Russian Firm ‘Earlier Proud of Resisting Sinification’ Moves to China to Try to Survive, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 1 – The Irbit Motorcycle Factory, the only firm in Russia that had been manufacturing heavy-duty motorbikes, faced bankruptcy after sanctions were imposed on Russia in response to Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine. To try to survive, it shifted its operations from Sverdlovsk Oblast to Kazakhstan; but it was unable to recover its sales from there,

            Then, the Horizontal Russia portal, which covers developments beyond Moscow’s ring road, reports that the IMF, despite its earlier “pride” in resisting what it saw as “the general ‘sinification’” of the market in Russia decided to move its manufacturing to China (semnasem.org/articles/2026/01/28/ural-pereehal-v-kitaj).

            But despite its hopes, the IMF continued to suffer losses, at least in part, the portal says, because Russians who might have been interested in purchasing its products were reluctant to spend money on motorcycles bearing the name “Ural” that they knew had been produced not in Russia but in China.

            Putin tried to help the firm out by giving an Alaska native a Ural motorbike when the Kremlin leader had his summit in Anchorage with US President Donald Trump. But that did little good for a company that in the past had sold many of its products to foreign countries and now can’t do so because of sanctions.

            At least one reason the IMF has had problems in China is that its leaders as recently as 2016 celebrated the fact that their firm “had not given in to the general ‘sinification’” of industry in Russia east of the Urals and instead had held on in Russia to produce a Russian motorcycle in Russia, something they no longer do (irbit.info/business/imz/).

            To have any chance of surviving, experts in the industry say, the IMF must produce first and foremost for the Chinese market and also come up with new models of lower costs if it hopes to recover any of its former position in the Russian one given that Russians can buy motorcycles from elsewhere rather than ones with Russian names but produced in China. 

Migrant Workers Leaving Russia Because Their Children Can’t Get into Schools There, ‘To Be Precise’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb.  4 – The Two Be Precise portal which gathers statistics on key issues in the Russian Federation has not focused on the number of children who are either citizens of other countries or do not have citizenship at all. Perhaps its most important finding is that their parents who are migrant workers are leaving Russia because their children can’t get into school.

            Because Russian law now requires that foreign students pass a Russian language examination before being admitted, many children are left without the opportunity to study; and in response, their parents are going home so that their children will be able to get an education (tochno.st/materials/v-tri-raza-mense-pervoklassnikov-s-inostrannym-grazdanstvom-posli-v-skoly-v-2025-godu).

            Among the key findings that the portal gleaned from official accounts and discussing this issue with experts, some of whom preferred to remain anonymous because of the political sensitivity of this issue, the following are especially noteworthy:

·       In 2025, there were 7,000 foreigners enrolled in the first grade in Russian schools, a decline from 19,000 the year before. For all grades, the number of foreign pupils fell by 44,000 between these two years and declined the numbers of 2021.

·       In the 2025/2026 school year, 130,000 children who held foreign citizenship and another 3,000 without citizenship are studying in Russian schools in all grades. A year earlier, there were 44,000 and 1500 more for each of these groups.

·       Because of the introduction of the Russian language requirement, 60 to 80 percent of all children of migrants “cannot get into school,” one anonymous expert says. And as a result, “many migrant families with children are leaving” the Russian Federation and going home.”

·       In the current academic year, 96 percent of pupils with foreign citizenship are from countries which emerged from the disintegration of the USSR. Most are from Tajikistan (48,000), Uzbekistan (22,000) and Kyrgyzstan (19,000). Armena with 12,000 pupils in Russian schools and Azerbaijan with 8,000 complete this list.

·       Migrant children who aren’t admitted to schools in the Russian Federation have few prospects and aren’t socialized in ways that the authorities would like. At least some are becoming problems, and many require the kind of intervention they aren’t receiving. 

Key Russian Firm that Identified Major Mineral Reserves in Arctic Shuts Down

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 4 – Despite Vladimir Putin’s push for Arctic development, the Russian Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition company which pioneered in the location of mineral resources in the polar region has shut down because of massive debts it sees no possibility of paying off.

            That leaves Moscow without that company’s skills, honed over more than two decades of exploration, highlights how the shift of resources for the war in Ukraine is hurting priorities elsewhere and the importance of tracking what Moscow is actually doing rather than just what it claims (fontanka.ru/2026/02/04/76246717/ and thebarentsobserver.com/news/russias-renowned-polar-geological-company-is-closing-its-doors/444728).

            The company announced on its portal that it will close down completely on February 12, a declaration that was met with incredulity and even anger by those familiar with what the company has done and what its absence will likely mean (vk.com/al_feed.php?w=wall-1247763_971960).

            And another asked bitterly but obviously rhetorically "How is it possible to close a company that has no equivalent anywhere in the world at a time when the president has set a course for the exploration and development of the Arctic and the Antarctic?”

In a ‘Revolutionary Development,’ Moscow has Succeeded in Getting Russians to View the State ‘as a Service,’ Central Bank Chief Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 4 – The state is now viewed by Russians “as a service,” Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina says, a development that “marks the completion of another stage in the evolution of relations between society and the authorities” and a truly “revolutionary” one at that.

            The Club of the Regions reports her remark and says that it reflects what the Kremlin has been trying to do for some time given that it is “not satisfied with the role of just a regulator” but wants to be perceived as a servant, something that Club experts say strengthens the Putin regime while forestalling any challenges to it (club-rf.ru/theme/637).

            While the Putin regime casts its initiative in this regard as a way of “meeting the demands of the citizens in the 21^st century,” in fact, what it has been doing that Nabiullina has called attention to, is the creation of a platform supporting the government. In short, “by making life easier for te average citizen, the state is simultaneously solving its own problems.”

            According to the Club experts, “the state is creating an ecosystem in which it ceoms the chief trusted source of information for millions of its citizens,” “creating an alternative to elections,” and ensuring that those unhappy with particular situations can be offered things of value if they show loyalty and do not protest.

            So far, the Club suggests, this effort has brought the Kremlin enormous success. Whether it will have the resources and will to extend it remains to be seen.

Epstein Scandal Resembles Rasputin Scandal of 1916 and Could Have Equally Fateful Consequences, Akunin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 5 – As the Epstein scandal continues to grow and involve more people in more countries, Russian writer Boris Akunin suggests that perhaps the best way to understand what it is and what it may become is to recall the Rasputin scandal at the end of tsarist times, given that the two have so much in common.

            He argues that “the Epsteinshchina” – inventing a word that combines the figure at the center of this and the Russian suffix for affair -- is “pure ‘Rasputinism,” that is, “an old scandal that in new circumstances has grown to universal proportions” (t.me/EtoBorisAkunin/706 reposted at https://echofm.online/opinions/epsteinshchina).

            Akunin says that in 1916 “there was an indecent man who attached himself to the royal family” of the Russian Empire. Now, there is “an indecent high-society manipulator” who attached himself to some of the elites in a wide variety of countries. In neither case is the individual “remarkable” but the consequences of their actions clearly are.

            Rasputin did not do everything he was accused of doing, and it may be the case that neither did Epstein. But in the former case, it was widely believed that he had and even more widely believed that Rasputin succeeded in penetrating the Russian imperial elite because it was so corrupt; and in the latter, something similar is happening; and the elites are terrified.

            “Epstein has been gone for a long time, his dirty tracks have already been overgrown with grass – and suddenly such a stir,” Akunin says. While some doing the exposes are focusing on Trump’s political opponents, many who support Trump “are perfectly aware of Trumps ‘moral character,’ and they don’t care.”

            Akunin continues: “But the politicians and oligarchs of the opposing camp who have also been caught up in the crossfire have something to lose. And they are losing it.” Indeed, many in Western societies are less interested in Trump that in the moral collapse of “the respectable pillars of society.”

            What such people have concluded on the basis of the Epstein files is “how disgusting you all are up there!” Existing elites are being discredited and that “clearly isn’t accidental” given that these elites really “are tiresome, they have disappointed and many people really want them to disappear.”

            Akunin says that he believes “’the Epstein affair’ is another harbinger of big changes in the countries that are commonly called ‘democratic.’ Of the same kind as the widespread crisis of old parties, the success of far-right movements, the collapse of international organizations and alliances, and the destruction of the old rules of political behavior.”

            It thus appears, the Russian writer concludes his post, that “we are in [another] 1916” and that “ahead of us are upheavals, a redrawing of the world map, a change of elites, different norms of relations between ‘the top’ and ‘the bottom, the collapse of old alliances and the emergence of new ones.”

            “In ten or even five years, the world will be completely different from what it is now,” Akuninn says, a prospect that is both “disturbing and interesting.”

Azerbaijan’s Exit from CIS Now ‘Inevitable,’ Baku Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 5 – Azerbaijan’s exit from the Moscow-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) now “inevitable,” an action that will seal “the end of ‘the post-imperial space,’” according to A. Shakur, a foreign policy commentator for Baku’s Minval agency in an article that is already being reposted and translated.

            One of the saddest scenes in the world of theater involves aging actors who no longer have a role to play and can attract attention only when they walk through the foyer of theaters where they may garner attention from an audience that remembers what they once were and wants to see them for that reason, Shakur says (minval.az/news/124514976).

            But there is something even more pathetic than that, he continues, and that is the activities of international cooperation formats that were once relevant because they reflected common interests but are no longer so because those common interests no longer exist. They may hold meetings, but they are no more than aging actors in a foyer.

            “One such outdated structure is the Commonwealth of Independent States,” an organization that is now capable “only of organizing informal summits” but that at the outset in the view of Moscow at least was to be the matrix for the restoration of some unified state centered on the Russian capital.

“In the 1990s, both Moscow and the West seriously considered the chance that the CIS would become the framework under which the former Soviet republics would merge into a new confederation or federation. Publicly, the organization was presented as ‘a civilized divorce;’ but in reality, repeated attempts were made to establish supranational structures within it.”

Given that closer integration projects have emerged, “the CIS itself has in effect entered a vegetative state,” an organization Moscow has “continued to try to use to promote supranational elements, including in such seemly harmless areas as the teacher of the Russian language in other countries,” Shakur writes.

But those efforts and meetings can’t hide the reality that the CIS is already half dead, he continues. The three Baltic countries were never members, Georgia and Ukraine have left after Moscow invaded them, and Moldova is preparing to withdraw. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan may soon follow given their problems with Russia.

If Azerbaijan leaves, that will be the end because Moscow has few resources at present to do anything about this approaching end of the former Soviet space. Its economy isn’t going well, and both its use of force against its neighbors and mistreatment of citizens of these countries in Russia are only driving ever more of these states away from Russia.

Equally or even more important, countries beyond the borders of the former Soviet pace are “strengthening their positions,” including but not limited to the Organization of Turkic States, China, the EU and the US. And Shakur points out that “Azerbaijan’s closest allies -- Türkiye and Pakistan — are not CIS members. Nor are many of its main economic partners.

All this, the commentator concludes, “prompts a fundamental question: what practice purpose does the CIS serve for Azerbaijan, especially given Russia’s continuing ambitions within that framework” including by the use of naked force. “Has the time not come for Baku to leave this platform altogether?”

On a personal note, the author of these lines owns a poster that won a competition in Azerbaijan 30 years ago. It shows a house of cards labeled the CIS with only one showing a member country, Azerbaijan. The legend on that poster reads “To Be or Not to Be.” Then Baku answered one way; now it appears to be on the way to answering it in another. 

Countries in Organization of Turkic States Adopt Common History Textbook

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 3 – The Organization of Turkic States have adopted a common textbook on the common history of the Turkic peoples, a development that Kazakhstan commentator Seri Maleyev says will create “a common optic” through which these peoples will see their unity as far more important than anything that divides them.

            “The main consequence of the appearance of a common history is the formation of a common cultural code,” one that will unite them in far-reaching ways, he says (altyn-orda.kz/v-shkolah-tyurkskogo-mira-poyavilas-obshhaya-istoriya-pochemu-eto-sobytie-menyaet-uchebnuyu-programmu-navsegda/).

            According to Maleyev, “it is important also that the textbook consciously focuses on period which united and did not divide,” the period before the era of “colonial divisions” of the Turkic world and the conflicts into which some parts of that world were drawn into with other Turkic peoples.

            Whether textbooks alone can achieve the goals the Kazakhstan commentator suggests remains to be seen, But this effort shows that those promoting the re-emergence of a unified Turkic world have already achieved more than Putin in his efforts to promote a common Russian World.

            In Soviet times, Moscow imposed a common history on the various peoples of the USSR. That fell apart in the 1990s when the Soviet Union did. Putin has sought to recreate such a common historical education across the various peoples of the Russian Federation; but he has had absolutely no success in promoting it more broadly.

            And that suggests that those who want to talk about the rise of cultural worlds broader than a single country should be looking at the Turkic one rather than the Russian, even though today Russia because of its nuclear weapons and pretensions invariably attracts more attention in most places.