Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania Outraged by Calls to Require It Subordinate Itself to Ecumenical Patriarchate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 -- Relations between the Lithuanian government and the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania have been far less fraught than those between the Estonian and Latvian governments and Orthodox hierarchies in those two Baltic countries, at least in part because the share of Lithuanians who are Orthodox is so small, less than five percent.

            But since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, relations between the state and the Orthodox Church in Lithuania have deteriorated, at least in part because the church remains canonically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate and its leaders usually but not always follow that patriarchate’s line.

            That led some Orthodox priests there to appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to form an alternative Orthodox see in Lithuania by creating a Constantinople exarchate for it, something Bartholemew completed during a visit to Vilnius last summer (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/06/ecumenical-patriarch-completes-process.html).

            Some expected that would leave Lithuania with two Orthodox churches much as Estonia has had, but now there are signs that Vilinius is about to follow Tallinn and will seek to force the Russian Orthodox Church there to break with Moscow and align with Constantinople or face a ban.

            Not only has the Lithuanian government declared the Russian church in Lithuania a threat to Lithuania’s national security, but two bills have been submitted to the parliament that would lead to the confiscation of ROC MP property in Lithuania and to declaration that the only permitted Orthodox church in Lithuanian would be one which submits to Constantinople.

            Not surprisingly, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has expressed outrage at even the consideration of such measures, but it is unclear what it can offer except prayers, although it is possible that the Russian government will intervene to prevent its church in Lithuania from being driven underground or disappearing.

Russian Justice Ministry to Publish Lists of Russians who’ve Fled Abroad to Avoid Punishment for Crimes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Russia’s justice ministry has announced that it will be posting a list of Russian citizens now living abroad and thus are evading sentences imposed by Russian courts, analogous to the foreign agents list already maintained by the Russian government but one that appears to be even more threatening to those put on it.

            Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko says those put on this new list will be subject to “the blocking of accounts and property in Russia, the banning of registration of real estate and cars, obtaining loans, using remote banking services, as well as registering IPs and self-employment” (tass.ru/obschestvo/28240571 and ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/minust-rf-sozdast-publicnyj-reestr-rossian-skryvausihsa-ot-nakazania-za-granicej/460262).

            Moreover, the deputy minister says that these restrictions will go into effect the moment an individual is put on the list, something that the justice ministry will decide upon on recommendation from the interior ministry, the FSB, the federal bailiffs service, of the Procuracy General.

            According to Sviridenko, there is a way for those put on the list to get off it. “If the perpetrator is ready to return, admit mistakes and suffer well-deserved punishment, he has the right to restore his rights but if he hides abroad and doesn’t take responsibility for his actions, the restrictions will remain in place.”

            Rights activists say that this is yet another measure intended not only to put those who may fall in this category on notice but to intimidate others, both those who have left Russia and those who may be thinking about it because the Russian government can always convict people in absentia and then argue that “the convict” has fled Russia to avoid punishment. 

Moscow Files Charges Against KPRF Politician from Komi Republic who Acted Like a Regionalist Leader

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 21 – One of the greatest fears the Kremlin has about its party system is that the nominally opposition parliamentary parties will begin acting like the regionalist parties that Putin banned at the start of his rule and thus threaten to revive some of the center-periphery tensions that roiled Russian politics in the 1990s.

The case of Sergey Furgal, an LDPR member who served as governor of Krasnoyarsk and whose dismissal sparked massive protests there, is the most well-known; but the situation in the Komi Republic may be even more significant because the KPRF there as a whole has been acting as a regionalist party de facto, protesting Moscow for its plans to build a dump at Shiyes.

(For background on the way in which that parliamentary party in the Komi Republic transformed itself into a regionalist force and how Moscow has worked sometimes with success and sometimes not, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/despite-law-against-regional-parties.html.)

In an indication of just how concerned Moscow is about such a possible trend, the case of a Komi KPRF leader is instructive. Oleg Mikhaylov, who helped organize the Shiyes protests and served as head of the KPRF fraction in the republic parliament, served in the last Duma but now has been forced out and charged with a serious crime.

Mikhaylov has been charged with “public calls for terrorist activity, its justification and propaganda on the Internet” by Moscow officials. If he is convicted, as is likely, he could face a prison term for five to seven years (komidaily.com/2026/10/21/v-moskve-zaderzhan-oleg-mihailov/ and thebarentsobserver.com/news/former-member-of-state-duma-from-komi-republic-detainednbsp/460309).

This case likely marks the end of Mikhaylov’s political career, but it is more important as a warning to other parliamentarians in the federal subjects that Moscow will not only seek to drive them out of politics as it tightens central control but send them to prison for good measure, an implicit indication of the strength of regional attitudes and Moscow’s fears of them.

17 of 20 Russian Federal Subjects Where Homelessness or the Threat of Homelessness is Greatest are East of the Urals, ‘To Be Precise’ Calculates

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 21 – No one knows how many homeless there are in Russia as Moscow doesn’t conduct a census of the homeless or report data about this category although estimates suggest at least two million Russians are without a roof over their heads (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/russia-now-has-two-million-homeless-and.html).

            The To Be Precise portal has come up with perhaps the best estimate of the size of the problem not directly but by using 15 data sets that are published and that are related to homeless or the threat of homelessness (tochno.st/materials/gde-v-rossii-vyse-risk-ostatsia-bez-doma-reiting-regionov-ot-esli-byt-tocnym-i-noclezki).

            These fifteen are divided into five groups: the first concerns income and employment, the second the concentration of people at risk because of debts, past imprisonment or recent moves, the third, overcrowding and emergency housing, the fourth, mortality from diseases common among the homeless, and the fifth, “the strength of family ties in the region.”

            Using these metrics, the portal said, it concluded that homelessness or the threat of homelessness is greatest east of the Urals, where 17 of the worst regional situations are, and least in the North Caucasus, where family ties remain strongest and relatives are more likely to take in people who lose their housing than is the case elsewhere.

            In the middle of the rankings are Moscow and St. Petersburg, the portal says, with higher incomes and lower unemployment pushing risks down but income inequality and the high cost of housing pushing the figures in the opposite direction. But there the problem that does exist is especially serious because “there are almost no emergency housing and few prisoners.”

             To Be Precise notes that “seven of the 85 regions have no homeless shelter. There are no public shelters in twenty regions. If a person loses housing in a region where there is not a single shelter, and in winter the temperature drops below -25 ° C, the chances of surviving on the street are much less.”

Lacking Funds, Russia’ s Federal Subjects Cutting Back Payments to Those who Sign Military Contracts and to Families of Those who Die in Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – In recent weeks, the governments of numerous Russia’s federal subjects have cut back the payments they have been making to get men to sign military contracts or to survivors of those who have died in Putin’s war in Ukraine, sometimes by enormous amounts and without advance warning.

            Earlier this month, for example, St. Petersburg cut its one-time payment to those who sign military contracts from 3.5 million rubles to 1 million , and other regions and republics have cut by as large or even larger percent (svoboda.org/a/v-rossii-sokraschayut-vyplaty-za-voennye-kontrakty-i-gibelj-na-voyne/33879626.html).

            A similar trend involves regional payments to survivors of those who have lost their lives in Ukraine. In Saratov Oblast, such payments have been reduced by 90 percent; and in Orenburg Oblast, which had paid out one million rubles for such losses, they have been eliminated altogether.

            So far, payments by the federal government for those who sign up or who die have not been reduced or eliminated; but the governments of the federal subjects, who in many cases were offering more than even Moscow, have been forced to take this step because they simply don’t have the money needed to continue to pay out such amounts.

            The reduction in bonuses offered by regions is going to make it more difficult for Moscow to meet its recruitment quotas, although it may be that differences in cutbacks of such payments among regions will lead to yet another form of Russian tourism, with those who want to sign up going to places where payments are highest.

            But families of those who have lost loved ones in Putin’s war do not have that option, and they are likely to become especially angry given what they were very publicly promised in the case of a death and what they are now not going to get, a shortcoming made even more infuriating because it has been done without public explanation.

Governments of Russia’s Federal Subjects Lack Funds to Hire and Hold Even Key Officials, Kalechev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 21 – Many of the increasingly hard-pressed governments of Russia’s federal subjects lack the funds to hire and hold even key officials, Konstantin Kalachev says, losing out in the competition for such people to businesses and thus increasingly unable to perform either their own mandated responsibilities or tasks Moscow assigns them.

            The head of the Political Experts Group focuses on the situation in Tatarstan, in fact one of the regions  that is relatively better off, to point out the fact that even Kazan can’t offer salaries to attract and then retain the staff it needs (regcomment.ru/regions/rossiya/tatarstan-kak-zerkalo-kadrovyj-defitsit-stal-federalnoj-problemoj/).

            “The shortage of qualified personnel in the public service there is really creating risks to the quality and efficiency of management, makes it more likely that deadlines won’t be met, and can be accompanied by an increase in the threat of corruption,” Kalachev continues. As such, it “is not only a republic problem but also a federal one.”

            According to the specialist on regional affairs, this problem requires “not only an increase in the level of wages to competitive values but also a comprehensive improvement in working conditions, incentive mechanisms, a reduction in the burdens on the bureaucracy, a change in management culture, and expanded career opportunities.”

            In the short term at least, shortages of key officials in the regions means that Moscow has to intervene even more often than would otherwise be the case because it can’t count on the regional bureaucracies to carry out its will – or alternatively, the center must be willing to see a decay in governance across much of the country. 

Non-Russians Speak about Putin’s War Very Differently and More Bluntly when They Use Their Native Languages than When They Use Russian, ‘Novaya Gazeta Europe’ Investigation Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – Non-Russian speak about Putin’s war very differently and more bluntly and negatively when they use their native languages than when they use Russian, according Dalya Talanova, a data journalist for Novaya Gazeta Europe who oversaw a study of 800,000 comments on 21,700 channels of the VKontakte network.

            Overwhelmingly, she suggests, non-Russians when using Russian to make comments on VKontakte follow the conventions about Putin’s war that Moscow insists on; but when they use their native languages, they behave very differently (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/4303-«пусть-тяжелая-земля-станет-легкой»).

            At the same time, she makes clear that more than 90 percent of non-Russians commenting about the war use Russian rather than their native languages, a pattern which means that those who do use native languages have already made a political choice and that likely carries over into their evaluations of the war.

            Few of them use the euphemism “special military operation,” most call the war a war, and many introduce religious or ethnic terms which show how horrified they are by the conflict and its human costs. For these people, who live in republics from which the Kremlin drew so many soldiers, the war is personal; and they use their native languages to underscore that point.

            Talanova gives example after example of this pattern, an indication that non-Russians clearly feel that they can be far more honest in expressing their views and feelings when they use their native languages than when they use Russian, likely because Moscow monitors the non-Russian texts less closely – and non-Russians know that.