Siberia’s Metal and Energy Production Only has Importance When and Where These are Used, Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 -- Moscow officials routinely celebrate Siberia’s metal and energy production, Dmitry Verkhoturov says; but those things acquire importance only when they are used to produce something, a pattern that was true in Soviet times when these Siberian “products” were used for military industry in the region but is less the case now.

            Metal and energy “do not mean a lot by themselves,” the commentator on economic issues in Russia east of the Urals says; “they acquire significance only in connection of their rolein the preparation of something very necessary and useful.” Increasing the output of the two without reference to that is meaningless and even counterproductive (sibmix.com/?doc=22493).

            Russian officials got used to thinking and talking in this way during Soviet times when metals and power produced in Siberia were used almost exclusively for military industries and any discussion of these industries was impossible because data about them were invariably classified, Verkhoturov continues.

            Now, however, those discussing how to develop Siberia need to talk about whether there are sufficient industries of this kind left in Siberia to justify the development of metals and energy or whether other industries should be promoted to take their place if they do not now exist, he says.

            But that isn’t happening, Verkhoturov says. Instead, Moscow officials and often those in Siberia as well are promoting the development of mining and energy production as ends in themselves without any discussion of how their output will be used or even if it makes sense to develop them east of the Urals when the need for their “products” is uncertain. 

Moscow Now Using Many Ways to Punish Lawyers who Defend Their Clients Vigorously and Make Other Attorneys Less Willing to Do So, ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Over the last five years, the number of Russian lawyers who have been charged with criminal offenses has risen from 80 in 2020 to 133 last year. Such charges attract much attention, but this form of attack on attorneys is only a tiny part of Moscow’s efforts to rein in lawyers and reduce their willingness to defend clients, Maria Ehrlich says.

            Although statistics are not available, the data journalist for Novaya Gazeta says, the government has also succeeded in depriving other lawyers of their licenses and extending the requirement that counsel in an ever larger range of cases have license, something that chilled the legal profession (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/08/17/pokushenie-na-zashchitu).

            Legal chambers, the organizations corresponding to bar associations in Western countries, have fought back; but they increasingly are losing such cases in court and some of these organizations have decided that they must defer to the government on licensing rather than risk being destroyed completely, Ehrlich says.

            In addition to these frontal attacks on the status of lawyers, attacks most common in political cases but ever more often turning up in non-political ones as well, as prosecutors seek to gain convictions more easily so as to set themselves up for promotion in the Russian justice system, she continues.

            But perhaps the largest and most insidious form of repression against lawyers is far less noticeable to the general public, although its impact on those accused of crimes and the possibility that they will get a fair trial is enormous and disturbing to anyone who hopes for justice in Russian court rooms.

            According to a 2025 survey by the Federal Chamber of Lawyers which Ehrlich cites, 72 percent of lawyers said they had been confronted by attempts to persuade them to encourage their clients to plead guilty and 53.5 percent said they had been threatened with reprisal if they actively defended the accused. 

By Repressing Russians at Home, Putin is Causing Ukrainians to Fight Harder against His Aggression, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – To win in Ukraine, Moscow must convince Ukrainians they will be better off if they stop fighting Russian forces rather than continuing to resist, Abbas Gallyamov says; but the rising tide of repression inside the Russian Federation  is leading more Ukrainians to be convinced that they have no option but to continue to fight on.

            The former Putin speech writer who is now an outspoken critic of the Kremlin leader says this is an aspect of Putin’s domestic repression that is rarely discussed but is increasingly talked about (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/10986 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/izbivaya-bezzashhitnyh-rossiyan-putinskie-siloviki-ukreplyayut-reshimost-ukrainczev).

            Every new act of repression by the Putin regime against the population of the Russian Federation gives ever more Ukrainians ever more determination to fight on both because it shows what Russia is like and what their own fate would be if they fail to hold off and defeat the Russian invasion.

            Thus, Gallyamov says, “by beating up defenseless Russians at home, Putin’s security forces are strengthening the determination of Ukrainians to fight on,” a pattern that has become “the strange dialectic of this war” and one that may even decide not just the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine but the fate of Russia itself.

‘Main Geopolitical Outcome’ of Putin’s War in Ukraine May Be More Freedom of Action for Neighboring Countries, Kazakhstan Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Given the losses Russia has already suffered in Ukraine and the likelihood that it will not achieve Putin’s war goals, “the main geopolitical outcome” of the war there may prove to be that “the countries of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe wil have even more space for independent foreign policies,” the Altyn-Orda portal says.

            That is because in their capitals, the independent outlet says, “the Russian army will cease to be perceived as an almost insurmountable military force, and the Kremlin’s ability to impose its decisions on its neighbors will be significantly reduced” (altyn-orda.kz/esli-rossiya-proigraet-vojnu-chto-budet-s-nej-posle-porazheniya-v-ukraine/).

            Thus, Altyn-Orda continues, a military action which Putin began almost five years ago to restore Russian dominance of the former Soviet space is likely to prove to have exactly the opposite effect; and that will be true regardless of whether Russia in face “loses” the war as some are now predicting.

            The portal reaches that conclusion after reviewing what are the three main conclusions Western analysts have drawn: that losses in Ukraine may lead Moscow to become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad, that Russia itself will suffer some territorial losses of its own, or that Moscow will radically change course after Putin leaves the scene.

            In the view of Altyn-Orda, the first may happen but Moscow’s resources at least with regard to foreign actions have been reduced, Russia may lose some territories but will remain a large and important country, and efforts by Moscow to reintegrate in the international community may occur but may or may not prove sustainable.

            Seen from this perspective, Putin’s misadventures in Ukraine may best be seen as another step in the continuing collapse of the Russian empire, something that is all too often in the West viewed mistakenly viewed as something that happens quickly and could be stopped or reversed easily.

As Dire as Ukraine’s Demographic Problems are, They Won’t Restrict Kyiv’s Ability to Field an Army Anytime Soon, Moscow Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Russian commentators frequently point to and with more than a little schadenfreude even celebrate what they hope is the demise of the Ukrainian nation; but Vladimir Kotov, a scholar at the Russian University of Friendship of the Peoples, says that as dire as Ukraine’s demographic situation it, it won’t prevent Kyiv’s ability to field an army anytime soon.

            After surveying the decline in Ukraine’s population since the 1990s, the fall in fertility rates there to well below replacement levels, massive emigration, and the increase in mortality rates as well, Kotov argues that this does not mean that Kyiv will not be able to maintain the size of its military well into the future (ng.ru/vision/2026-08-17/5_9561_ukraine.html).

            Specifically, he says that Ukraine’s “human potential for continuing military actions all the same still remains significant” because the government has reduced the mobilization age and is talking about the possibility of the greater use of women in various parts of the military where they have not been used up to now.

            Kotov’s words are thus a warning to Russians in general and the Kremlin in particular that Moscow can’t count on the demographic collapse of Ukraine to force Kyiv to sue for peace but rather than the Ukrainian authorities despite all their country’s demographic problems can find ways to form and support a significant military force.

Moscow has Cut Poverty Rate in Russia Now from 9.1 Percent to 6.7 Percent by Statistical Sleight of Hand

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Moscow officials and commentators are celebrating what they say has been the halving of the poverty rate in Russia over the last five years to only 6.7 percent. But this decline is largely the result of a sleight of hand by the Russian government’s statistical agency, the To Be Precise portal says.

            This year the portal which investigates Russian statistical data on various questions points out that Rosstat changed the way it counted poverty. Had it used the same approach that it had used earlier, the poverty level would have been 9.1 percent and not 6.7 percent, a decline from 12.4 percent in 2019 but a much less impressive reduction than the one Moscow is claiming (tochno.st/materials/bednost-v-rossii-sokratilas-vdvoe).

            “Until 2021,” the To Be Precise portal says, “Rosstat classified individuals as poor if their income fell below the subsistence minimum—the cost of a minimal basket of essential food, goods, and services. But in 2021, it adopted a new metric: the poverty line,” a threshold set in 2020 to the subsistence level and indexed since that time.” By making this change, the agency was able to claim the greater decline.  

Moscow’s 1520 mm Railway Gage ‘Empire’ Long a Source of Influence Losing Ground to China Inside Russia Itself

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 16 – Moscow officials and Russian nationalists have long referred to the 17 countries – the 12 former Soviet republics, the three once-occupied Baltic states, Finland and Mongolia – which use the Russian railway gage of 1520 mm rather than the international gage of 1435 mm as “the 1520 Empire.”

            Moscow commentator Igor Shumeyko is the latest to do so and like others points that that this special “empire” ties these countries together and sets them apart from others who must change carriages when they cross its border (fondsk.ru/news/2026/08/16/imperiya-1520-rossiyskaya-zheleznodorozhnaya-koleya.html).

            He notes that from the beginning in the 19^th century, Russian leaders have viewed this “empire” as something which helps Russia both economically and in terms of national security and that despite all the political changes in 1991 and thereafter, these countries have remained within it because it is enormously expensive to change the gage of railways.

            Finland and the three Baltic countries have taken some steps in the direction of moving away from the Russian gate to the international one but mostly remain on the Russian standard (euroweeklynews.com/2025/05/07/finnish-railway-gauge-to-be-changed-to-that-of-sweden/ and ft.com/content/0fe9d0fb-23a8-4935-a2e9-2637f444c8ba?syn-25a6b1a6=1).

            The former Soviet republics also remain on the Russian standard and thus allow Moscow to speak of the “1520 Empire,” Shumeyko says. But some of these countries are under pressure from China to lay international standard width tracks within existing Russian standard lines to ease trade.

            But the biggest current threat to this “empire” is from China and it is within the Russian Federation itself.  A decade ago, Moscow bowed to Chinese pressure and agreed to build a international gage track between the Chinese border and a Russian port (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/04/bowing-to-china-moscow-for-first-time.html).

            And earlier this year, Russia again made a special concession to China on the gage of a new track in the Russian Far East to increase trade and reduce costs of having to change the carriages of trains at the border (tkrus.pro/jd-koleya-china-russia/?ysclid=msxrniep1416903527, объясняем.рф/articles/news/rossiya-i-kitay-dogovorilis-o-stroitelstve-zheleznoy-dorogi/ and railjournal.com/freight/russia-and-china-increase-cross-border-capacity/).

            As Russia gives ground to China on this issue, the other countries which still use the Russian gage undoubtedly will become more ready to do the same thing and for the same reasons. If they do, Moscow may eventually have to stop talking about the “1520 mm Empire” its railroads have helped it build and maintain even when political borders change.