Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Russia’s Water Supply Network Would Lead to Disaster and Moscow would Be to Blame, ‘NeMoskva’ Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 5 – Because Moscow has failed for 25 years to do much to modernize the water supply networks of Russia, Ukrainian drone attacks on those networks can lead to a “cascading” disaster much as such attacks on oil and gas already have, according to Tatyana Rybakova of the NeMoskva portal.

            It is a good question, she says, just how many parts of that system will have to be attacked to “start cascading decay.” And she asks further “does the Ukrainian military know this?” and does Moscow and its minions?  But increasingly the Russian people can and do (nemoskva.net/2026/08/05/ne-pavodok-vinovat-pochemu-v-rossijskih-gorodah-propadayut-voda-i-svet/).

            Communal services are breaking down in Russian cities not so much because of natural disasters like flooding, Rybakova continues, but because of the inaction of officials in Moscow and in the regions. Experts have been warning that the government needs to act, but despite that, it hasn’t taken the necessary steps.

            Between 40 and 80 percent of the country’s water network has aged to the point that it is ready to collapse when any strain is put on it, either by floods or by drones, she says; but officials are happy to continue to blame flooding rather than address the root cause and thus are leaving Russia open to a new line of attack.

            Two things make this situation especially explosive, Rybakova continues. On the one hand, officials have been only to willing to allow charges for water to rise without using the money collected as intended; and on the other, they have not developed a country-wide grid so that problems in one place could quickly be helped to overcome them by others.

            Russians are increasingly angry about both, she suggests; and if Ukrainian drone attacks exacerbate the situation further, that could lead to an explosion, with Russians connecting the dots and placing the blame where it really belongs: on Putin for his failure to invest in water infrastructure as well as for his launching of the expanded war against Ukraine.

Putin’s Call for Developing Online Work Opportunities in Rural Areas By Itself Won’t Hold People There, Three Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 11 – To prevent the depopulation of large swaths of the territory of the Russian Federation, something that would threaten the country’s security, Vladimir Putin says he favors using modern technologies so that people who live in rural areas and small cities can work remotely rather than have to move to major metropolises.

            But three experts surveyed by the Regional Comment portal say that such an effort by itself will not prevent the decline of population in rural areas and smaller cities (regcomment.ru/reviews/aglomeratsionnye-svyazi-vmesto-izyatiya-deneg-kak-vyrovnyat-razvitie-regionov-bez-konfliktov/).

            Artemy Vvedensky, head of the Russian Field polling organization, says that Moscow must first of all distinguish two different reasons for rural depopulation: the natural loss of people by aging and the outflow of younger people. Any strategy that focuses only on one of these issues won’t work for all.

            He adds that “according to our research,” young Russians in rural areas and smaller cities “don’t leave for money.” Instead, they seek places where they can interact with others of their own age and interests. Those are more common in larger cities than in smaller ones and especially than in villages.

            And Vvedensky says that the most interesting finding of his research is that once people make a move from a village to a small city, they are more likely to move on to larger ones, having learned that they can adapt and therefore that a further move to an ever larger city or even abroad seems entirely reasonable.

            Stanislav Koryakin, a political consultant who is a member of Russia’s Public Chamber, says that the main task is to avoid trying to hold people “administratively” but rather to “create conditions” under which the decision to remain in rural areas or small cities is “a conscious choice.”

            That will be possible only if the government works to ensure “a comparable basic standard of living, regardless of the remoteness of the territory,” he says, something that is now not being done. And a standard of living involves not just pay but a sense that there is justice for all.

            And Igor Dachenkov, director of the Region Media group, says the government has to think bigger. Even if a young person can work remotely in a village, what will he do if he gets sick and there is no hospital?  Accordingly, the provision of “basic social infrastructure” is more important that creating any “digital environment.”

Over Last Five Years, Number of Ethnic Russians in Estonia has Fallen while Number of Ethnic Ukrainians has Doubled

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 11 – The ethnic composition of the population of Estonia has changed since the 2021 census, according to new figures for 2026 just released by the state statistical office. The number of ethnic Estonians has remained little changed, but the share of ethnic Russians has declined and the number of ethnic Ukrainians has doubled.

            The Postimees newspaper has published a selection of this new demographic data (rus.postimees.ee/8525051/statistika-v-estonii-sokratilos-chislo-russkih-i-vyroslo-chislo-ukraincev), Among the most important of its new numbers are the following:

•  Estonians dominate in all age groups. Among children and young people, the Estonian share exceeds 70 percent; but among the elderly, the Estonian share is lower than that and that of others, including the ethnic Russians, higher.

• The number of ethnic Ukrainians has increased dramatically especially since February 2022 when Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine. They now form 5.5 percent of the Estonian population.

• Under Estonian law, individuals can change their nationality by applying to the government. Over the last three years, 23,686 have done so, shifting from ethnic Russian to some other nationality.

• 82.2 percent of the population has Estonian citizenship, while 5.5. percent of the population consists of citizens of the Russian Federation and 4.6 percent citizens of Ukraine.

• 65.4 percent of the residents speak Estonian as their native language, 26.9 percent identify Russian as their native language, and 4.1 percent Ukrainian. More than 5,000 identify English as their native language and 4,000 Finnish.

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Make Federalism ‘Sexy’ Again Now, Free Buryatia Activist Says

Paul Goble     

            Staunton, Aug. 10 – Russia can only make progress after the departure of Putin by becoming a genuine rather than a fraudulent federation, and that can only happen if those who understand that get to work now and make federalism “sexy” again, according to Aleksandra Garmazhapova.

            The founder of the Free Buryatia Foundation who has been in exile since 2022 says that she is convinced that Russia after Putin will “either become a real federation or it will reproduce the empire yet again” and that to have the chance for progress in the future, that is a primary task now (semnasem.org/articles/2026/08/10/make-federation-sexy).

            Despite its name, Russia is not a federation, Garmazhapova says. It was not formed on a voluntary basis, does not offer equal rights to all its components, does not give the federal subjects the power to set and collect taxes on their own, and decide on their own what they and their populations want.

            According to the activist, “regions should have the right to determine their priorities, social, cultural and linguistic. We have this on paper, of course, but in fact, everything is determined by Moscow” and the federal subjects have been reduced to being little more than the executors of the will of the center.

            Garmazhapova says she doesn’t understand either of the two most widely expressed objections to this: those who say the future requires the disintegration of the Russian state as a whole and those who insist that there cannot be any change in borders at all, with some leaving and others forming a new whole.

            The former fail to address the possibility that not everyone wants to leave and that there are disputes among the regions that must be addressed. And the latter fail to recognize that if some people want to pursue independence that is their fundamental right and it must be respected.

“Ideally,” she says, “we should talk about what can be done so that people do not want to leave the federation, because they would have a successful life. Make the federation sexy again” is the principle she wants to see realized rather than tearing the country apart or keeping it together by force alone.

Putin’s Aggression Against Ukraine Arose from the Same Impulse as His Destruction of Federalism at Home, Lea and Taskin Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 11 – Convinced that Russia cannot survive without a single powerful leader, Putin dismantled federalism within the country and then turned to attacking democracies along that country’s peripheries in the hope of surrounding Russia with “a belt of authoritarian states,” Aaron Lea and Boruch Taskin say.

            In fact, the two Israeli analysts of Russian origin argue, Putin’s war against Georgia and then against Ukraine “is not an anomaly but rather a continuation of the same policy in a different theater, one intended to extend what he had done at home to these countries as well (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6A7B0050D9BBB).

            While the two do not make the point that the only way to ensure that a Russia in the future will not be engaged in aggressive action against its neighbors more or less forever is to ensure the creation and rooting of genuine federalism inside the borders of that state whatever they turn out to be.

            If that does not happen – and the two suggest that the personalist dictatorship Putin offers is congruent with what most Russians think and support – then the future of the world as long as a Russia without a federation in place will be bleak indeed, full of wars designed to transform other countries into something like Russia itself.

            The myth that Putin has promoted and that many Russians accept that autocracy is “a natural necessity” for Russia is currently costing the country its freedom, its blood and approximately 10,000 US dollars annually in income. Indeed, that figure is “the true price of the destruction of federalism and the deathonomics Putin has created.”

            Putin says Russia must be run by a single all-powerful leader or it will disintegrate, Lea and Taskin say; but that is nonsense, however widely it is believed by Russians themselves or even by others beyond the borders of that country implicitly or even explicitly.

            “Counties of comparable size and ethnic diversity – India, Brazil and the United States – exist as stable federations unthreatened by the prospect of disintegration,” the two write. And presumably Russia could exist as a federation however much Putin and his ideologues insist otherwise and however much people accept his words as gospel.

            But, Lea and Taskin says, the survival of Putin’s power vertical is very much in doubt because it is “vulnerable at the very point where any physical process breaks downs. The masses are not disillusioned by logical arguments. Indeed, sanctions, losses and isolation merely reenforce his ‘besieged fortress’ narrative.”

            “Yet that narrative could instantly dissolve in the face of economic paralysis, the disappearance of its arbiter or disillusionment with a war that yields no victory,” the two conclude.” Because that is so, what genuine Russian federalism could look like and how Putin’s approach could be reversed merit more attention than they are receiving.

‘Only Desert in Europe’ Spreading Across Southwestern Russia, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 11 – In northern Dagestan, Kalmykia, and adjoining Russian, “the only desert in Europe” is rapidly spreading as a result of global warming, growing human consumption of water, and poor agricultural practices, experts at the Moscow Institute of Oceanology and the Institute of Land Sciences of the Southern Federal University say.

            Tragically, instead of launching a full-scale attack on the problem, the people in the region have done little because the government has not funded programs that do exist to the necessary level and private entrepreneurs have not acted on their own, Aleksey Baliyev, a Stoletiye commentator says (stoletie.ru/ekonomika/vmesto_zemli__pesok_106.htm).

            The desertification of this enormous territory, he says on the basis of the research at the two Russian academic centers, is not only reducing agricultural production across the once-rich region and even forcing the outmigration of residents who no longer have access to sufficient potable water to survive but contributing to the dying of the Caspian Sea.

            Water flowing in the rivers from the north evaporates or is absorbed by the newly desertified territories and so does not replenish the water of the Caspian now being lost by evaporation and filtration. Because of these broader consequences, any serious anti-desertification effort must be led by the government.

            For background on desertification in Russia in recent decades, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/conflicts-over-water-intensify-in.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/climate-change-and-official.html and  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/because-of-global-warming-550-square.html.

Migrant Workers Forced to Change Places of Residence Frequently and Thus Face Xenophobic Russian Attitudes More Often, ‘Russian Migration’ Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 10 – Eight out of ten Russian employers of immigrant workers don’t help them to find and keep housing, and as a result, 37 percent are forced to constantly change where they live, something that exacerbates attitudes both among them and among xenophobic landlords, according to a new survey by the Russian Migration organization.

            In response to this situation, the survey by a group that seeks to defend immigrants found, 43 percent of migrants rely on friends and relatives, something that reenforces their tendency to form ethnic enclaves, or turn to Internet listings, where they like other Russians are often subject to manipulation and exploitation (akcent.site/novosti/45675).

            What this means is that the Kremlin’s effort to reduce the number of immigrants by means other than the use of visas infuriating both non-Russians who are experiencing these aspects of Russian life and ethnic Russian residents who are thus more likely to come into contact with immigrants than would otherwise be the case.

            And what that means is obvious: the means the Russian government has adopted to try to ensure that migrants won’t cause social problems or engage in violence of any kind are not solving that problem but in fact making it worse either directly inside Russia or in the homelands of the migrants if they are forced to return there.