More than 30 of Russia’s Federal Subjects have Restored Sobering Up Centers

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 20 – Moscow oblast has decided to open sobering up stations to deal with the rising tide of drunkenness in that region, bringing to almost a third the number of federal subjects which have done so since the Russian government opened the way for such stations in 2021 after banning this longtime feature of Soviet and Russian life in 2011.

            Moscow Oblast will not build new facilities, however. Instead, it will establish sobering up sections in the region’s hospitals and man them with doctors and nurses already on staff rather than hiring anyone new (kommersant.ru/doc/8443564 and ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/20/v-podmoskove-vozrodyat-vitrezviteli-a187770).

            The Russian government earlier dispensed with such centers because it claimed that Moscow had made so much progress in fighting alcoholism and drunkenness, progress it argued was shown by official statistics showing declining consumption and less binge drinking of alcohol in Russia since the 1990s.

            The reopening of sobering up stations, independent Russian experts say, show that the Russian government’s claims are unwarranted and that the statistics it has offered as justification fail to capture the large share of the alcohol market, including unregistered and illegal production, that Russians are actually consuming in the same ways they did earlier. 

Moscow has Closed 22 Embassies and Consulates in Western Countries since 2022 but Opened Nine Embassies and Seven Consulates in Africa and Asia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 11 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has closed 22 embassies and consulates in Western countries at the demand of the governments of those countries and then in most cases shuttering Western diplomatic representations in the Russian Federation in response.

            But over the same period, the Russian foreign ministry says, Moscow has opened nine embassies and seven consulates in Africa and Asia. It has inaugurated embassies in Niger, Sierra Leone and South Sudan over the last 12 months and is slated to open such missions in the Gambia, Liberia, Togo and the Comoros Islands in the next (iz.ru/en/node/2040463).

            This turn to the east in diplomatic work means that in the West, Russian citizens often face difficulties in getting needed consular services and the Russian government is unable to use these missions for a variety of purposes while elsewhere, Moscow is gearing up both for more Russians needing consular assistance and for its embassies to ramp up Russian activities.

42 Percent of Well-Off Russians Live in Moscow, a City with Less than Ten Percent of that Country’s Populaiton, ‘To Be Precise’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 19 – Forty-two percent of Russians earning at least 276,000 rubles (3,000 US dollars) a month, the amount statisticians say forms the top one percent of earners in their country, live in Moscow, even though the city forms only about nine percent of the total Russian population, the To Be Precise portal says.

            At the same time, the investigative outlet continues, half of all the residents of the Russian Federation currently earn 45,000 rubles (600 US dollars) a month, a fifth of what those in the highest one percent who are concentrated in the Russian capital (tochno.st/materials/42-naibolee-obespecennyx-rossiian-moskvici).

            Moscow had always had more wealthy people than other regions, but over the last decade, its position first fell after the imposition of sanctions, declines in the price of oil and the devaluation of the ruble, but by 2024, the city had recovered its position – and for the first time, its share of Russia’s wealthiest exceeded the level that they had formed in 2013.

            However, To Be Precise says, if one considers the geographic distribution of Russians in the top ten percent of incomes, those making more than 119,000 rubles (1500 US dollars) a month, Moscow’s share of that group is only 23 percent, an indication that Russians in this category are more widely distributed. 

Putin’s War Leaving Russia with Several Hundred Thousand Russians Morally Debased, Threatening the Country for Decades Ahead, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 20 – Horrific reports about how a Russian general shared with his wife pictures of the ears of Ukrainian prisoners his men had cut off have led Vladimir Pastukhov to conclude that Putin’s war in Ukraine is leaving Russia with several hundred thousand morally debased people who can’t be easily cured and who will be a threat for decades.

            The London-based Russian commentator says that Russia is at risk of “ending up with several hundred thousand people as a result of this war, not just morally depraved or corrupted by bloodshed and murder but clinically incurable and irreversibly ill” (t.me/v_pastukhov/1827 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/v-konechnom-schete-vyyasnitsya-chto-odinakovo-bolny-i-voevavshie-i-ne-voevavshie).

            Such people, Pastukhov continues, “will pose a colossal threat” to the country, corroding all constructive social ties and relationships from family to political life, affecting public health in a way comparable to the impact of Novichok on the health of an individual. That is, they will block the transmission of social signals across all communication channels.”

            The Putin regime acts as if they can be brought back into society without any negative consequences because of its adaptation programs, but that is not the case. These people will continue to live and have an impact on society for decades until their deaths and after that because of the impact they will have on others who didn’t take part in the war.

            Of course, Pastukhov concedes, it is “naïve” to think that this is a consequence of Putin’s war alone. Its links to the events of the 1990s is “obvious.” But “it’s just that all the violence that presented itself as the norm in the first and second Chechen campaigns and before that in Afghanistan has been scaled up tens and hundreds of times in the current war.”

            And he concludes: “It took almost 40 years to bring society to this state, and it will take no less time to get society out of it.”

 

No Longer Able to Qualify for Loans, Russians Increasingly are Turning to Pawnshops and Selling Off Not Just Jewelry but Essentials

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 19 – There are many measures of economic hardship among the poor, but one of the most accurate and disturbing is when people cannot get small loans because banks have tightened the rules, they are forced sell off whatever they have in pawnshops in order to survive.

            That is what is happening in Russia, with the Bank of Russia reporting that in the first half of 2025, pawnbrokers extended 190 billion rubles (2.3 billion US dollars) to Russians who had nowhere else to turn (newizv.ru/news/2026-02-19/perforator-za-edu-kak-lombardy-v-2026-godu-stanovyatsya-edinstvennym-bankom-dlya-naroda-438823).

            But the situation is even worse than that massive figure suggests. Before 2025, 90 percent of pawnbroker loans involved jewelry, something most people could afford to live without; but last year, the share of jewelry as a percentage of all things traded to pawnbrokers for money fell to 40 percent with the difference including equipment that people need for work or their lives.

            And what is perhaps most disturbing, Russians are selling such essentials to pawnbrokers for 30 to 50 percent less than they paid for them and will have to pay again if these things are to be replaced, yet another way that the economic decline in Russia is pushing ever more people there into poverty and casting a dark shadow on their futures for years to come.

 

Russians Oppose Violent Overthrow of Dictators Abroad and at Home as Well, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 20 – Recent polls about events in Venezuela and Iran and older ones about the situation in Belarus in 2020 indicate that Russians side with the incumbents and oppose violent change abroad and likely oppose it at home as well, according to independent Russian commentator Sergey Shelin.

            Given that they live “under a dictator themselves,” he says, Russians would seem to have every reason to see the removal of a dictatorship in Venezuela and a popular challenge to one in Iran are developments they would support (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/20/rossiyanin-serednyak-sochuvstvuet-diktatoram-a-ne-tem-kto-protiv-nih-a187733).

            Bur recent polls in the Russian Federation show something else: they show that Russians support the regimes being challenged and oppose moves against them regardless of whether they are taken by a foreign power as in the case of Venezuela or by the population as in Iran – and indeed, in the latter case, they blame outside agitators for the actions of the Iranian people.

            Surveys taken at the same of the popular protests against the Lukashenka dictatorship in Belarus in 2020, protests that Russians paid far more attention to than they have to the events in Venezuela and Iran, show the same pattern of support for those in power and opposition to any violent challenge.

            “Four years of Putin’s escapades,” Shelin continues, “have not weakened Russians propensity to protect those in power or increased their interest in those trying to overthrow a dictatorship. On the contrary, their state of mind has become ever more depressing,” with ever fewer willing to express interest in or solidarity with those opposing dictatorships.

            This pattern should not be attributed to the Russian government’s media campaigns in support of its allies either, Shelin says. It is deeper than that and reflects a willingness to support dictators “no matter how vile” and “a refusal to see anything through the eyes of their opponents and victims.”

            And those attitudes toward foreign dictators parallel those they have to their own dictator, Shelin argues. Russians “don’t particularly adore him, but he can do anything” as “the masses see no replacement for him. They don’t even ask the Russian elite for a coup d’etat as they have no alternative social ideas at all.”

Declining Share of Ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan No Longer Primarily about Out-Migration than Instead Reflects Their Lower Birthrate and Higher Death Rate than Kazakhs

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb.20 – Since 1989, the share of the ethnic Russians in the population of Kazakhstan has declined from 38 percent to 14.6 percent, but the reason for that decline has changed. In the past, it largely reflected the out-migration of ethnic Kazakhs but more recently, it is a reflection of lower birthrates and higher death rates among Russians than among Kazakhs.

            Ethnic Russians, who left Kazakhstan by the tens of thousands in the 1990s, are still leaving; but the number of such departures is now so small – 16,000 in 2022 and 10,100 in 2023 – that it does not explain the continuing decline of the share ethnic Russians form in the Kazakhstan population (altyn-orda.kz/v-kazahstane-sokrashhaetsya-russkoe-naselenie/).

            Instead, the Altyn-Orda portal says on the basis of Kazakhstan government figures, “an ever-greater role is being played by demographic inertia,” a term which refers to the fact that ethnic Russians are on average older, have much lower birthrates and much higher death rates than do ethnic Kazakhs.

            These factors are unlikely to change anytime soon and mean that the share of ethnic Russians in the population of Kazakhstan is likely to continue to decline, possibly at an accelerating rate, even if outmigration falls to almost nothing or even is reversed because some ethnic Russians who left earlier may decide to return to Kazakhstan for their retirement.