Paul Goble
Staunton, May 18 – Vladimir Putin’s decision to appoint generals as the governors of Russian federal subjects shows that the Kremlin currently is no longer trying to suggest that all is well and instead is conducting a policy based on the war continuing for a long time and one in which the interests of these regions will be sacrificed to the war, Abbas Gallyamov says.
The former Putin speechwriter and now prominent Kremlin critic argues that this change is having the unexpected and unwelcome consequence of generating “a wave of separatism in Russian border regions” because the population there now feels as if it has been put at risk” (vot-tak.tv/93315500/kreml-militarizuet-regiony).
Throughout his time as Russian president, Putin has turned to generals, admirals and other siloviki to run Russia’s federal subjects and federal districts, only to discover that they were no less corrupt that the people they replaced and far more ineffective because they knew how to give orders but did not know how to mobilize the population to obey them.
As a result, Gallyamov says, Putin gave up on at least two occasions; but when he launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine, many observers expected him to appoint siloviki as governors. But because Putin wanted to downplay the war in the eyes of Russians, he has generally restricted this approach to the leaders of regions adjoining Ukraine.
For the first four years of the war, Putin “sought to avoid creating the impression of a wholesale militarization of political live and to maintain the illusion that nothing particularly alarming was taking place within the country.” Obviously, “the mass appointment of generals as governors would look like an admission Russia has shifted onto a full wartime footing.”
According to Gallyamov, “the most recent appointments thus appear to mark a turning point,” with Putin sending a general who fought in both Syria and Ukraine to head Belgorod and a civilian administrator who had headed the LPR has been dispatched to Bryansk,” a shift for which there is “a clear rationale.”
“Facing manpower shortages at eh front and a deepening budget deficit at home,” the commentator continues, “the Kremlin feels compelled to employ mechanisms other than financial incentives to recruit individuals willing to sign military contracts.” And naming those who have fought to high positions shows the Kremlin “isn’t joking” about making them an elite.
What this means, however, is that “one can no longer rule out the possibility that afte slr the collapse of the current region, a secessionist movement seeking to withdraw from the Russian Federation could emerge in that region,” perhaps in the shape of a Chernozem Federation or some other grouping.
A slogan for such a movement “practically writes itself,” Gallyamov suggests: “’Stop Bombing Voronezh.’” How popular this will be depends on the situation in Russia on the one hand and the brightness of Ukraine’s future “appear at that particular moment.” If the former is bad and the latter good, secession becomes likely.
“This last factor should not be underestimated,” he continues. “The successes achieved by the people of the neighboring country in their post-war reconstruction—and, even more so, their accession to the EU—when compounded by Russia’s own failures and problems, could create a new center of gravity for Russia’s border regions.”
He argues that “the logic would be starkly simple: "Look—the Ukrainians broke away from Russia, and now they have a brilliant future. We need to do the exact same thing." The dismissal of a popular governor and his replacement by a military figure with a dubious reputation” will only make that outcome more likely.
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