Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Other Post-Soviet States Now Taking Part in ‘Large Game of the Middle Powers’ Canadian PM Mark Carney Talked About

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – At the World Economic Forum in Davos last January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the former international order is being restructured and that “mid-level powers have an historic opportunity to pool resources, create coalitions and take part in the formation of new global rules.”

            Among the countries taking part in that effort, according to a commentary on the Cronos.Asia portal, two post-Soviet states are especially prominent, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, a development that deserves more attention than it has received so far because it affects many places and not just their neighbors (cronos.asia/news/kazahstan-vhodit-v-bolshuyu-igru-srednih-derzhav/).

            Kazakhstan’s Kasym-Jomart Tokayev and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev have both entered this new game, and it is time for those who analyze their regions to recognize that what is happening is a about more than just what they and other leaders in the former Soviet space had been about but rather about changing the international order as such. 

            The Cronos.Asia portal focuses on Kazakhstan’s activities but includes some involving Azerbaijan as such to make the point that the new world that is emerging needs a new optic rather than continuing to be interpreted as if the world had not changed in the direction Carney points to. 

Founder of Radical Russian Nationalist ‘Northern Man’ Group Dies

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – Mikhail Mavashi, founder and current leader of the radical Russian nationalist Northern Man organization, has died at 41 in what is being reported as an automobile accident, an event that his followers are warning no one should try to exploit against the group (echofm.online/news/umer-reper-i-osnovatel-naczionalisticheskogo-dvizheniya-severnyj-chelovek-misha-mavashi ).

            The rapper who set up Northern Man in 2022 to support Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, promote Slavic unity, oppose immigration, and impose a restrictive vision of Russian traditions openly called for and organized violence to achieve his goals (ukranews.com/en/news/1183274-rapper-misha-mavashi-who-supported-war-against-ukraine-and-was-sentenced-in-absentia-dies-in-russia).

            Many observers have suggested that Mavashi’s Northern Man group might attract many Russian veterans returning from Ukraine and even become a threat to social and political stability in Russia. His followers’ threat to counter any attempts to exploit his passing indicates that such fears are not trivial.

            (For discussions of those possibilities, see meduza.io/feature/2025/09/12/molodye-v-pravilnoy-odezhde and jamestown.org/returning-veterans-powering-rise-of-radical-russian-nationalist-northern-man-group/).

            While the regional organizations of the Northern Man group appear relatively strong, the death of Mavashi leaves the group without an obvious successor to head such an all-Russian radical nationalist movement, a lack that means the more state-oriented Russian Community have play a larger role with veterans, one less threatening to the Kremlin.

            (On the Russian Community and its relations with Mavashi’s Northern Man group, see jamestown.org/returning-veterans-powering-rise-of-radical-russian-nationalist-northern-man-group/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/09/representatives-of-extreme-russian.html,)

Russia Unlikely to Give Up Imperial Ambitions Anytime Soon Because These Do Not Rest on Soviet Nostalgia Alone, Kazakh Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Kazakhstan should not expect any rapid change in Russia’s imperial ambitions because they are based “not only on nostalgia for the Soviet Union but also in a desire to preserve the idea of Russia as a power with special rights regarding the territories of its neighbors,” Askar Nursha says.

            The Kazakh political analyst, who is dean of the ALMA University School of Public Policy and Law and author of the 2018 book, Putin’s Russia: Geopolitical Revenge or Aggressive Defense, makes this point in an interview with Altyn-Orda (altyn-orda.kz/rossiya-ne-otkazalas-ot-imperskih-ambitsij-politolog-obyasnil-kakie-riski-eto-sozdayot-dlya-kazahstana/).

            Those who expect Russia to give up these ambitions anytime soon are going to be disappointed because that will take not just the passing of a generation that remembers the USSR but the complete transformation of Russian self-identificaiton as a special state with special rights regarding its neighbors.

            Those neighbors, including Kazakhstan, must recognize this reality even as they are compelled to deal with Russia as a neighbor in pragmatic ways. That may sometimes require unwelcome compromises but these are likely to be necessary to prevent even more tragic consequences.

Russian Supreme Court has Now Defined What the Imaginary International Satanist Movement Believes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – A year ago, having earlier denounced the international LGBT+ movement as extremist, the Russian Supreme Court did the same thing with the International Satanist Movement. Now, the First Department media group has gained access to a new document in which the court describes this non-existent group is about.

            On its telegram channel, First Department reports, it has gained access to an as-yet-unpublished court decision describing how what things allow Moscow to identify a group as satanist and how this non-existent group is linked to other movements, many of which are real (https://t.me/deptone/18070 reposted at echofm.online/news/pervyj-otdel-uznal-kakuyu-simvoliku-verhovnyj-sud-schitaet-sataninskoj).

            According to the journalists, the Russian Supreme Court declares in its unpublished paper that the symbols of the International Satanist movement include “an inverted Christian cross, an inverted pentagram (two rays up) and an image of Baphomet, a human-like creature with a horned animal head, most often a goat or a ram. It also described modifications of this symbol: a pentagram in a single or double circle, a seven-pointed sign and the number 666.”

            The court also said in this decision document that “the Satanist movement is closely connected with the manifestations of radical nationalism and neo-Nazism,” as can be seen by the fact that followers of Satanism use the swastika, stylyzed eagers, runic signs, and SS symbolism.”

            What makes all this so dangerous, human rights lawyers say, is that it gives Moscow the opportunity to punish people who may be completely unaware that that the symbols they use are forbidden since the specific content of the ban on the non-existent organization has not been made public.

Tuvan Women’s Movement Seeks to Unite Women of All Non-Russian Nations against Common Problems

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – The Tuvan movement, Chavaga Media, has announced plans to launch on March 8, International Women’s Day, a program for women in all the non-Russian regions and republics to protect themselves against phenomena like stalking and the use of sexualized deepfakes without the consent of those pictured.

            Chavaga is dedicated to the life and history of women in Tyv, has organzed exhibits and meetings in that republic, and has a bilingual telegram channel with some 13,000 subscribers (t.me/chavaga_media/5217 and semnasem.org/news/2026/10/24/fem-media-iz-nacionalnyh-respublik-zapustili-proekt-po-bezopasnosti-zhenshin).

            This effort builds on the anti-war efforts of various women’s groups in the last several years to protest Putin’s war in Ukraine and its excessive use of non-Russian men to fight it, but it represents a new development in that it is explicitly directed at uniting non-Russian women against common problems women face everywhere.

            As such, and because this effort is being carried out by people on the ground rather than those who have been compelled to flee Russia, it deserves close attention, something it hasn’t received much of outside of Russia so far because Tyva is so far from Moscow and because Chavaga has focused on everyday issues rather than bold proclamations.

            A perusal of its telegram channel -- t.me/chavaga_media/ -- highlights just how much can be accomplished with this approach and how it even more than some émigré actions can do to lay the foundation for national and pan-national movements now and in the post-Putin future. 

Predominantly Ethnic Russian Regions have Highest Shares of Pension-Age Residents while Non-Russian Areas have Lowest, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays have the highest shares of pension-age residents in the Russian Federation, the result of lower birthrates and the departure of younger people from thefor work in major cities, according to the To Be Precise portal.

            Non-Russian republics in the Caucasus, Southern Siberia and the Far North in contrast have the lowest share of retirees among their populations, the result of higher birthrates in the first, lower live expectancy in the second, and the departure of those about to retire to warmer areas, the portal continues (tochno.st/materials/gde-v-rossii-samaia-vysokaia-dolia-liudei-pensionnogo-vozrasta-karta-regionov).

            The differences between the federal subjects with predominantly ethnic Russian populations and those which are non-Russian is large, with most of the former having more than 20 percent of their population being above retirement age while most of the latter having less than twice that.

            Moscow ranks in the middle because while its people on average liver longer, their share of the population is kept down by the constant influx of workers from other regions.  The article also notes that more than two thirds of all retiree age people in Russia are women, largely the result of gender differences in longevity.

            In the Russian Federation, women live on average 11 years more than men do, an abnormally high difference compared to other countries. According to To Be Precise, only two years of this reflects biological differences, the rest is the product of behavioral ones, including alcohol consumption and accidents among working-age Russian men. 

Russian Courts Now Act Cruelly Not Because They are Instructed to Be But Because They Fear Exposure as Not Being Cruel Enough, Maksimov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – The imposition of extraordinarily harsh sentences in a series of cases in Russian courts calls attention to a dangerous development: Prosecutors are asking for such punishment and judges are imposing it not because they have been instructed to do so but because they are afraid of being humane, Andrey Maksimov says.

            Under current conditions, the journalist argues, any judge or prosecutor who shows mercy puts himself at risk of being denounced as helping the enemies of the state, a fear that means as long as the situation continues, ever more draconian sentences are likely (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/10/22/o-strakhe-byt-ne-zhestokim).

            That puts in motion a system in which court officers will compete with one another to show how tough and cruel they can be, not because they are being instructed to do so but because the system Putin has put in place makes such a spiral of official cruelty ever more likely and not something that those who launched it can easily reverse.

            These arrangements echo those in Stalin’s time, not as described by Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon as a tightly controlled system that carried out the will of one man but rather the one outlined by Victor Serge in The Case of Comrade Tulayev in which the fear of not being cruel enough takes over, a situation even dictators can’t stop at least for a time.