Residents of Regions Lagging Economically Often Happier than Those in Places Doing Better on that Measure, ‘Rabota’ Survey Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 10 – The residents of regions in the Russian Federation that are not doing well according to economic statistics often say they are happier than do their counterparts in places where the economic statistics are better, according to a survey of Russians across that country conducted by the Rabota portal.

            Given that many people expect the reverse to be true and that many leaders conduct themselves and especially their electoral campaigns on the basis of false assumption, it is important that everyone understand this “happiness paradox” (press.rabota.ru/issledovaniye-gde-zhivut-samyye-schastlivyye-rossiyane commented upon at club-rf.ru/theme/640).

            There are three key reasons for the divergence between objective economic measures and subjective personal assessments of happiness, all of which need to be understood by political leaders perhaps especially when they are involved in election campaigns, like the one beginning for deputies to the Duma.

            First of all, the survey shows that the main sources of happiness for people in Russia are their families and their personal ties with others, approximately twice as large a share as those saying that infrastructure is important to their happiness, however much they may complain about this or that shortcoming.

            Second, when leaders promote the economic achievements of their regions frequently as is the case in regions where things are going well as far as those are concerned, then residents are likely to be more unhappy if the situation in their everyday lives involving such things as road quality and health care lag behind.

            And third, in many federal subjects of the Russian Federation, those regions that are doing well as measured by economic figures often are achieving that because of sectors like oil refining or the military-industrial complex that do not touch most residents most of the time, thus leading to a gap between economic statistics and the happiness people say they feel.

Kazakhstan Must Rely on Technology rather than Partisans for Defense, Kazakh Journal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 10 – Since Vladimir Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s Altyn-Orda says, “Kazakhstani public discourse increasingly discusses the scenario of future war as a guerrilla confrontation—a long, grueling struggle based on the numbers and endurance of people -- but this approach is dangerously outdated.”

            “Real wars,” the portal argues with an obvious eye to what has been happening in Uraine, “show that their outcome is determined not by the masses or the ability to endure but by the speed of control, the quality of communication, and the technological maturity of the state” (altyn-orda.kz/pochemu-v-vojnah-xxi-veka-pobezhdayut-tehnologii-a-ne-partizanskaya-logika-i-chto-eto-znachit-dlya-kazahstana/).

            “For Kazakhstan” – and implicitly for all other post-Soviet states – “this is not some abstract theory but a question of strategic choice: Guerilla logic is a bet on human survival, but technological logic in contrast is a bet on ensuring that the people defending their state don’t have to die at all.”

            Altyn-Orda says that Ukraine represents an obvious example of how the rise of technology has reduced the importance of calculations based on guerilla war. “With limited demographic resources, that country has managed to maintain and shift the balance of power through technology.”

            This has allowed for “rapid decision-making and the coordination of actions at various levels,” and it reflects the importance of “the domestic technological eco-system: the network of small and mid-sized manufacturers, engineering teams and rapid testing and implementation cycles.”

            In contrast to the Russian invader, Kyiv “hasn’t locked innovation into a single hub but has allowed the system to learn and adapt faster than its opponents. That experience in turn demonstrates that it’s not the sheer number of people that matters but the system’s ability to think and change.”

            For countries like Kazakhstan, “the key lesson is that AI and defense technologies don’t start in the military but in the economy and the educational system. They can’t be ‘bought quickly;’ instead, “they emerge from universities, engineering schools, the IT sector, industrial automation and a data culture.”

            Thus, Altyn-Orda continues, “a state which invests in education, applied science and digital infrastructure simultaneously is investing in its own security And that in turn means that “romanticizing guerilla logic is a throwback and an admission of systemic weakness.” Those countries which recognize this will be secure; those that don’t won’t.

Conflicts over Water Intensify in Southern Russia, Threatening Moscow’s Plans for North-South Corridor

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 8 – Moscow, Kalmykia and Russian regions along the Volga are increasingly at odds over water, with no obvious solution that does not leave one or more of these aggrieved and spread anger to neighboring areas and thus threaten Moscow’s plans for a north-south corridor to Iran via the Caspian.

            Moscow is worried by the impact of global warming and the increasing use of water by the people and economies in regions adjoining the Volga-Don Canal that is leading to the siltification of its waters and those of the Caspian and thus limiting the ability of larger vessels to pass from central Russia southward to Iran and the Indian Ocean.

            Kalmykia, 93 percent of whose population doesn’t have access to potable water and whose agricultural areas are increasingly subject to desertification, wants a canal from the Volga to bring it more water even though that would reduce the Volga’s flow still further and it has also been pushing for a new trans-Caucasus canal from the Caspian to the Sea of Azov.

            And Russian regions in the Volga and Caspian watersheds which want to continue to take more water from these waters are alarmed by both Moscow’s focus on the Volga-Don Canal rather than the entire water space and Kalmykia’s desire to take even more water from that channel which feeds the Caspian.

            These conflicts are just some of “the problems and prospects” of Moscow’s plans for a north-south water corridor that Strategic Culture Foundation analyst Aleksey Chichkin surveys in his latest articles, problems that have the potential to delay or even kill that project (fondsk.ru/news/2026/02/08/vodnyy-marshrut-sever-yug-problemy-i-perspektivy.html).

            Not surprisingly, the Russian writer spends much of the article attacking Kalmykia’s plans for bringing water to that parched republic; but he does not address the ways in which the serious shortages of potable water there are likely to provoke widespread illness, emigration, and political anger in that Buddhist republic.

            Indeed, if Moscow continues its current course, it is likely to find that it will have provoked a new conflict in the North Caucasus of which Kalmykia is a part and may even further anger predominantly ethnic Russian regions adjoining the Volga and Caspian as well, thus triggering new conflicts and undermining its own plans. 

Russian Economy Consists of ‘Islands of Growth in an Ocean of Stagnation,’ Prokofyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 9 – Russia’s economy has transitioned “from a model based on the export of raw materials and integrated into the global chains of the consumer market” into “a model of centralized and mobilized administration of resources where the priorities are defined not by market forces but by the logic of government priorities.,” Dmitry Prokofyev says.

            The economics editor of Novaya Gazeta says that the result is not simply slowed growth across the board but the division of the economy “into two parallel but weakly connected economic subsistems which show diametrically opposite trends” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/02/09/arkhipelag-rosta-v-okeane-stagnatsii).

            One, which enjoys the support of the government, continues to grow relatively well because of subsidies, while the other, which doesn’t, shows declines, thus forming “islands of growth in an ocean of stagnation,” something that is obscured by figures for the economy as a whole, like measuring the average temperature in a hospital. 

            Once this pattern is recognized, the economist says, it is quite easy to understand what is going on; but if one doesn’t recognize the pattern or refuses to do so because of pressure from the powers that be or the impact of regime propaganda, then nothing makes sense – and one falls victim to Kremlin claims that the economy is doing better than most people feel.

            In a 4500-word article, Prokofyev documents this divide, something that allows him to conclude with the following damning observation: “Rosstat data for 2025 do not record a temporary aberration or cyclical slowdown, but the final consolidation and institutionalization of this architecture.”

In fact, he continues, “the division of the national economic mechanism into two economies—one for the state and the elites serving it, and one for the rest of the population—has ceased to be a trend and has become a systemic, fundamental, and integral quality of the Russian economic model.”

And that means this: “future dynamics will be determined not by market forces, consumer optimism, or private investment, but solely by the volume and efficiency of resource use, which the state is willing and able to continually redistribute from the "continent of stagnation" to the "archipelago of growth" and to the "islands of stability" to maintain a fragile, but, as the figures show, still sustainable, balance between these two worlds.”

“This balance,” Prokofyev says, “is both the main achievement and the main challenge of Russia's new economic reality in 2026.”

Following Protests, Budget Cuts and a Reality Check, Moscow Plans to Allow River and Sea Vessels to Remain Service until Age of 50

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 10 – Last year, Moscow officials proposed in a draft law the decommissioning of all Russian riverine and ocean ships after they reached the age of 40, but after the budget for replacements was cut by half, regional protests, and evidence Russian yards couldn’t deliver in time, these same officials have said ships may remain in service until 50. 

            (On the original announcement, protests from regional officials, and backtracking, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/11/to-boost-shipbuilding-russias.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/khabarovsk-governor-denounces-moscows.html,  vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2026/02/10/1175139-mintrans-predlozhil-smyagchit-zakon-o-vethih-sudah  and themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/10/srok-sluzhbi-vethih-sudov-v-rossii-uvelichat-do-50-let-iz-za-otsutstviya-deneg-na-stroitelstvo-novih-a186793.)

            This pattern of making bold announcements and then backing away from them has become increasingly common as Putin struggles to find the money for his war in Ukraine and guts all programs not directly related to that. But in this case, this decision poses some real threats to Russia and any countries to which its ships travel.

            On the one hand, the retention rather than replacement of so many older ships means that many of them will be tied up in drydock for repairs, thus limiting the size of the Russian domestic and foreign fleet far more than the statistics about total number of ships in Russia’s possession suggests.

            And on the other, such aging vessels, many of which were scheduled to be decommissioned not at 40 but at 25 or even less, are likely to suffer more accidents both in Russian  waters and in the waters and ports to which these Russian vessels go and thus posing an ever-increasing danger to both.

Northern Sea Route Carried Less Cargo Last Year than the Year Before and Far Less than Moscow had Projected

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 9 – The volume of cargo carried via the Northern Sea Route in 2025 was 870,000 tons less than a year earlier and stood at 37 million tons, less than half the figure that Moscow had projected for either year only four years ago and experts saying there is little likelihood that things will improve in 2026.

            That is the conclusion of research by the Gekon Consulting Center which like all observers of the NSR faces increasing difficulty in coming up with numbers because Moscow has shuttered the digital platform of the NSR and restricted the release of other data (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/perevozki-po-sevmorputi-sokratilis-do-37-mln-tonn/444907).

            The 2.3 percent year on year decline from 2024 to 2025 is a summary figure. There have been increases in some types of cargo such as processed rare earth minerals that almost cover larger declines in raw oil, gas and coal shipments.  Container shipments also grew but from an extremely small base, Gekon says.

            The number of voyages remained constant between 2024 and 2025, but the volume increased slightly and the flows in and out of Russian ports became more export-oriented last year than they had been the year before. According to the study, in 2025, “exports exceeded imports by more than two to one.

            Because of sanctions, few ships from foreign countries made the crossing. Instead, Russia has used ever more foreign-flagged vessels of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” ships that “often do not meet ice class and safety standards” and thus threaten the region’s fragile eco-system in the event of accidents.

Putin has Made Governors Targets of Popular Anger and Their Spending on Body Guards has Almost Doubled since 2022, ‘Vedomosti’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 9 – Vladimir Putin has sought to deflect popular anger away from himself and onto the governors of the Russian Federation’s federal subjects by making the latter responsible for carrying out many of his most unpopular policies. That has prompted the governors to almost double their spending on body guards, Vedomosti reports.

            In 2021, the Russian newspaper reports, the Russian authorities in the countries regions and republics were prepared to spend 59.7 million rubles for the governors’ body guards, a figure that rose to 119.7 million rubles in 2023 before falling back slightly to 112.4 million rubles last year (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2026/02/09/1174866-s-nachala-spetsoperatsii-gubernatori-stali-bolshe-tratitsya-na-ohranu

            Those figures cover only bids for contracts on body guard services and thus do not include the spending for regular police or special forces that also are involved in protecting the heads of the federal subjects. But they do show that governors are worried about their own security, a fear likely to have risen given that Putin has made them executors of many policies.

            Putin’s effort to ensure that any anger Russians feel about policies is directed not at him and his regime but at the governors has been much discussed especially since he launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022. What these figures show is that this has made the governors nervous, and they are doing what they can to ensure that no attack on them succeeds.