Moscow Seeking to Take Control Even of Street Names in Non-Russian Republics

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – The transformation of the Russian Federation into a completely unitary state is “approaching the finish line,” Lenar Miftakhov says, now that Moscow has arrogated to itself the right to determine what names can and cannot be used in the cities of the non-Russian republics.

            The Tatar activist who is a member of the Federative Party says that in his city, Elabuga,” up to now, there has been a rule that 50 percent of new street names must be Tatar in origin, while 50 percent of them must be Russian. But now Moscow has decided that arrangement is insufficient (region.expert/toponyms/).

            A month ago, the Russian government issued an order specifying that the naming of streets in all cities of the Russian Federation must correspond with the standards and “stylistic norms of the present-day Russian literary language.” In informal language, they must have ethnic Russian and not non-Russian origins.

            This decree gives free reign to officials who may decide that Tatar names in Elabuga must be changed even as they decide to do nothing about Tatar names like Arbat and Ordynka in Moscow. What is sad, even tragic, Miftakhov says, is that some local officials are going along rather than challenging this example of imperial overreach.

            But fortunately, there are others, including members of the local Toponymic Commission which includes people of various nationalities, “unanimous refused to support the renaming of streets” in Elabuga so that only Russian-originated words would grace new motorways in that Tatarstan city.

            Unfortunately, the support for the existing system by the Toponymic Commission is not definitive. The city council will have to decide whether to support it or go along with what Moscow now wants. One republic deputy has called on Kazan to intervene on the side of the commission, and a prominent lawyer has offered his services to challenge what Moscow wants.

            According to Miftakhov, “this problem requires an immediate decision because otherwise the residents of the new streets will become hostages of the situation and won’t be able to receive registration documents.” If the conflict proceeds, no one will know which address, Tatar or Russian, should be recorded.

Kremlin Must Stop Tightening Screws and Begin Dialogue Lest Russia Follow USSR into Oblivion, Tsipko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – “The greatest danger for present-day Russia,” Aleksandr Tsipko says, comes not from abroad but from within as a result of state policies that undermine democracy and thus destroy the basis for economic development in a globalized and interdependent world.

            Put another way, the senior Russian commentator says, “the most terrible threat for Russia and its future is the process of the withering away of the economy, the degradation of spiritual and political life, and together with this, the loss of the moral health of the nation” and “the loss of the nation’s instinct for self-preservation” (mk.ru/politics/2020/12/27/rossiya-okazalas-v-usloviyakh-osazhdennoy-kreposti-kak-vyzhit.html).

            Some in the Russian leadership today believe they can defend themselves and the country the way the Soviet leaders did, by making the country “a besieged fortress.” But in doing so, they forget that the Soviets failed and the country fell apart and also and even more important, that “the situation of ‘a besieged fortress’” is incompatible with today’s global civilization.”

            Tsipko says that he thinks that the Kremlin understands that there is a limit to how far it can go; but there are people in the Duma who now represent “a real threat of understanding the security of Russia” because “they do not see” that creating a situation in which almost anyone can be denounced as a foreign agent could bring down the entire system.

            If these politicians succeed in their plans, they will create a situation in which the economy will not survive and the political system and even the territorial integrity of the country will be at risk, the commentator says. Fortunately, what they are saying and doing has not yet affected the entire economy or society.

            But there is a risk that it will because those in power will always be ready to listen to those who urge repression as a means of retaining power. Those at the top understand this danger but there is the risk that “the powers do not see the extremely negative consequences of the current campaign for tightening the screws.”

            Many of the smartest people in Russia, more than a million of the most educated and qualified, have already departed for the West and more will, if current polls are to be believed. In this situation, they are not “the enemies of Russia.” Instead, Russia’s enemies are those who have provoked them into leaving by their war of hatred and against good sense.

            The conflicts that have always existed between those on top and everyone else are rapidly becoming a conflict between those who are capable of useful action and those who are not, with the loss of the latter inevitably leading to the collapse of the former, Tsipko suggests. Fortunately, there is a way out.

            The spiritual health of the Russian nation can avoid being destroyed as it was in Soviet times by active discussions and a return to the dialogue which began under Mikhail Gorbachev. This process must be carefully managed so that “a new perestroika” if it occurs “will not lead to the destruction of Russian statehood.”

            “Today, when it is still not too late, it is necessary to stop the tightening of the screws and the persecution of ‘foreign agents.’ Much depends on dialogue and cooperation of the current powers with that part of the intelligentsia which does not see its future apart from Russia, which does not want a revolution, and wants serious and business-like dialogue with the powers.”

            “I think,” the Moscow commentator concludes, “that the unity of the people and the powers must be achieved not by the persecution of dissidents but through a confidential and honest conversation about the fates of Russia today. I am not a romantic but I know for sure: without the language of truth, without respect for good sense, Russia will not be able to survive.”

With Foreign Travel Blocked, Many Russians Feel Trapped ‘in a Prison, Albeit a More Comfortable One’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – Russians who grew up in Soviet times when foreign travel was impossible for most have had a sense of déjà vu with the restrictions on such visits that the pandemic has imposed, while young Russians simply feel cut off and angry because they expect to be able to move about the world at will.

            The Lenta news agency interviewed four Russians about their feelings of loss because of these new travel bans (lenta.ru/articles/2020/12/27/granici/ ).  Olga Babkina, 74, says everyone is unhappy that the borders have been closed but adds that her generation, because of its experience, has been less upset than younger Russians are.

            When borders opened after Soviet times and her income permitted it, she says, she visited more than 30 countries and would like to see more. But with the pandemic, her most immediate concern was whether she would be able to visit her granddaughter who was studying in Canada. Fortunately, the young woman was able to return home on one of the last flights.

            Babkina says that the closing of the borders has driven her to become a regular user of the Internet and especially of Instagram as she seeks to find out new information about various places and maintain ties with people she has met. “In general,” she says, “we have gone into Instagram and now we cannot get out of it.”

            She continues by saying that she is travelling more to various parts of Russia but very much wants the borders to be reopened so she can travel abroad, to Italy, Spain and Portugal in the first instance.

            Tatyana Golubitskaya, an animal trainer for a circus who is 52, has seen most of Russia and therefore has less interest in substituting domestic travel at a time when foreign travel has become difficult or impossible. She says that the restrictions have only made her and others like her want to travel more.

            Golubitskaya does say that the closing of the borders has had one very positive development: It is now possible for her to visit parts of Russia without so many foreigners being present. “I would use this chance” as much as possible, she says. Eventually, the borders will reopen; and it will close as well.

            She argues that the Kremlin has done the right thing by closing the borders and suggests that this has had an impact on her future travel plans. She now wants to go only to friendly countries and in no case to the United States because she has no desire to leave Russian money there.

            Kayli Akulenko, 28, says she has visited 120 countries and that the experience has changed her by making her aware of the diversity of the world. “I do not plan to return to my former way of life” and will travel again as soon as that becomes possible, she says. For the moment, she will travel around Russia.

            And Polina Chekh, 24, says that “sitting at home is fine but only for one month a year.” The rest of the time, she says, she wants to travel. And when that chance is foreclosed, people want it even more because it become a kind of “forbidden fruit.”  Russians like to travel and distances that would put others off have no effect on them.

            While waiting for international borders to reopen, Chekh says, she plans to go to Murmansk to see the northern lights and has been tracking magnetic storms to know when it will be best to go and then to Lake Baikal because seeing it in the winter must be striking. Beyond that, she has no particular plans.

Occupied Crimea Not Only Part of Ukraine Suffering from Water Shortages, Balabukh Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – Because of Moscow’s complaints against Kyiv, the entire world knows that Russian-occupied Crimea is suffering from a serious water crisis (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/12/putin-says-fresh-water-supplies-under.html),  but few are aware that the rest of Ukraine is suffering from the same problem.

            Recognizing that reality is critical not only because of the problems declines in water supplies present to Ukraine now and in the future but also because these shortages both limit what Kyiv in principle might be able to agree on to help Crimea and what new problems Moscow would create if it launched a new military campaign to get water from Ukraine.

            Vera Balabukh, a climatologist at the Ukrainian Hydro-Meteorological Institute, says that the situation with regard to the availability of water in general and potable water in particular is becoming critical in many parts of Ukraine but especially in the eat as a result of human actions (apostrophe.ua/article/society/2020-12-25/v-ukraine-ischezaet-pitevaya-voda-pod-ugrozoy-mnogo-oblastey---klimatolog-vera-balabuh/37016).

            The climate is always changing, she notes; but now, as a result of human action, “we see happening in the course of a single generation that which earlier took place over the course of 500 years.” Our winters are shortening, our falls lengthening, and our climate shifting in the direction of the Mediterranean pattern.

            Until very recently, Balabukh says, experts in Ukraine talked about climate change only as something that would affect the situation in the far distant future. But now, she continues, they understand that this is “a very serious problem” here and now. In some places already, there isn’t enough potable water or even water for agriculture and industry.

            “In general,” she continues, “Ukraine is not very well supplied with potable water.” Climate change, which is accelerating, only make this situation worse because it is happening in Ukraine at “twice the rate” of the remainder of the planet.  There simply isn’t enough water anymore, and much of it is increasingly saline and thus not useful for human consumption.

Putin Regime has Passed Through Three Stages but Its Fourth May Be Its Final One, Travin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – Many who are currently talking about the transformation of the Putin regime in the wake of the constitutional reforms that will allow him to remain in office for life ignore the fact that his regime has already passed through three stages and is now ending a fourth which may prove to be its final one, Dmitry Travin says.

            The European University in St. Petersburg scholar suggests that considering these stages provides a certain clarity about the future and also shows that many of the changes were not so much the result of the personal choices of Vladimir Putin as of shifts in the objective circumstances his regime and his country have found themselves in (republic.ru/posts/99092).

            Travin points out that the four stages correspond roughly to the four terms Putin has been elected president. In the first, no one talked about stability but about reform and change because Russians wanted to escape from the 1990s. And despite criticism of Moscow’s policies in Chechnya, there was “practically no confrontation with the West.”

            The Kremlin did not need to use force against its opponents often, again except in the North Caucasus. The life of the population improved thanks to oil revenue, devaluation and reforms. The population was satisfied, and the small number of intellectuals who criticized Putin’s policies were allowed to do so with few restrictions.

            And if anything, “the elites were even more satisfied than the broad popular masses,” Travin continues. “Corruption became the most important means of stimulating the work of bureaucrats and the formation of their personal loyalty to the Putin regime.” For that reason, there was almost no fight against this plague.

            In Putin’s second term, “the picture began to be changed although not so much because of Putin’s desire as because of the impact of objective circumstances.” Once it became clear that the legitimacy of the regime was based on Putin’s charisma, the need for reforms ended and they stopped.

            Indeed, it became obvious that while reforms might benefit the population and future benefits, they could destabilize the situation and become a problem for the incumbent. At the same time, because efforts to cooperate with the West had not brought the returns the Kremlin hoped for, Moscow took a tougher line.

            In his 2008 Munich speech, Putin tried to show that the West would benefit more from having Russia as a friend than as a competitor but that if the West didn’t make that choice, Russia was prepared to go its own way even if that brought it into conflict with other countries, Travin argues.

            During this term, “everything remained unchanged in domestic policy,” even as changes in foreign policy meant that doves were replaced by hawks in key foreign policy and security positions.

            In his third term, earnings from oil and gas fell, Russian incomes followed, and the country headed into a prolonged slump. The protests of 2011-2012 showed that Putin no longer could count on charisma and needed to begin to manipulate public opinion and elections in a more thoroughgoing way. The Crimean Anschluss slowed but did not stop this trend.

            At the same time, corruption was allowed to explode in order to buy the loyalty of elites. But “the danger arose” that some might steal too much or from the wrong people and so a selective battle against corruption began to keep the elites in line or at least off balance given the rising power of the security agencies.

            And then in the fourth term, the one that began with the constitutional reforms, Putin completely turned away from reforms, worried about corruption more as a threat even though it needed it as a source of buying loyalty, found that its ability to manipulate the impoverished population had significantly declined, and increasingly has relied on force.

            It is not clear how the regime can move away from this; but what is clear is that the events in Belarus show what could happen in Russia in the spring of 2024. “Not in a direct sense, of course.” Putin has far more levers of power than Lukashenka does. But he too will be forced by circumstances to use force because he does not have any other effective means.

            By that time, Travin says, Putin’s government “will be a regime which will have rejected all reforms but will nonetheless still not be able to preserve stability. It will be a regime at odds with all potentially useful partners and restrain from confrontation only with increasingly powerful China.”

            “It will be a regime in which a large part of the wealth will be concentrated at the very top of the power pyramid, but the people who possess this wealth will be kept loyal only by the application of force or the threat of its application,” the St. Petersburg modernization scholar continues.

            But this has as a consequence something perhaps unexpected: Putin personally will be ever less needed for the preservation of the regime because “the aging leader, having lost charism already will not fulfill useful functions in the mechanism of maintaining the powers that be.”

            Putin is likely to remain at the top as long as he lives and remains health. “But sooner or later the regime will remain without Putin.” And then the question will arise: who in fact needs such a regime once he leaves the scene? The answer is not very many people beyond his narrow circle, and that could prove the end of the final stage of Putinism.

Putin to Be Vaccinated After His Cohort Qualifies, But Testing of Sputnik-5 for Effectiveness and Safety Still Not Completed

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – Vladimir Putin has announced that now that all Russians of his age are being offered the coronavirus vaccine, he will get it; even as his press spokesman notes that the pandemic has not had any significant effect on the Kremlin leader’s work (regnum.ru/news/3152108.html and regnum.ru/news/3152147.html).

But Putin’s decision may not lead other Russians to get the vaccine as some immunologists perhaps hope. Skepticism remains widespread among Russians, and many are aware that the Sputnik- 5 medicine Putin reposes so much confidence it has not completed required testing for safety and effectiveness (charter97.org/ru/news/2020/12/27/405402/).

The pandemic continues to rage across Russia, with the authorities announcing the registration of 28,282 new cases of infection and 552 new deaths over the last 24 hours and with the MBC news agency saying that most Russian regions have tightened restrictions especially on the elderly (t.me/COVID2019_official/2266, regnum.ru/news/society/3148450.html and mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/kak-rossiya-budet-vstrechat-2021/).

On the medical front, the Gamaley Laboratories which developed the Sputnik-5 vaccine said they were now working on an analogue of the medications US doctors gave President Donald Trump after he contracted the virus (regnum.ru/news/3152043.html).

On the economic front, the pandemic has forced Moscow to postpone its international arms show until next year (echo.msk.ru/news/2764980-echo.html). And Superjob reports that 59 percent of Russians expect their incomes to rise next year (echo.msk.ru/news/2764876-echo.html).

Emergencies like the pandemic seem to bring out the best and worst of people. Every day brings stories of heroic actions by doctors, ambulance personnel and others who have gone above and beyond to try to save their fellow Russians from this silent enemy. But sometime, there are stories which highlight another aspect of the human condition.

Today, TASS reported and many sources picked up a tragic story of an elderly woman who was treated for coronavirus in a Voronezh hospital but died without having been given anything to eat for the last 15 days of her life (tass.ru/proisshestviya/10362373). An investigation has been launched into how this could have happened.  

Again, Russia Faces Not Just Falling Oil Prices but Declining Production -- With Few Prospects of Restoring Either

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 26 – Most observers believe that falling oil prices delivered the coup de grâce to the Soviet Union, but in fact, it was not just declining prices but declining production as well that did the job. That combination has reappeared now – and there are few prospects that Russia will be able to count on a rebound by either.

            According to the Russian energy ministry, the Russian Federation will pump 8.4 less oil in 2020 than it did in 2019. And its head, Aleksandr Novak says that unless prices rise and then stabilize at 45 to 55 US dollars a barrel, Russia “will never restore production” (finanz.ru/novosti/birzhevyye-tovary/rossiya-mozhet-nikogda-ne-vosstanovit-dobychu-nefti-1029919444).

            What Novak’s words mean, Sergey Khestanov of the Open Broker marketing firm says, is that “at prices lower than 45 dollars a barrel, about eight percent of Russian production will become unprofitable” and that will recreate the situation, albeit at higher prices, that existed at the end of the USSR.

            “The drama of the USSR was not only the drama of a decline in prices for oil but also of declines in production,” Khestanov says. After Soviet production began to decline from its peak in 1987, the situation was exacerbated by a sharp fall in oil prices. But both factors played a key role in depriving Moscow of the income it needed to maintain itself and the country.

            Russia’s agreement earlier this year with OPEC+ was intended to raise prices, but at the same time, it has reduced Russian production. Major fields are shutting down wells that are less cost effective, the analyst says; and under present conditions, there is “no guarantee” that they will ever resume operations.

            The almost exclusive focus on oil prices has obscured this, he suggests, leading many to forget that high prices bring in less income if production declines than low prices do if production is increasing as is the case in many countries now but significantly not in that of ht e Russian Federation.