Fertility Rate Fell in All Regions of Russia Last Month with Greatest Declines in North Caucasus where Birthrates Nonetheless Remain the Highest

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 10 – Last month, the seasonally adjusted fertility rate fell in every federal subject of the Russian Federation with the largest percentage declines coming in the republics of the North Caucasus where these rates remain higher than in predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays, official data show (t.me/sterngang/1760).

            In the first two months of 2026, Chechnya saw its fertility rate fall by 6.5 percent; but that Muslim republic along with its neighbors still has a much higher fertility rate than do predominantly ethnic Russian regions (kavkazr.com/a/chechnya-i-dagestan-v-chisle-liderov-po-spadu-rozhdaemosti/33700297.html).

            That means that Chechnya and other Muslim republics even if their fertility rates are declining and now in most cases below the 2.2 children per woman per lifetime needed to keep their populations stable will retain a relative advantage compared to predominantly ethnic Russian regions.

            Thus, in time, all federal subjects may decline on this metric; but the ones with predominantly ethnic Russian populations will decline faster than those with Muslim populations. And that means at the end of the day, the Muslim republics will form a larger share of the country’s population than they do now, even if they too are less numerous.

            Only if fertility rates in Muslim republics fell below the figures for the Russian Federation as a whole or for overwhelmingly ethnic Russian cities, where these metrics currently stand at under 1.3 and approximately 1.0 would that no longer be the case, a prospect that no expert Russian or Western sees taking place. 

Three Trends Exacerbated by Putin’s War Suggest Russia isn’t Headed toward a New Federalism or Disintegration but Rather toward Becoming a Failed State, Luzin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 11 – Pavel Luzin has long argued that Russia isn’t headed toward disintegration because it lacks the kind of conflicts among organized groups that are required for such an outcome and instead had put his hopes that effective decolonization would happen by means of the reconstitution of a genuine federalism there.

            But now, the Russian political scientist at the Fletcher School says that three aspects of Russian political culture that have been exacerbated by Putin’s war in Ukraine currently cast doubt on that second possibility and that he believes Russia may instead toward becoming a failed state unless Russians change their attitudes (region.expert/no-unity/).

            First of all, Luzin says, “Russian society has completely abandoned its own political agency, leading to a situation in which there are few “individual or collective political actors capable of formulating answers to questions like what kind of Russia do they need? Why do they need it at all? And why do they need neighbors and the people around them?”

            Second and related to this, “Russians couldn’t care less about what is happening in other regions.” They ignored the Prigozhin rising and the Ukrainian occupation of Bryansk Oblast. That, of course, has “a positive consequence” in that it “dispels the myth that Russians will never agree to the loss of the occupied territories of Ukraine.”

            And third, “there has been a clear erosion of one of the most important if not indeed the most important hierarchies – that of the capital and the regions. “Not only has Moscow had to compete with domestic migration flows with other cities … but Russian aggression has further exacerbated the capital’s unattractiveness as a place for a better life.”

            “When a country’s center loses its ideal role and vertical ties weaken,” Luzin continues, “then centrifugal forces can take hold” and disintegration can occur, although it “doesn’t necessarily have to occur along administrative-territorial and/or ethno-cultural boundaries” as many now assume.

            Instead, he argues, this “institutional disintegration” can lead to the country’s transformation into a failed state.” That is an option few are exploring or even think even possible in the case of a country with nuclear weapons. But having such weapons didn’t stop the USSR from falling apart and likely can’t prevent Russia from becoming a failed state.

               More than two decades ago, the author of this review of Luzin’s article published an essay entitled “Russia as a Failed State” in the Baltic Defense Review in which he made that and other points about the nature of the Russian state at the start of Putin’s reign  (bdcol.ee/files/docs/bdreview/bdr-2004-12-sec3-art3.pdf).

            Luzin’s article now is a sign that what was certainly true then and what Putin with some success fought against is again true now, the result in large measure of the Kremlin leader’s own actions and his failure to understand the nature of his own country and its history despite how often he talks about it.

 

 

 

Fergana Valley No Longer at ‘Critical Risk’ of Islamist Explosion, Regional Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 20 – The Fergana Valley shared by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan has 17 percent of the population of Central Asia as a whole even though it occupies only two percent of the total area of that region has long been a source of instability there because of competition over scarce resources and the influence of Islamist groups.

            But according to Russian and regional experts on the area, the Fergana Valley no longer is “a zone of critical risk” given both the border demarcation agreement signed a year ago and the efforts of both the three countries and Moscow to reach agreements on water sharing and other issues (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-03-10--delimitacija-granicy-vyvela-ferganskuju-dolinu-iz-zony-kriticheskogo-riska-86347).

            These specialists say that before the demarcation agreement, conflict was at the center of life in this valley and it was something that Islamist groups regularly and successfully exploited to spread their messages at the expense of traditional Islam and to recruit young Muslims to fight both there and elsewhere against exiting regimes.

            The problems of the past have not disappeared, these specialists say; but they are far more manageable than they were. And as a result, the danger that the Fergana Valley will descend into violence and trigger instability across all of Central Asia is far less than it was only a few years ago.

            That may be an overly optimistic assessment, however, given that population in the region  continues to grow at a rapid rate and that the governments of the three countries don’t have the funds needed to solve all the problems of the people in this valley, including in particular declines in the amount of water available for public and economic use.

            But the current optimism is a far cry from the alarmist language experts on the region were using only a few years ago (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/fergana-valley-heading-toward-explosion.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/kazakhstan-and-russia-increase-security.html).

At the Heart of Perestroika was Gorbachev’s Faith in ‘the Idea of the Peaceful Coexistence of Red and White Ideas,’ Tsipko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 10 – Mikhail Gorbachev believed that “by condemning Stalin’s repressions and returning to the late Lenin, he could save both the Soviet system based on the public ownership of the means of production and the Soviet Union as a multi-national state, Aleksandr Tsipko says.

            In short, the senior Russian commentator who cooperated with Gorbachev during the latter’s presidency, the first and last Soviet president believed that there could be “a peaceful coexistence of red and white ideas” and that his promotion of that as a goal would strengthen not weaken both him and the USSR (mk.ru/politics/2026/03/10/shestidesyatnicheskaya-revolyuciya-gorbacheva-v-lichnosti-poslednego-rukovoditelya-sssr-soshlis-nesoedinimye-vzglyady.html).

            In this, Gorbachev was profoundly mistaken, Tsipko continues; but in order to understand what he did do, it is critical to focus on what he believed and tried to do rather than on what his thoughts and actions led to and what happened after he left power and the Soviet Union disintegrated.

            According to Tsipko, Gorbachev had “a faith in communism, the humanistic values of European culture, the value of human life, and the value of freedom and at the same time a faith in Russian statism and that even with all the democratic reforms he was carrying out, the USSR could be preserved.”

            But what he lacked, the Moscow commentator says, is something that sometimes “characterizes the representatives of the deep Russian people: he lacked envy for the success of others and for their outstanding abilities” and did not feel the need to tear them down to boost himself. Because of this combination, Tsipko argues, “Gorbachev miscalculated.”

            Many Russians today dislike Gorbachev because unlike Boris Yeltsin, “he was categorically opposed to the idea of the sovereignty of the RSFSR and categorically opposed to the dissolution of the USSR; and many analysts have forgotten that Yeltsin was “popular among Russians primarily because he backed” ending “the feeding of the Caucasus and Ukraine.”

            Tsipko argues that Gorbachev was deeply attached to the idea of the USSR as “a multi-national country and as a union of peoples. He was completely devoid of ethnic Russian nationalism.” Being “a mixture” of Ukrainian and Russian blood, he believed the collapse of the USSR would be “an irreparable disaster for both Russians and Ukrainians.”

            The Soviet president “truly couldn’t imagine how Russia could exist without Ukraine, and he once told Tsipko that the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 was “just the beginning” and in no way the end of the story of the Russian state and its travails,” saying that was why he had told Yeltsin he could be president but needed to sign a new Union Treaty.

First Russian Orthodox Church Parishioners in Africa Martyred for Their Faith

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 7 – The Russian Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa says that two of its parishioners in Nigeria were killed by Islamist terrorists during an attack in Turan on March 6. It says that the death toll is likely to rise because at least 50 Orthodox Christians there were attacked and forced to flee, and the Russian church appealed for contributions to help them (https://rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=121344).

            The centrality of martyrdom in the thinking of the ROC MP and the issue of Christians being under attack by Islamists in the view of many around the world mean that the Russian church in Africa is now exploiting its position there not only to recruit soldiers but to help Russian government agencies on that continent.

            The Moscow Patriarchate with the Kremlin’s help can be expected to broadcast news of this tragedy to the West in order to gain support from Christians in Western countries who are increasingly concerned about attacks on their co-religionists and to use this to form a renewed alliance between the Moscow church and these denominations.

What Happens in Ukraine and Whether Sanctions are Maintained Determine When Moscow Can Attack Baltics, Lithuanian Department of State Security Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar.9 – What happens in Ukraine and whether the West maintains sanctions on Russia or not determines when Moscow will be in a position to attack Lithuania and her Baltic neighbors, according to an assessment contained in the annual report of the Lithuanian Department of State Security.

            If the war continues at current level and if sanctions are maintained, the report says, Russia’s ability to launch an attack on the Baltics or elsewhere in eastern Europe will be limited, the report says (vsd.lt/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2026-GR-LT-El_NAUJAS.pdf discussed at novayagazeta.ee/articles/2026/03/09/rossiia-mozhet-nachat-voennuiu-operatsiiu-v-stranakh-baltii-cherez-god-dva-posle-sniatiia-sanktsii-i-zakliucheniia-mira-v-ukraine-razvedka-litvy-news).

            But if the conflict is frozen and sanctions are eased or eliminated, Moscow will be able to rebuild its forces and be able to attack to the West in three to five years; and if there is a peace treaty and sanctions are lifted, then that period will be reduced to one to two years, according to the Lithuanian intelligence service.

            The Lithuanian projections are perhaps the clearest indication of what the end of the war in Ukraine will mean for others and the way in which the maintenance of sanctions of their removal will affect the timing of a new Russian move toward the West.  As such, they speak to a broader issue than just the security of Lithuania. 

Kremlin Ignores Realities of Russian Family Life and Instead, to Boost Birthrates, Uses Highly Offensive and Ineffective Propaganda, Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 6 – Moscow’s current demographic policy, especially since Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022, Aleksandr Arkhipova says, “ignores the reality of serial monogamy” among Russians, the economic constraints and unstable partnerships they live with and other factors that shape people’s reproductive decisions.”

            Instead, the independent Moscow anthropologist says, the Russian state “attempts to influence reproductive behavior through language and text,” putting up posters telling women their job is to have children and telling doctors to use “pseudo-folksy and patronizingly patriarchal language” (istories.media/opinions/2026/03/06/zai-rozhai-kak-ustroena-demograficheskaya-propaganda/).

            “The solicitous tone of doctors’ conversations and the avoidance of unpleasant words ike abortion,” according to guidance the government provides medical professionals and uses in posters and advertising, “are supposed to encourage women to make ‘the right reproductive choice.’ Otherwise, both the women and the doctor face public shame and moral censure.”  

            “But demographics are difficult to change with slogans alone,” Arkhipova says. “Language can shape social norms but it cannot replace social policy; and when the state tries to compensate for the lack of systemic solutions with symbolic pressure and newspeak, the result is not an increase in the birth rate but an increase in public cynicism.”

            In a detailed article, the social anthropologist documents each of these statements by examining posters, advertising, documents given to medical professionals and teachers, and in-depth conversations with Russian women. Her implicit conclusion is a dark one: Moscow won’t boost the birthrate by slogans alone. Instead, it will breed resistance to propaganda in general.