Putin’s War is Why So Many Russians are Suffering in the Dark, Cold and without Water, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb.16 – The independent Important Stories portal says that since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, 78 percent of Russia’s federal subjects have significantly reduced their spending on housing infrastructure, a major reason why so many Russians in these regions are suffering in the dark, the cold and without running water.   

            To meet the unfunded mandates that Moscow has imposed on the regional governments, the latter have been forced to make cuts in repairing and updating infrastructure and that has contributed mightily to the disasters in Russia this winter (istories.media/stories/2026/02/16/za-vremya-voini-78-rossiiskikh-regionov-znachitelno-sokrashchali-raskhodi-na-zhkkh/).

            The world including many Russians of good will have reacted with horror to the way in which Putin’s bombing campaign has left so many Ukrainians in the dark, without heat and without running water; but there has been far less understanding that Putin has launched an almost equally horrific but completely unacknowledged operation against his own people.

            What makes this development especially appalling is that Russians have seen their utility bills skyrocket over the same period; but it is becoming clear that the moneys collected by the authorities are not going to ensure that they have the services they thought they were paying for but rather for Putin’s war, an outcome none of them can be happy about.

            And it seems likely that recognition of this fact as it spreads will give rise to references to what Russians earlier called the Kremlin’s proclivity to engage in the “bombing of Voronezh,” a reference to the Putin regime’s inflicting of pain on its own people in order to put the Kremlin in a position to do so against others as well. 

Kremlin’s Ban on Open Discussion of Federalism Leading to Radicalization of Ethnic and Regional Movements, Pylayeva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 16 – Lana Pylayeva, a Komi activist who is a member of the platform at PACE for dialogue with Russian democratic forces, argues that the Kremlin’s ban on open and honest discussion of federalism is unintentionally leading to the radicalization of ethnic and regional groups in the Russian Federation.

            If the Russian authorities permitted such discussions, she says, there would be a far greater chance that the various groups could build bridges among all groups rather than as now each retiring to their own regional or ethnic group (idelreal.org/a/demontazh-moskvotsentrizma-chlen-platformy-pase-lana-pylaeva-o-tom-zachem-rossii-razgovor-o-dekolonizatsii/33675197.html).

            And while the history of these issues means that any opening of discussions will be difficult and require a long time to produce results on which many if not most groups can agree, the failure of the Putin regime to allow such discussions, a continuation of Soviet practice, makes disagreement and fissiparousness more likely. 

            Everyone, ethnic Russian and non-Russian and Muscovite and regionalist, must recognize that “Russia is after all an empire; and the policy which it conducts in relation to all regions and in particular to representatives of indigenous peoples is a colonial policy,” Pylayeva says. 

            These problems are exacerbated, she continues, because “now, a large part of the information which circulates both in Russian opposition and foreign media is most often information which is taken from federal sources,” that is, “it is information which focuses on what is happening in Moscow” and is inevitably “Moscow-centric.”

            All that helps the Kremlin block discussions about federalism and how Russia might be transformed to better reflect all its residents and not just those within the ring road.

Russians Now Equally Divided as to Whether They Can Trust Others, with Young and Those who Think Their Country is Going in the Wrong Direction Less Likely to Do So, Levada Center Polls Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – According to a December 2025 Levada Center poll, 50 percent of Russians say that they believe it is possible to trust the majority of others, while 46 percent say the opposite, figures that show a slight increase in willingness to trust from 2020 when the numbers of those willing to trust others fell sharply.

            A higher percentage of those who are young, have lower incomes and think the country is going in the wrong direction are more likely to say Russians shouldn’t trust one another than those who are older, have higher incomes or think that Russia under Putin is headed in the  right direction (levada.ru/2026/02/13/uroven-mezhlichnostnogo-doveriya-v-dekabre-2025/).

            That is yet another obstacle that opponents of the Kremlin leader must overcome to organize protests or opposition groups, an obstacle that is seldom considered by those who discuss why the level of protests and opposition activity in the Russian Federation at the present time are as low as they are.

Russia’s Fate Being ‘Decided by the Economy and Not with the Seizure of Some Village in Ukraine,’ Kalashnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – Maksim Kalashnikov, a Russian commentator who favors an even more aggressive approach to Ukraine than that being conducted by the Kremlin, says that it is a mistake to think that Russia’s fate is being decided on the frontlines in Ukraine. In fact, it “is now being decided by the economy” which is in increasingly disastrous shape.

            The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the economic problems of the country and put it on course to something like 1991 or even 1917, he says, in the course of urging Moscow’s top leadership to recognize this reality and take steps to change it before it is too late (dialog.ua/war/328733_1771012157).

              “What matters,” Kalashnikov says, “is what happens to the budget, production and enterprises rather than whether we’ve captured another Bolshaya Khrenovka. And the situation here is dire” not least because of the West’s imposition of ever more severe sanctions and moves against Russian sales of raw materials abroad.

              But unfortunately, the Z-blogger concludes, what is likely to happen is exactly the reverse of what should: “the Kremlin will drag things out until disaster strikes and only then will it try to negotiate with the West on what will be ever more unfavorable terms.”  Russian elites need to recognize this looming disaster and take action. 

Tolkien’s Orcs, and the Identification of Russians with Them, Key to Understanding Putin’s Country, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 12—References to Orcs, the evil characters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, have increased in frequency in Russian society since the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, although the words is typically dismissed as nothing more than a term of abuse, Dimitry Savvin says.

            But in fact, they provide extraordinarily valuable keys to the understanding of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian society, given that many Russians now view Orcs as something positive, according to the editor of the conservative Russian Harbin portal based in Riga (harbin.lv/obraz-orka-v-tvorchestve-tolkina-i-sovetskaya-identichnost).

            Tolkien’s positive heroes are representatives of what he recognized as the passing of peasant societies, with all their myths, Savvin says. Indeed, he saw as something fundamentally evil the rise of industrial society and the kind of people who became “the servants of darkness,” the Orcs.

            Soviet ideology celebrated “the so-called working class” as the “most progressive and most creative” political force, although those who knew it best could see how its members, who were after all yesterday’s peasants who had passed through urbanization and industrialization were in fact anything but the positive role models the CPSU claimed to see.

            According to Savvin, orcs, whether in Tolkien’s novels or among Russians who identify as such, “are incapable of creating anything beautiful and have no need to do so; but they are skilled in the manufacture of machines and especially of weapons.” Moreover, the two groups share a common morality.

            On the one hand, he says, hey “value discipline and slavishly obey ‘the Master,’ even though deep down they hate their superiors and dream of escaping from them so that they can live freely and “kill ‘for pleasure’” while “making easy money from ‘suckers’” who give in to them.

            What is striking, the conservative Russian wrier says, is that in the 1990s, an ever larger number of Russian writers began to present the Orcs as something “positive,” the victims of aggression by others; and such identification and the attitudes on which it is based have only intensified in the Putin years.

            “Classical Sovietism,” Savvin writes, “attempted to conceal its dark side, to hide and hush up its crimes; but in the 2000s, a major, systemic shift occurred” fir from below and then with the support of the bosses who saw the self-identification of Russians as Orcs as benefitting their rulers.

            “Neo-Sovietism ceased to be assumed of its immorality, its crimes and its sadism,” the Russian conservative says. “Instead of denigrating ‘warrior liberators, they began to display a demonstrative drive ‘to Berlin for the German women.’ Instead of ‘we are for peace,’ they shouted ‘we can do it again.’”

            In short, the surviving Soviet people “no longer want to pretend” they are anything but Orcs; and as a result, “being an Orc is no longer an insult: it is now a source of pride” and a recognition of just how alike the Russian people of the Putin era are to Tolkien’s Orcs. 

 

Russia Threatened by Rise of So-Called ‘Lumpen Intelligentsia’, Club of the Regions Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 12 – Thirty-five percent of the graduates of Russian higher educational institutions are now employed in jobs that don’t require that level of education and earn on average 20 percent less than those who work in the fields they were trained for, a pattern that is costing the Russian economy and the Russian state in major ways.

            Those are the conclusions of a new report by the Moscow Center for Macro-Economic Analysis and Short-Term Predictions that is attracting widespread attention as the Kremlin tries to eliminate this imbalance (forecast.ru/_ARCHIVE/Mon_13/2024/TT12_2024s.pdf and  vopreco.ru/jour/article/view/5662).

            Some experts say that this imbalance is growing and represents a threat to the country. One group taking that position are scholars and investigators at the Club of the Regions which tracks what is going on outside of Moscow where gap between educational attainment and the jobs those with it have may be especially great (club-rf.ru/theme/644).

            “When university and college graduates find themselves working in the same jobs,” the Club’s experts say, “this causes serious frustration among the former” because it represents “a breakdown in social mobility and the rise of the so-called lumpen intelligentsia, tens of thousands of people whose financial situation doesn’t match their ambitions.”

            According to these experts, “under certain circumstances, this group may follow any populist who promises to restore ‘justice,’” something especially likely to occur during election seasons when opposition candidates may see making such appeals as something that will contribute to their success.

            The Kremlin is concerned about this imbalance, the Club of the Regions says, noting that problems surrounding it were discussed at a State Council meeting in December of last year and that Putin in February of this year signed orders to eliminate unnecessary educational requirements in many jobs. 

            But perhaps most significantly, Club experts say, is the Russian government’s  efforts to reduce the number of university slots subsidized by Moscow and the transformation of secondary education to meet the needs of employers.

Draft Law Would Ban Religious Services in Russian Apartment Houses, Hitting Muslims Hardest

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – Members of all four parliamentary parties in the Russian Duma have proposed a law that would ban religious services in Russian apartment houses in the name of blocking the spread of extremism and preventing residents from being disturbed by gatherings in such places.

            The bill is likely to pass (rbc.ru/politics/13/02/2026/698ca7b89a79470b563a34be), primarily because, despite provisions potentially affecting all religious groups, it would hit Muslims hardest because given a shortage of mosques in major cities, Islamic communities have more often than others set up prayer rooms to provide services to the faithful.

            Talgat Tajuddin, the head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) who styles himself the Supreme Mufti of Russia, has proposed a compromise. He agrees that such prayer rooms should not be used for religious services but should exist in apartment blocks and other places to allow individuals to pray.

            The mufti’s proposal is unlikely to gain traction in the Duma or to be realized in practice whatever the law says because many Russians see Muslim prayer rooms as offensive and dangerous and would likely continue to do so even if collective services in them were banned (akcent.site/novosti/44044).

            And many of Russia’s Muslims are likely to be upset with Tajuddin’s proposal, viewing it providing the Russian authorities with yet another reason for refusing to allow more mosques to be built in Russian cities while preventing them from organizing services in prayer rooms. 

            In Moscow, for example, where there are more than two million Muslims, there are only six mosques, something that has forced Muslims who want to gather for prayer to set up their own prayer rooms.