Israel Bans Travel to Russia Because of Pandemic Surge There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – The Israeli government has prohibited its citizens from travelling to Russia until at least the middle of June because of the sharp spike in coronavirus cases in Russia, a spike that is especially sharp in Moscow and St. Petersburg to which most Israeli visitors go (gov.il/en/departments/news/30052021-01).

            Russian officials reported registering today 9604 new cases of infection, half of which were in the two capitals or their environs, as well as 355 new deaths from the coronavirus, as the pandemic stabilized or ebbed most other places in the Russian Federation (t.me/COVID2019_official/2995 and regnum.ru/news/society/3277253.html).

            Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin blamed the upsurge in his city on the weather, arguing that the coronavirus has become a seasonal illness. Officials in St. Petersburg did not take that out (regnum.ru/news/3283100.html and regnum.ru/news/3283153.html), but they and other Russian officials urged Russians to get their shots (regnum.ru/news/3283186.html).

            Faced with falling vaccination rates, the Russian government is again organizing meetings of scholars and doctors to put out the message that vaccines are safe and the most effective way to combat pandemics like the current one (svpressa.ru/health/article/299827/).

            Meanwhile, a survey of Internet sales found that since the pandemic began, Rusisans have spent more time and money on gardens and also on their dachas outside of the city limits (kp.ru/online/news/4310709/).

Epigenetic Consequences of Repression Last a Minimum of Four Generations, Khakuasheva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – The impact of wars, deportations, and repression last long after those directly involved have passed from the scene, Madina Khakuasheva says. Via epigenetic channels, they last a minimum of four generations and thus make these events far more horrific than most assume, especially those who say everyone must look to the future rather than the past.

            The senior researcher at the Kabardino-Balkar Institute for Research on the Humanities says that in the North Caucasus, one encounters “an unbelievably broad spectrum of psychological pathologies” among the descendants of the direct victims of such events (zapravakbr.ru/index.php/analitik/1677-vojna-ne-imeet-kontsa-svidetelstva-epigenetiki).

            This should not surprise anyone familiar with the achievements of contemporary scholarship, Khakuasheva says. She points to the investigations of Isabelle Mansuy of Zurich’s Higher Technical School who has studied what happens to mice who descend from other mice who have been victims of trauma.

            She found, the Kabardin scholar says, that “information about stress leaves ‘an imprint’ for a minimum of four generations.” Of course, “this is not genetic memory. The continuity of genes does not change but of epigenetic memory” which is affected by such experiences and then transmitted to future generations.

            “Post-traumatic stress is transmitted through micro-RNA molecules which are located in sperm cells,” Khakuasheva explains; and “removing this feature is impossible. Therefore, children and grandchildren not only find out about the difficult life of ancestors but also share this burden.”

            According to the KBR researcher, “scholars are certain that such mechanisms exist in all living beings and that people are not an exception.” Russian political analyst Mark Urnov argues in fact that “genetic and epigenetic characteristics turn out to be much stronger than any formal education” in shaping behavior.

            At a minimum, this finding means that “the consequences of war turn out to be still more destructive and global than we imagined earlier since they are reflected on many generations of descendants,” Khakuasheva says. And that raises particular concerns about peoples such as those in the North Caucasus who have suffered multiple cataclysms in the last two centuries.

            Their problems, she says are complicated by the fact that the conflicts themselves are seldom dealt with in the same way as those like World War II which are declared over but which people recognize they have to help the victims of. In the case of the Caucasus, many of these traumas are simply passed over in silence.

            “The depressed state of the KBR which at one time was flourishing has promoted a psycho-somatic crisis which has left the republic among the subjects of the Russian Federation” in terms of the damage to the epigenetic record and this long-term impact must be acknowledged and responded to if recovery is to occur.

            Khakuasheva asks: “How did 95 percent of the forcibly deported Circassians and other representatives of the North Caucasus peoples adapt to the severe conditions of their new motherland and the new reality? We know about the enormous losses of the first wave of emigration.”

“But how did these difficult conditions influence on the gene fund of those who survived? About that, nothing is known.” And that is an increasingly urgent question given the findings of science. Otherwise, there is the risk that the links between crimes like deportation and current behaviors will not be seen and responded to appropriately.

Middle Class in Russia Plays Very Different Role than in Western Countries, Gontmakher Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – The roughly ten percent of Russians who are middle class not only by virtue of incomes but by level of savings, education, and rank in the economy play a very different role than do the much larger middle classes in more developed Western countries, Yevgeny Gontmakher says.

            Middle classes, the Russian economist points out, in both places play a conservative role, limiting the risk that the political systems will shift radically in one direction or the other. But because of their size and how they are defined and viewed, they play a very different role in the West than in Russia (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/05/29/iskorenenie-srednego-kak-klassa).

            In Western countries where the middle classes are large relative to the total population, Gonmatkher argues, they serve to protect democratic institutions from authoritarianism by alternating between center-left and center-right parties but not providing support for extremist groups that could challenge the status quo.

            In Russia, however, where middle class status is defined by the regime and society almost exclusively in terms of income rather than the other qualities and where if those characteristics are applied, it is very small, the middle class plays a conservative role but one that is fundamentally different.

            The Russian middle class is a major supporter of the current regime which provides it with employment and earlier provided for its enrichment, and it is conservative in another way. Those below it aspire to the incomes of the middle class however obtained rather than to the values of the middle classes of the West.

            And that means that the Russian middle class conserves the existing system as long as it is renewed just as the middle classes of other countries preserve the systems within which they exist. But the existing system is fundamentally different and so the conservative nature of the middle class in Russia has a very different impact than that of its counterparts abroad.

            The Russian middle class, he says, “is along with pensioners the social base of that political regime which has been formed with us over the course of the last 20 years.” Its members with the exception of freelancers and the free professions are satisfied with the situation because they are employed by the state and the state ensures that money flows to them.

            From their perspective, “any Russian reforms and even more the most radical ones create dangers to this status;” and therefore the Russian middle class will display its conservative nature, albeit to keep in place not democracy but the current arrangements that now profit its members.

            The Russian middle class plays another conservative role as far as the regime is concerned. Its existence established “the standards of ‘a worthy life,’” to which those below it aspire in terms of income, given that that is how the regime defines this class, rather than in terms of its values. That too works to preserve the system.

            The problem for the regime is that its policies aren’t permitting a sufficient expansion in the incomes of the middle class to keep its members happy or a growth in the number of its members to allow for the inclusion of the rising generation of educated young people who expect to gain that status. Not surprisingly, both are increasingly upset.

            And that pattern, Gontmkher concludes, does not provide any basis for optimism about the system either in the short term or the longer one. 

Decarbonization of World Economy will Hit Russia Harder than Any Sanctions, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – The Kremlin has failed to plan for or even take note of the increasingly obvious reality that the drive to reduce the use of fossil fuels around the world is going to have a more baleful impact on the Russian economy in the coming years than any combination of sanctions, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

            In the short term, Moscow may benefit from rising prices for oil and gas, the Russian economist says; but in the middle and long term, those prices are going to fall so far that the Russian economy will no longer be able to function on the basis of their export. It will have to change or die (rosbalt.ru/posts/2021/05/28/1903938.html).

            Instead of the optimism which informs the thinking of Russian leaders today, the current situation should be a cause for real concern, Inozemtsev says. He points to what happened over the last dozen years, when Moscow laughed at the shale-oil revolution, only to see it take off and push down the value of Gazprom from an expelled one trillion US dollars to 82 billion.

            “Something similar can happen with ‘decarbonization,” he argues. And it will happen not because of any plans in the West to “’neutralize’ Russia” but rather new technologies and the commitment to “’clean’ energy’ will drive down the prices for oil and gas, on whose exports the current Russian government depends.

            Indeed, Inozemtsev argues, “the traditional energy sector soon won’t exist;” and along with its disappearance will come the disappearance of the Russian economy. “Even China won’t be able to help: it, by the way, recently passed the entire European Union in terms of the number of electric cars.”

            The best the Kremlin can come up with is to say that it is “studying” the matter. But it isn’t taking seriously the fact that underlying trends mean that energy not based on gas and oil is becoming less and less expensive and thus not only more competitive but sufficiently low to drive down any purchases of petroleum.

            What this means at the end of the day, Inozemtsev says, is that “having overcome all sanctions and putting our geopolitical competitors ‘in their place,’ we may find ourselves encountering a much more dramatic situation, when the chief Russian export produce will become not so needed” and when its use domestically will also decline.

            According to the economist, “present-day political reality will permit President Putin to rule until 2036. We wish him the health he’ll need to rule the country until that time. But then it may turn out to be the case that [Duma speaker Vyacheslav] Voloshin was right when he said ‘when there is no Putin, there is no Russia.’”

            That may or may not be true of the state as such; but it is increasingly likely that it will mean the status of Russia as “an economic subject.” Indeed, that is almost inevitable if current trends continue abroad and in Russia itself.

 

Two Turkish Parties Call for Recognizing Circassian Genocide

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – Two Turkish opposition parties, the Democratic Party of the Peoples (DPN) and the Labor Party (EMER) have called for Ankara to recognize the Russian expulsion of the Circassians from their North Caucasus homeland at the end of the Caucasus war in 1864 to be an act of genocide.

            The DPN said that “we consider the struggle of the Circassian people for a free, equal and democratic life with their own language, culture and faith as our struggle. We all for satisfying its demands for democratic rights and freedoms in order to preserve its uniqueness, its language and its culture” (natpressru.info/index.php?newsid=12443).

            “The genocide of the Circassians must be recognized. Only by doing so can one oppose this serious crime against humanity. The Circassians living in Turkey must be given the right to names, language and culture and the names of villages which were changed must be restored, and their return to their motherland must be supported materially and emotionally without any conditions.”

            The EMER for its part said that “the government of Russia must face the truth of this genocide. The gates must be opened for those who want to return to their motherland. About six million Circassians living in Turkey are demanding the right for education in their native language, for changing their names, for travel to the motherland and have dual citizenship.”

“These requests which have been put off for a century must be heard and fulfilled,” the party says.

Only one country – the Republic of Georgia – has officially recognized the Russian actions against the Circassians in 1864 an act of genocide, although popular and even parliamentary support for such actions has been growing in many places as the issue has taken on a higher profile.

Turkey is unlikely to follow anytime soon, but two factors are likely to make it a more prominent issue there in the coming months. On the one hand, as ever more countries have declared that the events in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 were a genocide against the Armenians, many Turks are ready to denounce others for genocide in response.

And on the other, Turkish officials have been criticizing Russian actions in Crimea in terms that approach a finding of genocide and even linked Russian behavior there to Russian actions against the Crimeans. Taking the next step will be hard, however, especially given Moscow’s opposition (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/moscow-working-to-block-other-countries.html and 1lurer.am/ru/2021/05/21/Призываем-Турцию-отказаться-от-использования-этнического-фактора-как-инструмента-геополитической/479462).

Nonetheless, the declarations of the two Turkish parties are certain to energize Circassians not only there but in other countries and in their North Caucasus homeland; and that may be the most important aspect of this situation as the region comes out of the pandemic and mass political activities become more possible.

Task of Demarcating Armenian-Azerbaijani Border Made More Difficult by Armenian Politicization of the Issue, Russian Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – Transforming Soviet administrative borders into formal international state borders is no easy task, but it is being made more difficult in the case of the Armenian-Azerbaijani one because Armenian politicians are seeking to exploit the issue to increase Russian involvement in the hopes that will allow Armenia to recover more territory.

            That is the judgment of two prominent security analysts in Moscow, prominent independent expert Pavel Felgengauer and Dmitry Tsyganok, head of the Russian Center for Military Prognostication in comments to the Kavkaz-Uzel news agency (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/364409/).

            Felgengauer, for his part, echoes the conclusions of Azerbaijani observers who say that the border issue is being politicized and exacerbated by Armenian politicians not only because an election is going on there but because they hope that they can draw Russia in on their side and regain land they lost during the fighting last year.

            Such Armenians hope that they can “draw Russia into a confrontation with Azerbaijan” and thus present what are “technical problems” involved in coming to terms with the new post-war situation as political and something Moscow should join Yerevan in seeking to reverse one way or another.

            According to Felgengauer, “Russia does not need or want to be drawn into this conflict” even though it is explosive and likely to remain so for some time. Demarcation is going to be difficult because “maps from the USSR period are not suitable for demarcating the borders between former Soviet republics.”

            “In the USSR, the lines between administrative units were designated but they were not real borders, even more between two hostile states. The borders of the Soviet republics had an entirely different status, and they were not precise as far as particular places are concerned.” It is going to take a long time and much work to change that.

            Tsyganok agrees. The sides are going to have to agree about which maps, Soviet, Turkish, NATO, civilian or military maps they are going to start from. The Soviet maps are “the most exact.” But even they are less detailed than full demarcation is going to require and that opens the door for conflict.

            He points to the difficulties Russia and Kazakhstan had. There and without the further complication of a long-running military conflict, it took “two to three years” of preparation to allow negotiators to begin to draw lines. And then, it took another six years to actually draw lines the two sides could agree on.

            And that was the case when the two sides started with a commitment to demarcation the border. In the case of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, there is no such agreement. Until there is, there is going to be little progress and there are likely to be continuing efforts by one side or the other to politicize the situation by drawing in outsiders.

            What seems most likely is that Armenia and Azerbaijan will agree to the trilateral commission Moscow has already proposed with Russia as the third party and to the withdrawal of forces from areas near the border. Baku appears ready for that, but Yerevan much less so at least so far (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/364407/ and regnum.ru/news/polit/3282989.html).

 

Kremlin Pushing ‘Deep People’ into Alliance with Liberals, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – By treating all criticism of the regime as legally-punishable “extremism,” the Kremlin is acting against its own best interests by leading members of “the deep people” who have supported it but who are now angry to ally themselves with the liberals under the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            “Dissatisfaction with the situation in the country is now growing not only in the liberal milieu, against which serious repressions are being directed,” the Moscow commentator says. “Protest attitudes are intensifying in the ranks of “the deep people” as well (echo.msk.ru/blog/gallyamov_a/2845996-echo/).

            Such feelings are not yet as broad or intensely held, but repressing liberals who feel the same way as some in the deep people, Gallyamov suggests, is leading them to look at the liberals rather than the government as the ally of that part of the population, exactly the wrong conclusion in an election season as far as the Kremlin is concerned.

            “What is taking place,” the former Putin speechwriter continues, “is leading not simply to the growth of negative attitudes but also to the politicization of the formerly apolitical groups of the population.” And as the deep people become politicized, they have no option but to line up on the side of the liberals.”

            The deep people do not have their own political language and “therefore they have to borrow it; and they are borrowing it from the liberal activists. In this way, Gallyamov says, “’popular’ protest is uniting with liberal protest.”

            Up to now, for the deep people, this new combination lacks a leader who speaks for both and thus remains unfocused. “But this means only that it will not break through [too quickly] to the surface but will build up,” much like a boiler with the lid on sitting on a fire, Gallyamov concludes.