Russian Historians Tell Kyrgyz Scholars to Replace Term ‘Colonialism’ with the Word ‘Administration’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 18 – From a country where a current war is called “a special military operation” and those who suggest otherwise are punished, it should come as no surprise that Russians will try to solve other political problems with analogous verbal sleight of hand. But as with the case with the war in Ukraine, such attempts are likely to backfire.

            The Russian Military Historical Society which is led by Putin loyalist Vladimir Medinsky held its first meeting with Kyrgyzstan’s expert advisory council on history and tried unsuccessfully to attack discussions of Russian colonialism by calling it something else (https://amp.rbc.ru/rbcnews/politics/18/05/2026/6a0b0d679a7947e252c6f2f5).

            At the meeting, Andrey Bykov of Moscow’s Institute of Oriental Studies called for replacing the terms “colonialism” and “colonial policy” with the terms “administration” and administrative measures” in an 11^th grade Kyrgyzstan history textbook. The Russian scholar said any failure to do that was “a tribute to fashion” and at odds with the facts.

            The Kyrgyz side wasn’t having any of this. Abylabek Askanov, head of Bishkek’s Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology, responded that doing so would be “extremely difficult” given what is generally understood by the term colonialism. Changing words won’t do anything about that.

            Bykov replied that “Russia has no intention of dictating to Kyrgyzstan,” although it is virtually certain that his audience knows that Moscow did just that in the past and that it has one so on occasion since Putin became president, most prominently in 2024 when Russian scholars attacked an Armenian textbook for “calling into question the special role of the Russian Empire.”

 

Putin’s War in Ukraine will Eventually End and Sanctions are Likely to Be Lifted, but Russia will Not Soon Get Back the Markets It has Lost, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 18 – Many commentators are comforting themselves that Putin’s war in Ukraine will eventually end and that at that time the sanctions Western countries are likely to be lifted, Abbas Gallyamov says. But that will not be the magic elixir that so many now expect because Russia will not soon get back the markets it has lost because of this conflict.

            Countries that had been Russia’s best customers have changed their approach, selecting other suppliers for what they need, the former Putin speech writer and now Putin critic says (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/10489  reposted at echofm.online/opinions/vojna-zakonchitsya-i-dazhe-sankczii-snimut-a-vot-uteryannye-rynki-ne-vernyosh).

            Such countries will have little reason to go back to Russia unless Moscow slashes prices – and if it does that as China is now demanding, that will be just one more way why Putin’s war in Ukraine is going to cast a long dark shadow on Russia, however much so many think otherwise.

Putin Policies Sparking ‘Wave of Separatism’ in Russian Oblasts Bordering Ukraine, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 18 – Vladimir Putin’s decision to appoint generals as the governors of Russian federal subjects shows that the Kremlin currently is no longer trying to suggest that all is well and instead is conducting a policy based on the war continuing for a long time and one in which the interests of these regions will be sacrificed to the war, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            The former Putin speechwriter and now prominent Kremlin critic argues that this change is having the unexpected and unwelcome consequence of generating “a wave of separatism in Russian border regions” because the population there now feels as if it has been put at risk” (vot-tak.tv/93315500/kreml-militarizuet-regiony).

            Throughout his time as Russian president, Putin has turned to generals, admirals and other siloviki to run Russia’s federal subjects and federal districts, only to discover that they were no less corrupt that the people they replaced and far more ineffective because they knew how to give orders but did not know how to mobilize the population to obey them.

            As a result, Gallyamov says, Putin gave up on at least two occasions; but when he launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine, many observers expected him to appoint siloviki as governors. But because Putin wanted to downplay the war in the eyes of Russians, he has generally restricted this approach to the leaders of regions adjoining Ukraine.

            For the first four years of the war, Putin “sought to avoid creating the impression of a wholesale militarization of political live and to maintain the illusion that nothing particularly alarming was taking place within the country.” Obviously, “the mass appointment of generals as governors would look like an admission Russia has shifted onto a full wartime footing.”

            According to Gallyamov, “the most recent appointments thus appear to mark a turning point,” with Putin sending a general who fought in both Syria and Ukraine to head Belgorod and a civilian administrator who had headed the LPR has been dispatched to Bryansk,” a shift for which there is “a clear rationale.”

            “Facing manpower shortages at eh front and a deepening budget deficit at home,” the commentator continues, “the Kremlin feels compelled to employ mechanisms other than financial incentives to recruit individuals willing to sign military contracts.” And naming those who have fought to high positions shows the Kremlin “isn’t joking” about making them an elite.

            What this means, however, is that “one can no longer rule out the possibility that afte slr the collapse of the current region, a secessionist movement seeking to withdraw from the Russian Federation could emerge in that region,” perhaps in the shape of a Chernozem Federation or some other grouping.

            A slogan for such a movement “practically writes itself,” Gallyamov suggests: “’Stop Bombing Voronezh.’”  How popular this will be depends on the situation in Russia on the one hand and the brightness of Ukraine’s future “appear at that particular moment.” If the former is bad and the latter good, secession becomes likely.

            “This last factor should not be underestimated,” he continues. “The successes achieved by the people of the neighboring country in their post-war reconstruction—and, even more so, their accession to the EU—when compounded by Russia’s own failures and problems, could create a new center of gravity for Russia’s border regions.”

            He argues that “the logic would be starkly simple: "Look—the Ukrainians broke away from Russia, and now they have a brilliant future. We need to do the exact same thing." The dismissal of a popular governor and his replacement by a military figure with a dubious reputation” will only make that outcome more likely.

Muscovites Can’t Believe Ukrainians have Succeeded on Their Own in Attacking Them with Drones and Instead Blame Domestic Enemies, Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 19 – The drone attacks on Moscow have shaken Muscovites, Aleksanxdr Arkhipova says, because many of them can’t believe that the Ukrainians have the ability to make such attacks and that Russia can’t defend against them and so they are instead telling each other that the attackers must be enemies from within Russia.

            The Russian anthropologist says that “it is far more comforting to explain the attacks away by claiming that Russian air defenses aren’t actually shoddy but that internal enemies, driven by suicidal urges, are actively guiding drones toward their own homes” (t.me/anthro_fun/4147 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/legenda-o-tajnyh-navodchikah-s-fonarikom).

            This urban legend, which recalls what happened in 1941 when the Germans first attacked Moscow, is now widespread. In addition to fear, it is also sparking some bitter jokes. One of the best has Moscow’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin declaring that his city “could impose sanctions on Russia if that country continues to drag the city into its military conflicts.”

Since 2022, Number of Russians Behind Bars has Fallen 40 Percent, but Spending on Russian Prison System has Gone Up 40 Percent, ‘Vyorstka’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the number of Russians behind bars has fallen by approximately 40 percent, at least in part because prisoners are being released to fight in Ukraine; but over the same period, spending on the Russian prison system has risen by 40 percent.

            That conclusion is offered by the Vyorstka news portal which had access to draft legislation on government spending and compared it to reports of the decline of the number of prisoners (t.me/svobodnieslova/8915 and nemoskva.net/2026/05/16/raskhody-fsin-vyrosli-zaklyuchennykh-menshe/).

            Russian prison officials say that the increased spending reflects efforts directed toward “the humanization” of jails and camps, but Olga Romanova, head of the Russia Behind Bars Foundaiton says that in fact the rise in spending itself is a product of changes since the war in Ukraine began.

            First of all, she tells the NeMoskva portal that “costs have risen due to capital construction.” Despite the reduction in the number of prisoners now, the Russian government is “building a lot of prisons and large ones at that,” an indication that the Kremlin may plan to imprison more people once the war is over.

            Another source of rising costs connected with Ukraine has arisen, Romanova continues, because “Russian authorities are taking over and utilizing existing prisons within the occupied territories. This entails relocating staff and covering their travel and per diem expenses to avoid hiring local personnel, as they suspect them of having ties to Ukraine.”

            What this all means, of course, is that reducing the number of convicts serving time in prisons and camps has not given the Russian government additional money to spend on the war. Instead, the war has meant that even with the cuts in the number of those behind bars, the Russian prison system is now spending far more than it did when it was far larger. 

Has Putin Lost Faith in His Military Commanders in Ukraine? Moscow's Ramping Up Number of Politruks in the Russian Army Suggests that May be the Case

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – Politruks, the Russian acronym for a political officer in the military and who were infamous for their work to shoot those who refused to advance when so ordered and to dictate decisions to officers, were restored by Vladimir Putin in 2018 and since the start of his expanded war in Ukraine have grown dramatically in numbers.

            According to Deputy Defense Minister Viktor Goremykin, “the total pdersonnel strength of these military-political bodies has more than tripled, primarily through the introduction of new positions at the unit level” (redstar.ru/slovom-i-delom/ and kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6A07CFEFBBCDF).

            Although he gave no specific numbers, they are sufficiently large that Izvestiya is reporting that the Main Military-Political Directorate (GlavVoenPUR) is in the process of being reconstituted, an effort slated to be completed by December 1 (iz.ru/806649/aleksei-ramm-aleksei-kozachenko-bogdan-stepovoi/za-klimat-otvetit-glavvoenpur-rotnye-zampolity-snova-v-armii).

            The politruks in the Soviet army during World War II grew out of earlier Bolshevik leaders to control military specialists the regime they served did not trust. Indeed, this lack of trust in the military has continued to be a key aspect of the Russian military – and likely means the Kremlin has growing doubts about its army.

            If that is the case, then the new rise of politruks is perhaps the clearest indication yet that Putin and his regime are no longer confident of either the loyalty or political beliefs of military commanders and soldiers, something that suggests Moscow’s situation with regard to its forces in Ukraine is far worse than many have thought. 

‘Putin’s Next Move will be Toward Civil War’ with a Black Hundreds Group Serving as the Kremlin’s Shock Troops, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 17 – Things have been so bad in Russia for so long that it is a challenge to imagine they will get worse, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but in fact, the worst that the Putin regime can offer the population and the world is still ahead, assuming the Putin regime does not lose power “due to circumstances beyond its control.”

            According to the London-based Russian analyst, that is strongly suggested by a recent BBC study that identified as funders for the extreme right Russian Community, two people, analyst Sergey Mikheyev and billionaire Igor Khudokormov, who have close ties to people close to Putin (t.me/v_pastukhov/1906 reposted at charter97.org/ru/news/2026/5/17/684373/).

            “The link between the Presidential Administration and the Russian Communities, a connection already obvious but not proven, represents a fundamental fact that throws light on a powerful trend: the managed slide toward some homegrown variety of Nazism,” Pastukhov says.

            As the London-based analyst notes, the Russian Community is “not merely a matter of pure political technology … but represent a genuine movement drawn from the darkest and most vile strata of Russian society, the very elements which since time immemorial have fueled Russian Black Hundred-style extremism.”

            The problem with such groups is they are “even harder to ‘put back in the bottle’ than the Z-Patriots have been,” Pastukhov says, noting that “to purge Röhm’s stormtroopers, Hitler had to rely on the SS. These guys aren't interested in ‘Ukro-Nazis’ or the ‘liberating mission’ of the Russian people: they are all about ‘blood purity’" and ‘enemies within.’"

            That in turn means that the Putin regime’s “next move should it continue to make any moves at all will be in the direction of civil war, cultural revolution, and pogroms. Not because anyone actually wants that outcome but because the internal logic of the regime’s own political evolution inevitably leads it there,” the Russian analyst concludes.