To Keep Power, Moscow Now Using Terror Against Its Own Population, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 29 – By its recent actions, including the arrest of relatives of those who oppose the regime, the powers that be in the Russian capital have shown that they have adopted terror as a means against the population and thus have implicitly acknowledged the existence of a civil war in the Russian Federation, Vladimir Pastukhov says.

            Increasingly, the regime is using the FSB’s Service for the Defense of the Constitutional Order and the Struggle with Terrorism against its political opponents, the London-based Russian analyst says, and that service’s officers are inclined to use the same methods against the opposition they use against terrorists (echo.msk.ru/programs/personalnovash/2812394-echo/).

            “This is a manifestation of civil war,” Pastukhov argues, because now the opposition is being treated not as an element of society against which laws can be deployed but as an outlaw formation that the regime can use any methods it wants to in order to suppress some and intimidate others.

            “In principle,” he says, this is like when the Bolsheviks declared the Red Terror,” and one can thus say that Russia now has “the Putin terror,” a move designed to suppress those “who do not agree with the new anti-democratic construction of Russian society which the regime has offered.”

            According to Pastukhov, this shift in state policy happened not because of Navalny and his supporters but rather “the return of Navalny became a trigger for the crossing of some sort of red line” in the regime’s thinking. Up until now, some in the regime wanted to continue to play with the opposition, but now they have lost to those who want suppression as such.

            In part, this reflects a response within the ruling circles in Moscow to the events in Ukraine and especially Belarus, a fear without justification in fact that Russia is on the road toward a color revolution of its own and that the powers must suppress anyone who might be thinking about taking part in it.

            By deploying terror, whose audience is not individuals but society as a whole, the regime is forcing Russians to choose among three options: keeping their heads down and avoiding any involvement in politics, taking a chance by doing so, or leaving the country in order to be able to live as they want.

            Most will choose the first in response to terror, Pastukhov argues. But the real problem is that “99 percent of the so-called liberal-democratic opposition in Russia consists of people who quite easily will exchange their political positions for all kinds of material benefits” and thus won’t challenge a regime which offers them carrots as well as sticks.

            In other comments, Pastukhov suggests that at present, the efforts of historian Denis Karagodin to track down those who persecuted his ancestors represents an even greater threat to the regime and those who want to use terror than anything Navalny and his supporters have done or may do.

            The historian is in the business of destroying the myth that terrorism was justified because of the victory in World War II. That is what the entire Putin edifice is based on and what allows those who engage in repression to assume that they will remain untouchable. If that confidence is destroyed, then it will be far harder for repression to continue.

            The problem is, Pastukhov continues, is that those engaged in repression are now operating as a self-directed machine. Putin is ever less important concerning what they do in specific cases because the machine has its own goals which are reinforced by the rewards it has been able and will be able to give to its officers.

            And the logic of that machine, the analyst argues, is to become ever harsher leading to the point where “if the enemy doesn’t surrender, he must be destroyed.” Indeed, “we are approaching that stage” already.

            What is important to keep in mind is that the Putin regime does not have the ambition to convince everyone. It doesn’t care very much about the 14 percent of the population that opposes it and even allows them to live on “reservations” the Kremlin has established. There, like “European Indians,” they are free to talk and complain with one important limitation.

            They must not seek to reach out beyond their own ranks. Navalny has violated that by hammering on the single theme of corruption in the hopes of expanding his political base. For the Kremlin and the security structures, that is intolerable; and now they want to destroy him for making that effort.

Northern Sea Route isn’t About to Replace Suez Canal, Russian Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 29 – As the world watched as a single ship blocked the Suez Canal this past week, some in Moscow suggested that this even suggested that the world would now turn to Russia’s Northern Sea Route as a better alternative (rg.ru/2021/03/25/chp-v-sueckom-kanale-stalo-signalom-dlia-mirovoj-logistiki-v-polzu-sevmorputi.html).

            The Nezygar telegram channel agreed that the accident in the Suez canal highlights the dangers of relying on any single route but suggested that a single accident is not enough to reroute shipping between Europe and Asia completely as Moscow may hope (https://t.me/russica2/36936 reposted at newizv.ru/article/general/27-03-2021/postroim-porty-uglubim-prolivy-pochemu-sevmorput-ne-zamenit-suetskogo-kanala).

            The reasons for Russian expectations lie both in the fact that its favored Northern Sea Route is both shorter and far wider than the Suez Canal, but declining fuel prices, on the one hand, and the greater costs arising from the need for icebreakers, on the other, mean that the Russian route is not as advantageous as Moscow analysts think, the telegram channel suggests.

            Moreover, the Northern Sea Route has its own risks because of ice, something that could delay passage far longer than the Ever Given has blocked traffic on the Suez Canal. But the Northern Sea Route has another disadvantage, one that there is little chance the Russian side will be able to correct anytime soon.

            “The most important element as far as the attractiveness of a sea route is concerned is well-developed port infrastructure,” the outlet continues. It isn’t time at sea that is critical in financial calculations but the ability to arrive “just in rime” and offload quickly onto land-based transportation.

            On both sides of the Suez, there are many such ports with that ability. “But today, along the Northern Sea Route, there is only one deep-water port, Murmansk,” and it is not connected via highway and train in ways that make it an attractive option for shippers, given the likelihood of bottlenecks on land even if the sea route is traversed more quickly.

            As ships carry more containers, they can use only those ports which have sufficient depth. But as of now, the ports for ships using the Suez Canal are already deeper, while nearly all those along the Northern Sea Route must be significantly deepened and expanded if they are to be competitive.

            Over time, Russia might be able to correct this situation, the channel says; but there is another factor that Moscow seems to have ignored at its peril as far as trade is concerned. At present, most Chinese exports go not to Europe but to the United States. Thus, the number of ships Beijing might want to send via the Northern Sea Route will be smaller than Moscow hopes.

            And that of course means that even if Russia adopts policies intended to deepen its ports and build on-land transportation infrastructure to service them, it may discover that it will not see any return on such investments at anything like the rate or in the amount that many in Moscow now assume is inevitable.

A Large Share of Excessive Deaths in Russia in 2020 Came Not from Covid but from Inadequate Medical Care, Saversky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 29 – The Russian government has been all too ready to blame the increase in deaths in the country over the last year entirely on the pandemic, Aleksandr Saversky, head of the Social Council for the Defense of Patients, says. But in fact, a large share of the increase reflected shortcomings in the healthcare system more generally.

            That means that while the mortality rate may fall somewhat in 2021 and succeeding years, it is unlikely to return to pre-2020 levels unless and until the government spends more on the healthcare system as a whole, something it has been reluctant to do up to now (versia.ru/provaly-demograficheskoj-politiki-vlasti-spisali-na-kovid).

            Today, Moscow reported registering 8711 new cases of covid infection and 293 new deaths, both the lowest figures since early last fall, as the pandemic continued to ebb across most of the country despite some continuing hotspots where these statistics actually increased (t.me/COVID2019_official/2680 and regnum.ru/news/society/3226201.html).

            Russian officials were generally upbeat about the situation, with the Kremlin confirming that the May 9 Victory Parade will take place and that restrictions will soon be lifted (regnum.ru/news/3228362.html, regnum.ru/news/3227913.html, https://regnum.ru/news/3227923.html and regnum.ru/news/3227915.html).

            But there was one dark spot that affects Russians across the country. Officials say that quarantine requirements are likely to prevent summer camps for children to operate at anything like their normal level again this year and that most young people will have to spend the summer at home (ng.ru/economics/2021-03-29/4_8114_summer.html).

            On the vaccine front, commentator Sergey Markov says that Russia must make a dramatic comeback if it is to take the leadership in the battle of vaccines. After being the first to develop a medication, it has not inoculated nearly as high a percentage of its population as some other countries (echo.msk.ru/blog/sergei_markov/2812776-echo/).

            One reason for that is a lack of public trust in the vaccine, something Moscow writers complain the West is playing up for competitive advantage (versia.ru/borba-s-kovidom-prevratilas-v-borbu-za-dengi-i-politicheskoe-vliyanie, znak.com/2021-03-29/pochemu_zhiteli_rossii_malo_privivayutsya_ot_koronavirusa and vz.ru/world/2021/3/29/1091730.html).  

But other reasons include a lack of productive capacity, something that has forced Moscow to seek to have its vaccine manufactured abroad (regnum.ru/news/3227801.html) and inadequate distribution networks, which mean that 57 regions have had shortages of vaccine (proekt.media/opinion/dragan-vakzinaziya-v-rossii/).

Kremlin Should Be More Worried about Inflation than about Navalny, Tarasov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 28 – Rising prices and the disappearance of some goods from food stores has led many Russians to conclude that a wider variety of products than just sugar and oil are in short supply and will soon disappear. Such conclusions, Aleksey Tarasov says, are a greater threat to the Kremlin than Aleksey Navalny is.

            The Novaya gazeta commentator says that in advance of Navalny’s return, the Kremlin decided to slow or stop prices rises for those two commodities. But its approach didn’t work because of the nature of the producers and the sellers and because Russians drew the wrong conclusions (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/03/26/finita-dolche-vita).

            Sugar production is dominated by three large companies, and they are only too happy to have prices set at a level where their profits are guaranteed, experts with whom Tarasov spoke say. But supermarkets are seeing demand rise, and their attitudes about price controls are entirely different because if they are in place, they can’t raise prices even as demand increases.

            And demand for products that have already seen price rises will continue to go up because Russians on the basis of their historical experience assume that means that either prices are being set unjustly by outside forces or that the goods in question are in short supply and are buying things up to be prepared.

            Had the government not tried to freeze prices for these key foodstuffs, it might have faced protesters in January with very specific demands rather than the release of Navalny which no one in fact expected, Tarasov says. But now it faces a new and larger problem: people assume goods are going to disappear, and they are even more angry about that.

            That is the result of the Russian government’s relatively clumsy approach to controlling prices; and now a situation has emerged in which the Kremlin should be far more worried about new inflation than about anything Navalny may do. Russians who face rising prices and empty shelves are a more serious problem than those who want an opposition leader released.

 

Requiring Clergy to Have Training in Russian Religious Law Likely to Radicalize Muslims and Other Religious

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 28 – Only the Russian Orthodox Church is not objecting to Duma plans to amend the laws governing religious organizations to require that clergy and other religious leaders receive instruction in the laws of the Russian Federation governing faith communities before being allowed to lead congregations.

            Buddhists fear that it will mean that leaders of their community abroad cannot come to Russia to teach. Muslims object to what they see as an infringement of their constitutional rights. And Pentecostals, similar concerned, have announced that they will ask Vladimir Putin not to sign the bill if it passes, Kommersant reports (kommersant.ru/doc/4741865).

            This opposition has led the Duma to postpone a second vote on the question, but the idea, which has been under consideration by the Russian legislature since last summer, appears to have a life of its own and is likely to be brought up again once the current wave of resistance crests and passes.

            The proposed amendment itself, Duma deputies involved in the process say, may be modified to allow those trained abroad to take courses in Russia and those who are members of a religious denomination without its own religious training center in Russia to be certified in this regard at one or another Russian university.

            Such changes meet the objections of the Buddhists but hardly those of the Muslims or Protestants, the Moscow daily reports. And their leaders see the failure of Duma deputies to pay attention to their suggestions and complaints as evidence both that the ruling party plans to go ahead with this and that it is not concerned about Muslims and non-Orthodox Christians.

            That makes the observation of Aleksandr Verkhovsky, the head of the SOVA Information-Analytic Center which tracks religious issues, intriguing. He says that he is “certain” the new amendment was introduced in the first instance in order to give the state the ability to “’de-radicalize”” Muslims.

            If Muslim mullahs and imams aren’t trained inside Russia or in secular institutions there, they would not be allowed to preach in the future. But blocking them from doing so in this way almost certainly will have the unintended consequence of driving them and their congregations underground, thus promoting the very radicalization the amendment is intended to prevent.

            Indeed, if this measure does finally pass and is signed into law, a large number of Russia’s increasingly numerous Muslim communities are likely to go underground much as was true in Soviet times and now become a greater threat to the secular authorities than anything they have presented in recent years.

 

A Russia of the Agglomerations Would Be Even More Tightly Controlled from Moscow than the Current One, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 28 – The increasing concentration of the population of the Russian federation in 10 “super-agglomerations,” a reflection both of efforts to find work and government support for housing construction only there, will leave the country even more tightly controlled from Moscow than is the case now, Vadim Shtepa says.

            The editor of the Tallinn-based portal, Region.Expert, says that there is little reason to believe the promises of some behind this program that more taxes would remain at the level of the agglomerations than now do at the level of regions and republics and that the former would be allowed to elect their own leaders (severreal.org/a/31162378.html).

            That would be completely inconsistent with the ideas of the individual most prominently associated with the idea of a Russia of the agglomerations who, while finance minister in the first decade of Putin’s rule, worked hard to centralize tax collections and impose appointees in place of elected leaders outside of Moscow, Shtepa continues.

            “If some sort of ‘new model of a federation’ is being pushed by the current powers that be,” he suggests, “it is precisely for the convenience of centralized administration and has nothing to do with sharing power with the citizens.” That is because “the only political ‘metropolis’ as before would remain the Moscow Kremlin.”

            In many ways, Shtepa continues, this recalls the sad experience of the federal districts, which Putin imposed to help Moscow recover control of the country but which have never been included in the Constitution or played the decentralizing role that many expected at the time of their creation.

            Consequently, “if one imagines the structural transformation of the Russian Federation into six to ten gigantic agglomerations, this will lead not to the growth in them of civic self-administration but only to the doubling there of ‘the Moscow model’ with its sharp border between ‘the capital’ and ‘the provinces.’”

            And that in turn will give Moscow yet another lever to destroy all the remaining government institutions outside the agglomerations, including local self-administration and the governments of the autonomous non-Russian republics and predominantly ethnic-Russian oblasts and krays.

            Those who argue that history is moving in the direction of large cities alone are somewhat behind the curve, Shtepa suggests. In post-industrial societies, smaller centers are becoming more important because the Internet allows people to work from just about anywhere and living conditions are often far better outside of enormous metropolitan areas.

            He says he completely agrees with the view of Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev who has observed that “gigantic cities have appeared mostly on the global periphery” rather than at its center, thus suggesting that if Russia moves in that direction, it will be following not the leaders of development but those who are following with a lag (region.expert/inozemtsev/).

            That means that a Russia of the agglomerations will not only be more centralized and authoritarian than the country is now, Shtepa concludes, but that it will likely be setting itself up to fall further and further behind advanced countries whose most important centers of change are no longer the largest cities but places like Silicon Valley.

           

Moscow’s Youth Programs Failing and Nowhere More So than in the North Caucasus, Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 28 – The Kremlin has been worried by its loss of influence among young people and talked a great deal about new programs to teach out to the rising generation, but a new study concludes that its approaches are failing and nowhere more so than in the North Caucasus where young people form a larger share of the population than elsewhere.

            At a Stavropol conference on contemporary Russia, Grigory Dobromelov of the KGD Group, presented findings of that organization’s latest research on young people and youth policy. These findings are devastating and should serve as a wake-up call for the powers that be (akcent.site/novosti/13435).

            In the Russian population, there are approximately 40 million young people, but the government’s programs do not involve more than 1 to 1.5 million. “The remainder,” Dobromelov says, “are simply forgotten.” And not surprisingly, they are listening to others and going their own very different way.

            Still worse, the government’s youth organizations have been sinecures for “young careerists” who care more about feathering their own nests and rising in the bureaucracy than about carrying out their mission. In fewer than a third of the country’s missions have they even managed to pass since 2008 when Rosmolodezh was founded new laws on young people.

            “In more than ten regions,” the researcher says, “there is not a single specialist with training in the subject responsible for work with young people.” They know little about them, but spend, in many places, most of their money on themselves rather than on activities. In North Ossetia, for example, 80 percent of the state’s youth budget goes for officials.

            And he concludes that given rapid growth rates in the population in regions like the North Caucasus, this split “will only grow.” He suggests the government should change course and work with young people “not via state agencies but through educational centers” like the North Caucasus Federal University or the Southern Federal University.