Kremlin and FSB Control of Senior Military Appointments Behind Failure of Russian Military in Ukraine, Focus Groups of Retired Officers Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 13 – Senior officers are now chosen not by their colleagues in the army but by the Kremlin and the FSB with the result being that those on top are selected because of their loyalty to the country’s leader rather than their professional competence. Not surprisingly, that has proved disastrous in the conduct of military operations.

            According to Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speech writer and now a Putin critic, that conclusion is offered by focus groups consisting of retired Russian army officers who are well familiar with the problem and want there to be changes (vot-tak.tv/94315382/armiya-i-kreml-gallyamov).

            Those who oppose Putin, the commentator says, need to support the de-politicization of military promotions, a step that would be good for the country and popular with the military, Gallyamov says. Otherwise, the Russian army will continue to do poorly and eventually there will be yet another Prigozhin mutiny, perhaps one that will be more successful than the first.  

             Gallyamov does not provide any details about who organized these focus groups, who took part, and when they occurred. But the attitudes he reports are entirely plausible given the Russian military's traditional anger at having the politicians override the professionals when it comes to appointing senior commanders and giving orders.  

Putin Right to Call for the Russian People to Endure Ukrainian Drone Attacks but Dangerously Wrong to Act as if Elites Don’t Have To, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 12 – Putin and his regime are “completely correct” in calling for Russians to show patience in enduring the current wave of Ukrainian drone attacks, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but he and his colleagues are dangerously wrong to then act as if that appeal doesn’t apply to them.

            Russian elites are able to get gasoline when others cannot and to avoid sending their sons to fight in Ukraine when the offspring of others are not able to do the same, the London-based Russian analyst says (t.me/v_pastukhov/1952 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/poterpet-oni-predlagayut-drugim-a-ne-sebe).

            During World War II, members of the elite, including Stalin’s own children, fought in the war and all suffered from the shortages and risks; but now, the Putin regime is calling on Russians as a whole to suffer but not showing any willingness for its own members to do the same, Pastukhov says.

            That pattern risks triggering “a sense of class hatred,” with those being encouraged to endure saying that those doing the encouraging aren’t willing to endure the same things.  This all started, of course, a decade ago when Russians were told “there is no money but you need to hold on.” Now the situation is far worse because it is far more obvious. 

September Duma Elections Won’t Be Much Different than Those in 2021, Kynyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – The upcoming Duma elections are likely to resemble the ones held in 2021, according to Aleksandr Kynyev, an independent political scientist who has now released a 51-page report with nine conclusions supporting his overall judgment about why the upcoming vote is not going change the Russian political system in any major way.

            One of the most thoughtful commentators about regional politics in the Russian Federation says, as his first conclusion, that the September voting will “continue a steqdy trend towards the contraction of political competition” (disk.yandex.ru/d/MoE3bjyo4qEyIQ summarized at ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/07/10/stabilnost-ili-modifitsirovannii-status-kvo-a20052).

            His second conclusion is that there will be a sharp decline in the total number of elections, largely because of the elimination of elected municipal councils. His third is that there will be 11 gubernatorial elections, an increase in only one from 2021. His fourth is that the trend toward the appointment of outsiders as governors will continue.        

            Kynyev’s fifth conclusion is that there won’t be a radical reduction in the share of seats elected on the proportional system. His sixth is that what is going on reflects Moscow’s striving for stability. His seventh is that more parties will cooperate in groups, thus further limiting competition and representation of various interests.

            The political scientist’s eighth conclusion based on his survey of regional elections is that with only one exception, the permitted size of spending on elections  won’t change. And the ninth is that ever more regions are now allowing the collection of signatures on nominating petitions via online public service platforms.

Melnichenko’s Message No Different than the One Putin has Been Delivering for Some Time, Parkhomenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Sergey Melnichenko’s article in The Economist is being widely discussed in both Russia and the West as an alternative vision of the future; but in fact, Sergey Parkhomenko says, it is “quintessentially Putinesque” and almost certainly was “crafted” in the Kremlin itself. 

            According to the commentator, Putin is indeed seeking “alternative channels of communication” given the shortcomings of his current messengers but his message remains unchanged—and the Russian oligarch in the British publication has “conveyed all his terms” (t.me/sparkhomenkovoice/3916 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/eto-sovershenno-putinskoe-poslanie).

            Parkhomenko argues that “the key phrase” in the  article, one Putin has used before, is this:  “the choice for external players is not between a friendly Russia and a hostile one. It is between a Russia whose behavior is predictable and a Russia whose trajectory is unknown. In the world now taking shape, predictability matters more than likability."

            Such logic is “very primitive,” Parkhomenko continues, “however much it is all dressed up in complex jargon and convoluted sentences.” And it has only one meaning: The Russian ruler “wants to survive and he hopes to somehow wriggle out [of his current difficulties] and hold on to power.”

Ukrainian Drone Attacks Prompt Kremlin to Ram Through Law Loosening Controls on Weapons and Night Vision Devices

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – In the weeks since Ukraine expanded its drone attacks on Russia, the Kremlin has rammed through a new law, introduced on June 4 and signed by Putin on July 4, loosing restrictions on ownership of guns and night vision thermal imaging devices.

            This loosening of restrictions had long been sought by Russian gun owners, but it has taken place, they and their supporters say, only in response to the Ukrainian attacks and the Russian army’s inability to stop them (echofm.online/news/putin-podpisal-popravki-v-zakon-ob-oruzhii-chto-eto-znachit).

            It follows another legal innovation in March, one that also is related to the war in Ukraine and reverses Moscow’s policies on guns, which is allowing private firms to acquire military-grade weaponry to defend their facilities from drone attacks (t.me/echoonline_news/23487 and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/05/moscows-failure-to-block-drone-attacks.html).

            These legal changes will lead to a growing influx of guns into the hands of ordinary Russians, a trend that will make it more likely that those who commit crimes will use weapons to do so and thus make the job of the Russian police far more difficult than it has been in the past (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/fsb-raids-underground-armament-firms-in.html).  

Russia No Longer on Demographic Roller Coaster But on What is Now a Permanent Decline, Krupnov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – In the decades after World War II, Russia’s demographic trajectory had long been on a roller coaster trajectory with larger and smaller generations following each other in ever decreasing echoes of the enormous losses of women of childbearing age during that conflict, Yury Krupnov says.

            But not that pattern is over, the Moscow demographer says, and been replaced by a long-term if not permanent decline with the waves that had been true in the past no longer significant compared with the decline in fertility rates as a result of modernization and urbanization (business-gazeta.ru/article/706478).

            This has been true in fact since 1964, he argues; but neither the Soviet nor the Russian leadership has recognized this demographic catastrophe, preferring both in the past and again now to assume that somehow the current demographic “pit” will give way on its own to a demographic boom.

            That isn’t going to happen, and the consequences in terms of demography, economics, and national security are immense and will only increase with time.  And because these are so great, it is time to stop assuming the band aid measures like giving bonuses to women who have children will work.

            If the birthrate is to grow again – and that is nothing that is going to happen on its own, Krupnov says – the Russian government must commit itself not only to creating an economic situation in which people will want to have children but promoting an ideology that having a large family is good for them and for their country.

            Those are enormous tasks and will take large amounts of money and may not succeed given the trend to single child or child free couples; but unless it is recognized that if they do not succeed, Russia will be depopulated and can hardly expect to remain in a position to control its enormous land. 

New Ukrainian Study Says Eight out of Ten Russian Regions Capable of Rapidly Becoming Independent Countries Once Moscow Collapses

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – Eight of the ten republics and regions in the Russian Federation that Ukrainian scholars have examined are capable of rapidly transforming themselves into independent countries once the imperial center in Moscow collapses, according to a new report on the prospects for their independence discussed at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.  

            Valery Pekar, head of the Decolonization organization and one of the authors of the report, observed that Moscow “constantly uses arguments about the economic, humanitarian, political and other shortcomings of its own regions to justify its colonial policies” (abn.org.ua/en/analysis/arguments-for-decolonization-of-russia/).

              But notes that UN Resolution 1514 of December 1960 explicitly states that “insufficient economic or political readiness cannot be used as a reason to postpone independence” and urges that everyone look beyond Moscow’s arguments regarding how “prepared” Russia’s regions and republics are to stand on their own.

              According to another author of the republic, Ukrainian economist Andriy Dligach, the widely reported insolvency of Russia’s regions is Not a natural fact but a constructed reality” because “a region can receive more from the center than it earns” not because it is poor but because of the disproportionate “rents” Moscow extracts.

              The Ukrainian scholars selected ten regions for the first “wave” of this study: Ingria, Kuban, Oirat-Kalmykia, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, the Urals, Komi, Siberia, Sakha-Yakutia, and Buryatia, a deliberately “diverse” group of rich and poor, northern and southern, large and small, non-Russian and ethnic Russian, and with high and low protest activity.

              The Ukrainian team examined each of these in terms of “three indices of regional well-being: economic, humanitarian and political” and concluded that all ten could exist independently once Moscow disappears as the imperial center and that “at least eight … are capable of quickly transitioning to independence.

According to the Ukrainian investigators, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, and the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) have “the highest political capacity” to move quickly to independence.  But others can follow because the money and fear that Moscow has used to hold things together are both quicky running out.

But the report doesn’t idealize the future. According to Pekar,  “some states will embark on the path to democracy. Others will become democratic republics. Still others may turn into dictatorships.” After all, that has been the experience of Ukraine and other non-Russians who escaped Russian rule in 1991. Others who do now will be the same.