Moscow’s Compatriots Program Unintentionally Leading to Formation and Growth of Ethnic Enclaves in Russian Federation

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 21 – Twenty years ago this month, Putin established a program for the resettlement of ethnic Russians and other Russian speakers in the Russian Federation. As a result, 1.2 million people have arrived, but many aren’t ethnic Russians – and they are now contributing to the rise of ethnic enclaves, critics of the program say.

            The program was adopted in 2006 in order to compensate for the demographic decline of ethnic Russians in the first decade of this century after the relatively large-scal returns of ethnic Russians from the former Soviet space had ended in the decade before  (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-06-21--20-let-programme-pereselenija-sootechestvennikov-naskolko-ona-okazalas-effektivnoj-88501).

            But it has not worked entirely as intended, Rhythm of Eurasia says. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Russians who lived in the other Soviet republics in 1989 still live in what are now independent countries, and Moscow’s efforts to have them specifically return have been far less successful in percentage terms than have Astana’s to facilitate the return of ethnic Kazakhs.

            Most of the returnees are from five republics of the former USSR, the portal says, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Armenia. The inclusion of Tajikistan and Armenia on this list highlights something Moscow prefers to ignore: a large share of the compatriots returning to Russia aren’t ethnic Russians.

            There were only 68,200 ethnic Russians in Tajikistan in 2000 and only 14,600 ethnic Russians in Armenia in 2001. Consequently, “the intake from these countries could only occur through the participation of representatives of their titular ethnoses,” Tajiks and Armenians, something that has led to the appearance of growth of enclaves in Russia.

            Equally serious is the fact that the compatriots program which has been promoted as a way to increase the share of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation population or at least limit the decline of this metric is not having the intended effect but instead is contributing on its own to the mounting migration crisis there. 

Northern Sea Route Development Experiencing Delays and Cost Overruns Because of Shortages of Skilled Workers and Attempts to Attract Them with High Salaries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 21 – Russia’s much-ballyhooed Northern Sea Route is currently facing serious shortages of skilled workers needed to complete development projects on land. To try to attract more workers, companies are increasing the salaries they are prepared to pay; but that is creating another problem: pushing up costs at a time of budgetary stringency.

            According to Maksim Maksimov, an expert consultant for the Russian North television channel based in Vologda, shortages of personnel is “one of the key systemic problems in the development of the Norther Sea Route” and one that the project has not been able to overcome (caspian.land/37380-severnomu-morskomu-puti-nuzhny-kvalificirovannye-kadry.html).

            Attempts by the companies involved to lure specialists from other places by offering high salaries has created another problem: the costs of these projects increase dramatically, something that makes them targets for cutbacks by a government that is facing budgetary restrictions due to the growing costs of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine.

            Consequently, higher salaries are at best a stopgap and may end by forcing Moscow to cancel projects because they have become too expensive to finance at the present time. 

Popularity of Conspiracy Theories about Demise of USSR Intended to Distract Attention from Real Causes, Tsipko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – Conspiracy theories about the demise of the USSR, associated in the first instance with publicist Yevgeny Spitsyn, are intended to distract attention from the real causes of that event – the way Lenin reassembled the empire after 1918, the way Stalin repressed the population, and the way Russian nationalism undermined the USSR, Aleksandr Tsipko says.

            In a 5,000-word article in which he details the numerous mistakes and misinterpretations Spitsyn and his ilk make, the senior Russian social scientist and commentator makes a large number of points based on his reading of history and on his own experience near the center of power in Gorbachev’s time (ng.ru/ideas/2026-06-22/6_9521_ussr.html).

            But his arguments about the real reasons for the disintegration of the USSR in 1991 are especially important, particularly because all three of them are not only ignored by the conspiracy theorists but also are at odds with the ideological pronouncements of Putin and supporters of his regime.

            First, Tsipko says, one must keep in mind that Russia was reassembled by Lenin in 1918-1921 not as a voluntary union of republics but by military force. It was never the free union of peoples that Soviet leaders insisted and that Putin and company continue to insist existed. Consequently, when the center weakened, the country Lenin established began to fall apart.

            Second, he continues, Stalin was never the hero for most Soviets. Instead,  he was recognized as a brutal dictator from which not only the population of the USSR wanted to escape but also from which the leaders of the CPSU wanted to do as well. Any attempt to restore Stalinism, therefore, will only increase opposition and fissiparousness as it did in 1991.

            And third – and this is Tsipko’s key point, one especially important because it is typically ignored – the USSR “was destroyed in 1991 above all by the ethnic Russians and became a victim of Great Russian separatism” (stress supplied), with Boris Yeltsin playing the key role but others like Aleksandr Yakovlev who earlier warned about this doing so as well.

            According to Tsipko, it was Yeltsin’s drive in 1990 to have the RSFSR declare its laws rather than those of the USSR dominant on its territory that was the proximate cause of the demise of the Soviet state; but it was efforts by Yakovlev and others to boost the study of pre-revolutionary Russia that also contributed to the USSR’s collapse.

            The senior Russian commentator says “we must always bear in mind what Nicholas Berdyaev said about the mystery of Russianness,” specifically his argument that the Russian people made great sacrifices to create the Russian state … but remained without power over their own vast realm.”

            “Imperialism, in the Western and bourgeois sense of the word, is alien to the Russian people and yet they have submissively devoted their energies to building an imperialism in which they were not committed or beneficiaries. Herein,” Berdyaev wrote, “lies the mystery of Russian history and the Russian soul.            “

Kremlin will Use Indebtedness of Russia’s Federal Subjects to Impose Even Tighter Central Control, Economist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – The increasingly hard-pressed federal subjects of the Russian Federation are now forced to cut costs, but because of the absence of any law allowing them to go bankrupt, Moscow will ultimately have to bail them out, although such aid will come at the price of what is left of their autonomy, economist Dmitry Nekrasov says.

            Nekrasov, who now lives abroad and is part of the CASE network, says “the painful reduction in various expenditures at the regional level will continue, but on the other hand, it is clear that Moscow will intervene to solve these issues” (svoboda.org/a/bednye-stanut-bednee/33785267.html).

            Russia “doesn’t have a procedure for regional bankruptcies” and so when regional governments get in debt over their ability to cope, Moscow will have to take action – but that action will come at a high price in the ability of the regions involved to take any decisions on their own.

            Nekrasov suggests that this situation is “rather similar to what happened to Greece in the EU during the debt crisis” 15 years ago. The EU refused to allow Greece to default and provided  funds to ensure that that wouldn’t happen, but this money was given only on condition of “severe reductions” in Greek spending, something that infuriated Greeks and created other problems.

            The economist does not address the most extreme step Moscow might take: the amalgamation of the hardest hit regions with those doing somewhat better. Putin has long wanted to reduce the number of federal subjects; and the debt crisis in the federal subjects could very easily become the trigger to restore that process. 

Infertility Increasing and Affecting Ever Younger Russians, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – In its drive to increase the birthrate of Russians, the Kremlin faces a many problems including on that is seldom discussed, that few of its programs address and that in at least one case make the problem even worse, according to Russian experts surveyed by Elena Rychkova of the Nakanune news agency. 

            Between 2023 and 2024, the number of cases of infertility diagnosed in Russia rose 5.5 percent to 245,800 women and 6.9 percent to 32,700 men, the result of both medical conditions and stress factors like fatigue, poor nutrition, and especially increases in the use of anti-depressants, medical researchers say (nakanune.ru/articles/124745/).

            Because these behavioral consequences are more often found in younger people than older cohorts, that has led to increases in infertility among both men and women at ever earlier ages, precisely the time when underlying medical conditions are typically the best for having children.

            Most government programs intended to boost the birthrate ignore these factors and instead relying on financial incentives and increasing opposition to abortion. While the former may help reduce stress, it isn’t explicitly intended to do so; and anti-abortion campaigns may increase stress and thus increase infertility.

            But the most important consequence of government policies in this area is the constant raising of the age that Moscow considers young. Now, it stands at 40. That is designed to ensure that couples who want to have children well into their 30s will not feel that they are taking a risk. But in fact, experts say, after 35, the physical condition of women leads to more infertility.

            That in turn means that talking about youth as extending to age 40 may lead some couples to delay trying to have children and those who do may find themselves less able to have them, something that will push down the fertility rate in the Russian Federation still further, exactly the reverse of what the Kremlin wants.  

Russia Media Losing Audiences as People are Tired of Bad News and as Aggregator Algorithms Expand, Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – Russian media are losing their audiences for many of the same reasons that their counterparts in other countries are: people are tired of bad news and feel a sense of information overload and at the same time aggregator algorithms like Google are summarizing media products in ways that mean people don’t have to go to the originals.

            Such downward pressure is costing many media outlets their audiences even if such newspapers and websites are able to escape pressures to conform from the authorities, commentator Denis Yakovlev writes (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/novosti-bez-chitateley-pochemu-smi-terjajut-auditoriju-po-vsemu-miru-i-kak-eto-proishodit-v-rossii).

These two factors are hitting media at all levels in the Russian Federation. Between May 2025 and May 2026, Russians turned to internet media sites far less often. In Moscow, the decline was from 17.2 million users a month to only 12.3 million this May. At the regional and local level, the declines were even more precipitous, by almost 50 percent or even more.

Consequently, any analysis of the Russian media scene must recognize this and not ascribe them to Kremlin actions alone. Indeed, Yakovlev suggests, the impact of the popular desire to avoid bad news and the willingness of people to use aggregator summaries rather than go to originals may be even more important.

If these twin factors continue to operate, many of the media operations that now offer their own product will close regardless of whether the Kremlin seeks that outcome or not in an particular case; and the amount of genuinely produced news will decline perhaps even more than those around Putin in fact want. 

Andrey Danilov, ‘the Saami Navalny,’ Says Separatism is ‘Nonsense’ for His Nation but that It will Survive

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 19 – Andrey Danilov, known to his friends and supporters as “the Saami Navalny,” says that separatism is “nonsense” for his numerically small people in the Russian North – there are only about 1300 left there  --  but that his nation will survive because its members have their own strategy for dealing with the governments under which they live.

            That strategy, he says, combines a readiness to work with the governments on whose territory they live while simultaneously resisting attacks on their culture and language and withdrawing to the north when these states adopt aggressive strategies against them (nemoskva.net/2026/06/19/saami-my-est/).

            And they have the advantage, Danilov continues, in that there are Saami communities in Norway, Sweden and Finland, all of whom unlike Russia admitted guilt for their past genocidal policies and now actively support the Saami who live on their territories, including those like him who have fled there from Russia.

            He had been deputy chairman of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula in the Russian Federation before he fled from that country when Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022. Now he lives among Saami in Norway and continues to speak out in defense of  his nation.

            Of mixed ethnicity himself – his father is a Saami while his mother is an ethnic Russian – Danilov grew up at a time when few of his age cohort spoke the Saami language; and he admits that he still has to use a dictionary when he does because he has not yet mastered all the words he needs.

            According to the émigré activist, “the Saami are a semi-nomadic cross-border numerically small people who have an anthem and a flag but have never had their own statehood” or army. “Today, they live in four countries, who colonized their lands and forces the Saami to retreat northward when that was possible.                     

“In Norway, Sweden and Finland, the Sami parliaments have been working as official representative bodies of the indigenous people for several decades,” he continues. “They do not pass laws, but without their consent, no issue concerning language, culture, reindeer husbandry and other traditional crafts can be resolved.”

            That is what the Saami people inside Russia have sought to copy. They too created representative bodies, but those were first taken over and gutted by the Russian authorities and then suppressed altogether, although Danilov still refers t himself as the deputy chairman of their common parliament.