Russia has Been Very Slow to Publicize Location of Bomb Shelters

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 22 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022 and even since Ukraine began to attack Russian cities with drones, only 25 federal subjects of the Russian Federation have released information about the location of bomb shelters – and independent analysts say two-thirds of those identified are in poor condition.

            According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, three regions released information on the location of bomb shelters in 2022, five more did so in 2023, five in 2024, three in 2025, and seven so far this year (/novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/05/22/za-chetyre-goda-voiny-tolko-25-regionov-rossii-raskryli-adresa-bomboubezhishch-podschitala-novaia-evropa-news).

            Elsewhere, information about where bomb shelters are located remains classified, even though Ukrainian drones have reached far more federal subjects than the 25 that have identified where such facilities are located but at least in part because at least two-thirds of the shelters are unfit for use.

            In June of last year, Moscow said that a map of all shelters would be posted on the State Services portal by December 2025; but that hasn’t happened; and many Russians not surprisingly are outraged by this all-too-obvious evidence that the powers that be in the Putin regime don’t care nearly as much about the population’s safety as they routinely claim to be.

After Putin, Russia Must Either Modernize Quickly or Face Disintegration, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 21 – The editors of Moscow’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta warn that “every prolonged historical period over the last century and a half has ended in a state of stupor and paralysis of central authority and has been accompanied by the disintegration of the country.”

            “Often,” the editors say in a lead article, these two developments “have been attended by military defeats or the absence of a clear military victory;” but there have been exceptions – and Russians can avoid disaster if they recognize the threat and work to counter it (ng.ru/editorial/2026-05-21/2_9500_21052026.html).

            When Russians have not done so -- and that has been more often than not, the editors suggest -- “fragments of the disintegrating Russia have instigated wars among themselves or against the remaining central core of the country, a pattern observed in both the 20th and 21st centuries).”

            The most obvious example in recent Russian history where the leadership at least recognized the threat and acted expeditiously came after Stalin’s death in 1953. Then, “the ossifying Stalinist regime rapidly transformed into a system of collective leadership exercised by members of the Politburo.”

            That was possible because Moscow had a powerful army and was making “rapid social and technological progress, the kind of developments many around the world at the time viewed as a model worthy of emulation.” As a result, “Russia weathered a succession crisis … without suffering territorial disintegration.”

            What this means, the paper’s editors say, is that “Russian history offers only two possible scenarios: It may navigate its current historical situation by following the pattern of disintegration or by pursuing the pattern of rapid transformation.” There are no other alternatives, they write.

            And they conclude by pointing out that “These same history textbooks also suggest that, to avoid territorial disintegration, Russians must now avoid a military defeat or even a contentious stalemat in the war [they say] currently being waged by NATO nations against Russia” via a Ukrainian proxy.

            “Any attempt to obscure this historical choice from contemporary Russian society is a poor strategy in the ongoing conflict with the West,” they conclude, given the risk of stagnation of the country and then its disintegration as in 1918 and again in 1991.

Tokayev’s Praise for the Golden Horde Gives Moscow a Taste of Its Own Medicine and Moscow Doesn’t Like It

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 22 – Earlier this month, Kazakhstan President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev gave a speech in which he praised the Golden Horde and said it was a proper guide for the Kazakhs in the future, a position that echoes Moscow’s talk about an ancient Russian tradition but offends many there by challenging Russian views on the Horde.

            Speaking at an Astana symposium on the Golden Horde on May 19, Tokayev did not simply mention the Golden Horde but argued it was a major Eurasian power in its own right, a civilizational model for the Great Steppe and as such had its own institutions, laws, military and financial system (altyn-orda.kz/vystuplenie-glavy-gosudarstva-kasym-zhomarta-tokaeva-na-mezhdunarodnom-simpoziume-zolotaya-orda-kak-model-stepnoj-tsivilizatsii-istoriya-arheologiya-kultura-identichnost/).

            Every part of his remarks represented a challenge to the Russian imperial tradition that Putin represents. Now as in the past, Moscow treats the Golden Horde as “a yoke,” “a dark age,” and a symbol of Russia’s enslavement and the cause of its suffering.

            For Russians who think this way, “the Steppe was not a civilization but a threat, not a state but a mere raiding party, and not a system of governance but of chaos,” the Altyn-Orda portal says in summing up Tokayev’s remarks. Not surprisingly, many in Moscow are furious (altyn-orda.kz/rech-tokaeva-o-zolotoj-orde-vyzvala-nervnuyu-reaktsiyu-v-rossii/).

            What is especially infuriating from Moscow’s point of view, of course, is not the mere mention of the Golden Horde but that fact, the portal continues, that “Kazakhstan is beginning to construct its own historical narrative—one in which the Ulus of Jochi and the Golden Horde are viewed not as ‘a foreign invasion’  but as an integral part of the history of statehood in the Kazakh Steppe.”

            With his words, Tokayev is “declaring to the world that the Steppe is not some void situated between China, Rus’, and Europe but rather an independent center of power in its own right, a conduit for trade routes, diplomatic ties, cultural exchanges and political models” for now and the future, the portal continues.

            Moreover, the portal says, “while the history of the Great Steppe was previously often written by those observing it from the outside, Kazakhstan has now begun to write it from within. In essence, Tokayev’s speech is not a dispute with Russia regarding the past; it is a declaration regarding the future. “

            That is, Tokayev’s argument about the Golden Horde show that from now on Kazakhstan will be “grounding its identity not in the Soviet legacy or in the role of Moscow’s ‘junior partner’ but rather on the basis of a far deeper historical foundation,” one at least as old or more likely older than the Russian tradition.

            In Tokayev’s vision, the portal says, “the Golden Horde is not ‘a yoke,’ but a civilizational bedrock—not a dark stain on history, but a grand Eurasian project;” and that is “precisely why the Russian reaction has been so agitated. When Kazakhstan reclaimed the Golden Horde, it is reclaiming not just its history but it true self.”

But a curious coincidence, Tokayev’s speech came only four days after Kazakhstan and the Turkic world marked the 90^th anniversary of the  birth of Kazakh writer and philosopher Olzhas Suleimenov  (https://ru.euronews.com/culture/2026/04/15/90-let-olzhasu-sulejmenovu-pisatel-stavshij-golosom-antiyadernogo-dvizheniya ).

Suleimenov’s 1975 book, Az i Ya also challenged the Russian understanding of the Horde and was almost immediately suppressed by the Soviets and has been an underground classic for Turkic and other ethnic groups in the Russian empire ever since . (For background, see  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/kazakh-authorities-confiscate-paper-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/01/pandemic-testing-leaders-and-countries.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/09/window-on-eurasia-putin-doesnt-know.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2012/10/window-on-eurasia-cis-continuing-and.html.)

Moscow Arrests Ten Senior Muslim Leaders, Sending New Chill through Russia’s Islamic Community

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 21 – The Russian authorities have arrested on a variety of charges ten senior Muslim leaders, an action that some are linking to a recent suggestion that Muslims are ready to take power in Russia and that others say is directed at undermining an even more senior mufti who in the Kremlin’s view has taken a too independent line.

            On the arrests, see  t.me/agentstvonews/15450, echofm.online/news/v-rossii-zaderzhany-kak-minimum-dva-muftiya, meduza.io/feature/2026/05/21/v-rossii-zaderzhali-dvuh-muftiev-duhovnogo-upravleniya-musulman-odnogo-zapodozrili-vo-vzyatke-vtorogo-v-nepovinovenii-politsii, https://t.me/OstashkoNews/213428 and sova-center.ru/religion/news/harassment/intervention/2026/05/d53798/.

            Neither the arrests themselves nor the specific reasons for them have been confirmed by Russian officials. On the one hand, that means that these actions may be the beginning of a general crackdown on the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSD) that oversee most of the Muslim parishes in the Russian Federation or a one time action.

            And on the other, because that is so, speculation is rife about what is going on. Most observers suggest it is Moscow’s response to suggestions by Ruslan Kutayev, the head of the Assembly of Peoples of the Caucasus and one of the five non-Russians on the Russian Platform at PACE, that Muslims are ready to take power in Moscow (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/27/mibudem-kontrolirovat-moskvu-bivshii-vitse-premer-chechni-zayavil-chto-musulmane-gotovi-vzyat-vlast-vrossii-a193864).

              That is certainly plausible, although it is worth noting that Kurayev has made a variety of radical statements like this over the last decade and was not subject to arrest although he was forced to emigrate (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/06/a-north-caucasus-republic-will-emerge.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/north-caucasians-aspire-to-have-one-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/04/best-option-for-north-caucasian-peoples.html).

            Others have suggested that this is a Moscow move against Gainutdin (https://t.me/rybar/80400) and that the Kremlin may finally have decided to crush dissent within the Muslim community and make it as loyal to itself as is the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

              If that is the case, the Russian authorities will have to do more than arrest a few dozen Muslim leaders given that Islam does not have clergy or a clerical hierarchy that Moscow can hope to control. Consequently, if these arrests do presage a new Moscow move against Islam, they are likely to presage widespread resistance. 

Russians Very Much Aware Unemployment is Rising, Whatever Kremlin Says, New VTsIOM Survey Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 18 – The VTsIOM polling agency says that Russians are now more aware of rising unemployment in their country than they have been at any point since the beginning of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine. If this trend continues, the Agents portal says, “it will deprive the Russian authorities of one of their favorite arguments” that the economy is doing well.

            Polling agencies like the Kremlin-linked VTsIOM, the portal reports, have regularly compiled data on what they call “the unemployment index,” a metric that is based on surveys which ask Russians whether they know anyone among their circles who is out of a job (agents.media/rossiyane-stolknulis-s-dovoennym-urovnem-bezrabotitsy/).

            “In April,” it says, VTsIOM found that “the share of Russians reporting that four or more of their relatives or acquaintances in their social circles had lost their jobs rose to seven percent, up from five percent in March. Another 17 percent reported that one to three of their acquaintances had been left without work, compared to 16 percent the month before.”

            While nearly two-thirds continued to say that no one near them had lost a job, “the index, which reflets the difference between positive and negative responses to the question ‘How many people among your close relatives and acquaintance have lost their jobs over the last two to three  months’ rose by five percentage point in one month and reached an all-time high” since 2022.

            In posting these figures on its telegram channel, VTsIOM analysts suggested that “we may be witnessing the first signs of a reversal in the labor market which for the past four years has suffered from an excessively low supply of available labor.” If that is the case, then the Russian economy is doing worse and firms are shedding workers faster than officials admit.

Putin Regime Even Less Tolerant of Jokes than Late Soviet One Was, ‘Important Stories’ Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 21 – “When times are bad,” a Polish joke runs, “people tell political jokes. When they get worse, people stop.” That observation may help to explain why the Important Stories portal has found that the Putin regime is even less tolerant of jokes than was the Soviet in the Brezhnev era.    

After examining dozens of court cases in which standup comics and ordinary Russians have been charged and convicted for telling political jokes, jokes that the courts often repeat in their judgments, the portal reaches that thoroughly depressing conclusion (istories.media/stories/2026/05/21/o-chem-nelzya-shutit-v-rossii/).

According to its investigation, Russians of all kinds today put themselves in legal jeopardy if they tell jokes about Putin’s war in Ukraine, ethnic Russians and at least some other ethnic groups, religion in general and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in particular, bribes, and of course Putin himself.

The Important Stories report concludes with a comment by Ekaterina Shulmann, a Russian political analyst now living in Kazakhstan, about this trend. She points out that in recent years, “the genre of stand-up comedy has acquired a certain social significant and its practitioners have come to resemble somewhat the variety show hosts of Soviet times.”

“Do you remember that significant segment of Russian culture? It was officially sanctioned, after all; these were not dissidents,” she asks rhetorically. “Yet, at the same time, there was something about them that wasn't entirely "Soviet." Some did suffer for what they said that sparked laughter but not as many as now.

In Putin’s time, “stand-up comedians began to be weeded out. Some suffered direct repercussions; others, having refused to support the war in 2022, left the country; while still others remained behind and attempted to engage in a delicate balancing act.” But the future for this kind of humor in Russia is not bright.

That is because “an authoritarian regime [like Putin’s] cannot tolerate individual agency in any sphere whatsoever. No matter what your line of work, if you act independently—rather than on official orders—and manage to do something that draws an audience and earns you public affection, that alone is deemed suspicious.”

Telling jokes in that environment is increasingly dangerous and thus increasingly both rare and private. 

Denunciation of Some Russians by Others has Tripled Over the Last Year – and Many are about Settling Scores Rather than Exposing Real Threats, Karpitskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 18 – The number of denunciations of some Russians by others that were filed with the government’s communication agency tripled between 2024 and 2025, from 86,000 to 252,000, at least in part because of the Putin regime’s encouragement of the population to turn in those people are calling attention to violations of the law.

            Many of these complaints are legitimate and have led officials to investigate and bring charges, journalist Dina Karpitskaya says; but a large share of them reflect public paranoia, petty vindictiveness or a desire to “get on the nerves” of those co-workers, bosses or neighbors (kp.ru/daily/277783.5/5249794/).

            In a Komsomolskaya Pravda article entitled “Informants or Vigilantes? Russians File Hundreds of Reports against One Another,” Karpitskaya suggests that a large share of these denunciations cross the line from civic duty into slander based on no evidence or simple paranoia.

            The journalist calls particular attention to the emergence of companies offering services to those who want to file denunciations. She tested one of these companies and was offered its services to “’thoroughly vet’” the social media accounts of the person she was complaining about and for a fee to force those attacked to “run around police stations and other agencies.

            Unless Russians are encouraged to be more restrained, Karpitskaya says, the problem is likely to grow because “the system doesn’t always distinguish between genuine threat” and made up ones, a real problem given that “we certainly knowhow to put people behind bars for a single ear of grain.”