More than 3,000 Russians have Succeeded in Being Allowed to Perform Alternative Service So Far This Year Alone, ‘Vyorstka’ Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – Despite Moscow’s need to fill the rapidly depleting ranks of its invasion force in Ukraine, 3387 men have succeeded in being allowed to perform alternative service so far in 2026, three times more than in pre-war years, according to a study carried out by the Vyorstka portal.

            This increase has taken place, rights activists say, despite intensifying opposition in draft commissions that are usually but not always backed by the courts, because of the even more dramatic increase in the number of men seeking alternative service (verstka.media/komu-otkazyvayut-a-komu-odobryayut-alternativnuyu-grazhdanskuyu-sluzhbu-v-2026-godu).

            In the past, many who were given the right to perform alternative service had religious backgrounds; but that is no longer a guarantee that those making application for such service will be given it because of the pro-war position of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

            The Vyorstka report is important because it is yet another indication of growing unhappiness of Russians with the lengthening war in Ukraine and the unwillingness of many young men and their families to send yet more men to the meatgrinder that Putin’s military adventure has become. 

First Demonstration against Duma Vote Falsification Takes Place in Restive Komi Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – Residents of various places in the Russian Federation are talking about organizing protests against Moscow’s falsification of the Duma elections (echofm.online/news/v-semi-regionah-rossii-zayavili-akczii-protiv-falsifikaczij-na-vyborah), but the very first has taken place in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic.

            The meeting of approximately 100 people was put together by KPRF activists upset that the Putin regime had orchestrated the defeat of their comrades by first excluding some of them and then falsifying the results in other cases so that the KPRF candidates lost – even though the authorities didn’t give them permission (vkrizis.info/russia/komi-miting-po-michurinski/ and ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/v-syktyvkare-prosel-pervyj-v-rossii-miting-protiv-falsifikacij-na-vyborah-v-gosdumu/458843).

            That the Komi Republic should have been the first is in many ways not especially surprising: its KPRF units have acted more like a banned regionalist party than any others (https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/despite-law-against-regional-parties.html), and Komi residents have long objected to Moscow policies.

            They have voted against Putin in the past, they were active in the successful protests to kill Moscow’s plans to build a trash dump at Shiyes, and they are currently among the leaders in protesting Moscow’s amalgamation of smaller metropolitan districts into larger ones (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/by-criticizing-putins-war-komi-deputy.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/05/komi-activists-say-liquidation-of-local.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/public-power-law-nail-in-coffin-of.html).

            Perhaps equally important, Komi activists have a long tradition of acting on their own regardless of what opposition figures in Moscow say, something that explains why they have acted while others are only talking (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/08/moscow-opposition-figures-tried-to-tell.html).

Kremlin Forming Superficial Analogue to USSR's New Soviet People in Form of ‘a People for Whom the Motherland is the Special Military Operation and Putin, Kolesnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – For most of the last two decades, there has been a debate in the Russian Federation about whether the Kremlin intends to create a variant of “the Soviet people” by its promotion of the idea of non-political Russianness (rossisskost’) in place of all ethnic groups, Russian and non-Russian alike.

            But Novaya Gazeta commentator Andrey Kolesnikov suggests that that is not what Putin is seeking but rather the creation of “a people for whom the Motherland is the Special Military Operation and Putin,” an arrangement even more disturbing now and in the future than the one many have suspected (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/09/25/izobretenie-natsii).

            This process of “reinventing” the nation began when Putin took power by blowing up Russian apartment blocks, expanded with his war against Ukraine, and now has taken final shape during the just-completed Duma election campaign, according to Kolesnikov who points to the statements Putin and his apologists have made.

            In recent months, the commentator says, these people have insisted that “citizenship of Russia is citizenship in the special military operation and that the voters of Russia are voters of the special military operation” in order to argue that “the very fact of taking part in the elections is equal to voting for the special military operation.”

            Some may draw an analogy between this new definition of nationhood and that which the Soviet authorities did when they proclaimed the formation of the new Soviet people, Kolesnikov says; but the differences are enormous and consequential given that Sovietism was internationalist and rather than, as Putin’s nation is, nationalist, imperialist and aggressive.

“The ‘"special military operation’ is thus a battle for identity. It is being waged by a "garrison state" backed—according to the narrative pushed by propaganda and top officials—by a united nation. The theme of unity is paramount; hence the eradication of any alternative thinking or pacifist discourse.”

And at least for the time being, Putin has reinvented the nation out of the populace of the Russian Federation and transformed it in directions that are not limited in its goals, that is, the goals of the regime, in space or in time except perhaps with the passing of the current Kremlin leader.

Vilnius Reports Increase in Hate Crimes against Muslims and Fears This will Spark Radicalization of Islamic Community There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – Two weeks ago, a group of bikers surrounded a mosque in Kaunas and disrupted prayers there by their actions. Criminal cases have been opened against the bikers That is the most dramatic case of what the Lithuanian Department of State Security says is an increase in violence against Muslims there over the past several months.

            In response to queries, the VSD said that it believes that “the risk of violent criminal acts against the property of this community or its members will increase in the near future” (novayagazeta.ee/articles/2026/09/25/v-litve-rastet-risk-prestuplenii-protiv-musulmanskoi-obshchiny-vsd-news).

            The government agency said that there are currently “several right-win extremist groups” in Lithuania whose activities are animated by a hatred of foreigners” and expressed concern as well that this could lead to the radicalization of Muslims living in Estonia, “although no such cases have been recorded” up to now.

            Tragically, such attitudes and actions are found in many countries; and they all need to be combatted. But fortunately, Vilnius is being pro-active in doing so, not only bringing charges against those who commit violence against Muslims but also by expressing concern that such actions will generate Islamist radicalism in response.

            That pattern sets Lithuania apart from countries like the Russian Federation where attacks on Muslims are often minimized and where officials go out of their way to blame the victims of such attacks for any anger they show rather than recognizing that it is the nationalism of groups the regime is thereby protecting that is to blame. 

Moscow Moves to Geld Jury Trials Effectively Abolishing This Right

Paul Goble

Staunton, Sept. 24 – Russian officials have never liked the fact that jury trials when they take place do not find the accused guilty in approximately a third of the cases while those in which the judge decides return such not guilty verdicts only once in approximately every 500 cases.

Abolishing jury trials would spark outrage among many Russians and the international community, and so the Kremlin has adopted a different strategy: not only restricting the kinds of cases that can go before a jury but now changing jury trials in ways that effectively geld them (echofm.online/news/verhovnyj-sud-predlozhil-sokratit-chislo-prisyazhnyh-i-vklyuchit-sudyu-v-ih-kollegiyu).

The Russian Supreme Court has proposed a reform which it says will make the system fairer, retaining jury trials in principle but reducing the number of jurors in all cases and including the presiding judge among them when they come to decide upon their verdicts, something that will effectively geld them and points to their ultimate demise in Russia.

The proposed reform also calls for allowing people over 65 to serve on juries, an age group most likely to defer to the authorities, and for reducing the number of bases for appellate courts to set aside findings of non-guilty, something intended to take some of the sting out of the other changes.

            Rights activists say that if the reform goes through, it will further reduce the role of juries and may ultimately render them totally ineffective as the last line of defense for those accused by the government of committing crimes. (For a discussion of these objections, see  business-gazeta.ru/article/711971.)

Duma Election Presents Updated Version of ‘Missing One Percent’ of Soviet Votes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 -- In Soviet times, Western analysts gleaned enormous insights into the attitudes of various non-Russian peoples in the USSR by analyzing small variations in the level of support voters in the various union republics gave to the always unopposed CPSU list of candidates.

            In a 1968 American Political Science Review article, Jerome Gilison described this effort in an article often familiarly and sometimes slightingly referred to as “The Missing One Percent” (cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/soviet-elections-as-a-measure-of-dissent-the-missing-one-percent/DBF1CB977BA60CC6DFBDBED7E0BCD096).

            Now, a half century later, analysts in both Russia and the West are moving back toward to analyzing Russian elections in a similar way, considering relatively small, albeit larger than in Soviet times, variations in levels of participation and support for Vladimir Putin among different ethnic and regional groups.

            The differences in the share of the vote opposition parties and candidates show now, of course, reflects not just differences in actual support but also variations in the amount of manipulation and falsification of results by officials in different places. But the variations are still striking among groups that lost but received very different support in different places.

            The People of Baikal portal surveyed the results of opposition figures across Russia east of the Urals as well as offering suggestions about why the division of votes for United Russia and for other parties was so different elsewhere, even though overwhelmingly United Russia won (baikal-stories.media/2026/09/23/gde-zhivut-samye-protestnye-izbirateli/).

             “As usual,” the portal says, “as usual, the least votes were won by United Russia in large cities, and most of all in poor rural areas.” It did least well either when KPRF candidates offered an anti-war message as well as a left one and did especially poorly in rural regions where the government has pushed development over the objections of local people.

            The Barents Observer portal noted that United Russia lagged behind the all-Russ Duma figures in many votes for legislative assemblies, doing least well among these bodies in Karelia (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/hudsij-rezultat-edinoj-rossii-na-vyborah-v-zaksobranie-karelii/458588).

            But the Kremlin party of power did less well in these votes in other regions where such elections were held, including Vologda, Kirov, Tomsk, and Novgorod in particular, all places where local grievances overwhelmed government-promoted support for United Russia candidates.

            And the Horizontal Russia portal focused on the place in the Russian Federation where United Russia did the worst and opposition parties the best, elections in a Buryat village where United Russia succeeded in garnering only 15 percent of those taking part in the election (semnasem.org/news/2026/09/21/edinaya-rossiya-nabrala-15-na-vyborah-v-buryatskom-sele-gde-hotyat-dobyvat-mineraly-protiv-voli-zhitelej).

            People in that village and those in neighboring ones voted against United Russia because that party backs the development of an apatite deposit there, something people in the region have been opposing without success for more than a year. Not surprisingly, the republic governor, Aleksey Tsydenov, explained this patter by the work of “outside agitators.”

            This recrudescence of the “one-percent” phenomenon does not obscure the fact that United Russia won overwhelmingly and almost everywhere, but it does show that variations in the voting for it as opposed to other parties and candidates are important signs of where anger about the regime is greatest and thus the willingness to protest is as well.

Study of Impact of Real Unemployment on Crime Highlights How Moscow Undercounts Number of People Officially Unemployed

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – Russians are aware that one of the reasons that official unemployment is so low is that Moscow counts as unemployed only those who have registered as being without work at an employment center, something many without a job either temporarily or for a long time don’t do.

            But they are not aware that there is a broader category that better captures the share of Russians without work: “able-bodied people without a permanent source of income.” That category is rarely discussed, but the To Be Precise portal uses it to discuss the impact of real unemployment on crime (tochno.st/materials/kazdyi-vtoroi-osuzdennyi-na-moment-prestupleniia-ne-imel-postoiannogo-doxoda).

            The portal notes that “every second person at the same of the commission of crime had not permanent income,” nine times more than among all Russians. While this figure has been declining in recent years, it still calls attention to how many more people form this broader category of genuinely unemployed than does the official figure.

            Because it has become easier for people to find temporary or part-time work since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, To Be Precise says, “the number of people whom the courts classify as able-bodied persons without a permanent source of income has also been reduced.” But this statistic still remains higher than official unemployment.

            What this means is that those concerned with Russia’s real unemployment rate need to examine court documents rather than accept uncritically Moscow’s boasts about just how low unemployment in Russia really is, not an easy task but one required if one is to learn just how widespread unemployment there remains even now.