Putin’s War Threatens the Survival of Russian Federation Even if a Settlement is Reached

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 23 -- Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, as it enters its fourth year, increasingly threatens the survival of the Russian Federation and will do so even if some kind of cessation of hostilities is arranged. It has alienated the educated Russian elites in the major cities who do not want the kind of country Putin is seeking to create; and it has infuriated non-Russians who see themselves being used as cannon fodder while their basic needs are being ignored and their status as citizens is being undermined by Kremlin-promoted xenophobia. These trends, which have been intensified by Western sanctions that have affected how Russians now live and by Kyiv’s reaching out to and providing support for will not end if the fighting eases or stops. Instead, they will be exacerbated by three other developments that Putin will find it difficult if not impossible to change: expectations among all groups in the population that things will change, something he doesn’t want to allow; the return of a massive number of angry and well-armed veterans of that conflict whom it will be almost impossible to reintegrate and who give every sign of becoming the Freikorps of a new revolutionary upsurge; and the inclusion under Moscow rule of more Ukrainians, who will add to the growing share of non-Russians in the population, pushing it up to double or more what it was only a few years ago and making Putin’s promotion of a Russian world there even more counterproductive.   

    Putin’s expanded war has hit educated Russian elites in the major cities hard. Many of these people have left and others have become so alienated that they no longer feel as committed to their country as they did. That represents a double hit on the stability of the Russian Federation. On the one hand, these are precisely the people the country needs to grow and prosper; and on the other hand, their departure and alienation means that the Kremlin no longer has them in its corner and must resort to coercion, as it has, to keep them declaring their loyalty regardless of what they feel. That in turn means that their connection to Russia has been reduced to a thin threat that can easily snap if something else happens especially given that the Russia they want is precisely the kind of Russia Putin won’t create. That occurred in 1991, and there is every reason to think that similar shocks are ahead, given what else is going on.

    Putin’s war has also infuriated poorer Russians who know that they are disproportionately being asked to fight and die without any real benefit and even more non-Russians who know they are being used as cannon fodder so the Kremlin won’t have to further alienate urban Russians. And as the war has continued, Putin and his regime have increasingly played up xenophobia among Russians, forgetting the first rule of managing a multinational state: such a state won’t survive if it tries to rely on only the titular nation. It has to include others, and pointedly alienating them as now ensures that the non-Russians and many in the poorer Russian regions as well will exit when they can, something that is likely to occur during a transition or disaster.

    These trends would have occurred given the way in which Putin has conducted his war even if no one outside had done anything. But the West has imposed sanctions that have had a negative effect on most Russians, and Ukraine has reached out and provided support for the non-Russians, hosting their leaders forced into exile and proclaiming their right to seek an independent existence. Neither of those things – or at least neither of the consequences of these steps having been taken up to now – are going to stop if and when the guns fall silent.  And that highlights something many have failed to recognize: Putin won’t end the war because of these domestic problems he faces because he and those around him know that they will only intensify and metastasize if and when the conflict eases or ends.

    Three of the changes that a settlement will bring are especially important. First, there will be widespread expectations among all groups of the population that the sacrifices they have been asked to make will be ended and that they will be given rewards for what support they have offered or been compelled to offer. Putin has no interest and little capacity to make such changes, and he is unlikely to be able to manage the disappointment well, making a new war and new repression more likely. But that approach will only make things worse in time. Second, the return of a large number of angry, expectant and well-armed veterans will lead not only to increases in crime and instability but to the rise of a new Russian version of the Freikorps that rocked Germany to its foundation in the wake of the end of World War I and ultimately ushered in the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Putin even now is trying to integrate them into his system. But it is unlikely he will succeed. And third, if as now seems likely Putin is given more territory and thus more Ukrainians to rule as part of a settlement, what will be created is in many ways the worst nightmare of all.

    The Soviet Union fell apart when the share of non-Russians in its population rose to 50 percent of the total. Initially, the Russian Federation was roughly 80 percent ethnic Russian. Now, it is less than 70 percent. If a significant portion of Ukraine becomes part of the Russian Federation, then the percentage of ethnic Russians will fall again to below 60 percent and possibly to 55 percent or even lower. In that event, Putin will have restored not the Soviet Union but the conditions that led to the disintegration of the USSR. And for that reason as well as for the others enumerated above, the prospect that Putin’s state will disintegrate as well in the coming months or years is very great indeed. 

CIS Today ‘an Anachronism that Must Be Reformed, Disappear, or have Russia as Its Only Member,’ Dikusar Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Initially, many analysts suggested that the CIS was either a space for the peaceful divorce of the former Soviet republic or a carcass around which a new imperial state would form. Now, more than 30 years later, Konstantin Dikusar says, it has become “an anachronism that must be reformed, disappear or have Russia as its only member.”

    The Moscow commentator says that Russia has only itself to blame for the fact that one after another the original CIS members have either left or are thinking about leaving because Moscow, having said all will be equal, has in Soviet fashion made itself “the elder brother” once again (politexpert.org/material.php?id=6800E14178F56).

    Instead of allowing countries like Moldova and Armenia to combine membership in the CIS with membership in other international groupings, he continues, Moscow insists that they can’t be members of the CIS if they join others – and so over time, both these countries and all the other former Soviet republics save Russia will leave.  

    “The problems with the CIS come not only from the history of the establishment of this organization at the time of the disintegration of the USSR, but also from that element of domineering which Russia has in the CIS.” If initially it was the last perestroika project, now it is being used by Moscow in exactly the same way the August 1991 putschists wanted to act.

    Indeed, according to Dikusar, what Putin “did in Georgia and Chechnya and is now doing in Ukraine is precisely the policy that the putschists conceived in relation to the states that at that time were seizing their independence from under the treads of Russian tanks.” But the CIS can’t take place without a new perestroika in Russia.

    Otherwise, it will simply ceases to exist or have Russia as its only member.

New Technologies Helping Russian Authorities to Solve More and Ever Older Cold Cases, Officials Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Russian media has been filling up with reports about the police and investigative services solving more and more cold cases, bringing to justice people who committed crimes 20, 30 or even 40 years ago, the result of the spread of facial recognition technology, other technical innovations, and new structures in the interior ministry.

    In the past, officials say, many who committed crimes assumed they could hide out for decades and that after a certain time, the authorities would stop trying to solve the crimes. But now that has changed, and no matter how old a crime is, the authorities continue to look (versia.ru/pochemu-u-pravooxranitelnyx-organov-ne-ostalos-besslednyx-prestuplenij).

    The three biggest innovations that have led to this development have been the spread of facial recognition cameras to ever more Russian cities and even villages, the use of dogs and technology to track people, and the formation in militia offices of special divisions devoted to solving crimes of long ago.

    This trend gives new meaning to the idea that “nothing will be forgotten” and that no one will escape punishment despite their ability to hide out for years or decades. What is interesting is just how much credit the interior ministry seems to be getting for this approach in Putin’s Russia.

RF Regions’ Promoting Teenage Pregnancies Pushing Them Up among Central Asian Migrants but Not among Ethnic Russians, ‘Yury Dolgoruky’ Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Moscow’s decision to urge the governments of Russia’s federal subjects to boost pregnancies among Russian schoolchildren is backfiring, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says. The program is boosting births among Central Asian immigrant girls but not among ethnic Russian natives.

    As a result, and contrary to Russian law and interests, the telegram channel says, Moscow and the regional governments which are following its orders – about half of all the regional and republic governments have – are increasing the burden on Russian taxpayers without addressing Russia’s real demographic needs (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-17/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-kto-rozhaet-v-rossii-v-14-15-let-5371946).

    That is because this program, under the terms of which the regional governments pay up to 150,000 rubles (1600 US dollars) to any young woman who gets pregnant, is enormously expensive but is helping boost the number of immigrants but not the number of ethnic Russians.

    For a discussion of this ill-advised and incredibly poorly designed program which Moscow called for but may now be backing away from giving criticism and even anger like that of this telegram channel, see jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.
Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Moscow’s decision to urge the governments of Russia’s federal subjects to boost pregnancies among Russian schoolchildren is backfiring, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says. The program is boosting births among Central Asian immigrant girls but not among ethnic Russian natives.

    As a result, and contrary to Russian law and interests, the telegram channel says, Moscow and the regional governments which are following its orders – about half of all the regional and republic governments have – are increasing the burden on Russian taxpayers without addressing Russia’s real demographic needs (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-17/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-kto-rozhaet-v-rossii-v-14-15-let-5371946).

    That is because this program, under the terms of which the regional governments pay up to 150,000 rubles (1600 US dollars) to any young woman who gets pregnant, is enormously expensive but is helping boost the number of immigrants but not the number of ethnic Russians.

    For a discussion of this ill-advised and incredibly poorly designed program which Moscow called for but may now be backing away from giving criticism and even anger like that of this telegram channel, see jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.

School Problems in Areas Far from Major Cities in Central Asia Undermining Unity of Titular Nations and Threatening Survival of Minorities

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – The low quality of schools in rural areas far from Central Asia’s largest cities is leaving young people in rural areas isolated and increasingly far behind their counterparts in urban areas and threatening the survival of the smaller ethnic minorities of these countries as well.

    And according to two new articles on the Bugun news portal, the only possibility that these trends will be reversed will occur if there is a massive increase in spending on education and cooperation among regional governments, international organizations, and local communities (bugin.info/detail/tsifry-trevogi-obrazovate/ru and bugin.info/detail/iazyki-na-grani-kak-molod/ru).

    Across the region, these articles report, members of the titular nationalities living in distant rural areas are being provided with significantly lower quality education; and that in turn is contributing to poverty, early marriages, emigration and other social problems far greater than in the cities where better schools are available.

    This is such a large problem that even the expansion of internet education and the creation of mobile schools will do little unless there is a major increase in spending on education, something the government of this region currently don’t have the funds for and that international donors haven’t yet made a major investment.

    But as serious as the problems are for members of the titular nationalities in the Central Asian countries, those facing the members of small ethnic groups like the Pamiri nationalities in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are far worse and more immediate. Not only are they falling behind because of poor quality schools, but the survival of their languages and nations is at risk.

    In many cases, what is being done for them is being carried out by foreign universities and even individual emigres, some of whom engage in crowd-funding to provide textbooks to groups like the Shughni and Yagnob who, international bodies predict, may not survive until 2100 if more is not done. 

Slavery in Russia Far More Widespread than Moscow Admits or Many Acknowledge, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – No one knows precisely how many people are working as slaves in the Russian Federation. International human rights activists offer numbers ranging from 7,000 to two million. Moscow says there have been only 53 cases of slavery over the last 15 years; but in fact, it has brought to justice 17 times that number but hid this crime behind other charges.

    Modern forms of slavery are extremely diverse, and there are at least four different paragraphs of the Russian legal code under which people might be charged, Anastasiya Larina of the To Be Precise portal says (tochno.st/materials/za-15-let-v-rossii-zaregistrirovali-53-dela-ob-ispolzovanii-rabskogo-truda-my-nasli-v-17-raz-bolse-takix-slucaev-v-prigovorax-po-drugim-statiam).

    Over the last 15 years, some 880 Russian residents have been charged with slavery under these other paragraphs of the criminal code, 17 times more than the Russian government admits when it uses only the primary paragraph banning slavery. But even that larger figure ignores the amount of slavery, many cases of which the powers ignore or even are complicit in.

    The real number of Russian residents who are victims of slavery or slavery-like exploitation certainly numbers in the thousands, Larina continues; and she cites the conclusion of the Global Slavery Index which in 2021 said there were 1.8 million victims in Russia – or 13 for every 1000 residents (cdn.walkfree.org/content/uploads/2023/05/17114737/Global-Slavery-Index-2023.pdf).

Central Asian Countries Signal Their Re-Orientation by Foreign Languages They Promote

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 16 – When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the countries of Central Asia like the other former Soviet republics chose to promote the study of languages other than Russian for their rising generations to study. Many assumed they would all move in more or less the same direction, but they haven’t, Rafiz Abazov says

    The political scientist who now teaches at Columbia University says that each of the five countries in Central Asia has gone in a different direction. Kyrgyzstan has promoted English and Chinese, Uzbekistan, Japanese; Turkmenistan, Turkish; Tajikistan, Russian; and Kazakhstan, both English and Russian (orda.kz/pochemu-v-uzbekistane-uchat-japonskij-a-v-kyrgyzstane-kitajskij-rafis-abazov-o-jazykovoj-politike-ca-400563/).

    Abazov suggests that this focus says more about the direction each of these countries is heading in the long term than do the frequent declarations of their political leaders.