Moscow’s Efforts to Promoting Civic Identity in North Caucasus May Be Opening the Way for the Rise Not Only for More Islamic Identity but Also Even Islamist Extremism

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 15 – In April, a Russian Field Poll found that residents of Kabardino-Balkaria, one of the two bi-national republics in the North Caucasus, were significantly more likely to reidentify as civic Russians than residents of other mono-ethnic federal subjects there.

            But it also found that younger people in the KBR are less likely to list citizenship in the Russian Federation as their primary identity than are their elders who were born in Soviet times and instead continue to identify in ethnic or even religious, which in this case means Muslim, terms (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2026/04/02/1187301-severnogo-kavkaza). 

            Now, the SOVA Center which monitors racism and xenophobia in the Russian Federation says that KBR courts for the third time in two years are convicting ever more young residents of that republic for taking part in shariat patrols which sought to intimidate residents into following Islamic rules (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2026/06/d53950/).

            This prompts a question which neither Vedomosit nor SOVA ask: are Russian government attacks on ethnic identity, which until now has exercised a powerful influence on behavior in the North Caucasus, opening the way for the expansion not only of Islamic belief but of Islamist activism?

            In early Soviet times, Moscow promoted ethnic identities in Muslim areas precisely to weaken the power of Islam. Its success in boosting ethnic identities did weaken Islam in many places. After 1991, the weakening of the state meant that Islam expanded to fill the void left by the decline in a secular ethno-nationalism.

            That was especially obvious in the case of Chechnya where an extremely secular national movement in 1991-1993 gave way to an increasingly Islamic and sometimes Islamist one thereafter. Now, Moscow’s efforts to weaken ethnic identity by promoting a civic Russian one may be having the same effect and over more parts of the North Caucasus.

            If that proves to be the case, Moscow in its rush to try to solve one problem may be creating a different and even larger one instead.

‘Main Result’ of Moscow’s Nationality Policy has Been that Russia Remains Stable, FADN Report to Duma Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 15 – “The main result” of Moscow’s nationality policy over the last dozen years has been that contrary to the expectations of many and the attempts of external and internal enemies, Russia remains stable, according to the government’s Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs.

            In an 80-page report to the Duma, the FADN pointed to the increase in the percentage of Russian Federation residents who say their civic Russian identity is more important than their ethn0-national ones and who believe that ethnic problems are declining in seriousness and importance.

            (For the full text of the report, see fadn.gov.ru/otkritoe-agenstvo/realizacziya-strategii-gosudarstvennoj-naczionalnoj-politiki-rossijskoj-federaczii-na-period-do-2025-goda/file-download/rubxj5jyrvezivdndqlxev43k2y36gpy; for a useful summary, see   nazaccent.ru/content/45587-nazvany-glavnye-itogi-strategii-nacpolitiki-rossii-v-20122025-godah/.).

            The report celebrates both what it says is improved monitoring of ethnic relations in the Russian Federation and the fact that “for the first time, significant attention has been devoted to the strengthening of the unifying role of the Russian people as the state-forming people … as well as strengthening the regional component of nationality policy.”

            But beneath these celebratory claims, the report acknowledges that the shift from ethnic to civic identity has been slower in the North Caucasus than in other regions and that challenges to Russia’s stability have intensified both from foreign and domestic sources, developments that mean all the tasks of nationality policy have yet to be achieved.

Kazan Institute of History Set Up in 1996 to Help Tatars Recover Their Identity has ‘Moved Away from Concept of the National Liberation Struggle,’ Salikhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 14 – Thirty years ago, Tatarstan established an Institute of History within the republic’s Academy of Sciences to help Tatars recover their national past and identity; but now, Radik Salikhov, its current director says, “we have moved away from the concept of the national liberation struggle of peoples.”

            The first director of the institute, Rafael Khakimov, was not only an internationally recognized specialist on federalism but also an advisor to Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaymiyev. He sought to have the institute play an active role in the rebirth of Tatarstan after Soviet times (business-gazeta.ru/article/704512).

            Now, however, the situation is different and so too is the mission of the Institute of History, its current director says. “We are an integral part of the state scientific institution … nd we view ourselves as an institute dedicated entirely to the well-being of all the peoples of our region and of Russia as a whole.”

            “Perhaps the most significant change has been a rethinking of the approach to the historical process itself,” Salikhov says. “We have moved away from the concept of the "national liberation struggle of peoples"—which dominated both the Soviet period and the 1990s—as a universal model of historical development.”

The earlier approach often led “to confrontation and did not foster a constructive understanding of the past.” In its place, he ways, the institute is now “emphasizing the concept of service to the Fatherland. I consider this ideological and methodological shift to be one of our major achievements in recent years.”

Salikhov continues by observing that “disputes often arise around specific events, figures, or historical legacies—and sometimes even attempts at a kind of’"privatization’ of history, in which various groups seek to claim something as being exclusively part of their own tradition and no one else’s.”

But the current direction insists that “the task of historians is not to exacerbate these divisions, but to seek common ground and foster a balanced, evidence-based understanding of the past. History should not divide people; rather, it should promote mutual understanding and strengthen social cohesion.”

1990 RSFSR Sovereignty Declaration Response to Moves by Baltic Republics, Moldova and Georgia, Baburin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 14 – A proposal by Sergey Baburin to move the Russian capital from Moscow to some small city in the central part of Russia is likely to attract more attention, but his words about the RSFSR Supreme Soviet’s 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty in which he worked as one of the drafters are far more significant.

            The Russian nationalist politician argues that “the Declaration of the State Sovereignty of the RSFSR,” the anniversary of which is now marked as the Day of Russia, “was our respond to corresponding documents about sovereignty or about independence by separatists in the Baltic republics, Moldova and Georgia” (business-gazeta.ru/article/704511).

            Only the naïve or those who wish to shift the blame to others can blame what the RSFSR did as a primary cause of the disintegration of the USSR because that declaration “presupposed the preservation of the Russian Federation as a legal state within a renewed USSR” rather than having the RSFSR go its own way, Baburin says.

            In preparing the draft of the declaration, Baburin says, he “insisted that the state power and sovereignty of Russia belong not to the ethnic Russian and other peoples but to a single multi-national people of the Russian Federation. For me,” he continues, “such a formulation was very important.”

            That is because had we “divided sovereignty within the country into Russian, Tatar, Mordvin, Yakut and so one parts, then the destroyers of the USSR would have been able to destroy the Russian Federation as well,” a danger that would remain if people don’t understand how such talk threatens the country. 

            Most of Baburin’s other comments in the course of a long interview as typical of those of Russian nationalists and imperialists like himself. But one stands out as very different. Instead of defending Moscow as the capital of the country, he urges that the Russian capital be shifted to the geographic center of the country and not to a major city but to a small one “like Washington.”

            Indeed, he says, the capital should ultimately become what is now a small city of perhaps no more than 40,000 which could be developed and expanded but which would not have the problems of corruption and imagery that Moscow represents both objectively and subjectively in the minds of many.

United Russia Deputies Block Karelian Parliament from Discussing Problems of Karelian Village whose Water Supply has Been Cut Off for Almost a Month

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 12 – Residents of Kurkiyoki, a 1,000-person village in Karelia, say that they have not had water for more than three weeks because of problems with the pipeline carrying it to them and add that the ruling United Russia party has blocked the republic parliament from discussing their plight and then addressing it.

            This may seem a minor issue, but it is an important sign of the ways in which the problems the peoples of the Russian Federation are becoming increasingly political in advance of the September Duma elections (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/06/12/kak-poselok-v-karelii-tretiu-nedeliu-vyzhivaet-bez-vody-iz-za-avarii).

            This controversy is one of the first signs of a development that many in the regions and republics welcome and that many in the Putin regime fear, the way in which elections almost inevitably politicize issues that up to now both the population and its rulers have viewed as ordinary and non-political disputes.

Ecumenical Patriarch ‘Completes Process’ of Restoring Orthodox Church in Lithuania to Constantinople’s Jurisdiction, Furman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 13 – During a brief visit to Lithuania earlier this month, Bartholemew, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, completed the process of restoring the Orthodox Church in Lithuania to his patriarchate’s jurisdiction, thus officially ending Moscow’s control of  Orthodoxy in that Baltic country, Lera Furman says.

            The Russian-Ukrainian religious affairs specialist who left Russia in 2022 after Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine says that the Ecumenical Patriarchate never recognized Russia’s claims there but could do little as long as the USSR existed (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/06/13/baltiiskii-pravoslavnyi-front).

            “Over the years,” she writes, “Constantinople has taken under its omophorion a number of clergy [there and elsewhere] who were ‘stripped of holy orders by the ROC MP for their anti-war stance, including a group of Lithuanian clergy.  (For background on these developments, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/03/constantinople-patriarch-moves-against.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/04/vilnius-stepping-up-pressure-on-russian.html.)

            “Three years ago,” she continues, “Bartholomew announced the establishment of his exarchate in Lithuania; its ranks included not only anti-war Lithuanian clergy but also priests Georgy Roy and Alexander Kukhta—who had fled Belarus—and later, the prominent theologian Deacon Andrei Kurayev, who had left Moscow.”

            On May 31, Bartholemew named Archimandrite Panaretos, who supervised the Slavic-Turkish Orthodox in Istanbul, as bishop of Tamassos and exarch of Lithuania and then presided over the bishop’s formal installation in Lithuania at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Vilnius on June 7.

            This action in Lithuania is echoing in Belarus and even Ukraine, Furman says. “Many Ukrainian and Belarusian refugees attended the service; and the Patriarch addressed them specifically, noting Vilnius’s hospitality and the Christian calling to remain faithful to the truth, even when such fidelity disrupts one’s accustomed way of life.”

            Denis Kuchinsky, an advisor to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tiskhanouskaya, attended the enthronement and “highlighted Belarus’ historical closeness of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.” That statement suggests that the Orthodox Church of Belarus to pursue independence from Moscow following the country’s liberation.”

            On Belarusian interest in pursuing such autocephaly more generally, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/moscow-patriarchate-losing-ground-in.html and the numerous sources cited therein.

Moscow Organizes Summer School in Svalbard to Expand Russian Influence There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 11 – Moscow’s Center for International Research and Education is organizing a summer school on the Svalbard archipelago (Spitzbergen) for students from Russia and non-Arctic countries as part of a Russian government effort to use soft power means to oppose what its  director describes as NATO’s militarization of those islands.

            The summer school, to take place June 16-29, is a pilot project, its director Irina Strelnikova says, and shows that “amidst rising international tensions, the militarization of the archipelago by Norway and Svalbard’s inclusion in NATO’s military-political planning, Russia is giving priority to soft power mechanisms” (arctic.ru/20260611/1533664.html).

            This is the latest in a series of Russian moves over the last year intended to increase its influence in Svalbard and to involve countries not part of the Arctic Council which has suspended contacts with Moscow since Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in February 2022.

            For background on what Moscow has been doing in this Norwegian territory and what these moves may presage, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/moscow-increases-its-focus-on-two-north.html, jamestown.org/moscow-using-svalbard-to-test-natos-readiness-and-resolve/ and jamestown.org/moscows-first-move-against-nato-could-take-place-in-norways-svalbard-archipelago/.