Veterans of Putin’s War Ever More Frequently Attacked or Even Killed on Their Return Home and They Want New Law to Protect Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – In yet another indication that the veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine are not viewed as heroes by all Russians, a small but increasing number of them are being attacked or even killed on their return home, Svobodnaya Pressa reports; and other veterans are demanding that laws be adopted to protect them.

            The portal lists cases from across the Russian Federation and says that Russian politicians and Duma deputies are committed to adding to the criminal code language that would increase the punishment of perpetrators if their victims are veterans of the war in Ukraine at the fall session of the Russian parliament (svpressa.ru/society/article/531444/).

            Some of the attacks appear to reflect the belief of many Russians that the veterans have a lot of money and thus can be robbed. Others are likely the product of personal dislike. But some of them appear to be acts of brutality directed at the veterans as a class, an attitude that is exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin wants to see.

            On the one hand, if Russians see veterans attacked, it will be harder to get new volunteers to fight; and on the other, if veterans feel that they will always have the law at their backs, they may be prepared to violate the law for their own purposes, something many Russians have already expressed fears about. 

            Consequently, what might appear to be a marginal problem has the potential to grow into a major one, not just because the number of such crimes is increasing but because of what many Russians will conclude this trend means.   

Bashkir Advocate of Federalism Putin Personally Ordered the Arrest of Released from Prison after Serving More than Seven Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – Ayrat Dilmukhametov, a Bashkir activist and advocate of the establishment of genuine federalism for Russia, whose third jail sentence began with a direct order from Vladimir Putin, has been released from a Russian prison in Krasnoyarsk after serving 7.5 years behind bars (https://t.me/aspecty/47511).

            A passionate advocate federalism for Russia, Dilmukhametov attracted the attention of Vladimir Putin who appears to have recognized that his arguments would attract support from both non-Russians and Russians were a greater threat than any nationalism  was behind the Bashkir’s imprisonment (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/kremlin-gave-direct-order-for.html).

            For background on his ideas, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/08/only-real-federalism-can-save-russia.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/imprisoned-for-advocating-federalism-in.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/02/imprisoned-bashkir-activist-says.html.

Russia’s Hybrid War against the West has Been Ongoing for 200 Years, Lea and Borukh Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – In a new article on “The Origins of Russian Fascism,” Aaron Lea and Baruch Taskin trace the ways that extreme right members of the first Russian emigration and early Soviet practices played an important role in Hitler’s Nazism and how both the ideas and the actions of the latter returned to Russia and reenforced governing patterns there.

            That history, the two Israeli analysts say, shows “Putinism is not an exception to Russian history but its norm” and that what the current Kremlin leader is doing reflects the longstanding Russian belief in existence of a threat requiring an authoritarian leader, a repressive state at home, and aggression abroad, a belief it sent to Germany a century ago (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6AA3F9BB0CB91&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

            What is on view in Moscow now is not some innovation on Putin’s part or of a conspiracy.  Conspiracies, after all, “don’t live for centuries,” Lea and Taskin say. Instead, “it is a structural continuity,” with the same diagnosis and prescription passing from one generation to the next, changing the packaging but preserving the contents.”

            And that explains, the two argue, why “the Kremlin isn’t just exporting ideology: it is funding the European far right, turning ‘the liberal order’ into a target for coordinated attacks via think tanks and bot farms,” the latest Russian industry “created to paralyze the will of the West” and something the Nazis did as well, following earlier versions of this Russian model.

            In this latest Russian campaign, they write, “the main export product is not money or content: it is an idea: the liberal order as a conspiracy, national sovereignty is a sacred value and a strong leader as the only answer to chaos” – exactly the ideas Russian emigres brought to Germany in the 1920s and that continue in Russia today.

            In short, Lea and Taskin, once again, Russia’s “hybrid war with the world is in full swing,” just as has been the case for 200 years. And Europe, which has seen all this before but has forgotten the lessons of that reality, “is just beginning to label it state terrorism,” thinking that this is something new rather than the well-forgotten old it in fact is. 

Udmurt Scholar who Committed Suicide 7 Years Ago to Protest Murder of His Native Language Remembered by Others Moscow is Oppressing

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Seven years ago, Albert Razin, a 79-year-old Udmurt scholar, burned himself to death in front of government offices in his republic because he said that “if tomorrow my language is going to disappear, then I am prepared to die today” to protest against that future and to urge others to find ways to protest against it as well.

            Since then, Razin’s influence has only grown; and this year, representatives of may nations in Russia not only in the Middle Volga where Razin’s Udmurtia is located but across that country are remembering his tragic but heroic act as a call for action against Kremlin policies (facebook.com/groups/former.russia/permalink/2304109040369367).

            They are acting, as one Tatar now living in Germany put it, out of the conviction that “a people is alive as long as its language, memory, and people prepared to defend its national dignity are still alive.” What Razin did was an extreme act of protest, but others, these activists say, can and must do more to ensure their languages and peoples survive.

            Not surprisingly, most of these commemorations have been taking place among those non-Russians who have been forced to emigrate. But as the time from  his death has lengthened, Razin’s influence has only grown. For discussion of Razin’s death and  his influence in Udmurtia and more generally, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-last-udmurt.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/09/udmurt-scholar-gave-his-life-not-for.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/09/udmurts-remember-self-immolation-of.html.

Moscow’s Policies Disproportionately Hurting Women in Indigenous Communities, Four Human Rights Organizations Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Four human rights organizations have submitted a report on the impact of Russian policies on women in the indigenous peoples of the Russian north and far east for consideration by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its October meeting next month.

            The four – the International Committee of the Indigenous Peoples of Russia, the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center, the Institute of Ecology and Anthropology and the North Women organization – say Moscow’s policies are disproportionately hurting women in these communities (indigenous-russia.com/archives/50079).

            The report says that since the last UN report on Russia’s indigenous peoples in 2021, their situation and especially that of women among hem has been “dramatically” worsened, with persecution of activists, weakening of indigenous institutions, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and the government’s decision not to publish necessary data.

            Nine of the 17 northern activists arrested last December were women. Many remain behind bars while others have been forced to flee abroad, the report says.  The mobilization of men for the war has imposed increasing burdens on women in these communities that the Russian government has done little or nothing to help.

            Business activity in the north has increased and with ever less attention to its impact on the population. Because women are now forced to bear an even heavier burden given the departure of men for the Russian army, they and their children are increasingly suffering.

            The report calls on the UN body to ask ten questions of the Russian authorities in the hopes that such queries will force Moscow to change course and address the specific problems women in its indigenous peoples increasingly face. But such hopes are likely misplaced: Russia did nothing after the UN body raised some of these points earlier.

Middle Corridor Carrying Four Times More Container Cargo toward the West than towards the East, Klevtsov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – During the first eight months of this year, 80 percent of container cargo moved westward from China and Central Asia and only about 20 percent of the total moved in the other direction, an imbalance transport companies are trying to reduce because of costs, Igor Klevtsov says.

            The Kazakhstan transportation analyst points out that “For transport operators, the issue comes down to finances. Once containers reach Europe, they need to be used again or repositioned. If there is cargo for the return journey, the equipment generates revenue in both directions. Without it, operators can face the cost of moving empty equipment” (timesca.com/middle-corridor-freight-eastbound-cargo/).

            “The 80 percent to 20 percent split,” Klevtsov admits, does not show with any precision “how many containers are actually making the return journey [from Asia] without cargo; but the railway companies themselves are now acknowledging the shortage of eastbound cargo” and trying to attract more going from Europe to Asia.

            Beijing not surprisingly “continues to push for more westbound traffic,” showing little concern about boosting cargo flows in the other direction. But that is unsustainable over the longer term because the costs of returning empty containers eastward are growing.

            Shipping firms based in Central Asia and Europe are seeking to boost cargo flows in the opposite direction; but as of now, they are facing an uphill battle not only because China continues to promote western flows and because European companies are not exploiting the eastward direction to the extent many had hoped.

Declining Water Level of Caspian Forcing Ships to Change Their Routes and Preventing Larger Vessels from Using Many Ports, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – A meeting of specialists on the Caspian Sea during Baku Climate Action Week said that the declining water level of the Caspian is already on course to have all the effects that the death of the Aral Sea had on the surrounding countries in Central Asia.

            But among its most immediate and serious consequences already have been two, the experts said. On the one hand, because water levels are declining, ships are having to change their routes on it to avoid running aground. And on the other, many ports aren’t able to process larger vessels (casp-geo.ru/iz-za-obmeleniya-kaspijskogo-morya-peresmatrivayutsya-podhody-k-navigatsionnoj-bezopasnosti/ ).

            For the time being, the first of these problems is being handled by distributing constantly updated maps of the depth of the sea in various places and directing captains to change their routes to avoid places where the sea, never that deep, has become too shallow for safety.

            But the second is more difficult. Dredging can only go so far in solving this problem because if too much of the sea floor is removed around piers, they will collapse. Consequently the only short term option is to significantly lengthen the piers into deeper water, something that is both increasingly expensive and increasingly difficult.

            That means that many ports will be temporarily or in some cases even permanently off limits to larger ships and that the littoral countries will have to consider creating entirely new ports, possibly on created islands far from the existing coast lines, an extremely costly but perhaps only reasonable option.