Russia’s Truck Drivers Demand that No Law Affecting Them be Adopted without Their Participation

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 15 – The Russian Truckdrivers Union has sent a letter to the president, prime minister and transportation minister arguing that no law affecting them should be adopted and that any laws on the books since 1991 should be reviewed and possibly repealed with the participation of the union’s membership.

            The letter, a copy of which has been acquired by the Svobodnaya pressa portal, documents a wide variety of steps Moscow has taken or is currently considering taking without listening to the truck drivers and insists that situation is unjust, unsustainable and must be changed (svpressa.ru/society/article/502720/).

            It is extremely unlikely that Russia’s top officials will agree to such an arrangement, but it is an intriguing one nonetheless because it is an example of how Putin’s de-institutionalization of Russian governance is leading at least some groups to push for a corporatist style of government, one in which powerful sectors would have at least a veto on what Moscow does.

            As such, the union action may be a bellwether of the ways in which the Russian government may function regarding at least some groups in the future, likely without much publicity except in cases where the group involved, as in this case with the truck drivers, feels excluded and decides it has no choice but to raise this to the level of public discussion. 

Under New Constitution, Kazakhstan will Break Free of Soviet Russian Past and Become Kazakh Eli

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 18 – For some time, activists and commentators in Central Asian countries have wanted to change the names of their countries now ending in “stan” because they see it as the imposition of a Soviet Russian definition of their states and one that leads many outsider to dismissively think about “the stans” as something exotic and filled with conflict.

            Now Kazakhstan is on the way to being the first of the five countries in Central Asia to make this change. Its draft constitution set to be approved next month identifies that country not as Kazakhstan but as Kazak ili, “the land of the Kazakhs” (altyn-orda.kz/ot-kazahstana-k-kazak-eli-simvolicheskij-razryv-s-epohoj-sovka/).

In a commentary welcoming this change the Altyn Orda portal says that “the name ‘Kazakhstan’ appeared in the Soviet system of coordinates,” designating a territory but not reflecting “the death of historical traditions. ‘Kazakh eli sounds different: it isn’t an administrative formula but is a name arising from the people and its history.”

“Translated,” the portal continues, “’Kazakh eli’ means ‘the State of the Kazakhs” and represents “a return to its own name without the Soviet superstructure and without the ideological links of the past.” As such, this move is “a symbolic break with the era of things Soviet; it is not a denial of history but a completion of the post-Soviet period.”

It is already the case, Altyn Orda says, that “the young generation does not think of itself in terms of ‘the post-Soviet space.’ Rather it thinks of itself in global terms, mobile and confident. Thus, the adoption of this new name is not some radical step but a logical continuation of ongoing processes.”

Importantly, the portal says, the term is not about exclusion but about the basis of the state. “The historic nucleus of statehood has been formed by the Kazakh people, but the present-day state remains a hope for all its citizens. The name fixes the cultural foundation but it is not about any limiting of rights.”

            There are at least two countries that are likely to be unhappy with this change: Russia, which will view it as yet another sign of Kazakhstan’s divorce from Moscow and the former Soviet space; and Turkey, which has become calling all of Central Asia Turkestan and thus may see the new name as distancing Kazakhstan from Ankara in some way.

Free Russian Forum Now Focuses on Helping Ukraine rather than on Transforming Russia, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 18 – All people of good will can only welcome the commitment of the Free Russia Forum to support Ukraine against Russian aggression, Vadim Shtepa says; but such people can only bemoan the fact that that Forum is almost completely ignoring the need to transform Russia.

            The editor of the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert argues that this is doubly unfortunate. On the one hand, unless Russia is transformed, the Muscovite state will remain a threat to Ukraine even if Kyiv succeeds in achieving its proclaimed goal of restoring its control up to its 1991 borders.

            And on the other, such an approach ignores the problems the residents of the country Moscow rules that any group offers itself as being about a Free Russia should be trying to come up with (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/18/forum-svobodnoi-ukraini-ili-kak-iz-rossiiskogo-meropriyatiya-ischezla-rossiiskaya-povestka-a187616 reposted at region.expert/fsu/).

            This week, the Forum of Free Russia met in Vilnius for two days. The first day was closed, but the second was open; and the meeting released a statement about what it had hoped ot achieve. What the accessible information suggests, Shtepa says, is that the Forum’s participants see a Ukrainian victory even as defined by Ukraine as a magic solution to Russia’s problems.

            But unless the restoration of Ukrainian control over all that country’s land up to the 199a borders leads to the transformation of Russia, the Muscovite state will still present challenges not only to Ukraine but also to other neighbors of that country and perhaps especially to the peoples living within the borders of the Russian Federation.

            According to the regionalist, “the problem of the Forum of Free Russia from its very first meetings ten years ago is that its organizers from the outset considered the regional issue as something secondary” and its activities showed that “Muscovite politicians even in emigration remained Moscow-centric” rather than considering what a truly Free Russia should look like.

            In the current situation, emigres can have only a limited impact on what goes on inside their country; but the Free Russia Forum should follow the example of earlier Russian emigrations and at a minimum focus on the problems of the entire country and offer ideas for discussion, steps it is not now taking, Shtepa argues.

            Indeed, even the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has recognized this need, given that it has included at least a limited number of representatives of the regions and republics of the current Russian Federation in its platform for discussions with the democratic Russian opposition.

            It is time, Shtepa says, that the Free Russian Forum do at least as much. Otherwise, it won’t help Ukraine as much as it hopes; and it won’t help Russia very much at all. That is because unless the state now called the Russian Federation changes, it will remain a threat to Ukraine even if Kyiv "wins" and a threat to its own people and others regardless of the outcome of Putin's war.

Moscow Patriarchate Denounces as Heresy Call by Senior Russian General to Draw on Traditional Values of Both Orthodox Christianity and Islam

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 16 – In a recent book, Lt.Gen. Apti Alaudinov, the deputy head of the Main Military-Political Administration of the Russian defense ministry, suggested that Moscow combine the best ideas of Orthodoxy and Islam which support traditional values against those who oppose such values.

            That has brought a sharp rejoinder from Sergey Fufayev, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s missionary department. He has denounced Alaudinov’s call as “heresy” and as  form of the kind of syncretism among faiths that the Russian Orthodox Church has always opposed (ng.ru/ng_religii/2026-02-16/9_612_syncretism.html).

            Alaudinov clearly intended that such sharing of ideas about values would help traditional Christianity and traditional Islam come together to fight those in the West challenging those ideas; but Fufayev, speaking for the ROC MP, has made it clear that Christians and Muslims can cooperate but that Orthodox Christianity cannot allow any admixture of Islam in its teachings.

Huge New Detention Center near Moscow will Make It Easier for Kremlin to Hold More Russians without Trial and Harder for Those Held There to Defend Themselves

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 14 – The Russian authorities have started the construction of what will be that country’s largest preliminary detention center. Planned to hold 4,000 inmates awaiting trial or sentencing, the facility is located 71 kilometers from the center of the capital, far from public transport.

            That will give the Kremlin the opportunity to detain more Russians not yet tried or sentenced without the risk of protests and to deprive them of their ability to defend themselves by making it difficult for defense lawyers to reach them on a regular basis (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/02/14/za-71-i-kilometr).

            This new super-sized detention center near the Russian capital follows the building of an equally large one just outside of St. Petersburg and is part of a plan, announced in 2024 to build such facilities across the country to replace smaller detention facilities that has long been in use (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/moscow-closing-prison-camps-but-it-is.html).

            Conditions in Russian detention centers, where those arrested are often kept for extended periods, are notoriously bad, far worse than in many prisons and prison camps. They are understaffed and under-serviced, with lawyers often forced to wait for many hours to meet with their clients. 

            This is yet another example of the way in which the Putin regime under cover of declarations about modernization of the Russian prison system is not only enriching its friends and giving it more scope for repression but ensuring that arrests and not just convictions are likely to become more widespread, yet another way Russia is becoming ever more authoritarian.

Pope Leo’s Meeting with Head of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Calls Attention to Role of That Denomination Not Only in Ukraine but Across Former Soviet Space

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – On February 12, Pope Leo XIV received at the Vatican Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the second meeting the two have ad since Leo became leader of the world’s Roman Catholics and one that called attention both to the Vatican’s role in Ukraine, and the UGCC’s role there and elsewhere.

            Since Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the papacy has carried out a quiet humanitarian effort in Ukraine as well as calling for an end to the fighting and negotiations toward a just peace (zenit.org/2026/02/13/the-leader-of-the-ukrainian-catholic-church-the-largest-church-in-communion-with-rome-is-received-by-the-pope/).

            Pope Leo reportedly reaffirmed that commitment at his meeting with the UGCC leader, who both welcomed that and emphasized that the UGCC is active not only in Ukraine but is represented across the world. In all places, it remains subordinate to Rome but retains its Byzantine liturgy.--

            If the UGCC – which is all too often referred to as the Uniates – is recognized for its role in the religious and political life of Ukraine, the larger role it has in the world often is ignored; and that is a mistake because its role beyond the borders of Ukraine has become increasingly important over the last decade.

            Among its most important roles in the former Soviet space is the way its churches are serving as a half-way house between those leaving the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate are joining UGCC parishes in Kazakhstan in hope of eventual Orthodox autocephaly there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/uniate-churches-in-kazakhstan-help.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/orthodox-in-kazakhstan-seeking.html).

            Moscow is anything but happy about that, but its anger about the UGCC goes much deeper. After Putin illegally seized Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, Moscow Patriarch Kirill laid the blame for Ukraine’s opposition on the UGCC and its alliance with Orthodox groups in Ukraine committed to autocephaly there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/07/moscow-patriarch-blames-uniatism-not.html).

Putin’s War is Why So Many Russians are Suffering in the Dark, Cold and without Water, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb.16 – The independent Important Stories portal says that since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, 78 percent of Russia’s federal subjects have significantly reduced their spending on housing infrastructure, a major reason why so many Russians in these regions are suffering in the dark, the cold and without running water.   

            To meet the unfunded mandates that Moscow has imposed on the regional governments, the latter have been forced to make cuts in repairing and updating infrastructure and that has contributed mightily to the disasters in Russia this winter (istories.media/stories/2026/02/16/za-vremya-voini-78-rossiiskikh-regionov-znachitelno-sokrashchali-raskhodi-na-zhkkh/).

            The world including many Russians of good will have reacted with horror to the way in which Putin’s bombing campaign has left so many Ukrainians in the dark, without heat and without running water; but there has been far less understanding that Putin has launched an almost equally horrific but completely unacknowledged operation against his own people.

            What makes this development especially appalling is that Russians have seen their utility bills skyrocket over the same period; but it is becoming clear that the moneys collected by the authorities are not going to ensure that they have the services they thought they were paying for but rather for Putin’s war, an outcome none of them can be happy about.

            And it seems likely that recognition of this fact as it spreads will give rise to references to what Russians earlier called the Kremlin’s proclivity to engage in the “bombing of Voronezh,” a reference to the Putin regime’s inflicting of pain on its own people in order to put the Kremlin in a position to do so against others as well.