Covid Still Killing Russians and Kremlin Still Using Covid Restrictions to Ban Public Protests, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – The number of people falling ill with covid fell sharply after Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine and the pandemic ceased to be the focus of intense interest. But despite that, Russians continue to die from the disease, and 21 federal subjects use restrictions imposed during the pandemic to ban protests, Horizontal Russia reports.
    The latter is the more important “survival,” the news agency suggests. Infections and deaths are down significantly across the country. Only 225 Russians died of covid during the first quarter of 2025. But officials have retained the restrictions because that is a convenient way to ban public meetings (semnasem.org/articles/2025/03/31/kovid).
    And just as was the case during the worst times of the pandemic, officials apply these restrictions selectively. Pro-government actions aren’t interfered with, but anti-government ones are suppressed, with blame invariably placed on the danger of the spread of covid infections rather than anything else.
    Another legacy of the covid pandemic in Russia involves doctors and other medical personnel who led the fight against it. They were promised bonuses for their dangerous but essential work. In many cases, the Putin regime has not paid them; and a large number have gone to court to try to get the money they are owed.

Departure of Immigrant Workers Not Leading to More Jobs and Higher Pay for Russians, ‘Versiya’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Moscow officials say that Russia currently suffers from a shortage of five million workers. The departure of many migrant workers has intensified this problem; but despite expectations, this trend has not led to more jobs and higher pay for Russian residents, according to the Versiya news agency.  
    Because changes in the ruble exchange rate make working in Russia less profitable than before and because hostility to migrants has intensified over the last year, the number of migrant workers in Russia has fallen by a million in the past 12 months and will fall even more in the next, Versiya says (versia.ru/gastarbajtery-massovo-pokidayut-rossiyu--rabochie-mesta-i-vysokie-zarplaty-dostanutsya-mestnym).
    But this has not been the boon for Russian residents that many had expected. The migrants often do jobs Russians don’t want or aren’t qualified for, and consequently, the work simply doesn’t get done at the same rate. And at the same time, these shortages aren’t pushing up wages elsewhere because of how segmented the Russian labor market it.
    In it, where migrant workers leave, employers may offer more money to try to retain them or attract others. But those are jobs Russians don’t want or can’t qualify for. And such increases in pay in those sectors do not have much of an impact on other sectors where Russians are employed or seek work.  Any increases in jobs and pay there are driven by other factors.  

In March 2025, Russian Forces Gained Less Ground in Ukraine than in Any Month Since June 2024, the Agentstvo News Agency Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Moscow’s claims that Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine and that Ukrainian ones are retreating have been so widely broadcast that many fail to recognize the reality that Russia’s invasion gained only 130 square kilometers in the last month, down from a high of 725 last November and the least since June 2024 when Russia seized 114.
    Those figures, originally gathered by the Deep State analysts, are presented in a charge published by the Agentstvo news agency, a group of independent journalists in the Russian Federation (agents.media/v-marte-rossiya-zahvatila-v-ukraine-samuyu-malenkuyu-territoriyu-s-iyunya-proshlogo-goda-vopreki-zayavleniyam-putina/).
    The numbers from the past month parallel those from March 2024 and suggest that Ukraine is holding its own despite Russian claims and despite a reduction in the amount of arms transferred to Kyiv by Western powers. If this seasonal pattern holds, so should Ukraine’s front lines until at least August.  
    Moreover, at the current rate, it would take Russian forces many years before occupying all of its neighbor

Russians Attracted to Pro-Regime Media Outlets in Part Because They Offer More Positive Messages, CEDAR Study Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Telegram channels are today one of the main platforms for political information in Russia, with half of Russians every day and nearly three out of four every month using them. Moreover, according to surveys, 55 percent of the top 100 telegram channels deal one way or another with current events or political news.
    Indeed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has declared that telegram channels are “the main source for receiving information” in Russia, a remarkable rise over just the last several years (https://t.me/kommersant/79903; and for data on this remarkable development, see mediascope.net/upload/iblock/2ee/bdbcymunn4gcxjwcgjgjzsw74nrqtmz6/Mediascope_%D0%9D%D0%A0%D0%A4_Telegram.pdf).
    But despite this growth and influence, Russia’s telegram channels have remained relatively little studied up to now. But research by the Center for Data and Research on Russia (CEDAR) has gone a long way to fill this gap and to explain why some telegram channels attract more visitors than others (cedarus.io/research/what-do-russians-read?lang=ru).
    Using content analysis, surveys, and focus groups, CEDAR draws the following conclusions about why some telegram channels attract more readers than others and what those now lagging might do to catch up. Specifically, it says
•    Forty-four percent of those reading telegram channels in Russia read pro-government outlets, while only 14 percent read those associated with the opposition.
•    In addition to these two categories, there are also “neutral” channels which focus on the economy, emergencies, health news, food and science.
•    Opposition media covers a narrower range of issues than do the other two.
•    Channels which have more positive content tend to be more popular not among these groups but within them. Pro-government channels present Russia more positively and that is an attraction.
•    Popularity is not a function of the emotional tone of the channels nor is the share of coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Drawing on these findings, CEDAR recommends that those neutral and opposition outlets which want to attract more people need to cover more different topics, focus on “everyday issues” like the economy, emergencies and health. And they need to play up positive content rather than always be negative. 

For First Time Ever, More Muslims Marked End of Ramadan in St. Petersburg than Did in the Russian Capital, Statistics Show

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Muslims in the Russian Federation usually celebrate Id al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the holy month of Ramadan, by assembling in and around mosques. Until this year, Moscow, the city where the largest number of Muslims in that country live, has led these statistics; but this year, the northern capital St. Petersburg surpassed it.
    In Moscow. statistics gathered by Muslim organizations show, some 235,000 Muslims assembled at the city’s five mosques, including 80,000 at the Central Cathedral Mosque; but in St. Petersburg, where the number of Muslims is far smaller, more than 300,000 came out (ng.ru/faith/2025-03-30/3_9223_muslims.html).
    The number of Muslims in Moscow visiting mosques on this holiday in fact rose from 205,000 last year; but the figure for Muslims in St. Petersburg rose more rapidly. In reporting these statistics, Nezavisimaya Gazeta suggested that they may reflect greater anti-immigrant actions by the police in Moscow than in St. Petersburg.
    That is likely a part of the explanation, but this pattern highlights the fact that an increasing share of Muslims arriving in major Russian cities is going to St. Petersburg rather than to Moscow where anti-immigrant feelings have been more regularly whipped up by the authorities and that the northern capital is on its way to becoming a major center of Muslim life.
    That in turn means that the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) both based in the northern capital and represented there are going to be ever more important and deserve at least as much attention as is routinely given to their counterparts in Moscow because in Islam, the number of participants in holiday celebrations is perhaps the best indication of influence.  

New Law on Local Administration Leaves Population with Almost No Way to Participate in Political Life, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 28 – The new law on local self-administration adopted earlier this month leaves the Russian population with “almost no levers to influence local policies,” the Horizontal Russia portal says, because it gives governors the power to disband existing rural districts and recombine them at will.
    Consequently, the portal says, people in the government of those districts are on an increasingly short leash; and the population can only “write the governor, appeal to Putin, or hope for good luck” (semnasem.org/articles/2025/03/26/samoupravlenie-bylo-s-novym-zakonom-u-rossiyan-pochti-ne-ostanetsya-sposobov-vliyat-na-lokalnuyu-politiku).
    Horizontal Russia details seven cases in which governors have already used their powers against local self-administration and then suggests that while the old system of self-administration often failed to work because of a lack of money, it at least gave citizens the ability to organize politically and act in concert to defend their rights and interests.
    That made a major contribution to the development of civic political culture, Yuliya Galyamina, a former deputy in a district in the Moscow suburbs says. But the Russian government’s “reform” means that “the authorities no longer have to be concerned about the participation of citizens in local politics.”
    Sixteen federal subjects including Moscow and St. Petersburg have already gone alone with the change the law calls for (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2025/03/04/1095775-18-regionov-ne-hotyat), and 26 more say they will do so in the near future. But this transition isn’t going smoothly, and there have been protests in several places (t.me/horizontal_russia/30444).  
    Seventeen federal subjects have announced that they want to retain the two levels of governance. The majority of these are the non-Russian republics, Horizontal Russia says. This reflects the fact that local communities there are stronger and that messing with existing arrangements could destabilize the situation.
    A less important but nonetheless significant factor is that in many non-Russian republics, particular local districts may be far from the capital and difficult for officials to reach, let alone manage on a regular basis without the help of local officials. Then they will be forced to behave in an even more authoritarian manner and work to further depoliticize the population.

Moscow Further Tilts the Scales Against Those Charged with Crimes to Ensure It Collects Fines and Exercises Greater Leverage over Businesses and Individuals

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – The Russian government has tightened the courts as far as criminal charges are concerned to the point that the number of individuals and organizations exonerated after hearings has been reduced to the vanishing point. But those figures involve only those who actually go to trial or avoid having their cases dismissed on technicalities
.    Now, in order to ensure that the government collects massive fines against individuals and organizations who in the past were able to avoid convictions because of errors by investigators and prosecutors, the Russian justice ministry is planning to allow the government to correct any mistakes such officials make and allow trials to proceed.
    In the past, technical errors by officials were enough in many cases to have the cases tossed in court, not only giving the Russian government a loss but costing it income from fines and otherwise reducing the impact of its charges (moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/31/v-pravitelstve-potrebovali-sokratit-dolyu-opravdatelnih-prigovorov-rossiyanam-a159608).
    This latest move further tilts the scales against those charged with crimes and thus is consistent with the Putin regime’s efforts to make the courts function as reliably as other parts of the power vertical. But it seems to be driven in the first instance by a calculation that this will allow the government to convict businesses and thus collect more money in fines.
    At the very least, the threat of such collections will give the Kremlin additional leverage against businesses, other organizations and individuals as the regime moves from authoritarianism toward totalitarianism and does so not by improving administration but by protecting the regime from losing in court. .