Disaster Ahead This Winter for Russian North, United Russia Deputies in Arkhangelsk Parliament Warn

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 17 – United Russia deputies in the Arkhangelsk parliament have appealed to Moscow to provide “emergency financial assistance” because they lack the funds to ensure that residents will be provided with heat this winter and note that fuel deliveries for northern settlements are already falling far behind because of budgetary stringencies.

            Not only does this highlight how Putin’s war in Ukraine and Western sanctions are having a deleterious effect on the Russian North, but it also strongly suggests that the most negative impact of the current gas shortage is ahead because critical deliveries won’t arrive (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/na-grani-cs-arhangelskaa-oblast-prosit-u-moskvy-dengi-ctoby-ne-zamerznut-zimoj-izza-sankcij/454130).

            For members of the ruling party to make such public appeals is unusual, and their actions almost certainly reflect fears among them that the population will vote against them for what is going on unless they can somehow distance themselves from Kremlin policies, a move with grave consequences for the Putin regime.

            Unless Moscow comes up with the money and soon, that means that the much-ballyhooed power vertical Putin has created may begin to show more and deeper cracks as deputies pay more attention to those who nominally elect them and less to those above who in fact have selected them.

            That both reflects and could intensify a growing regionalization of political life in the Russian Federation at least while the election campaign is going on, something that will simultaneously frighten Moscow and give encouragement to regionalist and ethno-national movements as well. 

Russians Fear Returning Veterans, Thus Isolating Them and Making Them More Likely to Engage in Violence, ‘Barometer’ Sociologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 17 – The dominant emotion Russians feel about returning  veterans is fear that they will engage in violent crime, Asmik Novikova says; and that is “very bad” because it means society will isolate those veterans, limit their re-integration into society, and thus make it more likely that they will commit crimes.

            The sociologist at the Barometer Research Group says that a recent survey by her organization found that many Russians are afraid of the returning veterans and what they will do and that this is isolating veterans and making it more likely these fears will become self-fulfilling prophecies (cherta.media/interview/vernuvshiesya-s-vojny-i-nasilie/).

            The reason this is so, Novikova says, is “simple: the higher the level of stigmatization, the greater the information blockade becomes and as a result the greater unpredictability of what can be expected from a stigmatized group.” She says that with rare exceptions, there has not been any crime wave; but the attitudes of Russians who didn’t go to war may help produce one.

Muscovites Getting More Gas, People in Regions and Republics Ever Less, CDB BENZ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 17 – The Kremlin is fighting the gas shortage in the first instance by giving Moscow residents more gas even as the shortage of fuel increases in the other federal subjects of the Russian Federation, to judge from data gathered by a CDB Benze application almost half a million Russians have now downloaded.

            That app allows Russians to find out where gasoline is available and where it isn’t so that they can make decisions about where to go to fill their tanks. Not surprisingly, its map shows that in Moscow gas is becoming ever easier to get while in the rest of the country, shortages continue to mount (pointmedia.io/story/6a5a118d75d0d3346a25cb5c).

            This doesn’t surprise Russians. One Muscovite told Point Media that as far as Russia is concerned, “Moscow is another country.” It took her “exactly three minutes to go to a gas station and fill up while in the regions, many people have to search and search and then wait in line for hours. 

            That the Kremlin has been taking care of elites loyal to itself has been much noted; that it is taking care of Muscovites more than other residents of the Russian Federation has attracted less attention. But as this becomes more widely known, it may infuriate those beyond the ring road and even have an impact on the upcoming Duma elections.

Ubykhs have Lost Their Language but Not Their Identity, Circassian Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 18 – Russian officials regularly that the Ubykhs do not exist, noting that the last Ubykh speaker died in the 1990s; and many Western observers of the North Caucasus, following this logic, draw a similar conclusion. But Kase Kik, a Circassian activist, says that while the Ubykhs have lost their language, they have not lost their identity.

            A subgroup of the Circassian nation who lived in the mountain highlands and were among the most active participants in North Caucasian resistance to the Russian advance into their homeland, the Ubykhs were expelled to the Ottoman Empire as part of the Russian genocide against the Circassian nation as a whole.

            In the Ottoman Empire, Ubykh leaders encouraged their people to learn Turkish so that their children could make careers; and in the absence of official support for their native language and their tradition of speaking more than one language, they gradually lost Ubykh, one of the  regmost difficult languages in the world.

            (For background on the Ubykh people and the fate of their language, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/12/can-ubykh-one-of-worlds-hardest.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/10/window-on-eurasia-can-ubykh-language.html and the sources cited therein.)

            The Ubykh language disappeared as a living tongue when the last native speaker died 30 years ago, but Kase Kik, a Circassian activist says that their historical memory and identity have not and that they are “an inalienable part of the common history of the Circassian people” (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/425017).

            Ubykhs take part in all Circassian actions, he continues, both in the diaspora and in the homeland. Indeed, Kik suggests, they are fully part of the Circassian nation and will remain so and like other Circassians want the right to return to their homeland and would like to see their language revived.

            But the Ubykhs are realists, the activist says, and recognize that however much some activists may try to revive the language, only a concerted state program in a restored Circassian republic will be able to succeed in doing that. 

Moscow Finalizing Plans to Take Baltic Countries to International Court of Justice over Their Treatment of Ethnic Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 16 – The Russian foreign ministry says that Moscow is now finalizing plans to files suit in the International Court of Justice against Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for their treatment of ethnic Russians. Baltic officials and experts say that there is no basis for such charges but warn that the case, even if ultimately unsuccessful, will have negative consequences.

            Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Mariya Zakharova said the Russian government is ycompleting the pre-litigation phase and expects to file charges by the end of this year or the beginning of next (en.rebaltica.lv/2026/07/from-propaganda-to-the-courtroom-how-russia-is-building-a-legal-case-against-the-baltic-states/).

            Baltic governments and academic experts say the charges Russia plans to bring are baseless but that the Russian case is of real concern to them because Moscow will use as a form of propaganda against the three Baltic countries and even to set the stage for a more major military move against them.

            More immediately, there is the danger that the ICJ will issue some temporary orders even if it ultimately rejects the Russian suit and the certainty that the case will drag on and be very expensive not only in terms of money but perhaps even more in terms of the reputation of these three countries.

            This latest Russian use of lawfare against its opponents is intended to lead to demands within the Baltic countries that their governments not continue to support Ukraine; but what is most worrisome is that by presenting Russia’s claims in ostensibly legal language, many in the West will be taken in and reduce their support for the three. 

‘Digital Archaeological Gap’ Hitting Central Asia Especially Hard

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 16 – Many assume, the Bugin portal says, that digitalization has made documents immortal; but the reality in Central Asia – and not just there – is that “digital memory is proving less durable than that kept on paper and electronic files far more vulnerable to decay than an ancient manuscript.”

            As a result, the current faith that digitalization will save the situation may mean, the portal continues, that future students of the past “may know more about life in cities from two millenia ago than about the daily lives of people who lived in the internet age” (bugin.info/detail/khrupche-drevnikh-ruin-kak/ru).

“It is commonly assumed that digital information is immortal, yet the reality is quite the opposite. Files constantly require migration to new devices, as operating systems, storage standards, and software evolve. A document saved thirty years ago often cannot be opened using modern software,” Bugin says.

              “In Central Asia,” it continues, “this issue is compounded by the uneven pace of digitalization. While state archives are gradually transitioning to electronic storage systems, municipal institutions, local newspaper offices, rural libraries, cultural centers, and small museums often operate with limited resources.”

            “The avalanche-like growth in the volume of information being created … works against preservation because people stop organizing their archives and rely instead on cloud services, social media or phone storage;” and this is leading to “the emergence of a new phenomenon: ‘the digital archaeological gap.”

            Paradoxically, this gap is why “we sometimes know more about the life of a person from the 19^th century than we do about someone from the early 21^st,” Bugin says. That is true in many places, but Central Asia faces especial challenges because of the high mobility of the population, climate which works against preservation, and the shortage of efforts to save archives.

            What is an especially important task now, the portal says, is “establishing unified preservation standards: File formats, backup systems, metadata requirements, cataloguing methods, and interoperability of archival platforms are becoming just as important as the documents themselves.”

            If those issues are not addressed now and solutions found, even “digital collections risk becoming fragmented data sets that no one will be able to use only a few decades from now,” Bugin concludes.

Career FSB Officer who heads Russia’s Agency for Nationality Affairs Demands International Community Stop Trying to Speak in Defense of His Country’s Minorities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 16 – Igor Barinov, a career FSB officer who now heads Russia’s Agency for Nationality Affairs and whose staff includes at least 13 others drawn from Russian security agencies, is demanding that the international community stop trying to speak in defense of his country’s ethnic minorities.

            At the 19^th session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples held in Geneva this week, Barinov called  on the international community to adopt “a depoliticized approach” regarding indigenous rights and complained about “the lack of objectivity” in the mechanism’s research regarding Russia.

            (For details on his speech and background on his FSB service and his use of other security agency officers in the bureaucracy responsible for overseeing Moscow’s approach on ethnic minorities, see t.me/fadnrf/6838 as discussed at echofm.online/news/rossijskij-chinovnik-v-zheneve-prizval-depolitizirovat-zashhitu-prav-korennyh-narodov-ranee-on-sluzhil-v-fsb-vyyasnila-arktida.)

            In his speech, Barinov said that Russia “has its own historical experience in recognizing and ensuring the rights of indigenous peoples. This approach has made it possible to preserve their population numbers, as well as their traditional settlement patterns, livelihood systems, and self-governance structures, over the centuries."

            One hardly knows where to start to address just how false Barinov’s claims are, notions that have been documented as untrue by activists and academic specialists in Russia itself and recognized as untrue by those in the international community who have paid close attention to Russia’s efforts to undermine and even destroy ethnic minorities.

            Attempting to dismiss their criticism as political and demanding that they adopt a non-political approach, a demand that seems little more than one which calls on everyone to accept everything he and other FSB officers say, is yet another example of the regime headed by another FSB officer trying to deny the obvious by throwing a shroud over unpleasant realities.

            The best response to this bombastic and outrageous approach is for all those taking part in the UN mechanism on minorities to step up their demands that the peoples themselves and their representatives be allowed to speak for themselves rather than their places being usurped as now by security personnel whose commitment to the truth is anything but strong.

            And in addition to that, the international community as a whole needs to focus more attention on just what the Putin regime is doing when it comes to ethnic minorities and the ways in which it is trying to hide its horrendous record in that regard. Anything less will allow the Kremlin and the FSB to proceed with what they have been doing.