Almost a Third of Tajiks Under 30 Doesn’t have a Job or Isn’t in School, Dushanbe Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 28 – Tajikistan’s State Statistical Agency reports that more than 700,000 young Tajiks aren’t employed or in school, 28,4 percent of that cohort, and a figure that could boost the country’s economy if they are used but is setting off alarm bells in Dushanbe because of the difficulties of keeping then in school or finding them jobs.

            The difficulties will only grow, sociologists in Tajikistan say, as migrant workers return from the Russian Federation and the population continues to grow, leading to the creation of a situation in which many young people may feel excluded and alienated and thus open to radicalism (asiaplus.news/2026/07/28/poteryannyj-potenczial-chem-strane-grozit-rost-chisla-molodyh-bez-raboty-i-professii/).

            Those are not the only reasons for concern, the specialists say. Another is that women form the overwhelming majority of young Tajiks not in school and without a job. Among women in this age group, 45 percent are women, while among men the figure is only 12 percent.

            Social norms, family restrictions, household responsibilities and taking care of children all push the share of women in the workforce down. Among all age groups, the statistical agency says, the share of women either employed or in school fell from 46.6 percent in 2004 to 34.6 percent in 2005.

            And yet another sign of difficulties ahead is that while the total number of crimes in Tajikistan continued to fall during the first half of 2026, the number committed by Tajiks under 30 increased.

Russians Fear Kremlin will Take Harsh Measures after the Duma Election Just as It did in the Past, ‘Vyorstka’ Editors Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 27 – Russians aren’t worried about the outcome of the upcoming Duma elections as far as the composition of the Duma is concerned. They know that the Kremlin will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the ruling United Russia remains overwhelmingly dominant there.

            But they are very much worried, the editors of the Vyorstka portal say, about what Putin will do after the election given that he has often imposed “unpopular measures” right after earlier votes, claiming a mandate to do so even and at a time when Russians again turn away from politics (verstka.media/chego-boyatsya-chinovniki-eksperty-i-naselenie-rossii).

            Many Russian officials, politicians, and ordinary Russians are now talking about a variety of measures that Putin may take after the Duma vote. Among those Vyorstka says are the most widespread are the following:

·       The introduction of one or another kind of military rule, with increasing restrictions on people and businesses throughout the Russian Federation, steps that the security services believe are needed because of the country’s current problems;
·       A new mobilization to raise more troops to fight in Ukraine, given the declining numbers of men who are signing up now to fight there;
·       De facto confiscation of the savings of Russians through their forcible replacement with long-term bonds so as to finance the war now;
·       The restoration of exit visas or at least an increase in the size of the categories of people who are banned from traveling abroad;
·       Sizeable increases in charges for electricity, water, sewer and gas; and
·       A new and larger number of repressive laws.

Government loyalists in the Duma and the administration say they haven’t heard anything but such moves; but that is no reassurance to Russians given that such people said exactly the same before earlier elections after which other dramatic steps were taken.

 

Moscow to Deploy Dirigibles to Better Defend Russia against Ukrainian Drones

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 27 – One of the reasons drones are so effective is that they fly so low that until they are very close to their targets, they are protected against detection by the curvature of the earth. Ever more countries, the US, Israel and China, have developed dirigibles to raise the  height of radar detectors and allow for the earlier detection of drones and their destruction.

            In the face of Ukrainian drone attacks ever deeper into the Russian Federation, Moscow has decided to join them and has now announced the development of airships with a carrying capacity of 30 to 50 tons, allowing them to serve in a military capacity against drones (versia.ru/rossiya-sozdayot-pvo-na-osnove-dirizhablej).

            How soon Russia will be able to produce such platforms in large numbers has not been announced and is not yet clear; but developments in this area could be a game changer that would blunt the current advantages those using drones to attack currently enjoy.

            Of course, Russian experts concede that dirigibles are not a complete solution. Slow moving, they are easy targets; of limited carrying capacity, they cannot lift large radar arrays and other equipment; and of light weight, they can be thrown off course or even destroyed by high winds.

            According to the Versiya news portal, all this means is that dirigibles will fill an important niche but only a niche: “AWACS will retain the role of mobile command posts and  satellites will continue to provide  widespread surveillance” while dirigibles “will serve as inexpensive extended duty platforms.”

            In other defense news, the Russian defense ministry has announced that it is postponing even the discussion about the construction of new aircraft carriers until the 2040s, thus pushing back an earlier deadline of 203 for the delivery of such ships (agents.media/rossiya-peredumala-stroit-avianostsy-do-2040-h-godov/).

Russia Doesn’t Have a Ministry for Nationality Affairs but Komi Republic Does

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 27 – Moscow has struggled to come up with an administrative structure to manage nationality policy, a structure that history has shown it can’t easily life with because to be effective it would have to have too much power but that it can’t live without because that would make it far more difficult to manage the multi-national population.

            As a result, since 1991, the Russian government has gone through a number of administrative arrangements, first with a ministry of nationality affairs and now settling on a Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs (FADN) (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/like-its-tsarist-and-soviet.html).  

            In Russia’s federal subjects, officials have had similar problems, setting up nationality affairs ministries in the 1990s, then abolishing them, and then reviving them alone. The nationality affairs ministry in the Komi Republic was typical in following that pattern (windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/01/window-on-eurasia-komis-get-nationality.html).  

            But unlike many that existed in the 1990s and then were abolished or marginalized, the Komi ministry has found a niche: the Komi ministry focuses not on the two largest nationalities of the republic, the ethnic Russians and the Komis but on indigenous peoples and to a lesser extent on minorities from other parts of the Russian Federation.

            That focus on indigenous peoples – the Nenets, Khanty, and Mani who together number only 260 people – is highlighted in the ministry’s latest policy program for the next three years (minnats.rkomi.ru/presscenter/news/84285/ and nazaccent.ru/content/45751-v-komi-utverdili-plan-razvitiya-korennyh-malochislennyh-narodov/).

            Such an institution and this focus are important in their own right; but they may matter even more because Moscow may view these things as a model for how it could not only organize but define minority nationalities, increasing putting the numerically small indigenous peoples at the center of nationality policy and leaving larger minorities out of this arrangement.

            Moscow appears to be moving in that direction already with the FADN which devotes more attention to the small indigenous peoples and far less to the larger nations than the size of either justifies. And what is happening in Komi could thus be a model for the redefinition not only of nationality policy but of the structures managing it. 

Tone Deaf to Language and History, Volodin Chants ‘Russia, Putin, Victory’ Five Times

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 27 – At the last session of this Duma, its speaker Vyacheslav Volodin chanted five times the words, “Russia, Putin, Victory,” something that shows that he has no sense that  after  the history of the Nazi slogan, “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer” is  dangerous, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            That is not only because, the former Putin speechwriter and now Putin critic says, that in an age after Nazi propagandists routinely used the slogan “Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer” making any three-part slogan now inherently problematic (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/10873 reposted at hofm.online/opinions/rossiya-putin-pobeda-skandiruet-volodin).

            But it also the case, Gallyamov says, because it highlights for all to see just how much in harmony the ideology of the Putin regime is with the ideology of its Nazi predecessor. Only those deaf to language and to history can fail to feel that and draw the obvious conclusions after Volodin’s performance.

Russia Already has Far More Veterans of Ukraine War than Kremlin Admits, Danish Expert Says, and That Means Their Impact will Be Far Greater

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 27 – The Kremlin has not released timely and accurate figures about the number of veterans who have returned alive or returned dead from the war in Ukraine. Its one attempt to give a figure, last December, suggested that there were just over 400,000 living veterans now back in the Russian Federation.

            Russian specialists on military manpower tell Sonia Richter, a Danish journalist, that that number of certainly too low and that the total number of veterans now returning home may be as large as 800,000, with many of the 700,000 Russian soldiers still in Ukraine yet to come (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/07/27/nevidimye-veterany).

            That means that the impact of returning veterans on Russian social and political life will be far larger than almost anyone has suggested. Even if only a small percentage turn to a life of crime or join repressive agencies or groups, there will still be more of them doing so than most analysts have concluded up to now.

            That is because five percent of 800,000 or even 1.5 million is far larger than five percent of 400,000, the figure that Russian officials and propagandists routinely cite. As Russians face up to this enormous influx, they will be even more alarmed and angry about what Putin has wrought in Ukraine.

            Because in this way, even more than with the drone attacks, the Kremlin leader’s war will be coming home to them in spades, not only now but well into the future. Indeed, the figures Richter has assembled suggest that the impact of veterans may be comparable to that of veterans groups in other countries that have gone to war over an extended period.

Comparison with Central Asian Countries Shows Non-Russian Republics inside Russia ‘Price of Dependence,’ Kazakhstan Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 25 – Since becoming independent in 1991, the former Soviet Union republics in Central Asia have their economies grow dramatically, while the former RSFSR autonomous republics that did not gain independence have seem their economic situation if anything deteriorate relative to that of Russia as a whole, Kazakhstan’s Altyn Orda says.

            The portal argues that this highlights “the price of dependence,” something that could trigger a political explosion in the latter if they choose to make that comparison instead (altyn-orda.kz/tsena-zavisimosti-pochemu-tsentralnaya-aziya-rastyot-i-bogateet-a-bashkortostan-nishhaet-i-bedneet/).

            While independence doesn’t guarantee success, Altyn Orda says, it gives those peoples who obtain it a far greater range of choices than is the case of the autonomous republics that remain under the control of a larger state. What is most important is that this “is not a dispute about the merits of peoples: it is a comparison of two political models.”