Win or Lose in Ukraine, Moscow Likely to Lose Part of Russia’s Periphery in the Next Decade, MGIMO Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – In the same address to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in which he predicted conflict with the West will continue after the war in Ukraine ends, Andrey Bezrukov argued that regardless of the outcome of that war, Moscow will likely lose part of Russia’s periphery over the following decade.

            Many act as if the end of the war will return everything to the status quo ante, the MGIMO scholar says, but in fact overcoming the results of the war will be difficult and all the problems Russia had earlier will return, be even more acute and require increased efforts to prevent disaster (gumilev-center.ru/77005-2/).

            Changing the Russian economy from a wartime one to a peacetime one is something a few Russians are beginning to talk about, Bezrukov says; but one of the most serious is likely to be fissiparousness in the regions and republics and the declaration of independence by some of them.

            According to some recent studies by European scholars, the chance of “a partial disintegration of Russia” along ethnic lines will be just over 20 percent over the period of 12 to 23 years after the war concludes. According to Bezrukov, “this must be considered as a serious post-war threat.”

            The most likely to exit are “the depressed periphery regions like the Caucasus, Karelia or Tyva, who may declare independence and gain Western support. Those wealthier and deeper within the Russian Federation like Tatarstan or the Khanty-Mansiysk AD are less likely to try to leave or be supported in that effort.

            According to Bezrukov, at the start of the expanded war in Ukraine, many opposed to Russia’s policy focused on the disproportionate recruitment of indigenous ethnic minorities to fight there, but “no one paid any interest” in that at least not in the upper reaches of the Russian government.

            “Today, however, closer to the end of the special military operation, historical, psychological, political, economic, demographic and institutional preconditions for the sharpening of old contradictions have become more important. And they are now beginning to take on an ethnpolitical dimension.”

            Still, in the minds of many, he continues, “the development of peripheral regions whose contribution to the federal budget is small and whose population lives in large part on the basis of a natural economy does not appear to be a first-order task. But mistakes in assessing the situation and administration can cost dearly in the medium and long term.”