Putin Promotes or at Least Benefits from Narrative that the FSB is Behind the Attack on Telegram Channels, Rogov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 16 – Russian commentators in emigration have been promoting the idea that the Kremlin’s moves against Telegram channels and VPNs have been taken “on  the initiative of the FSB,” which such writers say involves “ignoring” the civilian bureaucracy, according to Kirill Rogov.

            Rogov, who himself is in emigration and writes frequently about Kremlin politics, says that just as the design and execution of the Great Terror was the work of Stalin alone so too the attack against the Internet is the handiwork of Putin alone, rather than the result of pressure from the FSB (echofm.online/opinions/mif-o-chyornoj-bashne).

            In fact, he continues, “the narrative regarding ‘an FSB initiative’ is a standard, intra-regime trope concerning ‘the Dark Tower’—a mechanism that serves to mitigate the risks associated with challenging the Supreme Leader’s initiatives -- while simultaneously offering the "wise satrap" a convenient exit strategy should he wish” to change directions.

Nor does it particularly matter whether this narrative of "loyalist dissent" constitutes an organized campaign orchestrated by Kiriyenko or not,” the Russian political commentator continues. “It is, first and foremost, a phenomenon that generated itself—though it may well have subsequently garnered cautious support.”

According to Rogov, “its emergence into the public sphere is a distinct, autonomous feature of the regime’s internal dynamics. It is, in essence, a signature ‘trick’ of the regime” and should be recognized as such rather than be promoted by those who oppose the Putin regime.

Despite Nominal Ban, Russian Military Still Signing Up Mentally Handicapped to Fight and Die in Putin’s War in Ukraine, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 15 – Before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian military tried to avoid drafting those with psychiatric problems or mental retardation to serve in the ranks; but since then, to meet the military’s needs, such restrictions have been ignored and many who shouldn’t even be in the military are now dying in the war.

            That is the judgment of various soldiers’ rights activists as reported by Regina Khisamova, a journalist for Radio Liberty who focuses on the particular problems of the North Caucasus (idelreal.org/a/diagnoz-ne-pomeha-kak-v-rossii-verbuyut-na-voynu-lyudey-s-mentalnymi-narusheniyami/33731342.html).

            Officially, bans on the induction of those with psychiatric problems or mental retardation remain in place, these activists say, with the defense ministry even issuing new lists of conditions that if identified should excuse an individual from having to serve. (For the most recent of these lists, see regulation.gov.ru/projects/166381/.)

            But as the war has continued and the need to fill the ever-depleting ranks of the Russian army, these bans are simply ignored; and courts typically ignore suits by relatives of such people because commanders on the ground see even the psychologically disturbed or mentally retarded as resources,  especially when fully healthy men are difficult to find.

            Consequently, those who should be protected by the government and who are so protected at least on paper are increasingly put in situations where they cannot escape continuing to serve until as far too often happens they die in a military conflict that they either cannot cope with or even fully understand.

            Activists say that the problem is widespread, but they cannot say exactly how many men are involved. It appears likely that this problem is greater in rural areas far from major cities where there are few people familiar with the law and ready to defend such individuals and where the courts may be especially unwilling to support such people.

            But however small the number of cases this involves, it is yet another example of the way in which the Putin regime rides roughshod over its own rules in order to find enough men, however poorly equipped they are, to fill the ranks that are constantly being thinned by battle. The longer the war goes on, therefore, the more likely this problem will continue to grow.

 

Despite Recent Declines, Fertility Rates in Central Asian Countries Average More than Twice That Metric in Russian Federation

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 16 – Fertility rates in Central Asia, the number of children per woman per lifetime, are still 1.5 to more than twice the corresponding figure for the Russian Federation and all more than the replacement figure of 2.2, a pattern that means the population of that region is increasing both absolutely and relative to Russia.

            The figure for Tajikistan is 3.3; for Kyrgyzstan, 2.9; for Kazakhstan, 2.8; for Uzbekistan, 2.7 and for Turkmenistan, 2.6; while that for the Russian Federation is below 1.4 (podrobno.uz/cat/world/detey-vse-menshe-v-stranakh-tsentralnoy-azii-znachitelno-sokratilas-rozhdaemost/).

            Russian commentators who spend much of their time following Putin and calling for a rise in fertility rates are seeking to put the best face on this by suggesting that the high rates in the Central Asian countries “threaten their security” (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-04-16--rost-naselenija-srednej-azii-ugrozhaet-ee-stabilnosti-87118).

            These Russian writers say that high birthrates make it difficult if not impossible for the countries to provide enough jobs for young people and force ever more of the residents of these countries to move to other countries and to the Russian Federation in the first place to find employment.

            That high fertility rates can be a problem in that regard is beyond question; but they also mean that the Central Asian countries are rapidly increasing in size and also can afford expanded pension payments, something that countries like the Russian Federation where rates are below replacement level cannot do.

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.”