International Movement to Save the Caspian Sea Outlines Its Three Goals for the Future

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 5 – Fourteen months after activists launched the International Movement to Save the Caspian Sea (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/02/save-caspian-sea-organization-holds.html), participants in the group from various countries have come together to outline their goals.

            Their goals, members of the group say, are to counter the three most serious problems the Caspian faces: falling water levels in the Caspian, the absence of transparency in deals between littoral states and oil companies about drilling, and the increasing pollution of that inland sea (ulysmedia.kz/analitika/69201-more-problem-kakie-shagi-delaet-save-the-caspian-sea-chtoby-spasti-kaspii/).

            The movement, created by a Kazakhstan ecologist, is modeled on the anti-nuclear Nevada-Semipalatinsk group and on various groups that have tried, without much success, to save the Aral Sea in Central Asia and is claiming success in attracting international attention to the fate of a body of water so large its disappearance strikes many as an impossibility.

            Its most significant action so far was the holding of a Save the Caspian Week in August 2025 which released a program of “ten steps for the saving of the Caspian Sea.” The new three point program suggests that the movement is seeking to expand its influence by focusing on what it sees as the most critical issues so far. 

Residents of Cities in Russian North Feel Increasingly Insecure Because of Shortage of Policemen

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 2 – The shortage of policemen across the Russian Federation has hit residents of cities in the northern portions of that country especially hard and they say they no longer feel secure because there is little chance any police will show up if they call to report crimes, Denis Zagorye of The Barents Observer says.

            Most of the northern regions are suffering from even greater shortages of police than the national average, the journalist reports, citing both regional media (nord-news.ru/news/2026/03/02/?newsid=211461) and interviews with local people (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/zarezut-prihodite-na-severe-rossii-ne-hvataet-policejskih/446058).

            The situation is deteriorating in most of them, but the regional governments lack the funds to do anything about it. Instead, Zagorye says, they are relying on Moscow to provide such moneys – but as of now, the central Russian government hasn’t, and people in the north are increasingly alarmed. 

            It may very well be that the specter of “a police state without enough police” (jamestown.org/war-against-ukraine-leaving-russian-police-state-without-enough-police/)  will occur in the northern cities of Russia, places where private citizens disproportionately have their own weapons and may use them if they can no longer count on officials to protect them.

Traditional Methods of Holding Russian Federation Together Becoming ‘Ever Less Effective,’ Observers in the Urals Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 4 – For the first 20 years of his reign, Putin relied on a social contract in which the people were to remain loyal “in exchange for relative economic stability and the distribution of rents from the sale of raw materials abroad.” But that is no longer possible, according to a homemaker in the Urals writing anonymously.

            Now, the regime is offering the population something far more honest but also more brutal and less attractive, she says, and that is “austerity in exchange for survival,” a deal that “sets in motion processes which make the decolonization of the Russian empire as currently configured inevitable” (region.expert/contract/).

            According to her, “the economic basis of the old contract has disappeared. The share of oil and gas revenues in the budget has fallen below 20%, hydrocarbon revenues in January fell to half of what they had been, and the overall deficit for the first month has reached almost half of the annual plan.”

            Moscow is compounding this problem by taxing many who weren’t taxed before and by the redistribution of money to support the war in Ukraine, two thing s which have “hit the middle class and skilled workers in the regions harder than Moscow expected” – and that is provoking anger and a greater willingness to protest, according to polls taken by officials.

            That is leading to discussions not only among the populations of the federal subjects but among the leaders of these oblasts, krays and republics over how much they are giving to the center and how much they are receiving back. When the answer becomes obvious, people and officials are talking about a revision of federal relations or even complete independence.

            The Urals homemaker says that “the Russian Empire and the USSR maintained a multinational space through the centralized redistribution of resources;” but when that became impossible, the result was the same: “national and regional elites bean to reassess the benefits of remaining part” of those states and those states collapsed.

            The situation in the Russian Federation today differs not only in scale but in the speed with which it is happening, she continues. “The war in Ukraine is accelerating the depletion of resources while sanctions and declining revenues from exports are making the restoration of the old model impossible.”

            “The Kremlin is attempting to compensate for the economic deficit with ideological and repressive measures: the narrative of ‘patience for the sake of the front,’ the strengthening of the church's role in promoting ‘humility,’ and harsh signals to governors about the need to maintain a "manageable background," the homemaker says.

            “But in regions with a strong identity and resource base, this narrative is causing open irritation. In Tatarstan and Sakha, for example, voices are already being heard calling for the need to protect their interests from a centralized ‘common good,’ which increasingly looks like a unilateral expropriation.”

            That doesn’t mean that the Russian Federation is about to disintegrate in the immediate future. “Decolonization here,” she says, “does not immediately mean disintegration in the classical sense. It can manifest itself in milder forms from de facto increased autonomy” to “demands for a revision of tax arrangements” and a refusal to send taxes revenues to Moscow.

            “But even these "mild" scenarios undermine the imperial vertical: the metropolis-center loses control over resources and loyalty. By 2026, the Muscovite princes themselves have destroyed the main glue that held the system together—the illusion of a mutually beneficial agreement,” she continues.

            And she concludes that the center’s new offer – “quiet survival in exchange for increasing austerity” – “isn’t sustainable” in the long run in a multi-national country. As more and more people in the federal subjects recognize what is going on, they will be less and less willing to have it continue.

Ever Fewer Russians Attending Universities, Closing Off that Social Escalator and Leaving Russia Further Behind Advanced Countries, Kulbaka Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 3 – Since Putin became Kremlin leader, the share of secondary school graduates going on to the universities and the number of university students have both fallen, effectively closing off that important social escalator and leaving Russia ever further behind advanced countries, Nikolay Kulbaka says.

            In Soviet times, officials twice worked to reduce these numbers out of concern that the USSR needed more workers and peasants rather than members of the intelligentsia, but this time around, the Moscow economist says, it isn’t certain whether this is the result of a conscious policy or a reflection of a lack of funds (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/rossia-vse-bolshe-otstaet-po-urovnju-obrazovania-ot-razvityh-stran-eto-sluchainost-ili-sistemnaja-politika).

            On the one hand, the costs of going on to higher education have risen astronomically in recent years, putting such schooling beyond the reach of many; but on the other, the government has reduced the number and amount of scholarship support that could compensate for these price increases.

            But as is most likely, the decline in the number of university students in Russia from seven million in 2010 to four million in 2020 and in the share of secondary school graduates going on to university from86 percent in 2019 to 60 percent in 2024 is the product of both factors, Kulbaka suggests.

            These declines mean, he continues, that there will be fewer opportunities for young Russians to improve their social and economic standing by means of education and Russia itself will increasingly suffer as it faces a growing shortage of educated people and falls ever further behind other advanced countries in that regard.

            If this trend continues for even five more years, Kulbaka says, this will lead to a situation in which Russia will be “fatally” behind these countries as far as the development of technology is concerned, a development which he describes as something “very sad.”

Anger about Putin’s Closing of Village Schools So Intense and Widespread Moscow has Decided Not to Shutter Any More Before Duma Elections

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 3 – When Vladimir Putin came to power, there were more than 45,000 village schools. Now, there are fewer than half that number, the result of his “optimization” program that has accelerated as the Kremlin ruler searches for places to take money to pay for his expanded war in Ukraine.

            But many in Russia’s villages are angry because the program has been carried out with little regard to local interests or even demography – in some places schools have been shut down even though there are many young families present – and villagers have protested against the program.

            (On this rising tide of protest beyond the ring road and outside of even smaller cities and only rarely being reported in Moscow, see tribuna.nad.ru/uroki-optimizacii-kak-v-komi-razrushayut-selskoe-obrazovanie, rtvi.com/stories/inache-my-vymrem-reforma-shkol-privela-k-ih-likvidaczii/, sreda42.pro/articles/tpost/x6yiijnb11-zakritie-shkol-v-kuzbasse-masshtabnaya-o and deita.ru/article/573872).  

            Now, in a concession to the power of rural anger about this program, the Russian government has decided to suspend the closure of any additional village schools until after the Duma elections lest villagers among Putin’s most loyal supporters vote against his United Russia Party (zebra-tv.ru/novosti/vlast/vo-vladimire-na-god-priostanovyat-obedinenie-shkol/ and svpressa.ru/politic/article/505379/).

            That may not be enough because many rural Russians are suspicious about why Moscow is closing their schools and about what it will do next. One retired teacher in a village near Arkhangelsk recalled the words of a local priest: village schools weren’t closed “even in the Great Fatherland War, so what is happening now that makes this necessary?” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/02/28/urok-muzhestva).

Moscow Plays Ethnic Card by Having Russians with Ukrainian Roots Attack Kyiv in Diplomatic and Media Spheres

Paul Goble     

            Staunton, Mar. 5 – It should come as no surprise given Moscow’s long tradition of playing the ethnic card to advance Kremlin interests, but some may not have noticed how many Russians with Ukrainian roots and names are now being deployed by the Putin regime to denigrate the land of their ancestors.

            On the one hand, of course, this provides support for Putin’s claim that Russians and Ukrainians aren’t two nations but one; but on the other and likely more important, it suggests that some that many Ukrainians are already in Putin’s corner and that even more will be if he occupies Ukraine.

            Perhaps the most prominent of these Ukrainian Russians is Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations who on occasion has suggested that he is “more Ukrainian” than his Ukrainian counterpart at the UN or even Kyiv’s deputy foreign minister, journalist Aleksey Blokhin says (pointmedia.io/story/69a94626e657f59b666dced4).

            But he is far from the only Ukrainian Russian Moscow uses to advance its positions. Flamboyant Moscow commentator Vladimir Soloyev routinely hosts self-identified Ukrainians on his television program  to show that “one need not sacrifice Ukraine’s language or attachment to its culture to become part of the Russian political mainstream.”

            Pro-Moscow Ukrainians who have fled to Russia since 2022 form a major part of the radical nationalist Z segment of the Telegram channel world and also work as part of a network of internet sites that disseminate Moscow’s messages and seek thereby to legitimate them in Ukraine and more broadly, Blokhin says.

            Moscow uses Ukrainian Russians as “peace” negotiators with Kyiv to promote Kremlin notions that Ukrainians are divided and that many support Putin’s war aims. No one should fall for this tactic but rather understand that those engaged in this process aren’t reflecting the views of Ukrainians but of Russians in the Kremlin. 

Mounting Debt of Russia’s Federal Subjects Prompting Regional Officials to Focus on Their Own Problems Rather than on Moscow’s, Shiryayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 28 – At the end of 2025, 74 federal subject budgets were in the red to the tune of 1.5 trillion rubles (20 billion US dollars), while the others had surpluses of only 46 billion rubles (600 million US dollars), an indication that “the system has devoured itself” and one that is creating the basis for a serious political crisis, Vyacheslav Shiryayev says.

            The MGIMO economist says that regions in deficit are rapidly cutting back their spending, often on things that their own populations care about like schools and hospitals, and officials there aren’t getting the kickbacks from firms that have served as the basis for loyalty to Moscow in the past (nemoskva.net/2026/02/28/sistema-sozhrala-sama-sebya-ekonomist-vyacheslav-shiryaev-o-byudzhetnoj-katastrofe-v-regionah-strany/).

            As a result of this which itself reflects Kremlin decisions, leaders in the regions are increasingly focusing on their own problems rather than about what Moscow wants, a shift that could become the basis for the rise of regionalist movements if things continue for very long and that in fact reflects a mistaken Moscow policy intended to protect the center.

            After all, Shiryayev says, since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, “Moscow has been shifting responsibility downwards as it doesn’t want to think or know anything about the problems of the regions.” The message from the center to the regions is “make your own decisions; manage yourselves.”

            That may help the Kremlin in the short term, but in the longer one, regional leader who have been told to make their own decisions without changes in the tax system to give them more money to do so are certain to become more recalcitrant when it comes to following orders and ever more prepared to do what Moscow mistakenly asked them to do: act on their own.