FSB Now ‘Main Operator’ of Repressive Policy and Its Focus has Shifted from the Capitals to the Russian Periphery and Occupied Territories, ‘Re-Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – The Judicial Department of the Russian Supreme Court has restricted its release of details about politically sensitive cases but the Re-Russia portal has examined the data available and has concluded that the FSB is now in charge of repression and its focus has shifted from the capitals to the Russian periphery and occupied Ukrainian territories.

            While many observers have concluded that the number of politically motivated cases was roughly the same in 2025 as in 2024, the Re-Russia portal says that its own figures show that there was a rise of about 70 percent, most of which can outside of the capitals of Russia and within occupied Ukraine (re-russia.net/analytics/0467/).

            Growth in the number of politically sensitive cases in those two areas reflects the FSB’s decision to focus on occupied areas of Ukraine in order to support the Russian war effort there and on regions and republics far from Moscow which it had ignored earlier but where other forms of political actions are now on the rise. 

After Protests Brought Arrests, Azerbaijanis who Support Right to Wear the Hijab have Shifted How They are Resisting with Some Teaching Their Daughters at Home, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – In early October, the Azerbaijani authorities insisted that pupils and teachers in state schools could no longer wear the hijab because in their view that represents a threat to the secular nature of the Azerbaijani system. Such protests have stopped but resistance is continuing, with some families pulling their daughters out of school, Kavkaz-Uzel reports.

            That resistance underscores just how committed many Azerbaijani parents are to having their daughters wear the hijab and how much anger the decision of the authorities have stirred up (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/427925; for background on these protests, see jamestown.org/bakus-hijab-ban-sparks-protests-in-azerbaijan-and-creates-problems-with-turkiye/).

            While parents can pull their children out of school as long as they provide alternative instruction in private schools or at home, teachers who wanted to wear the hijab have no such fall back position: they must either give in to the official rules or face dismissal from their jobs, something that appears to be happening in an increasing number of cases.

            What makes this worrisome is that many of these parents may be far more inclined to listen to and even follow underground religious leaders who defend what the parents want but who have even larger agendas regarding secular Azerbaijan. To the extent that happens, what may seem to some like a tempest in a teapot may become something far larger in the future. 

Of 25 Memorials to Victims of Soviet Power Destroyed Since 2022, 21 were Devoted to Non-Russian Victims, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 -- That Russian officials and Russians on a private basis have been defacing and destroying monuments to the victims of Stalin’s terror since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine in 2022 has received a great deal of attention, but Horizontal Russia reports that 21 of the 25 destroyed in this period were devoted to non-Russian victims.

            Among the groups whose monuments were destroyed are the Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Germans, Latvians and Hungarians, with the Poles lone being identified (in most cases along with others) in 18 of the monuments desecrated or demolished in the last five years (semnasem.org/articles/2026/10/29/oni-ubivayut-nas-potomkov).

            As the news agency which covers developments in the Russian Federation beyond Moscow’s ring road points out, this deprives these peoples of a way to maintain their memories and thus identities and is a conscious policy of the center rather than being some accident as some might think.

Since 2022, Russians have been in a Kind of Memorial Service for the Passing of Everything Making Them Fully Human, Kolesnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 28 – In an article provocatively entitled “A Panikhid for Humanity, Andrey Kolesnikov argues that since Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine five years ago, Russians have been part of a memorial service for the passing of everything that makes them fully human – morality, statehood, and a rejection of independent thinking.

            Crying for the deceased, the Russian commentator says, is where humanity begins because it makes the individual the center of life and underscores just “how important a single and unique person is on this side of the grave” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/10/28/panikhida-po-cheloveku).

            “Totalitarian systems do not know the human self, they only know the ‘we’  in which you can dissolve, become invisible and accept for yourself “the yoke with the rattles yes scourge”. And there is only one ‘’” that equates itself with the country, the Motherland, the people, the state, society, and the mass “we” should agree with this only ‘I’ in everything.”

            That is what Stalin achieved and it is what a small group of intellectual recognized near the end of Soviet times, Kolesnikov says; now, it is what Putin and his regime have sought to recreate again, by destroying the central figure of humanity, the individual, and subordinating him to the mass, opening the way to mass crimes.

            In the 20^th century, the most horrific crimes are “mass crimes, those in which not only the victims are in the millions but the criminal is an organized mass,” he continues. What has been happening over the last five years is that that approach from which Russians had begun to turn away is being restored.

            Understanding what is going on is the first step to opposing and overcoming it, he says. “This psychology of subordination and self-justification in one group of accomplices works on the example of large communities, it explains everything in the mechanisms of conformity of the masses, besides protected from the torment of conscience and shame by distancing from the fact that violence occurs somewhere.”

            Kolesnikov continues: “Today, the semi-totalitarian system has entered a new quality: it has become much more open in demonstrating brutality: the militant dialect of the central television talk show and the logic of destroying the enemy have become the language of pro-Kremlin experts and even state policy.”

“No one will now refute Stalin’s “right”, on the contrary, state repression is justified by positive historical experience. It is no longer a legacy of late Soviet, it is the heritage of 1937, 1938, 1949 and other terrible years. Totalitarian practices of subordination and self-justification are reproduced in an impeccable way.”

Russian Nationalities Agency Collects Enormous Range of Data on Ethnic and Religious Relations and Passes It to FSB and Law Enforcement, New ‘Arctida’ Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 29 – Compared to siloviki agencies, the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs (FADN) attracts remarkably little attention, but it plays a key role in the work of the FSB and Russian law enforcement agencies by gathering and then passing along data from its countrywide monitoring system of ethnic and religious relations, a new Arctida study says.

            The FADN monitoring system tracks online content, news coverage, and social media posts, and the agency want to expand this to include messaging aps, Arctida says.  Most commentaries on this suggest that what the FADN monitoring system is for is helping formulate policy rather than bringing charges (arctida.io/en/projects/russias-peoples).

              But in fact, a major part of the FADN’s monitoring is devoted to identifying those who may be in violation of the law, something that should not surprise anyone because most of the senior FADN officials involved are either FSB officers, married to them, or served in the FSB earlier.

              Having these FSB links has given FADN a certain amount of defense against those who would transfer the monitoring function to the FSB’s second department; but there are signs that the FSB’s patience may be running thin and that FADN will lose this function, one that dominates much of its activity. In that event, its overall role will be reduced.

              But the Kremlin may prefer that FADN keep this monitoring service because there will be less sensitivity in some groups if a nominally apolitical group is doing it, even if it is immediately handing over any information it does collect to the FSB and law enforcement bodies.

Development of Siberia between the Yenesei and Lena Wouldn't Benefit Moscow or Investors Foreign or Domestic, Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – Many like to talk about “Siberianization” and “the mastering of Siberia,” Dmitry Verkhoturov says; but most do so without considering the real costs involved in doing so and thus overstate what one or another project will cost and what it will bring in return.

            To compensate for the overly optimistic projections of such people, the Siberian economist says, it is worth considering the development of just one portion of Siberia, the lands between the Yenisei and Lena rivers, the site ofc enormous natural wealth and almost no infrastructure (sibmix.com/?doc=23297).

            If one calculates the costs involved of developing the resources and then transporting them out for foreign sale, one can easily see, Verkhoturov says, that “under prevailing conditions,” development of that region “will not benefit investors either domestic who are currently suffering under huge debts and losses or foreign ones either.    

            There are indeed enormous deposits of natural resources in that region, he continues, including potash salts, iron, copper, coal and other minerals as well. But for these to be economically viable, mines must developed with populations brought in and housed to support them and transportation infrastructure created where none now exists.

            The transportation infrastructure that will have to be built includes the construction of a railway and connecting roads (about 4.8 trillion rubles), a pipeline costing 1.6 trillion ruble with annual operating costs only adding to those totals. Building mining and population infrastructure will require another 5.6 trillion rubles.

            Moreover, Verkhoturov says, those estimates are likely low given the extreme conditions of the Evenk region; and so assessments of cost must begin at 15 trillion rubles and will likely to much higher, and the maintenance of both the mine, human and transportation infrastructure will add trillions more.

            Assuming price stability, lack of sales restrictions, and low inflation, Verkhoturov says, the mining industry from that region would be about 900 billion rubles a year, leading the paying off of the investment cost in 16.6 years. But if prices fall as China is pressing to take place, it would take 46.8 years for the project to recover investment costs.

            The problems these costs imposed are exacerbated by the difficulties of finding the necessary capital. If Moscow borrowed the 15 trillion, it would have to pay three billion a year in interest alone, something that by itself would make the project anything but profitable for the foreseeable future.s

            Foreign investors would like face similar challenges and thus would make demands for the kind of side payments that would make such a development even more unprofitable, the Siberian economist says, adding that what he has described for one region of Siberia would be multiplied many times for the entire space to be developed. 

At a Time of Crisis, Estonians Again Turning Ever More Often to Their Distant Roots, Prozes Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – Estonians are showing an ever greater interest in the Finno-Ugric roots of their culture as they seek to reaffirm the uniqueness of their identity at a time of growing international crisis, according to Jaak Prozes of the Fenno-Ugric movement in that Baltic country says.

            “Without the native Finno-Ugric context,” he says, “the history of Estonia would look like a simple borrowing from the Baltic Germans, the Swedes and the Russians,” but “the ancient linguistic community gives the culture of Estonians a true identity” (kultuur.postimees.ee/8571021/kultuurimaja-pikk-kriisiaeg-on-pannud-eestlasi-oma-soome-ugri-identiteedist-enam-tuge-otsima and mariuver.eu/2026/10/26/krizis-vernul-estoncev-k-finno-ugorskim-istokam/).

            Other Estonians say that the turn to the Finno-Ugric world happened a half century ago and played a major role in the drive to the recovery of independence; but with independence, attention to those roots weakened. Now, however, it is strengthening again because of uncertainties in the world.

            This trend of interest in the distant past is found throughout the former Soviet space, with Russians looking back to Rus, Kazakhs to the Golden Horde, and others to historically distant but psychologically close communities from which they sprung and that continue to give them meaning.

              Thus, the Estonian case is not unique except in its details but rather a reflection of a broader and deeper trend that is likely to become more rather than less important as the world crisis of today deepens.

Kazakhs Now Posting in Facebook More Often in Kazakh rather than Russian, Studies Find

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 26 – Kazakhs are increasingly likely to use their national language rather than Russian when they go online, and now are posting in Kazakh more often than in Russian on one platform (Facebook) even though Russian is the more widely used language on others, according to new studies.

            What that means is that Kazakhs are increasingly using their national language even in a sector that had long been assumed to be most immune to the transition away from Russian (tribune.kz/v-almaty-proshla-brand-analytics-conference-kazakhstan-2026/ and altyn-orda.kz/kazahskij-yazyk-oboshyol-russkij-v-odnoj-iz-sotssetej-kazahstana-chto-pokazali-tsifry/).

            At a recent conference of researchers on Kazakh internet habits, Brand Analytics reported that as of this summer, 41.4 percent of all posts on Facebook in Kazakhstan were in Kazakh, slightly more than the 39.2 percent that were in Russian. On almost all other platforms, Russian still dominated although its share of posts continues to decline.

            One major exception, the media research center said, involved Telegram posts. There, Kazakh has not gained relative to Russian. Instead, in recent months, the number of reports in Kazakh and the quantity of writers has declined approximately by a third, a sign Kazakhs may no longer be using this channel as much or choose to use Russian to reach a broader audience.

            Because so many factors are involved in changes in the use of Kazakh as opposed to Russian, individual figures need to be examined with care, the researchers say; but the overall trend is clear: Kazakhs are increasingly inclined to use their national language on almost all online platforms, yet another indication of the growing power of Kazakh.

Azerbaijan’s Villages are Dying, Threatening Country’s Future Even Before Oil Runs Out, Mejlis Deputies Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – Even though Baku officials insist that villagers form almost half of Azerbaijan’s population, the real situation is much worse with villages emptying out as residents leave for Baku to earn a living, even if they continue to be counted by the government as villagers, deputies in the country’s parliament say.

            The impact of the influx of villagers on Baku is obvious to everyone, Mejlis deputies say; but the consequences of the dying out of villages for the country is less so even though this negative trend is intensifying and threatening the ability of the country to feed itself (minval.az/news/124559785).

            The government says there are 4246 villages in the country, but in 129 of them, fewer than 50 people actually live, and in 20 to 30, the villages are now ghost towns because no one lives there. Young people have left and the older generation is dying out. If nothing is done, deputies, say, the country will face “the extinction of villages.”

            The emptying out of rural areas is a problem that many countries including those in the former Soviet space face, but it is a particular one where investment in agriculture lags and where a reduction in the population means a reduction in agricultural production and consequently higher prices and greater dependence on imports results.

            Azerbaijan is only beginning to focus on this issue as part of discussions about life in Azerbaijan “after oil,” the situation the country will face in three decades of so; but deputies are now saying that unless the problems of declining villages are faced, the crisis for Baku may occur far sooner than that. 

Ecumenical Patriarchate Assures Uniates He Prays for a Ukrainian Victory

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 26 – During a visit to Rome where he met both the Pope and Stanislav Shevchuk,the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,  Patriarch Bartholemew of Constantinpole assured the Uniate leader that he prays regularly for a Ukrainian victory against Russian aggression.

            Not surprisingly, Russian outlets are outraged not so much because the Ecumenical patriarch is praying for the side he favors much as the Moscow patriarch is doing the same for his but rather because Bartholemew has ranked the defense of Catholics Greek and otherwise above the defense of Orthodox (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=122417).

            Such arguments show just how deeply divided eastern and western Christianity remain at least in the Russian understanding and thus how much deeper the divide between Moscow and the West really is, one that reflects not just the last few centuries but a millenium that will take a long time to overcome whatever the politics of the moment in the future may be.

Sakha Should Follow Baltic Model to Independence and Membership in EU and NATO, Former Deputy Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 26 – Many Russians and some non-Russians argue that numerically small peoples like the Sakha should not pursue independence because it will prove a poisoned chalice with one kind of oppression replacing another, but that is not necessary as the Baltic drive to recover independence shows, Aleksandr Ivanov says.

            The former Sakha Il Tumen regional parliamentarian who was stripped of his position after being declared “a foreign agent” says that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania show a different and better way forward (themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/26/dictatorship-isnt-destiny-for-russias-indigenous-peoples-they-can-build-independent-democracies-a94088).

            “The three Baltic states started in 1991 with the same Soviet legacy” as the people of Sakha, Ivanov says, “a devastated economy, Russification, nomenklatura officials and an absence of market institutions. Over 30 years, they became democracies and members of the European Union and NATO.”

            Estonia had few people “with almost no natural resources” but quickly “build one of the world’s most digital states … gave the world Skype … and what in what is particularly important” to him, the Sakha politician says, “restored its language’s status as the state language after decades of russification, precisely what we are fighting for today.”        

 “We in Sakha have a vast territory and enormous mineral wealth: the republic produces most of Russia’s diamonds, as well as gold, coal, gas and rare earth metals.” Now, “imagine Estonian institutions — transparent government, high-quality education and digital governance — combined with the resources that now flow to Moscow.”

“Of course,” Ivanov continues, “resources alone guarantee nothing. They can be used for good or for harm. That is precisely why we need to learn from those who have managed to build a strong, free and educated society without gas or diamonds. [And]We have much to learn from Estonia and its Baltic neighbors.”

“We can no longer trust new agreements with the colonial power sitting in Moscow. Every time the beast grew weak, it persuaded us to stay and promised to treat us well. Every time, it deceived us. It is time to break free of our Stockholm syndrome and look with clear eyes.”

And he concludes with optimism: “My people — like the Tatars, Bashkirs, Buryats, Altaians, Erzya and others — are ready to live of their own free will and develop their independent, multiethnic republics themselves, free of Moscow’s chauvinism, xenophobia and imperialism.”

Czech Scholars Excavating GULAG Sites in Central Asia, Unthinkable in Putin’s Russia and Not Yet Occurring in Most Former Soviet Republics

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – The Putin regime has put an end to efforts to explore the ruins of Soviet GULAG sites lest people draw the obvious parallels between what the Soviet dictator did nearly a century ago and what the Russian dictator is doing now, and few former Soviet republics have taken up the challenge of excavating sites on their territories.

            But there is an important exception to this pattern: Czech archaeologists are now exploring GULAG ruins in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, research that tells a great deal not only about the Stalin prison camp system in those republics but also about what it was like in the RSFSR and elsewhere (gulag.cz/cs/novinka/zapomenuty-gulag-serie-debat-predstavi-nase-letosni-expedice-do-kazachstanu-a-uzbekistanu).

            (For a discussion of what the Czechs have been doing and why it matters both for Central Asia and more generally, see Aleksandra Vagner’s article on the Radio Liberty portal at svoboda.org/a/v-rossii-takoe-issledovanie-nevozmozhno-cheshskie-arheologi-izuchayut-steplag/33883930.html.)

            As Putin shuts down genuine research on the Stalin era, such efforts by foreign scholars and the governments of the now-independent former Soviet republics are increasingly important and should be followed by those whose concerns focus on what happened in the Russian Federation where most of the Stalin camps were located.

HIV has Reached ‘Epidemic Proportions’ in a Third of Russia’s Federal Subjects, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – HIV infections have reached “epidemic proportions” in 27 of Russia’s federal subjects, with transmissions increasingly occurring through heterosexual contacts and the failure of medical facilities to prevent the spread.  As a result, as many as three percent of Russian men in their 40s are infected and one percent of pregnant women.

            Those are just some of the dire reports of Russian experts surveyed by Mikhail Sergeyev, who monitors economic developments for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, reports that suggest that while mortality rates from HIV have fallen there in recent years, that may not continue if the rate of the spread of HIV increases  (ng.ru/economics/2026-10-25/1_9610_hiv.html).

            One reason for pessimism is that many who are infected do now know that, and “only half of the people living with HIV” are getting anti-retroviral treatments, experts say. That low coverage means that “at least 600,000 HIV sources continue to actively participate in the transmission of the virus,” they continue.

            According to the World Health Organization, controlling the spread of HIV requires that countries achieve what is known as the 95-95-95 benchmark, with 95 percent of those infected knowing their status, 95 percent receiving ART treatment, and 95 percent of those achieving viral suppression. At present, Russia is not close to any of those figures.

            Russian medical officials say that “two thirds of the new HIV transmissions in Russia are the result of heterosexual contact” rather than drug abuse or homosexual activity;” and they note that hospitals and other medical institutions “are one again becoming channels of transmission of the virus.”

            Moscow has lifted restrictions on ART medications, but the problem of a lack of the availability of such drugs is still so great that the hardest hit regions are now trying to fill in the gap, although they rarely are able to do so not only because of the high cost of such drugs but also because of their lack of funds for such things. 

Almost 40 Percent of Russians Now have Relative who has Served in Ukraine, Survey Data Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – It is a commonplace now to say that Ukraine’s drone attacks have brought Putin’s war in Ukraine home to Russians; but in fact, given the rotation of men through the Russian invasion force, it is now the case that 37 percent of the Russian people have a relative who has served there, Elena Konyeva of Extreme Scan says polls show.

            Given that even in the cases of families without such a veteran of the war in Ukraine, the likelihood is increasingly great that they too know someone who fought and perhaps died in that conflict and thus the war has come home to Russia in this most affecting way, the director of ExtremeScan says (re-russia.net/expertise/0465/).

            The share of Russians reporting that they or their relatives have served in Ukraine has continued to rise in Extreme Scan surveys. In May 2022, only 15 percent said that was the case; in February 2023, 23 percent did; and in a more recent survey, 38 percent did, with an increasing fraction reporting that they had more than one relative who was a veteran.

            Konyeva says that the experience of having a relative serve in Ukraine has made those with it more ready to discuss the war, in some cases making them more supportive of continuing to fight until some kind of Russian victory is won but in far more leading them to declare that they would like to see the war over.

Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Other Post-Soviet States Now Taking Part in ‘Large Game of the Middle Powers’ Canadian PM Mark Carney Talked About

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – At the World Economic Forum in Davos last January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the former international order is being restructured and that “mid-level powers have an historic opportunity to pool resources, create coalitions and take part in the formation of new global rules.”

            Among the countries taking part in that effort, according to a commentary on the Cronos.Asia portal, two post-Soviet states are especially prominent, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, a development that deserves more attention than it has received so far because it affects many places and not just their neighbors (cronos.asia/news/kazahstan-vhodit-v-bolshuyu-igru-srednih-derzhav/).

            Kazakhstan’s Kasym-Jomart Tokayev and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev have both entered this new game, and it is time for those who analyze their regions to recognize that what is happening is a about more than just what they and other leaders in the former Soviet space had been about but rather about changing the international order as such. 

            The Cronos.Asia portal focuses on Kazakhstan’s activities but includes some involving Azerbaijan as such to make the point that the new world that is emerging needs a new optic rather than continuing to be interpreted as if the world had not changed in the direction Carney points to. 

Founder of Radical Russian Nationalist ‘Northern Man’ Group Dies

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – Mikhail Mavashi, founder and current leader of the radical Russian nationalist Northern Man organization, has died at 41 in what is being reported as an automobile accident, an event that his followers are warning no one should try to exploit against the group (echofm.online/news/umer-reper-i-osnovatel-naczionalisticheskogo-dvizheniya-severnyj-chelovek-misha-mavashi ).

            The rapper who set up Northern Man in 2022 to support Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, promote Slavic unity, oppose immigration, and impose a restrictive vision of Russian traditions openly called for and organized violence to achieve his goals (ukranews.com/en/news/1183274-rapper-misha-mavashi-who-supported-war-against-ukraine-and-was-sentenced-in-absentia-dies-in-russia).

            Many observers have suggested that Mavashi’s Northern Man group might attract many Russian veterans returning from Ukraine and even become a threat to social and political stability in Russia. His followers’ threat to counter any attempts to exploit his passing indicates that such fears are not trivial.

            (For discussions of those possibilities, see meduza.io/feature/2025/09/12/molodye-v-pravilnoy-odezhde and jamestown.org/returning-veterans-powering-rise-of-radical-russian-nationalist-northern-man-group/).

            While the regional organizations of the Northern Man group appear relatively strong, the death of Mavashi leaves the group without an obvious successor to head such an all-Russian radical nationalist movement, a lack that means the more state-oriented Russian Community have play a larger role with veterans, one less threatening to the Kremlin.

            (On the Russian Community and its relations with Mavashi’s Northern Man group, see jamestown.org/returning-veterans-powering-rise-of-radical-russian-nationalist-northern-man-group/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/09/representatives-of-extreme-russian.html,)

Russia Unlikely to Give Up Imperial Ambitions Anytime Soon Because These Do Not Rest on Soviet Nostalgia Alone, Kazakh Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Kazakhstan should not expect any rapid change in Russia’s imperial ambitions because they are based “not only on nostalgia for the Soviet Union but also in a desire to preserve the idea of Russia as a power with special rights regarding the territories of its neighbors,” Askar Nursha says.

            The Kazakh political analyst, who is dean of the ALMA University School of Public Policy and Law and author of the 2018 book, Putin’s Russia: Geopolitical Revenge or Aggressive Defense, makes this point in an interview with Altyn-Orda (altyn-orda.kz/rossiya-ne-otkazalas-ot-imperskih-ambitsij-politolog-obyasnil-kakie-riski-eto-sozdayot-dlya-kazahstana/).

            Those who expect Russia to give up these ambitions anytime soon are going to be disappointed because that will take not just the passing of a generation that remembers the USSR but the complete transformation of Russian self-identificaiton as a special state with special rights regarding its neighbors.

            Those neighbors, including Kazakhstan, must recognize this reality even as they are compelled to deal with Russia as a neighbor in pragmatic ways. That may sometimes require unwelcome compromises but these are likely to be necessary to prevent even more tragic consequences.

Russian Supreme Court has Now Defined What the Imaginary International Satanist Movement Believes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – A year ago, having earlier denounced the international LGBT+ movement as extremist, the Russian Supreme Court did the same thing with the International Satanist Movement. Now, the First Department media group has gained access to a new document in which the court describes this non-existent group is about.

            On its telegram channel, First Department reports, it has gained access to an as-yet-unpublished court decision describing how what things allow Moscow to identify a group as satanist and how this non-existent group is linked to other movements, many of which are real (https://t.me/deptone/18070 reposted at echofm.online/news/pervyj-otdel-uznal-kakuyu-simvoliku-verhovnyj-sud-schitaet-sataninskoj).

            According to the journalists, the Russian Supreme Court declares in its unpublished paper that the symbols of the International Satanist movement include “an inverted Christian cross, an inverted pentagram (two rays up) and an image of Baphomet, a human-like creature with a horned animal head, most often a goat or a ram. It also described modifications of this symbol: a pentagram in a single or double circle, a seven-pointed sign and the number 666.”

            The court also said in this decision document that “the Satanist movement is closely connected with the manifestations of radical nationalism and neo-Nazism,” as can be seen by the fact that followers of Satanism use the swastika, stylyzed eagers, runic signs, and SS symbolism.”

            What makes all this so dangerous, human rights lawyers say, is that it gives Moscow the opportunity to punish people who may be completely unaware that that the symbols they use are forbidden since the specific content of the ban on the non-existent organization has not been made public.

Tuvan Women’s Movement Seeks to Unite Women of All Non-Russian Nations against Common Problems

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – The Tuvan movement, Chavaga Media, has announced plans to launch on March 8, International Women’s Day, a program for women in all the non-Russian regions and republics to protect themselves against phenomena like stalking and the use of sexualized deepfakes without the consent of those pictured.

            Chavaga is dedicated to the life and history of women in Tyv, has organzed exhibits and meetings in that republic, and has a bilingual telegram channel with some 13,000 subscribers (t.me/chavaga_media/5217 and semnasem.org/news/2026/10/24/fem-media-iz-nacionalnyh-respublik-zapustili-proekt-po-bezopasnosti-zhenshin).

            This effort builds on the anti-war efforts of various women’s groups in the last several years to protest Putin’s war in Ukraine and its excessive use of non-Russian men to fight it, but it represents a new development in that it is explicitly directed at uniting non-Russian women against common problems women face everywhere.

            As such, and because this effort is being carried out by people on the ground rather than those who have been compelled to flee Russia, it deserves close attention, something it hasn’t received much of outside of Russia so far because Tyva is so far from Moscow and because Chavaga has focused on everyday issues rather than bold proclamations.

            A perusal of its telegram channel -- t.me/chavaga_media/ -- highlights just how much can be accomplished with this approach and how it even more than some émigré actions can do to lay the foundation for national and pan-national movements now and in the post-Putin future. 

Predominantly Ethnic Russian Regions have Highest Shares of Pension-Age Residents while Non-Russian Areas have Lowest, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays have the highest shares of pension-age residents in the Russian Federation, the result of lower birthrates and the departure of younger people from thefor work in major cities, according to the To Be Precise portal.

            Non-Russian republics in the Caucasus, Southern Siberia and the Far North in contrast have the lowest share of retirees among their populations, the result of higher birthrates in the first, lower live expectancy in the second, and the departure of those about to retire to warmer areas, the portal continues (tochno.st/materials/gde-v-rossii-samaia-vysokaia-dolia-liudei-pensionnogo-vozrasta-karta-regionov).

            The differences between the federal subjects with predominantly ethnic Russian populations and those which are non-Russian is large, with most of the former having more than 20 percent of their population being above retirement age while most of the latter having less than twice that.

            Moscow ranks in the middle because while its people on average liver longer, their share of the population is kept down by the constant influx of workers from other regions.  The article also notes that more than two thirds of all retiree age people in Russia are women, largely the result of gender differences in longevity.

            In the Russian Federation, women live on average 11 years more than men do, an abnormally high difference compared to other countries. According to To Be Precise, only two years of this reflects biological differences, the rest is the product of behavioral ones, including alcohol consumption and accidents among working-age Russian men. 

Russian Courts Now Act Cruelly Not Because They are Instructed to Be But Because They Fear Exposure as Not Being Cruel Enough, Maksimov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – The imposition of extraordinarily harsh sentences in a series of cases in Russian courts calls attention to a dangerous development: Prosecutors are asking for such punishment and judges are imposing it not because they have been instructed to do so but because they are afraid of being humane, Andrey Maksimov says.

            Under current conditions, the journalist argues, any judge or prosecutor who shows mercy puts himself at risk of being denounced as helping the enemies of the state, a fear that means as long as the situation continues, ever more draconian sentences are likely (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/10/22/o-strakhe-byt-ne-zhestokim).

            That puts in motion a system in which court officers will compete with one another to show how tough and cruel they can be, not because they are being instructed to do so but because the system Putin has put in place makes such a spiral of official cruelty ever more likely and not something that those who launched it can easily reverse.

            These arrangements echo those in Stalin’s time, not as described by Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon as a tightly controlled system that carried out the will of one man but rather the one outlined by Victor Serge in The Case of Comrade Tulayev in which the fear of not being cruel enough takes over, a situation even dictators can’t stop at least for a time.

Moscow Patriarchate Sets Rules for Those in ‘Ukrainian Schismatic Structures’ who Want to Join ROC MP

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – In response to requests from its priests in Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine, the Moscow Patriarchate has adopted rules governing requests for membership in the ROC MP by laity and priests in what it calls “Ukrainian schismatic structures,” the largest being the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which was granted autocephaly by Constantinople in 2018.

            The patriarchate’s decision lumps together the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church that was established in 1921, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the first two of which are small groups who have followed individual leaders (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=122401).

            The third, which now rivals the Moscow church in Ukraine, arose when the Ecumenical Patriarchate extended a tomor of autocephaly in 2018. Those who are part of it must be told that “by being on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, you can be in the fullness of church communication only in unity with it.”

            The most important provision of the new rules is that members of the laity who want to make this transition must be cleared by the local bishop or his representative and that members of the priesthood in schismatic churches can only be admitted as lay members of the ROC MP. Those who have been monks in the schismatic structures can be admitted only as laity but can be cleared to become monks in the ROC MP upon checking by the ROC MP.

            Those originally baptized by the Moscow church and who then fell into schism will have their baptisms recognized while those baptized by the schismatics, the Moscow Patriarchate says, will have to be baptized by the ROC MP. Those who belonged to the Roman Catholic Church or Protestant denominations before joining the schism will join the ROC MP, “according to the rules for the denomination to which he belonged before joining the schismatic group.”

            These new rules will almost certainly lead those in the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine to resist absorption by the ROC MP and quite possibly will spin off new “schismatic” groups who will accept some but not other of these rules, inevitably complicating the process even where Russian troops are in control.