Moscow has More than Trebled Number of Criminal Cases against Russian Lawyers Since 2023-2024, Memorial Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 28 – The Russian government has not only increased criminal charges against its opponents over the last three years, it has more than trebled the number of charges against lawyers who defend them and other Russians charged with crimes, according to the Memorial Human Rights organization.

            That makes it more difficult for those accused of political or other crimes to get a defense by removing some lawyers from legal practice and intimidating others from taking cases that could lead to their own indictments (semnasem.org/news/2026/05/28/chislo-ugolovnyh-del-protiv-advokatov-v-rossii-vyroslo-v-neskolko-raz-za-god).

            As Memorial makes clear, criminal charges are more frequently brought against lawyers who have defended political opponents of the Putin regime, an indication that the attacks on lawyers are part of a more general Kremlin effort to suppress any and all opposition.

Ukraine’s Successful Drone Campaign May Not End the War on Kyiv’s Terms, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 28 – There has been a tendency to see whatever tactic either side in Putin’s war in Ukraine is introducing and having success with inevitably presages the victory of that side because many people ignore the near certainty that the side losing because of that tactic will come up with one that will give it better chances, Vladimir Pastukhov says.

            That is what has happened in response to Ukraine’s remarkably successful use of drones against targets often deep inside the Russian Federation and led to widespread assumptions that Kyiv is now in a position to gain most of the goals it has set for itself, the London-based Russain analyst says (t.me/v_pastukhov/1914 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/my-chyotko-fiksiruem-novuyu-fazu-vojny).

            But despite Ukraine’s success with drones, Pastukhov continues, “serious doubts” remain that “such a favorable scenario for Ukraine to end the war is now the only possible one.” That it is one is a good thing, “but it is not so uncontested so that anyone should be speaking about that as categorically as many are doing.”

            “Historical experience shows,” he continues, “that when the blind mole of the Russian military machine runs into an insurmountable obstacle, it does not crawl out with a white flag but rather immediately begins to dig another tunnel nearby, and it is difficult to imagine that the Kremlin does not realize the impasse of the situation and isn’t looking for a favorable way out.”

            “In the near future,” as the Russian attacks on Kyiv show, Pastukhov argues, “we may witness an attempt to sharply aggravate the terrorist nature of the current war and qualitatively increase strikes on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine to deplete its air defense resources and destroy the very logistics that allow maintaining the notorious kill zone at the front.”

            Given Moscow’s own difficulties, it is difficult to specify exactly what Moscow can and will do. But three steps are likely. First, Pastukhov says, Moscow is likely “to take more risks including with it aviation.” Second, “it will likely focus on objects that for some reason it has not yet touched, including Dniepr bridges and railway junctions.”

            “And third, it will begin to ‘work dirty,’ that is, by targeting and inflection disproportionate damage to the civilian population” as it appears to be doing now with its attacks on Kyiv and its people.

            That, rather than an easy road to peace, is what Ukraine and its supporters need to recognize and plan to respond to, Pastukhov suggests; and Ukraine’s response almost certainly will involve more drone attacks on Russian sites, likely sending up casualties on the Russian side as well and making what has been a bloody war even more so.

Northeastern Russia Failing to Get Support for New Railroads from Either Moscow or Beijing

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 28 – Officials and businesses in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and the Magadan Oblast continue to push for the construction of new railroads in that enormous region but neither Moscow nor Beijing currently appears interested in spending the enormous sums such projects would cost, Yuliya Fursova says.

            When Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, the Siberian Economist journalist says, Moscow removed such projects from its plans over the next decade or more; and China after signing a letter of intent has since done the same, with neither apparently ready to back such projects (sibmix.com/?doc=21390).

But in the hopes of forcing one or the other or both to do more and to help local entrepreneurs who are building smaller lines there, officials in the two federal subjects of Russia’s northeast, a region which suffers from a severe shortage of transportation infrastructure have continued to meet and press their case, so far unsuccessfully.

According to Fursova, this means that the region will stagnate and prevent the Russian Far East from developing at anything like the past that Moscow and presumably Beijing want. (For background on this debate, see https://sibmix.com/?doc=4576, https://sibmix.com/?doc=7714 and https://sibmix.com/?doc=14759).

What makes this case especially intriguing is that it is a rare example of a non-Russian republic working hand in glove with a predominantly ethnic Russian region to press Moscow and as an alternative Beijing to help both. That kind of cooperation, if it spreads, will present the Russian capital with problems and the Chinese one with opportunities.

Fear of Denunciations and Fines Closing Russia’s Independent Bookstores

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 27 – Across the Russian Federation, owners of independent bookstores are closing them down, fearful that they will be denounced for failing to remove books that have been put on the government’s banned lists and then subjected to crippling fines, collateral damage from the Kremlin’s campaigns that is further undermining Russia’s intellectual life.

            One of the owners who has now shuttered his shop in Ulan-Ude says that it is becoming ever more difficult to operate a bookstore in Russia because owners can be held accountable for the books on their shelves and failure to remove books or cover them up as required by the state (svoboda.org/a/v-rossii-zakryvayutsya-nezavisimye-knizhnye-magaziny/33762709.html).

            In many places, independent bookstores are centers of intellectual life, not only offering books for sale but holding readings, discussion groups, and the like; and consequently, the government’s use of denunciations and fines to close them down is killing off that life.

            Small shops in cities outside of Moscow were the first victims. They had less money and were as a result more threatened by fines. But now the problem has spread to the two capitals and other metropolises because the courts have increased the fines they have to pay for violations, thus eliminating the defensive advantages such shops had.

            During perestroika and in the 1990s, such bookstores arose like mushrooms and helped open up Russian intellectual life for a large swath of the population. Now, subject not only to economic pressures but political ones as well, these points of light are being extinguished; and Russia’s intellectual life is once again increasingly dark.   

Young Urban Russians May Support Putin but Don’t Buy His Narratives on West or China, New Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 28 – The younger generation of urban Russians may support Putin but they don’t accept his condemnation of the West or his calls for emulating China, according to such people who took part in focus groups earlier this year organized by the European Center for Analysis and Strategies.

            CASE conducted focus groups consisting of 64 Russians aged 18 to 30 in eight large Russian cities and has now published the results (case-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Russian_Youth_2026_Report_RU.pdf, discussed at vot-tak.tv/93517034/nekrasov-molodiorz-ne-verit-propagande).

            Dmitry Nekrasov, the CASE director who oversaw this research, says that in the minds of young urban Russians, “the West is associated not with the image of the enemy, as Russian propaganda portrays,” that those who have emigrated are viewed not as traitors but neutrally or even positively, and that Western life is normal and desirable.

            Moreover, Nekrasov continues, the study found that Putin’s “’turn to the east’ doesn’t resonate among them either. “They don’t want to live in China. Yes, China is our friend. Let’s be friends at the state level but no, it is better to live in the West. This is their unequivocal choice.

            Russian propaganda and especially taking part in propaganda exercises, Nekrasov says, is viewed by the young as “a tedious obligation,” something “ritualistic and without any deeply held meaning.” It may provide “some kind of tortured external loyalty,” he continues; but it isn’t what they really believe.

            And he concludes that this is very much like the situation in the last decades of Soviet power: “Even Komsomol members” who declared how much they supported the Communist Party and opposed the West nonetheless almost invariably “wanted jeans and chewing gum.”

Komi Activists Say Liquidation of Local Administrative Bodies ‘Especially Dangerous’ for Them and Other Dispersed Ethnic Minorities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 28 – The Komi, a Finno-Ugric nationality in the northeastern portion of European Russia seldom gets much attention from Moscow and the West; but it is playing an ever more important role as a leader of regional protests against Kremlin policies directed against the environment and the rights of minorities.

            Komi activists in cooperation with the KPRF were central to the success of the Shiyes protests against Moscow’s plans to dump trash from the Russian capital into their hitherto pristine republic, and now they with the support of the communists are doing the same with regard to the destruction of local self-administration bodies, albeit not yet with the same success.

            Now that the Komi State Council, dominated by ethnic Russians and United Russia, has now voted to force the republic to fall in line with Putin’s program and liquidate local administrative arrangements (www.semnasem.org/news/2026/05/28/gossovet-komi-likvidiroval-dvuhurovnevuyu-sistemu-mestnogo-samoupravleniya-nesmotrya-na-protesty-rajonov), many are likely to ignore the Komi once again.

            But that is a mistake because Komi activists have articulated why the Putin program of local government “optimization” is such a threat to smaller and dispersed nations and has succeeded in involving the KPRF organization in seeking to block or at least modify what Moscow wants.

            The Komi Daily, a portal produced by activists now in emigration, points out that “if the reform is fully implemented, many decisions will no longer be made at the level of villages and other rural communities [where Komis are a majority] but in district centers [where they aren’t]” (komidaily.com/2026/05/28/pochemu_likvidatsiya_samoupravleniya_osobenno_opasna_dlya_komi/).

            The portal continues: “the KPRF  has submitted documents for a regional referendum against the liquidation of rural settlements and the transition to a one-level system of government. If the reform is fully implemented, many decisions will no longer be made at the level of villages and villages, but in district centers and municipal districts.”

            Moreover, the Komi Daily points out, supporters of the reform talk about ‘efficiency’ and lack of personnel, while opponents talk about the further centralization of power, the disappearance of real local self-government and even greater alienation of power from the residents of the villages” and further worsen the demographic situation there.

“In such conditions, centralized management does not work well. The city authorities are physically unable to manage all remote territories equally effectively, so a significant part of the powers is transferred to the local level. Municipalities receive their own budgets and the right to independently solve many day-to-day issues.”

“This benefits both the center and the regions. The state does not need to manage each village, and local authorities respond faster to problems and better understand the specifics of their territory. For example, northern municipalities know better how to organize transport, medicine or heating over long winters and long distances.”

As such, the Komi Daily concludes, powerful local governments would be natural for Russia, especially for the North, Siberia and the Far East. The country is too large and too diverse for all issues to be effectively managed from Moscow. But the current regime doesn’t seek an effective distribution of powers or care about the deteriorating demographic situation.”

Such arguments are likely to find support in other parts of the Russian Federation, and the success the Komi have had on other occasions in resisting Moscow’s power grab is certain to lead people elsewhere to follow the Komi lead. 

Unable to Defend Population from Drone Attacks, Kremlin Allows Russian Industrialists to Buy Ever More Powerful Weaponry to Protect Their Interests

Paul Goble

              Staunton, May 28 – In a move that highlights Moscow’s inability to defend the Russian population and its search for money to pay for Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has approved a system that will allow Russian industrialists to buy ever more powerful weapons to defend their properties and even allocate military personnel to help them.

              While defending key industry is obviously a major and even justifiable task, this arrangement is certain to outrage Russians whose residences the Kremlin isn’t defending and also those concerned about the way in which the state’s monopoly on the use of force is being degraded so that Putin can continue his war.

              Russian firms already had been permitted to purchase some weaponry to defend themselves against possible attack, but this arrangement will give them the ability to purchase more powerful weapons and bring the government and its defense firms more money.

              As a result, the way in which the Kremlin is deferring to business interests which have the cash as opposed to the population which doesn’t will become more obvious and likely a greater source of anger about the nature of the Putin regime and its military and defense operations.

              On this new program, see ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/26/milliarderi-poprosili-uputina-krupnokalibernoe-oruzhie-irezervistov-dlya-zaschiti-predpriyatii-otbpla-a196279 and ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/28/kreml-razreshil-krupnomu-biznesu-zakupat-zenitnie-ustanovki-chtobi-otstrelivatsya-ot-bespilotnikov-a196587.