Since 2022, Number of Russians Behind Bars has Fallen 40 Percent, but Spending on Russian Prison System has Gone Up 40 Percent, ‘Vyorstka’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the number of Russians behind bars has fallen by approximately 40 percent, at least in part because prisoners are being released to fight in Ukraine; but over the same period, spending on the Russian prison system has risen by 40 percent.

            That conclusion is offered by the Vyorstka news portal which had access to draft legislation on government spending and compared it to reports of the decline of the number of prisoners (t.me/svobodnieslova/8915 and nemoskva.net/2026/05/16/raskhody-fsin-vyrosli-zaklyuchennykh-menshe/).

            Russian prison officials say that the increased spending reflects efforts directed toward “the humanization” of jails and camps, but Olga Romanova, head of the Russia Behind Bars Foundaiton says that in fact the rise in spending itself is a product of changes since the war in Ukraine began.

            First of all, she tells the NeMoskva portal that “costs have risen due to capital construction.” Despite the reduction in the number of prisoners now, the Russian government is “building a lot of prisons and large ones at that,” an indication that the Kremlin may plan to imprison more people once the war is over.

            Another source of rising costs connected with Ukraine has arisen, Romanova continues, because “Russian authorities are taking over and utilizing existing prisons within the occupied territories. This entails relocating staff and covering their travel and per diem expenses to avoid hiring local personnel, as they suspect them of having ties to Ukraine.”

            What this all means, of course, is that reducing the number of convicts serving time in prisons and camps has not given the Russian government additional money to spend on the war. Instead, the war has meant that even with the cuts in the number of those behind bars, the Russian prison system is now spending far more than it did when it was far larger. 

Has Putin Lost Faith in His Military Commanders in Ukraine? Moscow's Ramping Up Number of Politruks in the Russian Army Suggests that May be the Case

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – Politruks, the Russian acronym for a political officer in the military and who were infamous for their work to shoot those who refused to advance when so ordered and to dictate decisions to officers, were restored by Vladimir Putin in 2018 and since the start of his expanded war in Ukraine have grown dramatically in numbers.

            According to Deputy Defense Minister Viktor Goremykin, “the total pdersonnel strength of these military-political bodies has more than tripled, primarily through the introduction of new positions at the unit level” (redstar.ru/slovom-i-delom/ and kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6A07CFEFBBCDF).

            Although he gave no specific numbers, they are sufficiently large that Izvestiya is reporting that the Main Military-Political Directorate (GlavVoenPUR) is in the process of being reconstituted, an effort slated to be completed by December 1 (iz.ru/806649/aleksei-ramm-aleksei-kozachenko-bogdan-stepovoi/za-klimat-otvetit-glavvoenpur-rotnye-zampolity-snova-v-armii).

            The politruks in the Soviet army during World War II grew out of earlier Bolshevik leaders to control military specialists the regime they served did not trust. Indeed, this lack of trust in the military has continued to be a key aspect of the Russian military – and likely means the Kremlin has growing doubts about its army.

            If that is the case, then the new rise of politruks is perhaps the clearest indication yet that Putin and his regime are no longer confident of either the loyalty or political beliefs of military commanders and soldiers, something that suggests Moscow’s situation with regard to its forces in Ukraine is far worse than many have thought. 

‘Putin’s Next Move will be Toward Civil War’ with a Black Hundreds Group Serving as the Kremlin’s Shock Troops, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 17 – Things have been so bad in Russia for so long that it is a challenge to imagine they will get worse, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but in fact, the worst that the Putin regime can offer the population and the world is still ahead, assuming the Putin regime does not lose power “due to circumstances beyond its control.”

            According to the London-based Russian analyst, that is strongly suggested by a recent BBC study that identified as funders for the extreme right Russian Community, two people, analyst Sergey Mikheyev and billionaire Igor Khudokormov, who have close ties to people close to Putin (t.me/v_pastukhov/1906 reposted at charter97.org/ru/news/2026/5/17/684373/).

            “The link between the Presidential Administration and the Russian Communities, a connection already obvious but not proven, represents a fundamental fact that throws light on a powerful trend: the managed slide toward some homegrown variety of Nazism,” Pastukhov says.

            As the London-based analyst notes, the Russian Community is “not merely a matter of pure political technology … but represent a genuine movement drawn from the darkest and most vile strata of Russian society, the very elements which since time immemorial have fueled Russian Black Hundred-style extremism.”

            The problem with such groups is they are “even harder to ‘put back in the bottle’ than the Z-Patriots have been,” Pastukhov says, noting that “to purge Röhm’s stormtroopers, Hitler had to rely on the SS. These guys aren't interested in ‘Ukro-Nazis’ or the ‘liberating mission’ of the Russian people: they are all about ‘blood purity’" and ‘enemies within.’"

            That in turn means that the Putin regime’s “next move should it continue to make any moves at all will be in the direction of civil war, cultural revolution, and pogroms. Not because anyone actually wants that outcome but because the internal logic of the regime’s own political evolution inevitably leads it there,” the Russian analyst concludes.

 

Global Warming Not Climate Wars Behind Rapidly Deteriorating Situation in the North Caucasus, Abshayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – Natural disasters like flooding are happening in the North Caucasus not because, as some believe, someone has launched a climate war against the region but because human beings have acted in ways that have boosted air temperatures, according to Magomet Abshayev.

            The specialist on weather at the Kabardino-Balkar scientific center says that it is true that  global warning has hit the North Caucasus harder than many other reasons but that has to do with global trends and not military targeting (etokavkaz.ru/ekologiya/anomalii-i-kontrol-chto-proiskhodit-s-klimatom-na-severnom-kavkaze).

            And if people everywhere don’t change the way they live and avoid a further warming of the climate, he says, rivers coming from the mountains into the lowlands there where most people live will completely silt up over the next ten to fifteen years, leaving residents without the water they need to survive.

Likelihood Putin will Try to Seize Territory in Baltic Countries ‘Growing with Each Passing Day,’ Kasparov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – “Putin is clearly at an impasse in Ukraine,” Gary Gasparov says; and understanding that “he can be forgiven for anything except losing a war, the Kremlin leader has “the resources to keep it going at least for now.: But he has only “one possible form of success: inspiring the people with the narrative that we defeated NATO.”

            Such a narrative, the émigré Russian political leader who is now a member of the PACE platform says, means that “the probability of a provocation or an attempt to seize certain perhaps even small areas of NATO territory in the Baltic countries is growing with each passing day” (pointmedia.io/story/6a071c9975d0dd3346a25cb19).

            The Kremlin leader “might seize five square kilometers of territory near Narva in Estonia or Daugavpils in Latvia … because they are major Russian-speaking urban centers near the border” with the Russian Federation given that it is “unlikely that Russia possesss the resources to launch massive armies against the Baltic states.”

            But seizing even small bridgeheads, Kasparov argues, “could certainly create pockets of tension and demonstrate that NATO is no longer functional” and even more allow Putin to spin out a narrative that he and Russia were winners regardless of what may happen in the case of Ukraine.

            According to Kasparov, “this scenario is highly probable, particularly given that Trump is almost certain to block virtually all collective NATO decisions. Yet Trump’s time in office is not infinite either—it is drawing to a close. If the Democrats gain control of Congress [in the autumn elections], that alone would be sufficient to summon Trump’s officials to testify under oath.”

            “Consequently, the window of opportunity for Putin to inflict a defeat upon ‘the paper tiger’ that is NATO is rapidly narrowing. And the Europeans understand this. That is why we now hear Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians openly stating that the Western contingents currently stationed on their soil will respond directly to actions taken by the local authorities.”

Specifically, he says, “the Estonians are clearly signaling that the British brigade will fight alongside Estonian forces without waiting for a directive from Brussels. I presume that other agreements are also in place   … But the fact remains: a new bloc is taking shape—a defensive alliance designed to respond to the specific challenges of the present day.”

Suppression of Demographic Data Leading to Serious Policy Errors, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – As Moscow has stopped publishing data on more and more demographic trends, Russian government agencies have had to base their figures on the last such figures Rosstat had released or on their own estimates, either of which leads to mistakes in the numbers and contributes to policy errors, the To Be Precise portal says.

            In 2024, Rosstat stopped publishing data on causes of death and regional life expectancy; and in April of this year, the statistics agency stopped providing up-to-date data on total population size. Without such data, the portal says, “it is impossible to accurately compare different regions with each other or to track changes over time” (tochno.st/materials/v-rossii-zakryty-dannye-po-cislennosti-naseleniia-teper-zabolevaemost-oxvaty-uslugami-i-pokazateli-prestupnosti-scitaiut-po-ustarevsim-dannym).

            That in turn, To Be Precise says, “affects highly practical decision-making by determining for instance how many doctors a region requires, whether specific performance targets have been met or whether disease rates are in fact on the rise” or may be falling relative to population changes.”

            Moreover, it continues, “population size serves as the denominator for dozens of key indicators: morbidity and mortality rates, birth rates, service coverage levels, the number of traffic accidents per thousand residents, and much more.” If government agencies use outdated population figures, their estimates of these will be incorrect.

            In the absence of new data, To Be Precise says, the use of outdated data is both logical and inevitable; but “the longer access to this data remains restricted, the greater the discrepancy will become between the actual population size and the calculated estimate” both logic and experience demonstrate.

            For the next few years, the impact of such forced errors may be relatively small; but over the longer haul, it will lead to policy mistakes and even disasters – and likely spark more demands from officials as well as the population for the release of updated data.

Guns Flooding into North Caucasus from Putin’s War, Sparking Rise in Crime and Re-Energizing Militant Underground inside Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 14 – Since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, guns have been flooding back into the Russian Federation, fueling a rise in violent crime across the country as more Russians acquire guns and in the North Caucasus re-energizing the militant underground as weapons are now much easier to get.

            For background on this, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/illegal-arms-sales-possession-and-use.html windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/weapons-flooding-into-bandit-formations.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/serious-crime-in-north-caucasus-rises.html.

            The FSB and other Russian force structures have sought to block this influx of weaponry and the underground armories which service such guns and explosives (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/fsb-raids-underground-armament-firms-in.html).

            But stories coming out of the Caucasus in particular suggest that the siloviki are fighting a losing battle, with Russian force structures finding underground armories after closing others in earlier raids. The latest cases are in Ingushetia and North Ossetia (https://www.kavkazr.com/a/u-zhiteley-ingushetii-i-severnoy-osetii-izyali-oruzhie/33756732.html).

            If and when Putin’s war in Ukraine ends, what has been a steady flow of guns back to Russia is likely to become a torrent; and while Moscow is most worried about a rise in violent crime, it may soon face a revival of the militant underground in the North Caucasus that Putin has claimed such credit for suppressing in the past.