Regional Governments Freeze Salaries of Government Workers to Pay Volunteers to Fight in Putin’s War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – Government employees including teachers, medical workers and researchers have seen their salaries frozen because the governments of federal subjects need the money to pay the enormous bonuses to those who volunteer to fight in Ukraine.

            So far, this new budgetary approach has hit distant regions like Sakha and Sakhalin, but it is likely to spread (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/09/07/v-rossiiskih-regionah-nachali-zamorazhivat-indeksatsiyu-zarplat-byudzhetnikam-iz-za-viplat-uchastnikam-svo-a205407).

            What makes this important is not that regional governments are having to juggle their budgets to pay for what the Kremlin wants them to spend on manning Putin’s “special military operation” but rather that it threatens to create a whole new class of Russians who may now oppose the war because it is hitting the so close to home.

Kremlin Outlets Outraged Armenian Leader Spoke in Armenian rather than Russian at Shanghai Cooperation Organization Meeting

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 7 – After Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan used Armenian in addressing to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting at the end of August, pro-Kremlin commentators in Moscow were outraged and suggested his move recalled what the Baltic countries and Ukrainian leaders had done earlier.

            The most extreme of these said that what had happened in those countries began “precisely when their elites began demonstratively ‘forgetting’ Russia as the language of inter-internet communication” and using their own national languages instead (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/9/1/696892/ ).

            And they pointed out that all the other leaders of the former Soviet republics at the SCO meeting, including those of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan had used Russian, which they argued was entirely appropriate at such times to ensure better communication.

            Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was also distressed but somewhat more measured in his words. He acknowledged that what Pashinyan had done was “a signal to assert Armenia’s sovereignty” but added that “frankly, we didn’t understand why that couldn’t be stated in Russian” (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/9/7/697541/).

            What is striking is that both Russian commentators and the Kremlin spokesman seemed more upset by this use of the national language of Armenia than they did by the declaration Pashinyan made only a few days before the SCO meeting that Yerevan no longer considers Russia to be a strategic partner.

            This is not the first time Moscow has been angry about the language used by heads of former Soviet republics. In 2024, Russians were very upset when Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomar Tokayev, used Chinese in Beijing but responded to Russians in Kazakh (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/kazakhstan-presidents-use-of-chinese-in.html).

Putin’s Assumptions about Western Weakness Pushing Russia toward Strategic Defeat, Gallyamov Says, Just as Happened to USSR at Its End

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 6 – Like the leaders of the Soviet Union in its last decades, Putin believes that the West is weak and will collapse if Russia simply makes a little more effort, a conviction that is giving Russia now certain tactical victories but is setting the stage for his country’s strategic defeat, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            The former Putin speechwriter and now prominent Putin critic argues that Russia has the resources to achieve some tactical victories. Indeed, examples of Western weakness can “unleash Putin’s hands tactically;” but the real resources of the West mean that pursuit of a strategic victory would lead to Russia’s defeat (vot-tak.tv/95251668/putin-zhdet-krakha-zapada).

            Any decision to engage in a strategic escalation, Gallyamov says, such as a new mobilization, the use of nuclear weapons, or pursuing the destruction of NATO in the short term would mean that Russia’s resources would decline faster than those of the West in whose weakness he is now counting.

            Putin’s approach in recent years, one based on waiting for his opponents to “run out of time” has meant both that “he hasn’t noticed how this ends for himself” or that he is in a position to recognize that “this is what happened to the Soviet Union” in the years leading up to its defeat and demise.

            In the last decade of the Soviet period, Gallyamov reminds, “Moscow has many foreign policy successes: the victory of North Vietnam over America … the fall of the pro-Beijing Khmer Route in Cambodia, the success of the MPLA in Angola and the expansion of a Soviet military presence” in many parts of Africa.

            The Soviet leadership also gained by the geopolitical shifts of Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Iran, Palestine and the GDR, he continues. Given all these trends, the Soviet leadership was certain that if it just pushed a little harder and for a little longer, the USSR would triumph because its Western opponents were retreating.

But then the situation developed in ways that Putin has failed to remember, Gallyamov says. These triumphs, genuine but tactical, rapidly became “expensive for the country. To finance this geopolitical glory, money was needed and money wasn’t there anymore.” To support them, Moscow turned to economic reforms and then the USSR collapsed.

The lesson from this is clear, the commentator says, “going from success to success, you can actually come to the edge of the abyss; and then, without noticing it, take another step forward toward collapse.”

Kumyk could Again Become Lingua France of North Caucasus, Alpaut Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 6 – Kumyk, a Turkic language that was the lingua franca of the eastern North Caucasus before the Russian conquest, could become that again, first in Dagestan, the most multi-lingual republic of the Russian Federation, and then again in neighboring republics where there are now many Kumyk speakers, Ramazan Alpaut says.

            An ethnic Kumyk himself who worked at RFE/RL and now lives in the United States, Alpaut says that this trend is especially striking in Dagestan where, in contrast to other parts of the Caucasus, many members of ethnic groups feely admit that it is dying or already has done so (facebook.com/czechKum/posts/pfbid02iD29J7XZQTTJ3u7zTFkhxGXa36tpFvmGLr4Dwm5kqq3cbEc5UQrPiKB6D9ZjoNvdl).

            In these discussions, he continues, even people who are not Kumyk themselves suggest that it could serves “as a potential alternative to Russian for interethnic communication.” At present, there are more than 500,000 Kumyk speakers in the North Caucasus, far more than the total in Dagestan alone.

            Alpaut suggests there are five reasons why such suggestions are not pie in the sky. First, there is the historical precedent. Before the Russian conquest, Kumyk played that role and even continued to do so in imperial and Soviet times, despite Moscow’s efforts to restrict its use first beyond the Kumyk community and then within that nation itself.

            Second, he says, “Kumyk is relatively easy to learn: it lacks many of the phonetic complexities of other languages of the mount peoples” as “there is no grammatical gender, no prepositions or prefixes, and word formation follows almost formulaic patterns thanks to the law of vowel harmony.”

            Third, it occupies “a rather central position among Turkic languages,” having elements both of Turkish itself and the Turkic languages of Azerbaijan and the Central Asian countries.  Fourth, Those who know Kumyk are those able to communicate easily with other members of the Turkic world.

            Fourth, “census data show that Kumyk has displayed a remarkable resilience” and even growth. “If current trends continue, the Kumyk-speaking population could become Dagestan’s largest linguistic community by the next census, except for Russian speakers, of course,” Alpaut concedes.

            And fifth, the Kumyks themselves lack “the political or demographic resources” to impose their language on other. Those who choose to use it do so because of its advantages, a very different situation than in the case of Russian which is imposed by Moscow and the Russian authorities locally.

            Most discussions of linguistic change in the Russian Federation focus on shifts from non-Russian languages to Russian; but Alpaut’s words about the increasing role of Kumyk for other peoples are a reminder that other and potentially dramatic shifts of this kind are taking place as well with smaller non-Russian nations shifting to languages of larger non-Russian ones.   

Putin Advisor Says Ukrainians on Course to Disappear as a Nation by End of This Century

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 6 – Anton Kobyakov, an advisor to Vladimir Putin, says that Ukraine has passed “the point of no return” as far as demography is concerned and will “die out” by the end of this century unless something changes dramatically, adding that in his view, “only Russia can save that country.”

            Kobaykov’s view, aired at the Eastern Economic Forum and one likely shared by the Russian president reflects demographic data that some Ukrainian scholars are now discussing (fondsk.ru/news/2026/09/06/ukraincy-mogut-vymeret-kak-dinozavry-dazhe-esli-voennyy-konflikt-prekratitsya).

            These experts have focused on the fact that the number of children entering first year of school has fallen dramatically, a trend Kyiv explains by the decline in birthrates as a result of the war and the move of many Ukrainian families abroad to escape the violence of the Russian invasion.

            Those reasons may explain much of the reason for the decline. Ukrainian economist Oleksiy Kushch says that the number of children entering first classes this year is 45 percent lower than was the case in the 2013/2014 school year and that the country’s overall fertility rate has fallen from 1.51 to 0.9 children per woman per lifetime.

            That figure is below the overall Russian Federation fertility rate of 1.3 and even below that of the rate in major Russian cities, which now stands at 1.0. And it is far below the replacement level that requires women of childbearing age to have approximately 2.2 children.

            But the Ukrainian figures set the stage for the appearance of progressively smaller cohorts of Ukrainian women of prime childbearing age who are also on course to have ever fewer children.  According to some Russian commentators, that would mean there would only be two to three million Ukrainians left by the end of this century.

            Such longterm demographic projections are notoriously inaccurate given that changes can and do take place over time. But these are especially worrisome not only because they highlight a major challenge Kyiv will have to face but also because they likely underscore decision making in the Kremlin about Ukraine. 

Putin Supports Plan to Man Air Defense in Regions with Those ‘Absolutely Unsuitable’ for Military Service

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 5 – At a meeting with five United Russia Duma candidates, Putin said he supports their proposal to man air defense facilities in the regions with men who because of physical or mental problems have been classified as “absolutely unsuitable” for service in the Russian army.

            Men in what is known as category “D” are not drafted and are not accepted for service even if they volunteer, but many of them want to serve their country, Putin was told; and the Russian president said he supports the idea (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/09/05/putin-odobril-ideiu-privlech-k-protivovozdushnoi-oborone-v-regionakh-dobrovoltsev-s-kategoriei-godnosti-d-absoliutno-ne-goden-k-sluzhbe-news).

            Putin’s backing reflects both his search for manpower to fill the rapidly thinning ranks of his invasion force in Ukraine and his desire to show the Russian people that he will do everything he can to limit or even end the impact of Ukrainian drone attacks on targets in the Russian Federation.

            But if the president’s approval leads to the actual use of such men, some of them may be sufficiently disabled that they won’t be able to perform as required – or potentially that this will prove the thin edge of the wedge and some of them may be sent to fight in Ukraine once they have become soldiers for air defense.

In ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Case, Moscow Making the Transition from ‘Individual to Collective Repression,’ Kolezev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 5 – Until recently, the Russian justice ministry had identified specific media outlets or journalists in compiling its list of foreign agents; but now, with the case of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Kolezev says, it is listing a large number of people under this stigma and thus moving from “individual to collective repression.”

            In listing Novaya Gazeta as a foreign agent, the Urals journalist who fled Russia in 2022 says, the ministry included a list of several dozen journalists who were not staffers of that publication but had published there (t.me/kolezev/17888 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/perehod-ot-individualnyh-repressij-k-kollektivnym).

            “Neither de facto nor de jure do these people have anything to do with the publication at the present time,” Kolezev says; but all of them and all at once are now labeled foreign agents at one and the same time and are thus required to identify themselves as such and suffer the restrictions such a label entails.

            According to the Russian journalist now in emigration, this represents “an episode of the transition from individual repression to collective, more massive: people are recorded as enemies already literally lists; and it isone that is likely to spread,” a development that will spread Putin’s repressions more broadlyt and quickly than before.