Putin’s Much-Ballyhooed Pledge to Set Up Office to Help Russians Find MIAs Doesn’t have a Website, an Address or a Telephone Number, Soldiers’ Rights Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – Groups of Russians searching for relatives who are MIAs in Putin’s war in Ukraine have existed since that conflict exploded in 2022. Putin has responded by ordering the creation of a defense ministry office to help them, but that office, the Veter portal says, doesn’t have a website, a physical address or a telephone number.

            As such, it is so much “eyewash,” activists say that doesn’t help and relatives of MIAs who push for information are not given real help but instead often denounced as pro-Ukrainian disidents rather than genuinely patriotic Russians (veter.info/posts/p8LIsdJDgJbB and  novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/07/29/nagnetanie-chuvstva-zabroshennosti-i-bessiliia).

            As the war has continued and the Putin regime has adopted this stonewall approach, a new and large class of Russian citizens whose relatives have gone missing in action are increasingly alienated from the regime and speaking out in ever more radical ways.

            Russians are especially exercised by the failure of the Russian authorities to do more especially since Russian law and defense ministry regulations are very specific about the responsibilities of commanders and other authorities to go to extraordinary lengths to find those listed as MIAs.

            The powers that be aren’t doing so; and Putin’s promises, combined with the failure of the military to live up to its responsibilities and of the defense ministry to at least establish a website and phone number for those seeking information about such cases, are only adding insult to injury. 

Since 2022, Moscow has Sought to ‘Rebrand’ Jazz as an Authentic Part of Russian Tradition, Okhotenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – As Putin increased repression in the years before he launched his expanded war in Ukraine, “music emerged as one of the few remaining areas for public dissent,” Yana Okhotenko says; but  after 2022, the Russian music scene was “transformed” both as an instrument of state ideology and a form of personal expression.”

            In a lengthy article, the Russian musician now living in emigration offers an intriguing answer to the question: “If the state turns music into a weapon of propaganda, can music in turn become a weapon of protest?” (posle.media/article/russian-music-after-2022-between-propaganda-and-protest).

            After the expanded war began, the Kremlin stepped up its “demands not just for passive patriotism from its citizens – the silent loyalty that had once been enough no longer was – and insisted on active allegiance,” thus forcing musicians who had tried to remain apolitical to choose between working for there regime, actively opposing it, or choosing to emigrate.

            She gives numerous examples of how various musicians have navigated this divide but provides an especially intriguing example in how the Russian authorities have shifted in their treatment of jazz. “From the early 2000s until 2022,” she writes, jazz in Russia “thrived as part of an independent club and festival scene” closely integrated with western artists.

            But following the invasion, she continues, the regime redefined jazz not as a recent import but “as an authentically Russian tradition, downplaying the repression the Russian and soviet authorities had inflicted on it and even making the claim that “Russia has the coolest jazz musicians.”

            That is just one of the changes since 2022, Okhotenko says. Since then, “the Russian state has not only worked to reengineer the cultural landscape but also to systematically purge independent voices.” And is has come up with as strategy that makes protest by many musicians extremely difficult.

            This tactic consists of allowing musicians with opposition views to continue to perform alongside artists that the state approves of but not advertising the participation of the former in any advertising of the shows they are part of. Consequently, many Russian artists now are in a limbo: they can continue to perform but can’t count on reaching new audiences.

            Nonetheless, many Russian musicians have left the country since the expanded war n Ukraine began. According to estimates at the end of 2022, approximately 30 percent of Russia’s professional musicians have emigrated, sometimes to halfway houses like Armenia and Georgia and increasingly often to western countries.

            These artists face many problems including making a living and maintaining a distinct national identity while integrating with the music scene in the countries they now live in. Many continue to protest but their voices are mostly heard only abroad and only by those who already share their views, limiting their impact however much Western coverage they receive.

Crimes against Women in North Caucasus Seldom Reported or Investigated, Rights Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – Crimes against women, including violence within the family, rapes and honor killings are seldom reported in the North Caucasus because of fears of conflicts with families and society and, when they are reported, they are seldom investigated because officials don’t want to call attention to the problem.

            That is the unanimous verdict of the most important human rights groups working in the area, as summarized by Kavkaz-Uzel; and it explains why statistics about these crimes are completely unreliable and even have the effect of distorting all-Russian figures (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/425319).

            As a result, the claims of the republic governments and even of Moscow about progress against such crimes should be treated with extreme skepticism and even disbelief, the activists say, because both social norms in the population and the calculations of officials mean that neither regional nor all-Russian figures are credible.

Kazakhstan’s Executive Branch Already Mono-Ethnic Kazakh and Its Legislative One has been Moving in That Direction, Asylbekov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 20 – Even though people who are not ethnic Kazakhs still form a quarter of the country’s population, the composition of officials in the executive branch of its government at both the center and in the region’s has become almost exclusively ethnic Kazakh and that of the legislative branch has been moving in that direction, Zhandos Asylbekov says.

            Unless this trend changes, it could exacerbate tensions in society, the head of the statistics department of Kazakhstan’s Procuracy says; but in the run up to the elections to the new unicameral legislature, it isn’t being discussed apparently because of “an unspoken taboo” (spik.kz/2667-najdutsja-li-v-kurultae-mesta-dlja-deputatov-nekazahov-i-skolko.html).

            Even in areas where ethnic Kazakhs form less than half of the population – Northern Kazakhstan and Kustanay oblasts – the minority majority of ethnic Russians and others is largely unrepresented in regional or even local executive branch positions, something non-ethnic Kazakhs have complained out, Asylbekov says.

            In the national legislature in the past, the share of non-ethnic Kazakhs has been less than their share of the population, although this metric as bounced around depending on the use of single member districts or party lists to determine outcomes, between 14 percent at its lowest point and “almost 30 percent” at its highest.

            The composition of the new single-member parliament will be determined exclusively by party list voting rather than single-member district majority voting and so that makes the decisions of the parties to include or not include non-ethnic Kazakhs on their lists critical.

            At present, most of these are far more ethnically Kazakh than is the population; and so it is likely but not certain that the new single-house parliament will be even more ethnic Kazakh than the current two-house one is and than the population is as well, Asylbekov says, noting that this could cause problems if that turns out to be the case.

Kazakhstan President Offers New Model for Dealing with Moscow, ‘Partnership without Political Alignment,’ Toyekin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – During his July 25 meeting with Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev offered a new model for non-Russian leaders dealing with Moscow: committing his country to “partnership” with Russia but not promising “political alignment” on all questions, Almat Toyekin says.

            The Kazakhstan analyst focuses on the way in which Tokayev acted; but perhaps indicative of his real goals in writing this piece, he placed it in the Caspian Post, an outlet devoted to South Caucasus affairs where Azerbaijan President Ilham Alyev has moved in a similar question (caspianpost.com/opinion/kazakhstan-s-message-to-moscow-partnership-without-political-alignment).

            What both Tokayev and Aliyev now offer is a new model of how the governments of the countries that gained independence in 1991 when the USSR disintegrated, one that represents a kind of halfway house between continuing subservience to Moscow that the Kremlin wants and the complete break with Moscow that many see as the only or at least ultimate pattern.

            Obviously, the Russian government will seek to limit movement in these directions; but by offering commitment to partnership without agreeing to support Moscow on all questions, many of these countries may find a way to navigate through what is a political minefield and prevent the Kremlin from taking more radical actions.

            Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are perhaps best equipped to strike out in this direction. They have large oil reserves, occupy portions of the geopolitical map especially important to both Russia and outside powers, and have been building up both their diplomatic and military strength.

            But they are not alone, and many of the others in the region may see what Tokayev and Aliyev are doing as an attractive next stage in their national life, one that may allow them to expand their independence from Moscow in a safer way than a clearer break with the past might allow.

            At the very least, this possibility deserves both attention and understanding, as the demise of the Russocentric empire continues. 

Only Four Percent of Russians Charged with Espionage or Treason had Access to State Secrets, ‘Vyorstka’ Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – Only one in every 25 of people who have been charged by Russian prosecutors with espionage or treason – a mere four percent in all -- had access to state secrets before their arrests, according to a comprehensive study by Vyorstka of these cases, an indication of how Moscow is using an elastic definition against its opponents.

            Since the beginning of 2022, it says, Russian prosecutors have brought charges of high treason, espionage and cooperate with foreign states against at least 1904 individuals, the independent portal says, even though most have no connection with state secrets. Two thirds of them are Russian citizens; the remainder, Ukrainian ones.

(For Vyorstka’s extremely detailed 10,000-word report, perhaps the most comprehensive in the public domain, see verstka.media/issledovanie-vyorstki-o-presledovanii-po-delam-svyazannym-s-gosbezopasnostyu; for its highlights, see nemoskva.net/2026/07/29/lish-4-figurantov-novyh-del-o-gosizmene-imeli-dostup-k-gostajne/.)

            Not only have the use of such charges increased over the past four years but the severity of punishments have as well. In 2022, the average sentence on conviction for such trumped up charges was 12 years. So far this year Vyorstka reports, the average sentences has increased from that level by more than four years to 16.

            According to the investigation, members of Russia’s scientific community are especially at risk of facing such charges. Since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, at least 15 of them have been accused of high treason. Two thirds of these were 60 or older at the time of their arrest.

Putin Restores Military Construction Battalions He Eliminated in 2006

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 28 – As part of his most recent expansion of the size of the Russian military, Putin has restored the military construction battalions (stroybats) he disbanded in 2006. These institutions were notorious in Soviet times for their involvement with corrupt schemes and as places to keep non-Russian draftees away from a more active military role.

            The need for some kind of construction capacity in the military, of course, never disappeared; and in 2019, Moscow restored stroybats in all but name and in the view of critics for much the same reasons they existed in the Soviet military (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/12/notorious-soviet-style-construction.html).

            But now the Kremlin leader has formally restored them, nominally in order to cope with war damages especially from drone attacks as well as to create a ready reserve to fill losses at the front, according to Vladimir Mukhin, an observer for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (ng.ru/armies/2026-07-28/1_9547_army.html).

            However, while Mukhin does not address this issue, the restoration of stroybats now may lead not only to a revival of the same abuses that happened before 1991 but also and perhaps more importantly to the creation of a new matrix for a broader militarization of Russian life.

            According to a recent Vyorstka analysis, such a militarization of what is now civilian life in the Russian Federation is one of the things many Russians now fear may take place following the Duma elections (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/07/russians-fear-kremlin-will-take-harsh.html).