Shift to Single-Chamber Parliament and to Exclusive Party List Voting Weakening Links between Astana and Kazakhstan’s Regions, Barayeva Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 8 – The shift to a single-chamber parliament in Kazakhstan and the exclusive use of party list voting to fill it is seriously weakening links between the central government in Astana and Kazakhstan’s far-flung regions, according to an analysis published by the Barayeva telegram channel.

            People in the regions no longer have representation in an upper house based on regions or identify with a specific candidate given shift from single-member districts to party list voting (eadaily.com/ru/news/2026/10/08/kazahstanskiy-kurultay-ne-sposoben-obespechit-svyaz-regionov-s-vlastyami-baraeva).

            That may nationalize politics in Kazakhstan as the country’s leadership clearly intends, but it will mean that the regions will view the capital as something different and distant especially as all of them retain senate-type government structures and use single-member district voting.

            In the event of a crisis, the Barayeva telegram channel suggests, that could lead to a situation that might threaten national integration and thus even the territorial integrity of the country, especially given differences in the ethnic composition of the regions and in their economies.

            Should that prove to be the case, what is now being celebrated as a step forward by many analysts and media outlets may prove to be something else entirely.

Use of House Arrest Spreads in Russia, Saving State Costs of Incarceration but Harming More than Just Those Kept in It, ‘Takiye Dela’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 6 – House arrest in the Russian Federation is increasingly used to save the state the cost of placing criminals in jails and prison camps and also to allow the courts to limit the actions of members of more privileged groups to a less severe form of punishment, the Takiye dela portal says.

            House arrest arose informally in Russia in the 19^th century. It was formally declared a permitted form of sentence by the Soviets but not used by them. But since the end of the USSR, the Russian state has used it ever more frequently, saving itself money and allowing the privileged to avoid being put behind bars, the portal says (takiedela.ru/notes/domashniy-arest/).

            Many Russians, Takiye dela says, view it as not a sentence at all; but lawyers and human rights activists say that those who are confined to their residences and forced to wear warning bracelets suffer as do the members of their families who continue to live with them. Consequently, the increase in its use is another way the state is saving money for other purposes.

            Formally but not always in practice, house arrest “cannot be a sentence.” Instead, the criminal code says it is “exclusively” a way to ensure that someone will not disappear while his or her case is being investigated. The law establishes that two days in home detention count as one when the total sentence is set, a sign that the powers view it as a softer form of punishment.

Members of Groups Referred to as ‘Small Peoples’ or ‘Nationalities’ Don’t Like These Terms, ‘Komi Daily’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 8 – Many human communities on the territory of today’s Russian Federtion are called “small peoples” or “nationalities,” but those who ae members of such groups don’t like these terms because in the first case this term is dismissive and in the second suggests that they haven’t developed enough to be a nation, in contrast to the Russians, Komi Daily says.

            Moreover, the independent émigré outlet of the Komi people says that many are also unhappy to be lumped in one group as “the non-Russian peoples,” not just because it makes the Russians “the point of reference” but also because it is typically used dismissively (komidaily.com/2026/10/08/kak-korrektno-govoritt-pro-korennye-narody/).

            “There is no perfect term, “ the Komi Daily portal acknowledges but suggests that “indigenous peoples” and “ethnic minorities” are more neutral and thus better.  And the use of words like these matters because otherwise much coverage of such groups manifests a kind of exoticism, a tendency to focus only on what makes them different from Russians.

            That is not only offensive, the portal continues, but dangerous because it suggests that to become a real nation, they have to give something up and because it ignores that in many cases Russians are doing many of the same things as the indigenous peoples but under different names, including broader categories like polygamy and clans.

            And related to this is another terminological danger. Many Russians and even some indigenous peoples use words like “mastering” or “discovery” to talk about the history and development of the regions in which the latter live and always have. It would be far better, the portal says, to use “the broader term ‘colonization.’”

Kremlin ‘Gradually Suppressing’ Regionally Distinct Political Cultures but Only as Far as Public Declarations are Concerned, Gilyev Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 5 – Aleksey Gilyev, a Russian scholar at the University of Helsinki, says that Russia remains “incredibly diverse in terms of its regions” but that the Kremlin is “gradually suppressing regionally distinct political cultures because it believes that such variations are “signs of weakness.”

            The political scientist, who has conducted a variety of surveys in the Russian Federation, says that the Putin regime has been more successful in getting Russians in various parts of the country to declare that they share a common political culture than in getting them to actually adopt it (semnasem.org/articles/2026/10/05/aleksey-gilev-rossiyane-vlast-propaganda).

            That is because on that issue just as in cases of the assessment of the 1990s or the economic situation now and others involving the future course of the war in Ukraine what people say they feel when asked global questions is quite different than what they report when more narrowly focused questions are used.

            Thus, for example, Russians overwhelmingly say they support Putin’s war in Ukraine but they also say they don’t want mobilization and would like to see peace. This reflects the fact that people evaluate issues globally according to one set of criteria and their own experiences and involvement in terms of a different set.

            While Gilyev does not address this specifically in his interview with Horizontal Russia, it is thus likely that rising poll numbers in support of a common Russia-wide political culture are at variance with the actual support people in various places have when the questions are asked about their personal experiences.

Elected Mayors Remain in Only Two Capitals of Federal Subjects and They Will Disappear in 2029, but Elected Mayors Will Continue in Many Smaller Cities

Paul Goble

            Staunton,  Oct. 6 – Putin’s campaign to strengthen governors whom he appoints against the mayors of cities that until 2010 were mostly elected is succeeding, with only two of the capitals of federal subjects – Abakan of the Khakass Republic and Anadyr of the Chukotka AD – remaining.

            In 2029, the terms of these two mayors will run out; and elections will no longer be held to fill them. As a result, the heads of these cities will be effectively reduced to “deputy governors” who won’t challenge the Kremlin-appointed heads of the regions and republics (svpressa.ru/politic/article/534984/).

            But this Putin effort has not yet reached all of the smaller cities in the federal subjects. There in many cases, elected mayors remain in place and are likely to do so in the future. And that in turn means that these urban centers could be where real campaigns and even protests will emerge and from which politicians with popular support could come.

            Because such places are small and distant from the centers of power, neither politicians nor opposition figures have focused on the possibilities this survival of Russia’s otherwise all-too-brief experiment with elected mayors; but because these places feature the closet thing to real democracy Putin’s Russia now has, those thinking about the future should focus on them.

            Putin likely will try to reduce the possibility of meaningful elections there not only by the manipulation and falsification of results but also by combining electoral districts and thus making it harder for opposition groups to organize even at that level. But because the Kremlin leader likely doesn’t view this effort as a priority, some cities will likely continue to have votes.

            These are places where prospects for democracy in Russia are still the object of real struggle; and they can be tracked because many of these smaller cities have their own websites that outsiders can access. What is going on won’t be as dramatic as mass protests in Moscow, but it may be that such places will become the seedbeds of democratic change in Russia.

To Prevent Continuation of Imperialist Muscovite State, Ukraine and Its Supporters Must Focus on What Many Now Call Central Russia, Dushin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 7 – Most discussions of the decolonization of the Russian Federation, a move that is the precondition for the demolition of the hyper-centralized imperial state that threatens its own people and the world focus on peripheries far from the center, Igor Dushin says.

            But that is a fundamental mistake because this focus on Siberia and the North Caucasus means that even if they break away, Moscow will be able to continue as an empire for some time to come, according to the Ukrainian activist who is a participant in the Free Ingria movement (region.expert/ukraine-ingria/).

            Of course, the freedom of these regions is important; but if Ukraine and Europe are to be saved from continuing Muscovite attacks, the focus of their decolonization agendas must shift to that section of the Russian Federation that is typically called “European Russia” and viewed even by Ukrainians and others threatened by Moscow as “European Russia.”

            In fact, this geographic region is home to many ethno-national and supra-national regionalist groups; and support for them, even more than support for groups further away from the center will do more and more quickly for the demolition of the Russian empire and the prevention of its continuation after the demise of Vladimir Putin.

            One of the key portions of this region is Ingermanland, the area in northwestern Russia including St. Petersburg and its surrounding lands, Dushin says. It has long sought to go its own way as a supra-national independent state; and if it succeeded, that would quickly reduce the Russian state to a Muscovy far less capable of threatening its people or its neighbors.

            Unfortunately, despite this history and the existence of the Free Ingria movement now, this region and what its independence could mean have attracted relatively little attention even in Ukraine, let alone elsewhere, as a key “submerged nation” whose emergence would help everyone except Russian imperialists. That, Dushin says, needs to change.

            (For background on the history of Ingermanland and today’s Free Ingria movement, see Ott Kurs , “Ingria: The Broken Landbridge Between Estonia and Finland,” GeoJournal 33.1 (1994): 107–113; Ian Matley, “The Dispersal of the Ingrian Finns,” Slavic Review 38:1 (1979): 1-16; windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/two-other-baltic-republics-remembered.html; windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-ingermanlanders-punished-people.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/10/window-on-eurasia-ingermanland-is-ready.html, and the numerous sources cited in these articles.)     

Putin has Not Learned that Expansionist Wars No Longer Build Empires but Lead to Their Downfall, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 7 – Until the start of the 20^th century, the use of military force to build empires was a cost-effective strategy, Vladislav Inozemtsev says, because relatively few troops had to be used to gain the bases of wealth, the occupied lacked the ability to resist, and technology flowed from the military to society rather than the other way around.

            Most leaders around the world have recognized this new reality and avoided trying to build empires by military means alone, the Russian economist says; but one who hasn’t is Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine is likely to lead to the downfall of precisely what he hopes to build (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/10/07/krest-zavoevatelia).

            For most of human history, using armies to conquer land and the natural resources on it, the two key elements of national wealth and power, made sense. Armies were small, losses were restricted in number, and those so occupied were less able to resist because they lacked the resources to do so with confidence, Inozemtsev says.

            But over the course of the last century, each of these elements has changed beyond recognition. Land and the natural resources in it are no longer the most important bases of national wealth and power. Military actions entail far larger losses, and those against whom they are directed can use means others call terrorist to resist, Inozemtsev continues.

            By the end of the 20^th century, it had become clear to most that wars of conquest to build empires represented “a cross of the conqueror,” in which “the willingness of peripheral peoples to resist had increased the price of war … and the decline in the comparable values of resources [like land] relative to production and innovation had reduced” the returns on such actions.

            In short, the Russian economist and commentator says, “by the end of the 20^th century, at least for those who know how to understand history, war had ceased to be an instrument for effective political and economic expansion.” Instead, it put those who launched such military actions at risk of losing the powers their countries had before they started these wars.

            Another change, one seldom attended to, exacerbated the consequences of “the cross of the conqueror” in the 21^st century, Inozemtsev says. ”It concerns the role of war in economic development and technological progress of countries at war or those potentially involved in such conflicts.”

            As war become more technologically advanced in the course of the last century, governments made most of their investments in technology in the military sector and counted on those investments to “spin off” into the civilian sector. But over time, government spending on such investments declined and the private sector increased investments.

            Consequently, in the most recent conflicts, governments have been forced to acquire the technology they need from private sector firms, making the vitality of such firms critical to the success of any military effort. Western countries have such a private sector advantage; Russia quite obviously doesn’t.

            What that means for Russia in its war with Ukraine is this: Putin has launched a war on the basis of an out of date understanding not only of the ability of states to build empires now by military means alone but after having completely failed to understand both Ukraine’s remarkable resilience and Russia’s lack of a vigorous private technological center to support its army.

            Putin’s prospects to achieving his goals are close to zero over the longer term, however many temporary and partial victories he may appear to be winning.