Paul Goble
Staunton, May 18 – Vladimir Putin’s
decision to appoint generals as the governors of Russian federal subjects shows
that the Kremlin currently is no longer trying to suggest that all is well and
instead is conducting a policy based on the war continuing for a long time and
one in which the interests of these regions will be sacrificed to the war,
Abbas Gallyamov says.
The former Putin speechwriter and
now prominent Kremlin critic argues that this change is having the unexpected
and unwelcome consequence of generating “a wave of separatism in Russian border
regions” because the population there now feels as if it has been put at risk”
(vot-tak.tv/93315500/kreml-militarizuet-regiony).
Throughout his time as Russian president,
Putin has turned to generals, admirals and other siloviki to run Russia’s
federal subjects and federal districts, only to discover that they were no less
corrupt that the people they replaced and far more ineffective because they
knew how to give orders but did not know how to mobilize the population to obey
them.
As a result, Gallyamov says, Putin
gave up on at least two occasions; but when he launched his expanded invasion
of Ukraine, many observers expected him to appoint siloviki as governors. But because
Putin wanted to downplay the war in the eyes of Russians, he has generally
restricted this approach to the leaders of regions adjoining Ukraine.
For the first four years of the war,
Putin “sought to avoid creating the impression of a wholesale militarization of
political live and to maintain the illusion that nothing particularly alarming
was taking place within the country.” Obviously, “the mass appointment of
generals as governors would look like an admission Russia has shifted onto a
full wartime footing.”
According to Gallyamov, “the most
recent appointments thus appear to mark a turning point,” with Putin sending a
general who fought in both Syria and Ukraine to head Belgorod and a civilian
administrator who had headed the LPR has been dispatched to Bryansk,” a shift for
which there is “a clear rationale.”
“Facing manpower shortages at eh
front and a deepening budget deficit at home,” the commentator continues, “the
Kremlin feels compelled to employ mechanisms other than financial incentives to
recruit individuals willing to sign military contracts.” And naming those who
have fought to high positions shows the Kremlin “isn’t joking” about making
them an elite.
What this means, however, is that “one
can no longer rule out the possibility that afte slr the collapse of the current
region, a secessionist movement seeking to withdraw from the Russian Federation
could emerge in that region,” perhaps in the shape of a Chernozem Federation or
some other grouping.
A slogan for such a movement “practically
writes itself,” Gallyamov suggests: “’Stop Bombing Voronezh.’” How popular this will be depends on the
situation in Russia on the one hand and the brightness of Ukraine’s future “appear
at that particular moment.” If the former is bad and the latter good, secession
becomes likely.
“This last factor should not be
underestimated,” he continues. “The successes achieved by the people
of the neighboring country in their post-war reconstruction—and, even more so,
their accession to the EU—when compounded by Russia’s own failures and
problems, could create a new center of gravity for Russia’s border regions.”
He
argues that “the logic would be starkly simple: "Look—the Ukrainians broke
away from Russia, and now they have a brilliant future. We need to do the exact
same thing." The dismissal of a popular governor and his replacement by a
military figure with a dubious reputation” will only make that outcome more
likely.