is, Maksim Blant says.

              In 2025, income inequality in the Russian Federation rose to the highest level it has been since 2007. Putin promised to change that, but the greatest change his government has made is to modify the way his government processes data about that, the Radio Liberty analyst says (svoboda.org/a/zagnatj-dzhini-v-butylku-kak-vlasti-boryutsya-s-neravenstvom/33750448.html).

              It has redefined the Gini coefficient in ways that make comparisons with the past in Russia more difficult and at the same time make it far more difficult to compare with the situation in other countries, Blant says.  And he suggests that if Russia doesn’t meet the income equalization goals it has announced, Moscow will do the same again.

              Consequently, he continues, however defensible the changes in how the Gini coefficient is calculated in Russia may be – and there are reasons to see the new method as improved on a standalone basis – the ways this change will hide what is really going on are likely to be far more important at least politically.

Ukrainian Society Now Fundamentally Different than When Putin Began His Expanded War in 2022 and Won’t Revert to What It was Before, Minakov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – Ukrainian society has changed significantly since Russia began its expanded war in 2022 and will not simply revert to what it was before that date, according to Mikhail Minakhov who as surveyed senior Ukrainian social scientists who have remained in their positions since the war began on what has changed and what won’t change back.

            The Ukrainian political scientist who now works at the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C. makes the following points (sapere.online/chto-proishodit-s-ukrainskim-obshhestvom-na-pyatom-godu-vojny/):

·       First, the Ukrainian population has declined by 20 to 35 percent as a result of emigration and deaths in combat. It will not immediately return to what it was even if a sizeable portion of those who left return and change Ukrainnian life as a result of their experiences abroad.

·       Second, the country’s economy will depend on older workers than ever before and on different regions than it did earlier.

·       Third,  those serving in the military now are “the main middle class in Ukraine, the country’s class structure has changed, and the average income is now defined by those in the army. Around them has arisen a service sector.”

·       Fourth, “the state now is the main source for the redistribution of means as more than 90 percent of them passes through the budget and those who had been at most risk, the precariat, have moved into the bureaucracy.”

·       Fifth, the territorial structure of the population has changed, with young men dominating front areas, the elderly behind them, and others having moved further back or emigrated.

·       Sixth, social solidarity has changed. Both vertical and horizonal solidarity were strong, but now the former has strengthened at the expense of the latter. People still trust volunteers but the amount of funds they control has declined precipitously.

·       Seventh, society is now divided between fighters and non-combatants, something that affects both local and regional divisions. All other divisions have become relatively less important.

·       Eighth, attitudes toward the state have changed. On the one hand, Ukrainians view it with greater detachment; but on the other, they see it as a key defender of their country. Anarchic attitudes have declined precipitously.

·       Ninth, the war years have seen a rollercoaster development in popular attitudes from optimism to pessimism and back again among others, something that may continue and create a society very different from the one that displayed less turbulence than before the war.

·       And tenth, for Ukrainians, the war has become routine but not as the norm. They think of their future not as one of permanent conflict but as peaceful and look forward to a future without fighting all the time.

Kazakhstan will Soon Again have a Vice President, a Position It Dispensed with in 1996

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – Kazakhstan soon will again have a vice president, a position which it dispensed with in 1996 but which is mandated by recent constitutional changes and is now being defined more precisely by a bill that that country’s parliament has already passed its first reading (eurasiatoday.ru/v-kazahstane-vnov-poyavitsya-dolzhnost-vitse-prezidenta-podrobnosti/).

            Like the Russian Federation which dispensed with a vice presidency after the October 1993 clash between him and Boris Yeltsin, Kazakhstan first introduced that position to make transitions easier and divide power but then eliminated it to avoid the creation of any alternative power to the president.

            Because the new position in Kazakhstan will be filled directly by that country’s president, the government of that Central Asian country hopes to avoid the basis of any such clashes in the future; but if remains unclear whether the position can fill a real political niche or will remain vestigial except in the case of the death or incapacity of the president.

            Some in Kazakhstan think that this new post will transform Kazakh politics, but others are less certain. What is beyond question is that it will be closely watched not only there but in other post-Soviet states that currently lack vice presidencies and may bring them back or introduce them if the Kazakhstan revival works in a positive way.

Kursk Oblast Makes Plans to Erect Memorial to Leonid Brezhnev

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – Officials and activists in Kursk Oblast have formed a regional committee to plan the commemoration of the 120^th anniversary of the birth of Leonid Brezhnev in December of this year, an action that likely enjoys Putin’s backing and may spread to other locations in the Russian Federation in the months ahead.

            The organizing committee wants to establish a memorial to the former Soviet dictator in the center of the regional capital of Kursk and includes among its members the father of one of Putin’s assistants (echofm.online/news/vlasti-kurskoj-oblasti-ponjdderzhali-ustanovku-pamyatnika-brezhnevu-s-inicziativoj-vystupil-otecz-pomoshhnika-putina).

            Lt.Gen. Gennady Dyumin says that he will bear all the costs of the erection of such a monument and stresses that while Brezhnev was not born in Kursk, he lived and worked there in the first years of his life. Consequently, it is important that the city and region take the lead in memorializing him.

            Brezhnev today has neither the large number of supporters or large number of opponents among Russians. Instead, most have mixed feelings about him, as someone whose rule was generally quiet for most of them but who behaved in ways that made him the subject of some of the best Soviet anecdotes.

            Dealing with the Brezhnev period is especially hard for Putin now given that like the late Soviet dictator, the current Russian one is aging and has both supporters and opponents who back Putin in much the same way they earlier backed Brezhnev with mixed feelings.

            Calling attention to Brezhnev by putting up memorials will only increase the number of those on both sides who will draw parallels between Putin and the former CPSU leader.

Moscow Softens Punishment for Many Baymak Protesters Lest It Provoke Greater Bashkir Opposition to Itself, Davidis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – When hundreds of Bashkirs went into the streets in January 2024, the Russian authorities took a hard line arresting a large of them and sending them to prisons and camps. But now, it is releasing many from such facilities although still imposing lighter restrictions and punishments on them.

            Many Bashkir activists see this as a great victory for the Bashkirs in their struggle to protect their republic from untrammeled economic development that has had devastating environmental consequences (idelreal.org/a/eto-bolshoy-shag-k-pobede-osuzhdennye-po-baymakskomu-delu-vozvraschayutsya-iz-koloniy-v-bashkortostan/33750988.html).

            That may be true, but Memorial’s Sergey Davidis suggests that more may be going on and that it is likely to inform how the Kremlin will deal with mass protests in non-Russian areas in the future by offering not only sticks but carrots to those who may take part in such demonstrations.

            According to the expert on protests in Russia, Russian judges aren’t releasing prisoners to lesser punishments now out of some kind of humanism but only in response to a central decision that the use of repression alone may make protests in the republics more anti-Moscow and that a calibrated approach is more effective.

            Moscow doesn’t like any independent movement, Davidis says; and it is especially nervous about ethnic movements. But these aren’t going to disappear and so the center wants to use methods that will divide and weaken such groups rather than unite them against the Russian center.

            “The Baymak events,” he continues, “were neither an anti-war nor even an anti-Putin protest. Instead, they arose as a result of a specific ethno-national grievance. Consequently, the authorities sought to intimidate those involved … [but] recognize that they cannot afford to turn these people into enemies.”

            Therefore, Davidis says, the powers that be “are currently employing a ‘carrot and stick’ approach. The ‘stick’ has already been applied: people have been frightened, and the unacceptability of protesting against the authorities has been clearly demonstrated. Now, the ‘carrot’ is being offered” with some being released.  

            Obviously, such “carrots” are being offered only to those not deemed to be leaders, he says. As for the others, they may receive even harsher sentences now and in the future. But Moscow’s effort to treat the followers more gently may have the effect of slowing the growth of national movements to the point that they could threaten the center.

Police from Tajikistan Now in Moscow to Deal with Tajik Migrants There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – To cope with its severe shortage of police and especially with the problems of crime among immigrant communities, Moscow has agreed to bring in police from their homelands to help Russian siloviki do their jobs, even though the appearance of such foreign policemen in Moscow and other cities offends many Russians.

            The first case of this involved Kyrgyz officers who arrived in the Russian capital in 2024 (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/to-cope-with-enormous-shortage-of.html). Last year, Vladimir Putin called for an expansion of this program to include officers from Tajikistan (nazaccent.ru/content/44674-v-moskve-poyavitsya-policiya-tadzhikistana/).

            Now, that additional step is being realized with an unspecified number of Tajik officers taking an ever more public role in Moscow, according to the Nazaccent portal (nazaccent.ru/content/45460-policejskie-iz-tadzhikistana-priedut-v-moskvu-chtoby-reshat-migracionnye-problemy/).

            As their role increases, many ethnic Russians are likely to be offended and upset that their own government has taken this step. At the very least, they will probably give more support to notorious groups like the Russian Community, something that will in itself provoke more problems (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/russian-community-complains-chelyabinsk.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/russian-community-now-country-wide.html).

Moscow Counts Soviet Troops who Fought Nationalist Underground in Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine until 1951 as Veterans of the Great Fatherland War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – Only 6800 men and women who fought in the Soviet army or in partisan detachments against the Germans or worked as war correspondents are still alive, down from 230,000 two decades ago, according to official Russian statistics surveyed by the To Be Precise portal.

            But as the number of people whom most would count as veterans in the normal sense as fallen with the passage of time, Moscow has included two other groups to keep the number of veterans up, including those who lived through the blockade of Leningrad, the battle of Stalingrad, and those  who worked in construction or transport near the front lines.

            There are approximately 40,000 of these people, bring the total number of veterans of fighting between 1941 and 1945 to about 47,000, the portal says, all of whom continue to be celebrated as their numbers decline with the passage of time (tochno.st/materials/ostalos-v-rossii).

            But there is an additional category of people Russian law defines as veterans of the Great Fatherland War: those who took part in operations “for the liquidation of the nationalist undergroundon the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia between January 1, 1944 and December 31, 1951” (kremlin.ru/acts/bank/7432).

            To Be Precise does not give figures for this category nor do Russian officials, likely because the numbers of Soviet troops involved in the tens if not hundreds of thousands to suppress these national movements only serves to highlight just how much resistance there was in these places and for how long.

            But despite this silence, the 1995 Russian law that adds them to the number of veterans of the Great Fatherland War remains very much in force and is no doubt actually applied so as to ensure that for another decade or so there will be at least a few remaining veterans the Kremlin can celebrate, although some in these countries may feel differently.

Since Putin’s War Began. More Russian Women have Been Jailed and Suffered More Abuse Behind Bars, ‘Vyorstka’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 -- While the total number of Russians behind bars is less than in the past, the number and share of women among them have risen dramatically as have the mistreatment they have received, according to a detailed study of the situation by the independent Vyorstka portal.  

            The number of men behind bars has declined for two reasons, it says. On the one hand, the war has taken out of civilian life many in the age cohorts most likely to commit crimes; and on the other, men can get out of jail by volunteering to fight in Ukraine (verstka.media/zhenskij-prigovor-pochemu-v-rossii-rastyot-achislo-osuzhdyonnyh-zhenshhin).

            At the same time, the siloviki have arrested and courts have sentenced to imprisonment ever more women for crimes that had sometimes been overlooked earlier given the more violent ones committed by men, something the police have done to keep their numbers up and prove they are doing their jobs.

            Once incarcerated, Vyorstka says, on the basis of conversations with experts and activists, women are treated far worse them men, often because they lack the clans within prisoners that sometimes have succeeded in convincing jailors that everyone will be safer and better off if concessions are made.

            In 2008, 140,000 Russian prisoners were women. That figure fell to 73,300 in 2020 but has now risen again to 87,305, figures that meant women formed roughly 15 percent in the first two of these years but now almost 20 percent – 19.94 to be precise – at the present time, the portal continues.

Russian Businesses Call on Kremlin Not to Force Them Pay to Support Population Growth

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – Igor Shchegolyev, presidential plenipotentiary for the Central Federal District, says that companies which provide cash, time release and other forms of support to workers and their families have met “the gold standard” as far as their responsibilities for helping to solve Russia’s demographic problems.

            Others agreed, but business leaders urged Moscow not to make these steps obligatory given the economic problems they face. Doing so, they suggested, could further undermine the ability of their firms to survive in the current ecoinenomic environment (https://readovka.news/news/242281/).

            Given that Putin has made solving Russia’s demographic problems including the continuing decline in fertility rates to ever further below the replacement level of 2.2 children per woman per lifetime, such opposition by businesses to calls for them to bear some of the burden are intriguing if not unexpected.

            Clearly, some business leaders feel they can openly resist effort to force them to bear more of the costs of trying to turn the country’s demographic situation around, resistance that they were far less likely to offer in the past but may feel that the situation has changed and a kind of real political struggle has returned.

            And it is such judgments that are the most important aspect of this resistance, not the specifics of what Moscow officials have said is desirable or even the specifics of what Russian businessmen are saying they’ll do if they can but don’t want to be forced to do if they can avoid it.

Worried about Opposition If It Doesn’t’ Achieve Victory, Kremlin Discussing How to ‘Sell’ Ending War in Ukraine with Less, ‘Dossier’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 7 – Earlier this year, Russia’s Presidential Administration prepared a report on how best to “sell” an agreement on Ukraine that will be less than many Russians assumed Moscow would achieve and that could spark both anger and even  opposition in that case, according to a PA document the Dossier portal has obtained.

            According to that document, the PA has begun to prepared what might be called “the model of victory” including “propaganda narratives with the help of which it will be possible to ‘sell’ a peace agreement to Russians despite the high losses among Russian soldiers and the absence of significant results” (dossier.center/ura-pobeda/).

            The document specifies that “one must know when to stop as going too far constitutes defeat and continuing the special military operation would amount to a Pyrrhic victory,” a judgement that reflects the view of Sergey Kiriyenko’s “close associates” who “warn that continuing the war in Ukraine could force the revision of ‘fundamental positions.’”

            Those include, Dossier says, “the implementation of a general mobilization and the complete and final conversion of the entire economy to a war footing,” steps that would be deeply unpopular and make the achievement of Putin’s other goals for the country almost impossible to achieve.

            Preparing such a plan is needed, its authors say, because the most likely scenario for ending the war would be “far from the goals” Putin has declared as the reason for conducting it. And the compromises that such an accord will entail must somehow be presented as “a great victory and contribution of the president personally.”

            The PA document says that “the main achievements” of the operation will be “territorial conquests,” additional natural resources, a land bridge to Crimea and control of the shoreline of the Sea of Azov, and “the acquisition of millions of new Russian-language citizens,” according to Dossier.

            At the same time, the document says, “the propagandists plan to continue to insist that in the course of ten to fifteen years, Ukraine will cease to exist and the European Union will suffer a major economic shock” and that after such an agreement, Russia’s neighbors will adjust themselves to this new reality whatever they say now.

            But it continues, the reasons for preparing such a document are obvious: “if a war which has carried off the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens ends without obvious achievements, certain segments of Russian society may view that in a negative way,” especially the z bloggers and veterans.

            The first will be compelled to change their line and jailed if they do not, while the second must be given new positions and tasks to show how important they are to Russia and its future, the document says. For all other Russians “tired of the war and their problems,” the PA says Moscow will be able to announce good news about developments at home and abroad.

            At home, it says, Russians will face an easing of problems including the end of drone attacks and easing of sanctions and thus economic development; and abroad, they will see Russia having returned to a position as a world power that has been able thanks to the special military operation to redefine the world order and make Russia its leader well into the future.

            Dossier concedes that “it is unknown whether Putin will approve this plan,” despite PA support and the fact that it is based on a Russian endgame for Ukraine very close to what is currently the Kremlin’s negotiating position.

Russia’s Northern Capital Must Remain Both Petersburg and Leningrad, Yaremenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – The debate over whether to restore the name Stalingrad to Volgograd continues, but despite the centrality of World War II in Putin’s thinking and his hostility to the founder of the Bolshevik state, there has been nothing equivalent in the case of Petersburg/Leningrad.

            Instead, Nikolay Yaremenko, editor of the Rosbalt news agency, says, both names of the city and the combination of imperial and Soviet names for streets and squares not only coexist but reenforce the unity of the city on the Neva (rosbalt.rInstu/news/2026-05-03/leningrad-peterburg-toponimika-podviga-5588342).

            “In the run-up to Victory Day, the question of naming the city and its landmarks transcends the realm of linguistics, becoming instead a part of the broader discussion regarding historical justice,” Yaremenko says, especially as it is obvious that no one can speak of “the blockade of St. Petersburg.”

            Moreover, according to the commentator, “the name "Leningrad"—within the context of the years 1941–1944—has long since detached itself from the persona of the political figure in whose honor it was originally bestowed; it has instead evolved into a semantically constitutive element of ‘the blockade lexicon.’”

            Yaremenko continues: “’the toponymy of heroism’ manifests itself most vividly in the names of streets, squares, and monuments that emerged during the post-war era. While the city center preserves the classic fabric of St. Petersburg, the mass-development districts to the south and north constitute a frozen chronicle of the city’s defense.”

            Importantly, “These names serve as a kind of ethical compass, a reminder that the well-being of today’s St. Petersburg was paid for by the resilience of the people of Leningrad.
 the writer insists, adding that “an ideological analysis of ‘Blockade-era toponymy’ reveals that, for the city, the synthesis of both names is of critical importance.

“St. Petersburg is a museum-city, a cultural capital, and ‘a Window on Europe, while Leningrad is a soldier-city, a symbol of resistance unparalleled in history. Any attempt to "purge" Leningrad-era place names from the urban landscape would result in a form of philological amnesia,” he argues.

And he concludes that “by preserving Leningrad-era names of streets and landmarks in modern St. Petersburg, we affirm that the city’s history is not divided into “black” and “white,” but constitutes a single, unbroken continuum—a process in which the grandeur of the imperial capital was safeguarded by the fearlessness of the people who called themselves Leningraders.”

Fertility Rates in North Caucasus Falling with Chechnya Alone having One Just Above Replacement Level

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 4 – Historically and in the minds of many still today, the North Caucasus is a place where families include many children. Even Vladimir Putin is given to recommending that Russians copy the North Caucasian pattern to overcome Russia’s population decline (kavkazr.com/a/pravozaschitniki-raskritikovali-predlozhenie-putina-zhenitj-detey/33629760.html).

            But in reality, Natalya Kildiyarova of the Kavkazr portal says, that picture is out of date. Fertility rates, the number of children per woman per lifetime, have been falling across the North Caucasus (kavkazr.com/a/konets-demograficheskogo-isklyucheniya-chto-proishodit-s-rozhdaemostjyu-na-severnom-kavkaze/33748640.html).

            Except for Chechnya, which has a fertility rate of 2.56, just above the replacement level of 2.2, all the other national republics there have rates below that level and thus are seeing their populations decline. That means that the region is no longer the outlier it once was but is going to decline in total population, albeit not as rapidly as most of the rest of Russia.

            That of course means that the North Caucasus will in fact increase compared to predominantly ethnic Russian regions, but far less than many have been predicting and that Moscow has counted on to make up for losses in Russian areas where the fertility rate is now 1.0 or even lower. 

            On another related matter, a demographer with whom Kildiyarova spoke on condition of anonymity ts that this decline is part of a broader trend in modern societies and should not be explained by reference to the war in Ukraine. The statistics available simply do not support such conclusions, he says.

            The anonymous demographer says that his research suggests that 0.5 percent of men aged 18 to 60 have died while fighting in Ukraine but that the percentages of such losses are lower in the North Caucasus than they are in many other federal subjects and thus less likely to have a demographic impact.

            In Chechnya, for example, the percentage of men killed in Ukraine is only 0.12 percent. In Ingushetia, it is about 0.2 percent and in Dagestan, approximately 0.25 percent, far lower than the all-Russia average and much lower than in Buryatia where combat losses are 1.6 percent of the population, and Bashkortostan where the figure is 0.8 percent.