For Russia to Catch Up with Advanced Countries, It Needs Concrete rather than Asphalt Highways, Duma Member Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – Only 34 percent of Russia’s federal highways and only four The m over them, Artyom Kiryanov says. As a result, Russia has to spend enormous sums repairing them each year and cannot build the new highways it needs.

            If Russia were to shift to using concrete rather than asphalt as countries like China and the US have done, it would not need to repair its roads as often and they would survive longer, the deputy chairman of the Duma economics committee says (octagon.media/ekonomika/betonnyj_argument.html).

            At present, Kiryanov continues, only two percent of Russian highways and only 0.08 percent of all roads are concrete, something that requires they be repaired every year or two and would increase the period between major overhauls from a few years to as many as 12 to 15.

            The advantages of concrete roads have already been recognized by other advanced countries: Cement covers 45.8 percent of the length of roads in the US, 47.2 percent of those in China, and 10 to 40 percent in European countries. They thus spend less on repairing existing roads and more on building new ones.

            Some Russian officials remain trapped in the past, convinced that the weather in Russia and the damage done to road surfaces by winter tires make a change impossible. But they are wrong: others are building concrete roads in even worse climates and concrete has now been developed to withstand even winter tire damage.

            The main problem lies elsewhere, Kiryanov says. “There is no legally enshrined mechanism for mandatory comparison of rigid and non-rigid pavement options that requires the calculation of full life cycle costs at the design stage.” Were one introduced, Moscow would recognize how much it could benefit from a shift to concrete. 

Violent Attacks in Russian Schools Reach All-Time High, Prompting Calls to have Veterans of Putin’s War in Ukraine Guard Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – The number of violent attacks in Russian schools rose by 80 percent between 2024 and 2025 and reached an all-time high last year, with the numbers so far in 2026 making it likely that this year the figure will be even higher. In response, Russian politicians are calling for Moscow to deploy veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine to defend Russian schools.

            There were “at least” 25 violent attacks on schools last year, in which 38 people were injured and four killed, Novaya Gazeta Europe reports. Both numbers were all-time highs (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/06/04/chislo-napadenii-na-rossiiskie-shkoly-v-2026-godu-dostiglo-istoricheskogo-maksimuma).

            Most occurred in schools rather than university-level institutions; and overwhelmingly, they took place in federal subjects outside of the capitals of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the past, attackers used mostly knives; but ever more often, officials say, they are using handguns or other weapons.

            Some observers place the blame on popular culture or on the schools themselves which have a massive shortage of psychologists who might be able to identify and help those thinking about committing such crimes and which often have extremely inadequate perimeter defense systems.

            Russian politicians are calling for units of the National Guard to be deployed around schools or even to use veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine to guard Russian educational institutions and prevent further incidents of violence against Russian young people.

Last Year, 96 Percent of Russians Moscow Called ‘Foreign Agents’ Didn’t Get Any Funding from Abroad

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – In 2025, 206 of the 215 Russians Moscow called “foreign agents” --  a staggering 96 percent -- did not receive any foreign funding, a radical shift from the period before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine when that was the only basis for classifying people that way and one that means any Russian potentially can be so charged.

            According to an OVD investigation, Russian officials insist that those charged as being foreign agents who in fact did not receive any funding from abroad were nonetheless under “foreign influence” (istories.media/news/2026/06/04/v-2025-godu-96-inoagentov-poluchili-svoi-status-ne-iz-za-zarubezhnogo-finansirovaniya/).

            That change has been conceded by Russian Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko who argued that foreign influence takes many forms and restricting it to financial support as Moscow did before 2022 had put the security of the country at risk and that many who never receive such payments thus deserve to be identified and restricted as “foreign agents.”

Russia under Putin ‘an Information Dictatorship, Not a Totalitarian State’ and Humor There Reflects That, Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – In Russia today, Aleksandra Arkhipova says, “there is an information dictatorship not totalitariansm.” That is, unlike in Stalin’s time, very few Russian residents are repressed because they are members of a particular group and that repressions are carried out randomly with the intention to intimidate rather than incarcerate.

            The Russian anthropologist who now lives and teaches in Paris tells Ilya Azar of the Cherta portal that this difference between 1937 and now along with the fact that people can still leave the country helps to explain both the way Russian humor has changed and the way Moscow officials respond to it (cherta.media/interview/politichesike-anekdoty/).

            Among the most intriguing observations she makes in the course of a long and wide-ranging interview are the following five:

·       The form of anecdotes in Russia has changed. In Soviet times, they were textual and told. Now they often involve pictures with memes and so many, not hearing what they had come to expect, assume there are fewer. That isn’t the case.

·       Anecdotes have changed in other ways as well. Now, there are fewer about Putin or the war and more about daily life and fewer with those featured in them being members of the intellectual elite, like Rabinovich, and more often ordinary people

·       That makes such stories less threatening to the regime, and it also means that the powers that be monitor them less closely. The E Center, for example, focuses almost exclusively on texts rather than on reels and so misses much of the humor now circulating.

·       That means Instagram and video sites are increasingly where Russian humor is located and why portals like anekdot.ru can continue to operate. They feature subjects and people the Putin regime isn’t especially concerned with.

·       After Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine, there were many anecdotes about him and that conflict. Now, there are far fewer, not because Russians have stopped having negative views about both but rather because humor is a way of coping with change. Now, both Putin and the war are the new normal and less often laughed about.

Common Law Wives of Russian Soldiers Can Get Payments Only If Couple Lived Together and had at Least One Child Together, Moscow Rules

Paul Goble

              Staunton, June 3 – Common law wives of Russian soldiers who have fought and died in Ukraine have appealed a Russian government decision not to grant them any benefits unless they can prove they lived with such men for at least three years and had at least one child in each case.

              This issue has become increasingly explosive not only because of mounting fraud – women who claim benefits without such ties are an increasing problem – but also because of the explosive growth in the number of young Russians who live together without getting married officially (nakanune.ru/articles/124713/).

              One reason many Russian women have given for joining the suit is that they began living together with someone who then volunteered to fight in Ukraine before they had been together for three years but fully expected to return alive and continue the relationship after doing so.

              But there are two major reasons why the government is resisting: the amount of money given to widows of combat victims is large and there is a fear among officials that if the women win this case, others will use it as precedent to expand the rights of common law wives to claim property or inheritances, issues still muddy in Russian law. 

Even for Housing without Indoor Plumbing, Residents of Regions Outside of Moscow Must Save for Years, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 1 – That people in the Russian Federation beyond Moscow’s ring road are more likely to be poor than residents of the capital is common knowledge; but just how great their suffering is as a result and how long they must wait to purchase housing is all too often ignored, according to the Horizontal Russia portal.

            The portal, which focuses on developments outside Moscow, found that in some places, families with two children and an average income for their federal subjects must save for decades and in one case more than 90 years to be able to get into substandard housing often without indoor plumbing (semnasem.org/articles/2026/06/01/do-90-let).

            The situation in the North Caucasian republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia is the worst of those regions and republics Horizontal Russia examined. There, such families may have to wait as long as 91.5 years. In many places, the wait is only a few years; but in other non-Russian republics, it may be as long as 20 years.

            This is a measure of poverty that is rarely taken, but it is a sign of just how dire the situation is for many in the Russian Federation whose government is quite willing to spend billions of rubles on Putin’s war in Ukraine – and one that suggests that in some places at least, the potential for a social explosion is very real indeed. 

Officials Obscuring Siberia’s Economic Decline by Not Factoring Inflation into Statistics, Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

              Staunton, June 3 – Adjusted for inflation, Siberia has been declining economically since at least 2020, Dmitry Verkhoturov says; but that decline has been hidden from Moscow and the population by officials in the region who report annual figures as if there had been no inflation.

              But over this period, the Siberian economics reporter says, inflation has exceeded 50 percent; and that means that any figures for 2025 that have not increased by more than that amount over the same period in fact show that the economy has been declining (sibmix.com/?doc=21449).

              In all but two of the 10 federal subjects in the Siberian Federal District, the inflation-adjusted figures show a decline; and in two, Kemerovo and Altai Kray, the increases are far smaller than the 50 percent rise that inflation alone would have boosted them, Verkhoturov continues.

              This statistical sleight of hand not only highlights the incompetence of regional leaders to make real progress but explains why the Siberian FD is losing population. Residents can see that they have few prospects for a better life there if they remain and so are choosing to leave. 

              Unless Siberian FD officials are forced to be more honest, the situation is only going to deteriorate, regardless of how many positive things these officials or those in the Russian capital continue to utter.