Russian-Iranian ‘Weapons Corridor’ Means the Caspian is No Longer Safe for Shipping or for Littoral States, Baku Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 17 – The sinking of an Iranian ship in the Turkmenistan sector of the Caspian Sea may or may not have been the result of hostile action, Baku commentator Nurani says; but it has called attention to the fact that “the weapons corridor” Russia and Iran have established there means that the Caspian and its littoral are no longer safe.

            Both on the surface of the sea and in the air above it, Nurani says, Russia and Iran have established a weapons corridor first to deliver weapons to Armenia during the 44 Day War with Azerbaijan and now from Iran to Russia to attack Ukraine or from Russia via Iran to allies like Venezuela (minval.az/news/124511371).

            “Strictly speaking,” Nurani continues, “the use of the Caspian Sea in the Ukrainian war is not limited to this. From here, Russia launches Kalibr missiles at targets in Ukraine, and these are most often civilian targets. Even earlier, before the start of the Ukrainian war, targets in Syria were attacked from the Caspian Sea.”

            Moreover, “Ukraine is already openly striking Russian targets in the Caspian Sea. The base of the Red Banner Caspian Flotilla in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, was attacked by Ukrainian drones. Oil platforms in the Russian sector of the Caspian have repeatedly come under attack. Finally, there were also attacks on a Russian control ship in the Caspian.”

            And, he suggests, “it is even possible that tomorrow the US and its allies will enter the game. The issue of strikes on Iranian targets is on Washington's agenda” and “this means that the calls made in Aktau at the time of the signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea to ‘make the Caspian a sea of ​​peace and friendship’ have remained just calls.”

            Nurani concludes: “Russia, which is accustomed to considering the Caspian Sea almost its own internal body of water, like Ladoga or Baikal, openly uses the Caspian for military purposes. And this already seriously threatens the security of other Caspian states, with all the consequences that entails.”

            For background on the increasing military competition in the Caspian, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/three-distinct-blocs-among-caspian.html and the sources cited therein.

Putin's Russian World and Trump's MAGA Ideologies ‘Significantly Similar, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 18 – “Unfortunately,” Vladimir Pastukhov says, “we have reached the point where it is no longer possible to ignore the significant similarities between the political and philosophical foundations of the MAGA [Make America Great Again] ideology and the ideology of ‘the Russian World.”

            “Their general ideological principles coincide,” the Russian analyst based in London says. First, they “prioritize ‘national interests over ‘universal human values, in which they do not believe.” Second, both consider “ultra-conservative clerical principles as universal and the only acceptable ones” (t.me/v_pastukhov/1791 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/ideologii-maga-i-russkogo-mira-shodstvo-politiko-filosofskih-osnovanij).

            Moreover, third, “both view all other values as hostile and subject to eradication along with all media outlets which disseminate them.” Fourth, “both are inherently anti-democratic or rather democratic in the purely Leninist understanding of the world.” And fifth, “both are apologists for the right of force in both domestic and foreign policy.”

            According to Pastukhov, the Russian World and MAGA ideologies are aligned even more closely when it comes “to solving specific political problems” as the cases of Crimea and Greenland show. Both argue that they are faced with a problem created by others that they must solve. Both treat the territory in question as something artificial and hostile. And both see a military solution as justified historically and in terms of national interests.

            The Russian analyst says he wrote this to call attention to “the sad fact that the simultaneous dominance in both former superpowers of two ideologies with obviously similar nature can hardly be considered an historical accident,” that this situation isn’t going to “simply disappear” and that this is very much the case “when the sleep of reason produces monsters.”

Fake Charges of Extremism Powering Rise of Extremist Attitudes, Memorial Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – The number of extremist actions in the North Caucasus has declined significantly over the last two decades, but fake charges of extremism by Russian law enforcement bodies to justify themselves and their budgets have helped to power the rise of extremist attitudes, especially among the young, Aleksandr Cherkasov says.

            That is because young people can see how unjust the authorities are being and are thus prepared to listen to radicals who criticism them, according to the Memorial society expert (kavkazr.com/a/igilovtsy-kadyrovtsy-i-molodezhj-aleksandr-cherkasov-o-borjbe-s-terrorizmom-na-severnom-kavkaze/33637182.html).

            Indeed, he suggests, the sense of injustice is a more powerful driver in this regard than poverty or anything else. As a result, many of those in the North Caucasus who adopt what might be called extremist attitudes come not from the poor and dispossessed but from wealthier and more powerful people, a pattern that adds to the seriousness of all this.  

            In response, as some of these people do turn to extremist actions, the Russian law enforcement bodies ramp up their efforts to bring extremist charges as well as increase the use of repressive force, thus putting the region on a dangerous spiral that won’t end until the authorities change their approach and could lead to an explosion.

            That pattern is compounded by three other developments, Cherkasov says. First, like the worst of their Soviet predecessors, many of the law enforcement agencies have decided that it is enough to find someone to be a member of a group to accuse him or her of extremism even if the individual charged has nothing to do with any extremist action.

            Second, the authorities are so ignorant of these individuals and groups that they often act as did prosecutors in Stalin’s time and combine groups that are completely at odds with other another, further compromising their charges. Thus, Stalin attacked a supposed union of mensheviks and monarchists; and Putin’s police do something analogous.

            And third – and this may be the most important and dangerous development Cherkasov points to – Russian siloviki today send their reports to Moscow rather than keep them locally, making it likely that the center will order attacks against groups it doesn’t understand and thus make the situation worse.

            In Stalin’s time, the Memorial expert says, all reports about extremism went to the center and that led to campaigns that rapidly got out of hand. Then, after his death, siloviki in the regions retained the reports and thus reduced that risk. But now under Putin, the siloviki have lost that power – and broader and more absurd attacks have again become likely.

Western Sanctions from 2014 Killed Off Russia’s Lunar Flight Program, Moscow Space Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 16 – Until 2014, Rusia had plans to fly men to the moon that were “even more advanced than those of China and the US,” Ivan Moiseyev says; but then, when Western sanctions were introduced as a result of Putin’s moves in Ukraine, the Russian space agency removed “almost all lunar elements” from Moscow’s space program.

            The reason was simple, the head of the Moscow Institute of State Policy says. The sanctions introduced after Putin seized Ukraine’s Crimea prevented the Russian space agency from getting most of the avionics needed for a flight to the moon; and once that became obvious, “almost all lunar elements were removed from the federal space program for 2016 to 2025” (svpressa.ru/science/article/499014/).

            For the time being, Russia can only watch as other countries make the kind of progress it can’t; and restarting a Russian lunar effort will be difficult and take time because the whole project has been suspended for so long.  Moiseyev doesn’t say why China, which produces its own avionics, isn’t providing them to its Russian ally.

Regional Elites Now Profiting from Immigrants Getting in the Way of Regulating of Even Closing Down ‘Multitude’ of Ethnic Enclaves across Russia, Kabanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 17 – The Russian government has ordered the interior ministry, the FSB, and the economic development ministry to prepare a draft law to eliminate existing foreign ethnic enclaves and prevent the addition of more to what is already “a multitude” of such places operating outside the Russian legal space (garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/413296322/).

            But this effort is currently being subverted by regional business and political elites who profit from the migrant workers and thus are willing to have such enclaves exist continue to exist or even grow in number and size, according to Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee (svpressa.ru/society/article/498962/).

            There have been some successes in shutting down or changing the nature of such enclaves, he says; but these are far too few. And if serious progress is going to be made, Moscow rather than regional officials are going to have to take control of the situation and override the latter who are happy to make money and denounce opposition to the enclaves as “xenophobic.”

            Up to now, the Russian authorities have failed to define just what an ethnic enclave is and have issued decrees, policy statements and even laws that act as if the task is primarily to prevent such enclaves from emerging, Kabanov says, when in fact everyone knows that there are a lot of them across the country and taking control of them must be a priority task.

            That will require the regions to change their approach and limit the attractiveness of their territories to foreign workers and to work hard to control those who are already present. If the regions don’t do that quickly, the anti-corruption chief says, then Moscow including the FSB must intervene against them.

            This is perhaps the clearest indication yet that the Kremlin plans to expand its anti-immigration effort and use it as a way to clean house in those regions and republics where elites have welcomed and continue to welcome migrant labor. 

Moscow's Plan to Boost Number of Doctors across Russia Won't Work Quantitatively or Qualitatively, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the Kremlin does not see improving the health care of the Russian population as a priority; and the steps it has taken in this sector only give the impression that it is does, an impression that will quickly dissipate, Russian healthcare experts say.

            The new law that will require graduates of medical schools to go where they are assigned for three years will do little good and may even do harm, these experts say. On the one hand, the new doctors will be assigned to regions rather than smaller areas and so will concentrate in the capital cities there. And on the other, they won’t be supervised and trained as the law claims (regaspect.info/2026/01/15/goryachka-vmesto-strategii/).

            The additional doctors may allow officials to claim that they are addressing the shortage of medical workers, but in fact, in many places throughout the country and in numerous fields, that won’t happen both because people outside of the regions won’t get any more doctors and nurses who will then leave the profession and because those in the regions won’t get well-trained medical staff.

            Because of the commercialization of medical education in Russia since 1991, many graduates don’t have the skills they need and require close supervision to become good doctors and nurses. But the government is doing nothing to improve instruction at medical schools or to ensure that graduates will have much chance of getting the ongoing training they’ll need.

            This will soon be apparent even to even those who are currently enthusiastic about the new law because either they won’t have the doctors they need or the doctors available won’t have the skills needed to treat them adequately, those with whom the Regional Aspects portal spoke say. 

Suleymenov Came to Baku during Black January and then Told Moscow that Soviet Forces in Azerbaijan had Acted Like Fascists

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – As the anniversary of Black January approaches, Olzhas Suleymenov, a prominent Kazakh poet and activist, has published a brief memoir of his visit to Baku at that time in which he recalls his subsequent statement to a closed meeting of the USSR Supreme Soviet that the forces Moscow had sent to crush the Azerbaijanis had acted like fascists.

            In Novaya Gazeta v Kazakhstane, Suleymenov says he was in Moscow for a meeting of the Supreme Soviet and had become very ill. Nonetheless when he received a call from an Azerbaijani friend describing what was happening in Baku and asking him to come, he could not . He camerefuse (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/4106-январь-в-баку).

            Initially, he hoped to use the good offices of the Azerbaijani SSR Permanent Representation in Moscow to somehow get a flight – all regular ones had been cancelled – but crowds there blocked him. Then he turned to the military and using his Supreme Soviet membership got on a Soviet air force plane, arriving late on the second night of the attacks.

            After some difficulties in getting to his hotel, he was visited by among others, Abulfaz Aliyev, a philologist and Arabist who became better known under the pseudonym Elchibey when he became leader of the Azerbaijani Popular Front. He visited Suleymenov to tell him what was happening and to get protection against arrest given that the Soviets blamed him for the events.

            Because of his status as a Supreme Soviet deputy, he was able to meet both with the representatives of Soviet power there, including Yevgeny Primakov, then head of the upper house of the Soviet parliament, and defense minister Dmitry Yazov, on the one hand, and Azerbaijani activists and especially print workers, on the other.

            He expressed his horror about what was happening to the former and called on the latter to resume publishing their newspapers and journals so that Azerbaijanis and then the world would know what was happening. They did so and that helped calm the situation, Suleymenov suggests.

            Later in Moscow, he recalls, “speaking at a closed session of the Supreme Soviet, I openly spoke about what I had seen and called the actions of the tank group fascist,” thus becoming one of the first in the USSR to equate what the Soviet leadership was doing in the last decade of power with what the Nazis had done in the 1930s and 1940s.

Polygamy Widespread in North Caucasus Now Mostly Involving Men with Money and Power

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 14 – In traditional pre-Islamic in the North Caucasus, polygamy was practiced primarily in order to ensure that there would be a male offspring to take over the leadership of the family. Such practices were sanctioned by the Koran’s support for polygamy as long as certain conditions were observed that Islamic law suggested were almost impossible.

            Now, however, polygamy is being practiced in the North Caucasus by men who have the money or the power to engage in it, a practice that has led to the saying there that “the first wife is for household chores,” that is taking care of children, while “the second is for the man himself.”

            And it continues in this modernized form which in many ways leaves many of the women involved with fewer rights and protections than their predecessors had given that the Russian state bans polygamy and that second, third and even fourth marriages are conducted by the religious authorities and have no legal standing as far as the government is concerned.

            Wealthy and powerful men routinely seek to have a second wife – third and fourth wives are rare – including Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov who is known to have four wives and perhaps as many as ten concubines (proekt.media/guide/vertical-ramzan-kadyrov/) and Ingushetia’s Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov who is widely reported to have a second wife.

            The issue periodically attracts attention due to the efforts of human rights groups and calls by secular and religious authorities in the North Caucasus to legalize the practice. But in the last few months, there has been an explosion of discussions about it because of a clip posted online of the behavior of a first wife  at the marriage of her husband to a second.

            That discussion has become so heated that it has prompted two media outlets in the region to prepare a report on the tradition of polygamy in the North Caucasus and the forms it has  taken now (regaspect.info/2026/01/14/pervaya-zhena-dlya-byta-vtoraya-dlya-sebya/nd fortanga.org/2026/01/pervaya-zhena-dlya-byta-vtoraya-dlya-sebya-kak-ne-menyaetsya-institut-mnogozhenstva-na-severnom-kavkaze/).

            The report says that supporters of polygamy argue that “you cannot forbid what Allah has permitted” but typically ignore that “within Islamic law, permission for polygamy comes with strict restrictions: a man is obligated to provide each of his wives with equal financial support and ensure that none of them experiences injustice or deprivation.”

            “If a new wife does not wish to live under the same root with the first,” Islamic law says, “the husband is required to provide her with separate housing; and the care, attention and time devoted to each wife must be distributed as equally as possible,” something few can do and that Islam specifies “monography is preferable if a man doubts his ability to treat his spouses equally.

            But after the Soviets and then the Russians banned polygamy, that rarely is the case because the first wife is usually married in government offices and thus has rights under state law while the second, third, or fourth, is married only by religious officials and thus cannot defend herself if things go wrong.

            Men in the North Caucasus exploit this, “especially the Vainakhs” who include the Chechens and Ingush,” and “the number of wives is directly linked to perceptions of power and status with multiple wives being a symbol of control, authority and social respect” and a sign of “an unwillingness to limit oneself and instead to have it all,” the report says.

            Few women want to be a second or third wife, the report continues; but because “marriage is a key social marker of a woman’s ‘value’ and an unmarried woman is perceived to be more vulnerable than a married one … the fear of being left unmarried is stronger than ideological or personal objections” and “becoming a second wife is a survival strategy.”

SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Calls Ecumenical Patriarchate ‘the Anti-Christ’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 16 – The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, has called Bartholemew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople “the anti-Christ,” a British agent, and someone who is working to undermine the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, the Baltic Countries, and the Balkans.

            In a press release (svr.gov.ru/smi/2026/01/konstantinopolskiy-patriarkh-varfolomey-antikhrist-v-ryase.htm), which does not appear to have been coordinated with the ROC MP (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/01/16/svr-nashla-antikhrista-eto-patriarkh), the SVR cites not Russian law or evidence for its conclusions but rather a verse from the Bible.

            Both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its allies have rejected the charges which embarrass the ROC MP more than anyone else (ec-patr.org/anakoinosi-schetika-me-tin-dilosi-ross/ and rfi.fr/ru/европа/20260115-антихрист-в-странах-балтии-реакции-на-заявление-российской-свр-о-константинопольском-патриархе).

            On the one hand, the SVR’s suggestion that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is an agent of British intelligence calls attention to the ways in which Moscow has routinely used Orthodox priests abroad to support its intelligence operations, with Britain rather than the US being chosen so as not to attack Donald Trump.

            And on the other hand, by putting out such a statement, the SVR has shown that in Moscow’s opinion, the ROC MP is to operate as a surrogate for the Russian state but that Orthodox churches elsewhere are supposed to remain loyal to the Russian church rather than to the laws and traditions of their own countries.

            That may be how the ROC MP has to operate given Kremlin demands, but it is not something the Russian church benefits from by proclaiming it as openly as the Russian intelligence service now has. 

 

Western Sanctions Force Russia’s Northern Shipping Company to Seek Bankruptcy Protection via Russian Courts

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 14 -- Russia’s venerable Northern Shipping Company has announced its intention to seek bankruptcy protections because of the difficult financial situation it finds itself in as a result of Western sanctions imposed in 2022 and the inability of the company’s ships to enter the harbors of Western nations.

            The company has chosen bankruptcy so as to protect its remaining assets while it reorganizes rather than being compelled to sell off portions of the company to meet its obligations (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/severnoe-morskoe-parohodstvo-obavilo-o-nacale-procedury-bankrotstva/443455).

            What Russia’s Northern Shipping Company is doing not only reflects one of the ways in which sanctions imposed because of Putin’s launching of his expanded war in Ukraine but also represents an approach that other victims of Western sanctions will probably employ, using Russian courts as a last line of defense of their assets.

In Response to Putin’s Failure to Aid Regimes in Venezuela and Iran, Officials Close to the Kremlin Complain that ‘Strong Countries Don’t Treat Allies like This’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 14 – Three officials close to the Russian leadership have complained to the Meduza news agency about Putin’s failure to respond vigorously to US actions against Russia’s allies Venezuela and Iran, declaring that “strong countries don’t treat allies like this,” a view likely shared by other members of the Moscow elite.

            They and others concede that Putin does not want to pick a fight with US President Donal Trump just now because of the direction talks about Ukraine are going (meduza.io/feature/2026/01/14/rossiya-nikak-ne-podderzhala-svoih-partnerov-venesuelu-i-iran-vo-vremya-obostreniya-konflikta-s-ssha-chto-ob-etom-dumayut-rossiyskie-chinovniki).

            But the three suggest that they fear not only that Putin’s silence on Venezuela and Iran and also on the US moves against Russian ships sends a message that Russia is weak and will make it even more difficult for Moscow to retain the declining number of countries that it now counts as allies or to acquire more. 

            One of the three, a staffer in the presidential envoy’s office in Russia’s Central Federal District said that he didn’t expect Trump to act in the case of Venezuela but originally expected that Moscow would respond if the American’s moved given that Caracas has been a close ally of Moscow, especially given statements saying that the Russian government would do so.

            That there was no Russian response, he suggested in comments to Meduza shows that “there are simply no resources for a response” by the Russian government. All of its resources at present “are tied up in the special military operation” in Ukraine. 

Russians Facing the Collapse of Communal Services for Prolonged Periods are Now Working on Their Own to Address this Problem

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 13 – Many observers in Moscow and the West have focused on whether the mounting utility problems Russians now face will prompt them to protest and otherwise challenge the government (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/utilities-problems-in-russia-wont-spark.html).

            But in doing so, they have neglected another development that could prove almost as difficult for the Kremlin to cope with: the propensity of Russians in places where the outages have been long and extensive to try to work together independently of a government bureaucracy that is unwilling or unable to help.

            Russians who have taken part in such cooperative activities are likely to look at the Russian bureaucracy at all levels differently than they did before and either ignore it or make more demands upon it in response, either of which will represent a different but potentially serious challenge to the bureaucracy in Putin’s Russia.

            That makes a report in the Horizontal Russia news agency about how residents in Belgorod after losing light, heat, and water as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks just before the new year came together to try to solve the problem after officials failed to respond quickly enough (semnasem.org/articles/2026/01/13/belgorod-blekaut).

            Russian bureaucrats are probably likely to view such help as useful in the short run because it prevents the problems with infrastructure prompting Russians from protesting. But over the longer haul, this experience of cooperation may be a bigger threat to a regime which rests in large measure on the radical atomization of the population.

            That is because cooperation among citizens in one area can often be a school in which those who take part learn to engage in cooperation in other areas, a slow process perhaps but one that will help transform the population and could lead it to demand an entirely different relationship with the powers that be.

 

Many Demobilized Veterans of Putin’s War are Returning to Fight Again in Russian Army in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – Despite Putin’s promises to make veterans of his war in Ukraine Russia’s new elite and to ensure that all of them find a place after demobilization, many veterans after only a few weeks or months are signing military contracts and returning to Russian units in Ukraine.

            The exact numbers of men who have done so have not been published, but a human rights ombudsman in Sverdlovsk Oblast says that approximately half of Russian soldiers after demobilization are making a decision to return to military service as professional soldiers (svpressa.ru/war21/article/498733/).

            Official Russian media are playing up their decisions to do so as a display of patriotism that no other country can touch. There may be some cases in which such feelings do play a role. But in fact, both difficulties in finding work and fitting back  into civilian life and the appeal of large bonuses if such veterans sign up likely are more important factors.

            Joblessness among veterans is high (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/more-than-40-percent-of-russian.html).  Hostility to them among the civilian population because so many veterans are committing crimes (https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/putin-recruited-criminals-to-fight-in.html).   

And there certainly is no question that the Russian army is likely pleased to get those with training and experience back into service and views bonuses paid to them as opposed to bonuses paid to men without such backgrounds as particularly cost effective at a time of budgetary stringency and a shortage of manpower (svpressa.ru/war21/article/498733/).

Utilities Problems in Russia won’t Spark a Revolt but Response of Officials to Them Certainly Could, Rybakova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 13 – Growing problems with utilities like heat, electric and water this winter as tragic as they are at a time of heavy snowfalls and extremely low temperatures won’t spark a revolt in Russia, but the failure of officials to respond adequately, Tatyana Rybakova says, could do that and even create a revolutionary situation.

            The Moscow Times journalist says that month, there have been major outages in more than a dozen of Russia’s federal subjects. Those are angry, but they have long experience with such problems and thus aren’t likely to react (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/01/13/zhkh-kak-zastrelschik-revolyutsii-vozmuschayut-ne-avarii-a-reaktsiya-vlasti-a184316).

            But what can transform such widespread anger into a threat to the regime is the appearance that the powers that be aren’t prepared to do anything serious about these problems and are even prepared to blame residents rather than assume any responsibility, according to the Russian journalist.

            An increasing number of Russians now believe, she says, that “the authorities at all levels spit on the people, they are concerned only with their own needs which are very far from those which agitate ordinary citizens.” They’ll put up with this for a time, but if the regime doesn’t show a readiness to respond to these real problems, they won’t do so forever.

Putin’s War in Ukraine Radically Different from All of Russia’s Previous Wars, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 14 – With Putin’s war in Ukraine now having surpassed the length of the Soviet Union’s Great Fatherland War, it is long past time to recognize that the current conflict is radically different not only from that war but from all other wars Russia has been involved in throughout its history, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

            The Russian commentator says that not doing so keeps Russians from recognizing just how serious an injury this conflict has inflicted on the country and also on how difficult the tasks Russians now face (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/01/14/zhiznyu-zhizn-poprav-ili-otritsanie-rossiiskoi-istorii-a184425).

            The first way in which Putin’s war in Ukraine is unlike any previous Russian war is that “for the first time in the history of Russia a prolonged war has begun for the destruction of a people who for a long time formed part of the state, the heir of which the present-day Kremlin has declared itself to be,” Inozemtsev says.

            The second key difference is that the current war is “in fact the first attempt to define Russia not as a national but as a nazi state … fighting not only and not so much for territory as for the destruction of the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian culture, which is exactly what the nazis of the 20^th century proclaimed as their goal and attempted to achieve.”

            The third difference is that “Putin in the course of the war he began has been able to achieve something which was never observed in the history of Russia before” – raising an army on a commercial basis rather than on the basis of the authority of the state or more generally Russian patriotism.

            The fourth is that “in striving to construct and expand his insane state, Putin has carried out fantastic changes in the organization and fate of such a ‘specifically Russian’ institute as the Orthodox Church,” transforming it into an organization more prepared to follow the implications of what the Kremlin is doing than the Kremlin itself yet is.

            And the fifth, Inozemtsev says, is that in the course of the war, “Putin has been able to radically delegitimize his opponents, the overwhelming majority of whom are ‘tainted’ by collaboration with the regime” and unwilling or unable to take a tough stand against the Kremlin leader’s central policy, the war in Ukraine.

            Most commentaries since Putin’s war passed the length of the Great Fatherland War, the Russian writer says, have been about the supposed “weakness and inadequacy of the Putin regime” because the Kremlin leader hasn’t been able to achieve anything like the victory that the Soviet Union did between 1941 and 1945.

“I would like to agree with this point of view,” Inozemtsev says; “but, alas, I consider it completely irrelevant.”

The reality is this: “Putin’s war has reshaped Russian society far more radically than did the Great Patriotic War.” His aggression in Ukraine “has definitively reversed the concepts of good and evil,” left a state from which “the concept of law has completely disappeared,” and elevated above everything the ideas of relativism.”

In so doing for such a long time, Inozemtsev continues, “Putin’s system has proven its unprecedented viability,” given that “it is unlikely any country previously European in its history or mentality could continue such a senseless slaughter for so long and with such unimpressive results.”

Today, “we do not know how long the Ukrainian people will have to suffer from Russian aggression or how much the scope of the current conflict will expand in the future. But it is certainly time” to recognize how different this war is from others in Russia’s history and how difficult it will be to recover from these changes,” Inozemtsev concludes.

Solovyev’s Call for Using Force Against Central Asia and Armenia if They Don’t Bow to Moscow’s Will Sparks Outrage

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – On January 11, Vladimir Solovyov, perhaps Moscow’s most prominent pro-Putin and pro-war television commentator, said that Moscow should launch “special military operations” like the one it is already carrying out in Ukraine against Central Asian countries and Armenia if they do not agree to Moscow’s demands.

            He declared that what happens in “our Asia” and Armenia is far more important to Moscow than what happens in Venezuela, that international law is dead, that Russia should not give a damn about the reaction of European countries, and that it should even expand its efforts to defeat Ukraine and bring Ukraine to heal (nashaniva.com/en/385446).

            Not surprisingly, his words have outrage in these countries and prompted their governments to raise the issue with Moscow which sought to calm the situation by suggesting Solovyev’s words were only his “personal opinion” (eadaily.com/ru/news/2026/01/13/solovyov-ne-zrya-zhyog-napalmom-govorya-o-provedenii-svo-v-ca-i-zakavkaze-baraeva, novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/4103-своловьёв-live, timesca.com/russian-tv-hosts-talk-of-military-operations-in-central-asia-triggers-backlash-in-uzbekistan/ and minval.az/news/124510743).

            While many analysts have suggested that Solovyev, known for his extremist language, was simply responding with these words to the American moves in Venezuela and against Russian shipping, others noted that he is so close to the Kremlin that his threats are likely designed to intimidate the non-Russians and prepare Russians for new “special operations.”

            However that may be, what Solovyev has said is already generating a backlash, further deepening the divide between Russia and its neighbors and making it less likely that Moscow will be able to get its way with them however the war in Ukraine turns out (caliber.az/post/konsolidaciya-centralnoaziatskih-stran-sposobna-otrezvit-soloveva).

Moscow Radically Expands Categories of Russians who Can Be Subjected to Forcible Psychiatric Treatment

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 13 – In Soviet times, Moscow became notorious for its use of punitive psychiatry against dissidents, a practice that the Putin regime has revived. But now the Kremlin is going even further and declaring in legislation that Russians in many employment categories can be sent for forced psychiatric evaluation and treatment at their bosses’ whim.

            According to a recently adopted law, as of March 1, teachers, drivers, police, and restaurant workers can be sent against their will to psychiatric prison hospitals for evaluation and treatment. Experts say that this could open the way for any Russian to be so incarcerated and forcibly treated (svpressa.ru/society/article/498415/).

            The Russian authorities have been moving in this Orwellian direction for months, observers say; but now employers are likely to feel that they can send anyone to such facilities for forcible treatment, all the more so because the new law does not place any restrictions on the kind of actions or illnesses that supposedly justify that.

            Because of the shortage of beds in such facilities, the actual number of Russians who will become direct victims of this new policy is likely to be small; but its role as a means of intimidation of employees is likely to be enormous given that soon almost any worker can be sent there if his bosses so choose, actions that the courts are unlikely to block. 

Ingush Plan to Give Returning Veterans Land Likely to Spark Unrest in that North Caucasus Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 12 – Many are worried about how returning veterans will act and the likelihood that they will spark a crime wave. But a plan by the Ingush government to give land to veterans and their families has the potential to do more than that and to trigger serious social and even political conflicts.

            Land in the Russian Federation’s smallest republic (except for the two capitals) has always been in short supply given the burgeoning population and contributed not just to conflicts among those with land and those without but also contributed to the rise of unrest as the losers blame the winners and seek to redress what they see as an unjust imbalance.

            Consequently, Ingush Republic head Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov’s announcement that he has already handed out more than 800 land parcels to veterans and their families and plans to distribute even more carries with it the risk that conflicts over land ownership, always a feature there, will intensify (fortanga.org/2026/01/v-ingushetii-semi-uchastnikov-vojny-v-ukraine-besplatno-poluchili-bolee-800-zemelnyh-uchastkov/).

            If as seems likely other republic governments in the land-short republics of the North Caucasus follow his lead, it is a virtual certainty that such actions will in one or more places lead to the kind of clashes that will fuel a new round of violence and unrest by people who may feel as many veterans now do untouchable by Russian law enforcement personnel. 

Because Putin’s War in Ukraine is Longer than Stalin’s Great Fatherland War, Kremlin Propagandists have Been Forced to Change Their Line, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 13 – Until recently, Kremlin propagandists routinely drew parallels between Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine and the Great Fatherland War as Soviet participation in World War II is called, Abbas Gallyamov says. But now that Putin’s war is longer than Stalin’s, his propagandists have had to “radically change their approach.”

            If until this week, the propagandists liked to draw this parallel to argue that “the current war is being waged against the same enemy ‘our grandfathers fought against,” the former Putin speechwriter and now prominent Putin critic says. Therefore, the term “denazification” they used was no accident (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/9515).

            But now these same propagandists are “loudly proclaiming that ‘it’s foolish to compare’” the current war with that of the 1940s because “this is a completely different war.” And they even suggest comparisons with the Great Northern War or the Hundred Years War of centuries earlier.

            “As they say,” Gallyamov continues, “thank you for that.” After all, “the current events have nothing in common with the great Patriotic War;” and even more to the point, the earlier conflicts the propagandists are pointing to “were fought for crowns and territories, that is, they were imperialist and colonial wars.”

            By acknowledging this, the Kremlin has “at least temporarily been forced to stop abusing the memory of our grandfathers” and admitting perhaps more than it even recognizing about what Putin and his team are about.

Samara Oblast, a Predominantly Ethnic Russian Region, had Nearly Twice as Many Deaths as Births in 2025, Officials Acknowledge

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 13 – Rosstat is publishing ever less data on demographic trends, few of which are now positive in the Russian Federation, especially in overwhelmingly ethnic Russian areas. But occasionally regional officials do respond to queries from local deputies, and the numbers they do release call attention to just how bad the situation is.

            In Samara Oblast, Mikhail Abdalkin, a regional KPRF deputy, asked the local health ministry about the demographic situation in that overwhelmingly ethnic Russian region in 2025 (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=696604E9AB269&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook).

            The answers he got are deeply troubling. Last year, 16,958 people were born in Samara oblast, but 33,258 died, nearly twice as many; and life expectancy had fallen to 61. Despite that, the regional ministry, in response to Putin’s healthcare optimization program, plans to close 26 more medical facilities in the year ahead, cutbacks that will likely make these figures still worse.

            Samara residents say, Abdalkin says, that the closure of medical points has led to a decline in healthcare and more premature deaths, pointing on that ambulances come only with great delays and then often must travel for hours to get treatment, a situation that means many patients do not survive.

 

Word Russians Use Most Often Isn’t Russian but Borrowed from English, Moscow Institute Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 12 – The Moscow Institute of Russian Studies says that the word Russians use most often is “OK,” saying that Russians appear to like it because it is clear and unambiguous. But some Russian nationalists, including those in the Kremlin, may be unhappy because the word is not originally Russian but borrowed from English.

            Another reason that “OK” is so popular, experts at the institute say, is that it is short; and for many years, Russians have been drawn to the use of words and phrases that are extremely brief (ria.ru/20260110/slovo-2067067914.html and nazaccent.ru/content/45020-nazvano-samoe-upotrebimoe-slovo-v-russkom-yazyke/).

            Perhaps because “OK” doesn’t have the ideologically correct Russian origin, none of the institutions that named words of the year at the end of 2025 identified it as such. Instead, they reported that words deserving that honor included anxiety, victory and birthrate (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/12/russian-governments-word-of-year-is.html).

Pskov Governor Suggests Lack of Heat in Region’s Homes May be Result of ‘Sabotage’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 11 – After residents of a village suffering from a lack of heat complained, Pskov Governor Mikhail Vedernikov promised “a thorough investigation” and suggested that among the possible causes of this disaster are “criminal negligence,” “incompetence,” and “sabotage” (using the Russian word often translated as “wrecking.”

            He is the first but likely won’t be the last Russian regional head to revive what was typically the explanation for any problems in Stalin’s time (echofm.online/news/pskovskij-gubernator-posle-zhaloby-zhitelej-zamerzayushhego-posyolka-nazval-vreditelstvo-sredi-vozmozhnyh-prichin-otsutstviya-tepla).

            In fact, the lack of heat thousands of Russians across the country are now suffering from almost certainly are the result of the failure of the Russian government to repair and replace aging infrastructure. But suggesting that there are “wreckers” about, exactly what the Soviet state would have said in Stalin’s time, may be as good a way as any to distract them.  

            But doing so comes with a risk: the use of this loaded term will remind everyone in that region and elsewhere of just how far the Putin regime has gone in reviving the totalitarianism of Stalin’s time when as in Mussolini’s Italy the ruler is always right and problems are the work of criminal “wreckers.” 

Russia’s Federal Subjects have Cut Back or Stopped Publishing Statistics at Different Times than Moscow or than Each Other, 'Sibirsky Ekspress' Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, Jan. 11 – Many likely assume that the governments of Russia’s federal subjects have followed in lockstep Moscow’s decisions to reduce or end the publication of key statistics as was typically the case in Soviet times. But that is not the case now. Many republic, kray and oblast officials have varied their timing not only with Moscow’s moves but with each other.

These decisions haven’t been announced, but they have become clear in an article in the Sibirsky Ekspress telegram channel on crime in various parts of Russia east of the Urals (t.me/Sib_EXpress/69812 reposted at echofm.online/news/v-tyve-buryatii-i-hakasii-rezko-vyroslo-chislo-ubijstv).

In addition to publishing details on differences in crime among them, the telegram channel reports that “far from all Siberian procuracies publish relatively detailed statistics on crime or do so at the same time as one another or at the same time that central officials have stopped publishing such statistics.

Novosibirsk Oblast issued the last crime statistics in May 2025. Omsk did so in July of htat year. But Tomsk Oblast continued to put out statistics on crime through September, although it did not provide comparisons with last year or any data at all on crime rates in previous years.

In the Kuzbass, however, the last crime reports are dated 2023 and the Transbaikal Kray stopped issuing data in 2020.  The telegram channel provides official sources for each of these events. It also points out that Moscow stopped reporting new crime data in January 2023, something that means some federal subjects did so before Moscow and some afterward.

This pattern is critically important for at least two reasons. On the one hand, it is an indication that in something as important as crime data, Moscow is exercising less tight control over how the regional governments handle things. That raises some important questions about the Kremlin’s control of these governments.

And on the other, it suggests that those who want to get data on issues the central Russian authorities have stopped publishing must not fail to look at the regions even if their primary concern is not the regions but Russia as a whole. Regional data will be only partial, but it will help fill a gap that all too many observers have accepted as definitive. 

Domestic Tourism in Russia Likely Fall Smaller and Growing Less Quickly than Moscow Routinely Claims

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 10 – Russians often say that their country is remarkable in that all of its domestic policies have led to the growth of tourism abroad while all of its foreign policies lead to more tourism within its borders (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/moscows-foreign-policy-always-promotes.html).

            And so it is no surprise that, as foreign travel has become more difficult following the launch of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow has promoted travel within the country and routinely declares that it has had enormous success and will continue to do so (e.g., readovka.news/news/236401/).

            But reports from Russia’s federal subjects suggest that such claims are problematic, sometimes for understandable reasons as in Krasnodar where tourism is down 15 percent because of oil spills last year (kavkaz-uzel.info/articles/419811) and perhaps more generally because of statistical sleight of hand.

            Writing in The Siberian Economist, journalist Artyom Aleksandrov says that residents of Kamchatka have long assumed they are experiencing a tourist boom because of Moscow’s claims but the facts on the ground are likely otherwise given that no reliable numbers about tourism are being released (sibmix.com/?doc=19417).

            According to the Kamchatka authorities, the number of tourists coming to Kamchatka has grown from approximately 240,000 in 2019 to over 300,000 in 2021 and to some 800,000 last year. “Formally,” Aleksandrov says, “all these data are correct – if one considers anyone who flies to Kamchatka to be a tourist.”

            These figures in fact reflect all the passengers handled by Kamchatka’s main airport who have not immediately flown on to other destinations, he continues; but they include many people who are coming or going to the region for other than touristic reasons, including businessmen and officials and local people travelling to other federal subjects.

            The Russian emergency situations ministry which tracks people who are visiting the kind of sites tourists do come to Kamchatka to see gives figures vastly lower because it doesn’t count the other categories that Kamchatka officials and likely Moscow officials speaking about the growth of domestic tourism include as well.

            Aleksandrov does not speculate as to how widespread this form of self-congratulatory fabrication of data is in Russia; but it is likely to be found in many places – and that in turn makes the summary numbers claimed in Moscow almost certainly wildly inflated and quite incorrect.

Putin’s Expanded War in Ukraine Now Longer than Stalin’s Great Fatherland War – and Russians are Tired, Kolesnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 11 – At 4:00 am this morning Moscow time, Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine passed an important milestone: it has now lasted more time than that the Soviet Union’s Great Fatherland War did eighty years ago and shows no sign of ending anytime soon, Andrey Kolesnikov says.

            The war has left Russia “a semi-totalitarian state with an archaic national-imperial messianic ideology and a militarized economy … the status as a global … the loss of soft power even or especially within the radius of the former empire, and demographic collapse,” the commentator says (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/01/11/peredoz).

            “But what is surprising” is that “this extraordinary duration of rule and the conduct of hostilities” has been “combined with an unprecedently short planning horizon as no one knows what will happen tomorrow and the habit of setting goals has been lost.” After all, why should anyone make plans about a future he or she can’t control?

            According to Kolesnikov, “the result is a tied society, a society of inverted morality, and a closed society, turned away from the world in every sense of the word, hiding in its hole.” It was “weary and passive” even before February 2022; but now it has “no strength for anything and even less for resistance.”

            He continues: “The longer the era of late Putinism lasts, the more tired and therefore distanced from events society will become. Empathy has been replaced by complicity, but even that is weary – just to be left alone,” a state that can be maintained only by propaganda of conformity and rituals of unification” that “inject social poison every day.”

            For a time at least, “The bubble of national superiority keeps all the boats afloat. The fight against external and internal enemies compensates for the disappearance of soft power and investment attractiveness.” But “less soft power means a fiercer struggle with the West and harsher domestic political repression.”

“As a result,” Kolesnikov says, “the Kremlin will prolong the hot phase of the confrontation, insisting on its terms for negotiations, which no one will ever agree to. It's their business. Only inflation will still have to be kept within single-digit figures with great difficulty, and the somewhat abstract stagnation will turn into a very concrete technical recession.”

And he concludes: “This slow overdose of permanent militarization can, of course, be prolonged for some time, but no political astrologer or social architect will be able to predict when a natural limit to further intoxication will be reached -- just as no one could predict the erosion and collapse of the Soviet project.”

Are Massage Parlor Discounts for Veterans of War in Ukraine a Moscow Effort to Get More Recruits or the Result of a Shortage of Customers Because of Combat Deaths? Vladimirov Asks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 10 – In his latest post under the rubric “Notes of a Provincial” on the Kasparov portal, Lev Vladimirov, a Russian writer now living in Israel, argues that residents of Samara, his native city, “like all Russians are the serfs of the 21^st century” and that their servility and viciousness have only “intensified” since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine.

            He says that returning veterans are openly contemptuous of the rights of others and even insist that they “have all the rights” and that those who didn’t fight in Ukraine for Putin are “just rear-echelon scum,” an attitude that the Kremlin has encouraged by proclaiming the veterans the new elite of Russia (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=69623E89C706B).

            Such attitudes, of course, didn’t begin in this decade, Vladimirov says. “Anti-Semitism, Russian nationalism (under the guise of patriotism), envy, denunciations and provocations against those who disagree with the Kremlin regime” have been “waiting for so long to flourish.” But “now they have openly blossomed.”

            And as a result, he says, “these serfs of the 21^st century know now shame.” Vladimirov points to an advertisement on a Samara news website for the services of massage parlors in Samara which he says is “the icing on the cake” as far as this intensification of these qualities is concerned.

            The ad promises “participants of the special military operation a discount.” That prompts the question: “Is this an additional incentive, secretly funded by the government to get men to go and fight in Ukraine or are the escort girls in Samara facing a shortage of men” at least in part because of the deaths of so many in Ukraine?

Kunayev Entitled His Memoirs ‘From Stalin to Gorbachev’ But He Should have Called Them ‘Without Stalin or Gorbachev,’ Olzhas Suleymenov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 8 – On the 114^th anniversary of Dinmukhamed Kunayev, who was first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan between 1960 and 1962 and again between 1964 and 1986, Olzhas Suleymenov, the Kazakh poet who was his friend and supporter, recalls how Kunayev transformed the republic from Stalin’s time only to be ousted by Gorbachev.

            Because of history, Suleymenov says, the events of Kunayev’s career mean that the former party leader should have chosen as the title of his memoirs not the anodyne From Stalin to Gorbachev but rather the more meaningful Without Stalin or Gorbachev (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/4102-время-культурного-роста).

            As someone who lived through much of Soviet time, the poet suggests that he and others of his generation “divide” the history of their land in the 20^th century between “before the death of Stalin and after.” The former was a tie when the intelligentsia and much of the population was destroyed.

            Kunayev was “a man of great internal culture,” someone who “loved creative peoples and really supported them,” Suleymenov says. “Never before or after the Kunayev era did an artist, director, writer, or architech feel himself so needed to the people and so valued by the government.” And much of the reason for that was Kunayev’s doing.

            As a result, the poet says, “the Kunayev years were a good time of recovery for the Kazakhs, but they were followed by a disastrous perestroika which ruined the country and negatived much of what had been achieved.” And because many in Moscow wanted to act unilaterally, Kunyaev fell under attack and was ultimately removed by Gorbachev in 1986.

            In his article, Suleymenov provides numerous details about the Kunayev period and why he values it so highly relative not only to the Stalinist past but to the Gorbachev period that followed and why he hopes that Kunayev will be remembered by residents of that country for his contributions rather than forgotten as a person of the past.

            Many of these details will be of importance only to specialists on Kazakhstan, but the fact that Suleymenov is reminding everyone of them now is something those interested in the Soviet Union in its final decades should not forget but rather pay the closest attention to because such a detailed and differentiated account is necessary to avoid going from one extreme to another.

            The number of such memoir articles unfortunately is not large, but there are far more than are gaining attention either in the post-Soviet countries or among Western specialists on the USSR and its successor states. Suleymenov’s article provides the best possible argument as to why that is so. 

Poland and Turkey Sign Accord Reminding World that the Intermarium Countries have Greater Military Capacities than All NATO Countries Except the US

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 10 – Just before the Christmas holidays, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s deputy prime minister and minister of national defense, signed a memorandum with Yaşar Güler, Turkey’s defense minister, expanding their security cooperation and calling for development of security ties among the states between Germany and Russia.

            Kosiniak-Kamysz underscored the importance of this development at a time when Russia is on the march and the US is at odds with many of its NATO allies. If the countries of the Intermarium “unity our operational possibilities, they would be greater than the majority of the European embers of NATO with the possible exception of the US” (gov.pl/web/obrona-narodowa/wzmacniamy-strategiczna-wspolprace-z-republika-turecka  and ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-01-10--varshava-predlagaet-turcii-proekt-mezhdumorja-85128).

            The idea of Intermarium cooperation as a defense against Russia when the West is divided has a long history. For the most comprehensive survey, see Marek Chodakiewicz’s magisterial and in no way dated volume, Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas (Piscataway, 2012).

            Poland has long promoted this idea as a key aspect of its foreign policy, and just prior to Putin’s launch of his expanded invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw pushed it and other countries in the region gave attention to it, given uncertainties there about how the West would react to Russian moves.

            On those discussions and Moscow’s reaction to them, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/intermarium-idea-whose-time-is-coming.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/11/intermarium-countries-can-no-longer.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/08/intermarium-project-can-lead-to.html.

            At a time, when Moscow has increased its aggression in Ukraine and the West is divided on how best to respond, Intermarium ideas are again spreading; and the Polish-Turkish memorandum is the first fruit of the renewed importance of that concept as a defense of Eastern Europe against Moscow. 

To Get Positive Demographic Numbers, Vologda Oblast Paying Women from Neighboring Regions to Register Their Children in Vologda

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 9 – It was perhaps inevitable once regional officials had experience with abortion tourism and were told by Moscow that they would be rated on how much they were able to boost birthrates that some would try to get better demographic numbers by paying women in other federal subjects to register children not where they are born but in the region paying them.

            That has now happened in Vologda where officials seeking to boost that oblast’s birthrate by paying mothers in other federal subjects to register children not where they were born but in Vologda (t.me/microsocium_inc/3995 and nemoskva.net/2026/01/09/import-mladenczev-v-vologodskoj-oblasti-platili-za-registracziyu-detej-iz-drugih-regionov-radi-statistiki/).

            Vologda officials promise to pay up to 100,000 rubles (8,000 US dollars) for the registration of a first or second child and up to 300,000 rubles (25,000 US dollars) for the third, fourth or more children whose numbers Moscow is especially eager to produce and seeks to measure.

            This system may be working. Vologda Governor Georgy Filimonov just before the new year celebrated on his telegram channel what he said was the fact that “for the first time in a decade,” Vologda had see a rise in the number of babies registered, 45 more in 2025 than in 2024 (t.me/filimonov_official/30064).

            Journalists have already shown that these figures are false and reflect the program of getting women from other federal subjects to register in Vologda. In the first ten days of December 2025, there were some 119 “imported” births recorded, an indication that in Vologda as in many other predominantly ethnic Russian regions births are continuing to fall.

            Not surprisingly, the governor declared such journalist reports as “insinuations and provocations” designed to try to distract attention from “our righteous achievements” (t.me/filimonov_official/30750).  Filimonov is notorious for falsifying data, but it is likely that he is not alone in trying to come up with the numbers the Kremlin wants.

            That possibility needs to be kept in mind whenever officials in Moscow or the regions make claims of a major shift in demographic behavior that does not appear to reflect underlying changes in the region or regions where this development is being claimed.