A Political Nation is Emerging in Russia But One that isn’t Conscious of Itself but is Both Something the Kremlin Doesn’t Want and that Many Should Fear, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 6 – Putin has consistently worked hard to “ensure that Russia has no civil society, no ‘nation’ of citizens,” Sergey Shelin says; but the first signs of such a political nation, “albeit one that is deformed and quasi-fascistic, have emerged” in response to the Kremlin leader’s war in Ukraine.

            When Putin talks about national unity, he means something very different than the unity of the people of his country as a citizenry; and he has limited its rise. But despite his efforts, there is clear evidence that ever more Russians are identifying with and supporting what they view as their “own” army (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/11/06/natsiya-kotoraya-sebe-neponyatna-a-rezhimu-nezhelatelna-a210600).

            In many countries people begin to think of themselves as a political nation when they are at war and focus on the need to help their “own” soldiers win; and as they do that, they come over time to view themselves as a political nation. That is beginning to happen in the Russian Federation, although the process is far more advanced in Ukraine, the commentator says.

            When Russians were asked an open-ended question by VTsIOM about what they consider the basis of “the unity of their people,” 25 percent pointed to a shared territory, nine percent to a shared history, and eight percent a shared pride in their country, Shelin says. Only three percent mentioned shared interests or civic values.

            Other more exact closed-end polls in which respondents were asked to choose among a list of unifiers found the same thing. Again and again, the commentator says, Russians “themselves failed to identify any sense of civic-mindedness within themselves,” despite a war that has now lasted almost five years and requires some support “from below.”

            And such support exists. Indeed, “voluntary or at least semi-voluntary assistance to the army is not uncommon in the Russian Federation,” Levada Center surveys show, although there are very few such people in Moscow and other large cities and far more in the regions and republics which have provided the most soldiers for the war in Ukraine.

            For Russia as a whole, the share of people regularly involved in volunteer work in support of the army is perhaps only two or three percent, but “it is nonetheless quite significant for a population which has shown a traditionally limited capacity for collective action” on its own, Shelin argues.

            Indeed, according to him, “voluntary and active solidarity with "one's own" army—an army currently attempting to seize another country—is clearly present in Russia, even if it does not encompass the majority. Even more to the point, there are no other visible forms of collective civic engagement.”

            Shelin says that this is “the Z sector in the provinces” and consists of people “acting on their own initiative and not by order from above.” In fact, “the regime does not encourage them particularly effectively or skillfully, and, for the most part, they do not hold the regime in any great affection.”

“It is here—not in the capitals or among the intelligentsia—that we see the first living shoots of a Russian political nation, whether we like what it looks like or not,” Shelin says, noting that “personally, I do not like them given their proto-fascist character and the lack of any real self-consciousness of themselves as a nation.”

“But it is precisely these forces that will emerge and claim the right to speak first once Putin is gone—when the screws are loosened, or perhaps even torn off entirely,” he concludes. And they will matter because “neither those who have emigrated nor the ‘interna’" émigrés pose any real competition to them.”

Variations in Spending on Artificial Intelligence Deepening Gap Between Moscow and Federal Subjects, ‘Club of Regions’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – The gap in incomes between Moscow, on the one hand, and the federal subjects beyond the ring road, on the other, continues to expand, the latest reason being the vastly different amounts of money being devoted to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the two places.

            Last year, the Club of Regions says, Russian spending on AI increased by 95 percent, but almost all of that went to Moscow where the largest businesses and government bureaucracies are located, leaving the regions ever further behind on  this metric (club-rf.ru/news/65522).

            Of the 176.1 billion rubles Russia spent on AI last year, only 14.3 billion – less than ten percent – was invested in the regions, the portal says, a figure that means they will fall even further behind the capital than they now are because of the increasing importance of this factor in development. 

            In some federal subjects such as Ingushetia and the Jewish Autonomous Region, spending on AI was less than one million rubles – about 13,000 US dollars – and in three – the Komi Republic, the Nenets AD and the Chukchi AD – there was no investment in AI at all during 2025. 

Having Suffered from Nuclear Explosions in Soviet Times, Sakha Banned Them Only to have Putin Cancel that Ban

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – In the final decades of the Soviet Union, Moscow exploded 124 nuclear devices to help develop mines, change the course of rivers and create storage facilities for waste of various kinds. Sakha (Yakutia), the enormous republic in the Far East, was the site causof 12 of these.

            Unlike nuclear tests and accidents elsewhere, the Soviet authorities were able to throw a veil of secrecy over such tests in that distant republic, refusing to tell those near explosion sites what was going on or allowing local officials, scholars and activist to investigate and report on their consequences (kedr.media/stories/otecz-videl-belok-bez-meha/).

            In at least two cases, there were massive releases of radiation which left people ill and led to premature deaths, sparking protests when that became possible and prompting the Sakha parliament to adopt a law prohibiting nuclear explosions or even storage of nuclear waste on the territory of the republic.

            But in 2000, in the name of unifying the legal space of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin demanded that Sakha cancel that law and the Sakha authorities backed down. But as a new Kedr.Media investigation shows, people in that distant republic are still furious not only about the tests themselves and their consequences but also about Putin’s action.

            In many places, Estonia being the best known, protests about environmental depradations by Soviet officials led to protests which became political. Sakha is another such place, although just as its ethno-political protests were the first in the late Soviet period, predating even the 1986 clashes in Kazakhstan, they have been mostly overlocked.

            The new 3,000-word Kedr.Media article provides details about what happened in Sakha in this regard and thus allows that enormous but little known republic far from Moscow to take its place near the beginning of these processes, a fact that merits mention not only for  historical reasons but also for what may happen in the future.

Most Russians Believe They Can’t Influence Political Decisions, the Powerful Don’t care about Ordinary People, and that Moscow Tries to Solve Its Problems at Expense of the Regions, Club of the Regions Monitoring Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – Seventy-two percent of Russians believe “most citizens can’t influence political processes,” 64 percent say that “those in power don’t care about ordinary people,” and 47 percent believe that “the main thing for those in power in Moscow is to solve their problems at the expense of the regions,” Club of Regions monitoring finds.

            The survey, conducted last May but only just now reviewed by the Club of Regions portal, also found that only 23 percent of the population is satisfied with political arrangements in Russia, 47 percent say here are a lot of shortcomings but these must be dealt with gradually, and only 19 percent say there is a need for radical change immediately (club-rf.ru/news/65542).

            Forty-nine percent of Russians trust the Russian government, but 36 percent say they do not. As for the Duma, only 28 percent trust it while 53 percent do not. A pattern similar to that for the Duma exists regarding political parties, the media, banking and business, although support for Putin and the army is much higher, 72 percent and 69 percent respectively.

            Perhaps the most important finding of this monitoring, however, is to be found elsewhere: it calls into question “the widespread belief that support for the current government is higher among lower-income people” rather than those with enough money to meet all their needs. 38.5 percent of the latter back the current government, but only 13.6 percent of the former do.

Talk about Denunciations in Stalin’s Time and Now Effort by Kremlin to Shift Responsibility from Itself to the Population, Krivenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – Mass denunciations in Stalin’s time and more recently are “a myth” disseminated by the authorities to shift responsibility from themselves and onto the population, according to Sergey Krivenko, a human rights activist who has specialized on the Great Terror.

            The numbers of denunciations Moscow claimed then and now were exaggerations, he says; and efforts by Stalin-era officials to get real numbers led them to report that there were only a handful compared to the number that the Stalinist media reported. Something similar is true now (semnasem.org/articles/2026/10/27/kak-rabotal-sovetskij-terror).

            Some Russians did and do denounce people either to get preferment from those above them or to get apartments freed up so that they could move in, Krivenko acknowledges; but the real number of denunciations then and now are far smaller than the authorities claim or report in stories about this phenomenon.

            It is long past time to recognize that the numbers circulating are made up and intended to suggest that the Russian people were behind repressive moves by the state, thereby legitimating what the state wanted to do and was prepared to release false numbers in the pursuit of its own goals. 

Past Territorial Concessions to Moscow in North ‘Not Set in Stone,’ Estonian Legal Specialist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 – There are seven regions in the Baltic and Scandinavian regions where Russia has acquired territory or special rights on the basis of Cold War era agreements, Denis Polman points out, but because circumstances have changed, everyone needs to recognize that these earlier concessions are “not set in stone.”

            The seven are, the Estonian legal specialist says, Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad), Karelia, Porkkala, Hanko, the islands of the Gulf of Finland, Finland’s Aland Islands, and Norway’s Spitzbergen (Svalbard) (arvamus.postimees.ee/8575084/denis-polman-kellele-kuuluvad-konigsberg-ja-karjala  reposted at mariuver.eu/2026/11/02/komu-prinadlezhat-koningsberg-i-karelija/).

            These seven cases, Polman writes, share in the fact that they were the subjects of agreements with Moscow “when the balance of interests today is completely different from what it was in the middle of the 20^th century.” Indeed, two of the territories, Hanko and Porkkala, have already been returned to their rightful owners.

            The others remain open, he continues. The Western powers transferred Koenisberg to Moscow’s control but only until a final peace treaty for World War II would be concluded, something that has not yet happened. Karelia was transferred to Russian control by a Finnish minister who was under Moscow’s influence, something that vitiates their legitimacy.

            And both Spitzbergen and the Aland Islands gave Russia special rights but only so long as Russia observed its obligations, something it has not done. Consequently, Polman says, all these places where Russia has control or exercises special rights need to be reexamined and possibly reversed by law rather than my any military action.

Surviving Soviet Mosaics Send Messages Fundamentally at Odds with Putinism, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 – Many of the mosaics which were installed at the end of Soviet times but continue to be maintained contain messages very much at odds with the ideology of Putinism, promoting as they do peace, internationalism, and the future rather than war, Russian nationalism, and the past, Vadim Shtepa says.

            The editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal says that in fact, many of the messages from the past which survive in these murals are so at odds with Putinism that their authors if they appeared now would be subject to criminal sanctions of one kind or another (arvamus.delfi.ee/artikkel/120621668/vadim-stepa-ei-sojale-maailmale-rahu-tanaseni-pusivad-noukogude-loosungid-arritavad-kremlit-taiega reposted at region.expert/mosaic/).

            Indeed, Shtepa continues, “inside Russia, it is absolutely impossible to create new mosaics on the topics of world peace, friendship of the peoples and a future in space now.” That has had an unanticipated result: many advocates of these things are now trying to restore the Soviet-era mosaics lest attention to such values disappear under Putin’s onslaught.