In Putin’s Russia, ‘Cruelty has Become a Form of Patriotism,’ Dmitry Muratov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 16 – On April 11, Dmitry Muratov who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in promoting independent journalism in Putin’s Russia published an important interview in the French journal Liberation (liberation.fr/international/europe/dmitri-mouratov-prix-nobel-de-la-paix-2021-en-russie-la-cruaute-est-devenue-une-forme-de-patriotisme-20260411).

            The Moscow Times has now published a Russian translation of that interview (themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/16/novaya-gazetas-dmitry-muratov-cruelty-has-become-a-form-of-patriotism-a92510); and among the many valuable observations Muratov makes, one is especially important.

            After Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Nobelist says, the Kremlin’s propagandists long insisted that Russians “do not strike critical infrastructure” but now they say “we will freeze Kyiv, freeze Kharkhiv and wipe them off the face of the earth,” thus “openly admitting they are destroying civilians.”

            What is “new” in Russian propaganda, Muratov continue, is “an open embrace of cruelty, an acknowledgement that Russia is prepared to inflict mass suffering on other people” and that its actions reflect that in Russia today, “cruelty has become a form of patriotism” and celebrated as such.

            “When suspects accused of shooting civilians at Crocus City Hall were arrested, television channels broadcast footage of their ears being cut off. They glorify the sledgehammer associated with Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, used to execute alleged deserters. That same sledgehammer is now displayed in the office of a deputy speaker of parliament,” he points out.

            All these things – “the cult of death, the cult of cruelty, the cult of the leader, and the cult of territorial conquest based on historical claims” – have been “described by Umberto Eco as markers of fascism;” and thus one is compelled to conclude that Russia under Putin is moving ever more in that direction.

United Russia’s Duma Candidates May Lose the Way Orban’s Long-Serving Elite Did in Hungary and for Many of the Same Reasons, Aksyonov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 15 – Not surprisingly, most observers in Russia and around the world are focusing on the impact the defeat of Orban’s party in the recent Hungarian elections on EU support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, but for senior members of Putin’s United Russia, there may be an even greater threat, Sergey Aksyonov says.

            The Moscow analyst cites the words of Anatoly Shariy, a Russian speaking Ukrainian blogger, who points out that Orban’s defeat was the product of “a series of errors that bear a striking resemblance to the well-known blunders committed by Ukraine’s former ruling party in the run-up to the 2014 Maidan protests (svpressa.ru/politic/article/511113/).

            Shariy “draws a direct comparison between the two ‘Victors’ – Orban and Yanukovich – pointing to various parallels not only in the politicians’ physical stature but also in their political profiles.” Indeed, he says, "Fidesz today is essentially the 'Party of Regions' all over again,” with corrupt officials having entrenched themselves and feeling they needn’t answer to the people.”

            The Ukrainian blogger continues: “people who previously voted for Orbán’s party are now voting against it; they can no longer tolerate the local bosses who have become entrenched in power and, as a form of protest, are backing its opponent” justifying this by arguing that Magyar’s affiliation with the Tisza Party is “merely nominal.”

            That Magyar’s party has now won a constitutional majority reflects not only this popular anger but “the specific features of the electoral system, features Orban introduced to serve his ruling Fides Party” but which now as the election has showed have led to his party’s defeat and his own.

Aksyonov points out that this “majoritarian system plays a pivotal role in Hungarian politics. Of the 199 members of parliament, more than half—106, to be precise—are elected in single-member constituencies; and any votes cast for a winning candidate in excess of the minimum required threshold are not discarded, but added to the party list voting.”

“This mechanism grants a massive bonus to the leading party,” he continues, “enabling it to attain a constitutional majority (two-thirds of the seats) even without enjoying a commensurate level of support among the general population.” Hungary stands out in this regard as most European countries do not arrange things in this way or change electoral district boundaries as often.

As Shariy and Aksyonov point out, Russia also employs the manipulation of district boundaries, albeit using a different method. It utilizes the "petal principle," whereby a major city is carved up into sectors and segments, and each of these parts is then attached to a vast, neighboring rural district—an area where loyalty to the authorities is traditionally higher and opposition votes are effectively diluted.”

“As for the electoral system itself, in the Russian Federation, it represents a hybrid model: votes cast for losing candidates in single-member districts are effectively wasted—they do not serve to boost the winners, as they do in Hungary, nor do they serve to offset the results of the majoritarian districts, as is the case in most other European countries.”

As a result, the analyst says, “this "Orban-style" electoral system [in Russia] bolstered and ‘fine-tuned’ by domestic ‘inventors’ within the Central Election Commission, and capped off with a dome of additional filters and options are designed to provide a one-hundred-percent guarantee of the desired outcome—yet another victory for the ruling party this September.”

“But what if this multilayered construct—designed to dispel any doubts regarding United Russia’s success—were to yield a completely different, indeed diametrically opposite, result, given a political reality that has shifted radically—turning precisely on its head” as has just happened in Hungary and happened earlier in Ukraine?”

In that event, the long-entrenched United Russia “princelings” “could welll be soundly defeated—just as the Hungarians routed the ossified "Orbanites." Everything the Presidential Administration,” Aksyonov says, “has spent years building to prop up the ruling party would then turn against it.”

And this could have revolutionary consequences, he says, even if Moscow falsifies the results to ensure a Putin victory. If it is too obvious, then these United Russian princelings and the system they serve and that serves them could suffer a defeat even greater than outright defeat. After all, that is what happened in Ukraine just over a decade ago.

‘Like Russians, Tatars are a Political Nation and a State-Forming People,’ Fakhrutdinov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 14 – All groups which include Tatar in their names are part of the Tatar nation, a group “like the Russians” which represent “a political nation” formed by the experience of the states they formed or lived within and even form are “a state-forming people,” Rail Fakhrutdinov says

            The direction of Kazan’s Institution of International Relations, History and Oriental Studies adds that again like the Russians, the Tatars passed from being “a confessional identity” into being “a national one” at about the same time in the 19^th century, the Russians a little earlier and the Tatars only a little later (milliard.tatar/news/rail-faxrutdinov-tatary-eto-politiceskaya-naciya-gosudarstvoobrazuyushhii-narod-9496).

            The Soviet state sought to divide up the Tatars, but “the thing is that the Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian Tatars and the Mishars entered a single Russian state at approximately the same time having preserved a common cultural and linguistic space,” he says. To this day, they are all part of the modern Tatar nation.

            More to the point, “the Tatars like the Russians are a single nation” despite differences in dialects and regional identities. “More than that, our history is indivisibly connected with the history of a state: we are a state-forming, imperial nation” as the history of those Tatars who worked for the Russian state at various points demonstrates.

            And Fakhrutdinov concludes: “despite the presence of ethno-territorial groups with local language and cultural distinctions, which characterizes many peoples of the world, the Tatars form a single people, single with a common language, a common culture, historical straditions, self-consciousness and finally with a common ethnonym, Tatars.”

            The Tatar historian’s argument is likely to inspire many Tatars, but it will certainly outrage many Russian nationalists and Moscow centralists both because it posits that the Tatars have evolved in ways parallel to the Russians and because it suggests that many in Kazan view all Tatars are part of their patrimony. 

Soviet Regime Collapsed in Third Generation; Putin One Won’t Survive Even into a Second, Kurilla Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 12 – Many Russians now in the West are increasingly identifying themselves not only as emigres but as emigres like the wave that left a century ago after the Bolshevik revolution and even are beginning to think that few if any of them will ever return, Ivan Kurilla says.

            But in fact, the Russian historian who now teaches in the US, says, it is important to remember that while the two emigrations  do bear a certain resemblance to one another, “Putin’s Russia and Soviet Russia differ fundamentally in their horizons and future prospects” (echofm.online/opinions/perezhivet-li-putinizm-putina).

            “A century ago, Soviet Russia was a young, ideologically driven state, led by young leaders and a party apparatus that was resolutely focused on the future. Putin’s Russia in contrast is a regime of aging leaders that relies neither on a political party or the military and has no vision for the future, let alone ideas that might prove appealing to anyone,” he says.

            The Soviet regime “collapsed during its third generation,” Kurilla points out; “the current one will not even manage to survive the transition to a second,” given the absence of any vision of the future other than a continuation of the present and opposition across the board not only in the population but among elites to such a prospect.

            “Consequently,” he concludes, he “fully expects to go back” and to a Russia very different than Putin’s. “I cannot predict how the current regime or the one that comes after will go about ending the war and normalization relations with Ukraine and with other countries around the world.”

            But the Russian historian says he is convinced that “Russia will not disintegrate” and the arguments of those who say “we need not concern ourselves with the future of a unified country” because it won’t exist “to be fundamentally mistaken.”

Moscow to Limit Ability of Federal Subjects to Modify List of Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – Under existing Russian law, the heads of federal subjects have the power to propose including or dropping nations from Mocow’s Unified List of Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples, which determines whether members of these groups are entitled to special subsidies or not.

            But if new draft legislation proposed by the government is adopted, something that is almost a certainty, the regional heads will be severely constrained in their ability to do so (pnp.ru/social/status-korennykh-malochislennykh-narodov-predlozhili-prisvaivat-po-soglasovaniyu-s-ran.html).

            That is because census results seldom provide sufficient information on the smallest ethnic groups in the country and so regional heads have been able to add or subtract groups to this list on their own. Under the new law, these heads will be required to support their claims with materials from the Academy of Sciences and other Moscow agencies.

            There are currently 47 national groups on the Unified List of peoples with fewer than 50,000 each. Some of them number only a handful but others are close to or even have exceeded the 50,000 threshold. In the first case, some groups may disappear; and others may become too large to be included.

            By imposing the new requirements, Moscow will thus take away the ability of regional heads to act as independently as they have in the past of making such determinations, although to be fair the heads were never all that independent as the Russian government could reject their applications for changing membership. But now that ability will be codified and thus reduced.

            According to some Duma deputies, the measure is intended to save money, although given the small number of people involved, there are few economies. More likely what this means is that Moscow will decide who gets to be a favored minority and who loses that status on the basis of the needs of the government and its business allies.

            At the very least, it will give Moscow even more leverage on the question and mean that some groups on the list will be dropped either because they have effectively died out or because they have grown to beyond the 50,000 upper limit of this category and promote the further homogenization of the population of the Russian Federation.

            Some of the smallest groups will be Russianized and even reidentify as ethnic Russians, but at least some of them are likely to assimilate to other numerically small groups as these populations seek to find ways to continue to get the benefits both financial and in terms of rights into the future.

            The biggest fights, however, are likely to be at the other end, involving those groups which are now close to or even above the 50,000 threshold as once Moscow experts decide that they have done so, these groups will almost certainly be removed from the list and lose the subsidies and special benefits they currently receive.

            Two groups that may be most at risk are the Abaza in Karachayevo-Cherkessia and the combined Evenk-Even nationalities. The former is approaching the 50,000 limit and the latter, if the two do combine – they are closely related – are already above that threshold.

Team Against Torture Report Provides Rare but Very Partial Window into Torture by Russian Force Structures

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – The Team Against Torture, an independent human rights group, has released a report on torture in the Russian Federation. Its findings are interesting but necessarily incomplete because the report was based exclusively on incidents where those who committed this crime were brought to court and convicted.

            That is likely why there are no cases reported of torture against women prisoners or of torture carried out by the FSB which is likely to have more success in protecting its officers against charges than are the militia of the interior ministry (echofm.online/documents/pytki-delo-molodyh-novoe-issledovanie-komandy-protiv-pytok-o-portrete-pytatelya-v-rossii).

            Nonetheless, because data on torture in Russian penal institutions is so rare and usually anecdotal, the report is worth noting because it was based on an examination of 77 torture cases held in the archives of human rights defenders in which 144 law enforcement officers were convicted of torture.

            Three-quarters of those convicted were under the age of 35, 93 percent were employees of the interior ministry, with 88 percent being officers of various territorial subdivisions and 43 percent were part of the Criminal Investigation Department of the ministry, according to the Team Against Torture report.

            Fifty-eight percent of those convicted were cooperating with others, the report says, noting that “securing a conviction against those who did not participate in torture but merely turned a blind eye to it is practically impossible.” It also notes that sometimes officers failed to stop their colleagues from torturing people because of ignorance of the law.

Moscow Not Only Carried Out a Genocide against Soviet People but Announced It was Planning to Do So and Even Boasted about It, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – The Putin government has now pushed through legislation that makes it a criminal offense to deny that the Germans carried out a genocide against the Soviet people and continues to persecute those who point out that the Soviet regime was responsible for many of the losses Moscow now wants to blame exclusively on the Germans.

            But in doing so, Dimitry Savvin says, editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian Harbin portal, the Putin regime is seeking to cover up that the Soviet regime launched a genocide against the Soviet people shortly after it came to power in its September 1918 Decree on the Red Terror (harbin.lv/dekret-o-krasnom-terrore).

            That has been covered up now as the Putin regime has tried to shift all the blame for losses on the Germans and has been largely ignored by many in the West who are prepared to accept Putin’s lies as long as they are doused in what has become a kind of universal moral solvent provided by Soviet victories in World War II.