Putin’s Harsh Rule has Reduced Russian Support for ‘Strong Leader’ from 72 Percent to 28 Percent, Polls Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – Between 2000 and 2025, the first quarter century of Putin’s rule, the share of Russians who prepared to say that they believe that their country requires “a strong leader” fell from 72 percent to just 28 percent, an indication that living under one has convinced many Russians that such a leader is not really what they want, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            Many believe that Russians have always wanted a strong leader to rule them; and it is certainly the case that Putin built his power by appealing to that sense especially after the chaos and uncertainty of the 1990s, the former Putin speechwriter and now Putin critic says (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/11174 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/glavnyj-itog-epohi-pravleniya-silnoj-ruki).

            And in the years since becoming president, Putin has used his control of the media to promote the idea that a strong ruler is better than democracy and the supposed chaos the latter system creates. But polls taken by the VTsIOM survey group which is close to the president show that the share of Russians accepting that argument has dropped.

            Of course, Gallyamov continues, backers of Putin will respond to this pattern by saying that since Russians already have a strong leader, it is pointless” to suggest that it needs another one. But that is unlikely to be as powerful a reason for the poll results showing declining interest in having such a ruler.

            The commentator does not discuss what this may mean when Putin passes from the scene; but it would appear that those offering a kind of ruler other than the traditional ”strong” one may have a better chance of garnering support than many now think and that those who promote themselves as that kind of leader may be betting on a fading horse.

Number of Women Behind Bars as Result of Political Charges in Russia has Risen from 53 in 2022 to More than 200 Now, Verzhevatova and Graf Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 23 – The number of women in Russia behind bars after being convicted on political charges has risen from 53 in 2022, the first year of Putin’s war in Ukraine, to more than 200 now, according to Liliya Verzhevatova and Sasha Graf, who add that the real numbers are certainly even higher as some families of those convicted choose not to advertise that fact.

            The LGBT activist and founder of the Women’s Term project respectively say that women convicted of political crimes do not live in a separate world but suffer all the problems other women behind bars do: abuse, lack of medical care, and total dependence on guards (posle.media/article/zhenshchiny-v-zaklyuchenii-ot-zvonka-do-zvonka).

            But Verzzhevatova and Graf says that “political status does change a female prisoner’s position within this system, adding additional layers of control and pressure to all these other standard features of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. Parole is “effectively off the table,” they add; and political face “closer scrutiny, harsher censorship and hostility from prison staff.”

            According to the two activists, the prison authorities rarely keep the politicals as a group separate from non-politicals but they do try to make sure that those convicted of one kind of political charge are kept separate from others convicted of the same thing lest solidarity grow among them.

            One of the most intriguing findings of this research is that women sentenced to relatively short terms behind bars tend to cooperate with the guards but those sentenced to longer ones are less inclined because such convicts can no longer really imagine life outside prison and thus see no reason to try to impress their guards by going along.

            While most ordinary prisoners are either indifferent to the politicals, some oppose them for their anti-war views. Others, however, see that the latter are “doing time for nothing,” or cooperate with them because the political often have better support networks outside prison and have skills that can help the ordinary prisoners deal with the legal system.

            Social hierarchies which existed outside prison life typically break down, and some rights activists now have dropped the word “political” in their descriptions of prisoners because the differences between the two groups are far less significant than the similarities between the ordinary prisoners and the politicals.

Veterans from Regions which have Provided the Most Soldiers for Putin’s War have Least Access to Treatment for PTSD, Veterans, Their Families and Psychologists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 21 – Twenty percent of veterans returning from Putin’s war in Ukraine suffer from often debilitating PTSD, Moscow officials admit. The Russian government has finally set up programs in Moscow for such men but done far too little to help those in the non-Russian republics and poorer Russian regions which have sent the most soldiers to fight.

            That pattern is reported by both veterans and their families and by Russian psychologists working in the field in comments to Takiye dela journalist Alena Ilyina in a survey of the human suffering this Kremlin approach is producing (takiedela.ru/2026/09/kak-budto-s-nim-ottuda-prishlo-chto-to/).

            Three things make this pattern especially worrisome. First, it means that many who need help won’t get it even while Russian propagandists talk about psychologist programs in the city of Moscow which has provided far fewer soldiers per capita than many non-Russian republics and poorer predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays.

            Second, it means that the impact of the flood of veterans returning from the war will be greatest in precisely the areas where the least among of treatment is available, an arrangement that means the shadow of the Ukrainian war will be darkest and last longest beyond the ring road than within it.

            And third – and this may prove to be the most important consequence – it is likely that Moscow officials and many Muscovites as well will blame the victims of the war in Ukraine, seeing the situation in regions outside the capital as being to blame for the continuing impact of PSTD rather than the real problem – the lack of help there.

            If that happens, and history suggests that it is likely, then not only will ever more people from the republics and poorer regions suffer longer, but there will be growing hostility to them, with Moscow blaming them for the rise of crime rather than taking responsibility for that trend on itself.

Decolonization in the Case of Russia Isn’t the Same Thing as Disintegration, Orlova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 22 – Many Russians, when they hear the word “decolonization,” think that it is the same thing as the disintegration of their country, Vasilina Orlova says; but that is a misconception:  disintegration can occur without decolonization; and decolonization can take place without disintegration.

            “In reality,” as the experience of Russia shows, the Russian scholar currently studying anthropology at the University of Texas says, the center may “retain the entire array of colonial mindsets and continue to base its imperial policies on them” even if it has lost much or even all of its empire (wschody.net/chto-stoit-za-slovom-dekolonizacziya/).

            And “conversely,” Orlova says, “decolonization without a breakup is possible” as other former empires have shown after they “abandoned their colonial ambitions” but succeeded in remaining intact as states and the same could hold true for Russia” in the future it its rulers and people gave up their current imperial mindsets.

            It is generally the case that the latter process is easier if the state consolidated before acquiring an empire and if the empire it established was separated from the core state by great distances and especially bodies of water. But even if, as has been the case with Russia, the polity became an empire before it became a self-standing state, decolonization is still possible.

            Orlova continues that she studied Russians in Siberia and found that they believe they contributed all kinds of positive things to what had been up to then a vacant and backward space; and thus for them, “decolonization as a threat to their traditional way of life” and opposition to it entirely justified.

            Such Russian attitudes are especially widespread and strong concerning the numerically small peoples of the north, Siberia and the far east; and these nations thus “remain the most vulnerable” to imperial attitudes and actions. That in turn means that those who support these nations must be very clear about what decolonization is about.

            These numerically small peoples must be allowed to make decisions for themselves,” she continues; and “the Russian democratic opposition must learn to listen to and recognize the independent organizations of such nations such as the International Committee of the Indigenous Peoples of Russia, the Batani Foundation, and the like as equal interlocutors.”

            Such recognition requires something else: these issues must be discussed now and not after some cataclysm happens. As Orlova points out, “no one discussed the collapse of the USSR in advance, and the price of that has been paid in Karabakh, Transnistria, Chechnya and now Ukraine.”

            “The less we talk about decolonization,” as some Russian democrats are urging, ”the greater the likelihood that the transition after Putin, whatever form it takes, will be especially painful and protracted and cost many lives.”  All those who care about the fate of these numerically small nations must keep that ever in mind.

More than 500 Million Cubic Meters of Radioactive Waste in Dumps around Russia, Almost All of It Poorly Contained and Now Threatening People Living Nearby -- Even in Moscow

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 22 – Rossatom, the Russian agency for overseeing its nuclear industry, says that as of the end of last year, 573 million cubic meters of nuclear waste had been stored in Russia; but independent experts say that the storage is inadequate because the half life of some elements in the waste measures in billions of years.

            Many in Russia and abroad assume that the problems are limited to Soviet-era dumps and to places far from Moscow; but both assumptions are wrong, according to Aleksey Orzharovsky, one such expert, who says that in some ways the situation has gotten worse since 1991 and affects the Moscow area (kedr.media/stories/po-sledam-atoma/).

Until the end of Soviet times, officials treated radioactive trash in many cases as no different from ordinary trash and did not take measures to protect the environment from it, he says. But while concerns mounted after 1991, many firms gave up land where they had dumped nuclear waste earlier; and now no one feels responsible for doing it.

Russian media have talked about the problems of the leakage of radioactivity mostly in places far from the Russian capital lest residents there become alarmed; but Ozharovsky and others have documented that radioactivity is leaking throughout the region in and around the capital.

According to them, radiation is already leaking into the underground water supply often without anyone sounding the alarm; and even where officials are trying to contain the nuclear waste, they do not have the technology to protect against waste that will still be dangerously radioactive thousands or even billions of years from now.

As Muscovites become aware of this, they are likely to protest and to demand more than the simple shifting of newly developed trash to regions and republics far from the capital that the powers that be have promoted as a solution. It isn’t and an entirely new approach needs to be adopted for controlling something far longer into the future than anyone can now imagine.

Putin Tried to Run Duma Elections as If They Weren’t Taking Place – and Largely Succeeded, Shaburov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 22 – Vladimir Putin was happy with the way the Duma was configured and acted before the elections and so set as his task in the just-completed vote to minimize any real debate about issues and to ensure that the new Duma would look and act like it predecessor,  Aleksey Shaburov says. In this, the Kremlin leader largely succeeded.

The editor of Yekaterinburg’s Politsovet portal notes that Moscow did what it could to ensure that no real debate would occur in the course of the run-up to the vote and then did what ever it had to do, including outright falsification of the results, to get a new Duma much like the old (politsovet.ru/88648-vybory-kotoryh-ne-bylo.html).

According to Shaburov, “the specific plan for the elections was announced in early 2026 by Vladimir Yakushev, secretary of United Russia’s general council. He suggested that his party had to receive 55 percent of the vote,” something that would suggest growing support for it without overturning its relations with other parties.

As a result, the commentator continues, “the Duma will remain exactly the same as it was dominated by United Russia while will retain its respectful attitude towards the systemic opposition. The remaining parliamentary parties will receive several committees and vice-speakers.” In short, no change.

Because that was Putin’s goal, there was no need to have an active campaign or mobilize the population. Rather the reverse. Candidates from all parties were less active because they knew they need not be or could not change things if they became more active and spent less for that reason and because there was less money to spend.

As a result, many people in Russia barely recognized that a campaign was going on, exactly the attitude that Putin and his regime hoped for and likely will maintain into the future, Shaburov says. There were two bumps on this road, the possibility that Yabloko could take part and the risk and Just Russia might not get enough votes to have deputies in the Duma.

The Kremlin addressed these by administrative measures, forcing Yabloko candidates off the ballot and adding via falsification votes to Just Russia’s total to ensure it would get in the Duma and there wouldn’t have to be any redistribution of role there or even the discussion of such a possibility.

For all these reasons, Shaburov continues, there was much less need for or even talk of administrative mobilization than had been the case with Duma elections before. And now Putin can look forward to at least three years of peace at least on this front given current plans for a presidential election in 2030 and another Duma vote in 2031.

2026 Duma Election will Be Remembered for Seven Things, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 21 – There have been so many stories about the 2026 Duma elections in Russia that it is hard to know where to begin in talking about them. Most are repetitive, but a few contain new information. In its review, the Horizontal Russia portal offers a way forward and suggests that there are seven things that the just-completed vote will be remembered for.

            According to the portal, which is devoted primarily to developments beyond the ring road circling Moscow, despite all the noise, there are only a few things most Russians will remember about this vote, most of which are just continuation of trends that began earlier in the Putin years (semnasem.org/articles/2026/09/21/nichego-novogo).

            It singles out seven in particular:

·       First, “the Central Election Commmission declared open war on observers,” limiting their access more than ever before and thus hiding what officials were doing from the public.

·       Second, the real war was for finding ways to boost reported participation because the share of Russians who voted was smaller than the Kremlin wanted.

·       Third, competition among parties and candidates “fell by several orders of magnitude” as the government excluded candidates by one means or another to ensure that anyone who really wanted to protest would have no one to choose.

·       Fourth, places of employment, private as well as governmental, “became mobilization points” with bosses telling their workers whom they expected the latter to vote for.

·       Fifth, “voters found themselves in an online ghetto,” with nearly a third forced to vote electronically and thus opening the way for still more falsification.

·       Sixth, the election machinery was so poorly organized in so many places that ballots weren’t available and whole areas weren’t able to vote at all.

·       And seventh, protests shifted from active steps to “symbolic” ones like putting apples on the tables of election officials.