Russia has Been Redirecting Ukrainian Drones to Attack Latvian Targets, Riga Says

Paul Goble

              Staunton, June 1 – Over the last month, three drones have crashed in various parts of Latvia; and according to the Latvian defense ministry, “as a rule,” these are Ukrainian drones that Kyiv targeted against Russia but that Russian electronic warfare specialists have hacked and retargeted to hit Latvia.

              While the number of such attacks has been small, the impact of these has been large, with constant air raids, canceled year-end examinations, the drones themselves, and the loss of tourists, Latvian officials say (svoboda.org/a/latgalia-granitsa-rf-upali-tri-bespilotnika/33770038.html).

              But perhaps the most important aspect of this history lies in a different place: If Moscow is in fact redirecting Ukrainian drones, the Russian government has the capacity to do this in a more serious way and can use such tactics to avoid responsibility and engage in a covert war for a long time that some won’t identify as being the handiwork of Russia.

              Indeed, what the Latvian defense ministry is reporting may be a signal of just how Moscow intends to ramp up tensions across the Baltic region and to prepare for what could prove to be an attempt by Russian forces there to seize territory in ways that could lead to controversies within NATO as to how to respond.

Russian Psychiatric Society Says Russian Troops in Ukraine Should Serve There No Longer than Six Months and in Many Cases Far Less Long

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 1 – The Russian Society of Psychatrists says that no Russian soldier should remain in the war zone in Ukraine for more than six months and that any who are involved in continuous fighting should be replaced after no more than two weeks and in cases of heavy losses after a few days, Kommersant reports.

            The society’s recommendations have been send to the Russian health ministry for approval and are, in its words, “aimed at preventing the depletion of adaptive resources and reducing the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (kommersant.ru/doc/8707885).

            It is unlikely that the Russian authorities will follow the society’s advice given how pressed for man power it already is; but this declaration by psychiatric experts will likely lead ever more Russians to oppose the way Putin’s war in Ukraine is being fought and come out in opposition to it.

            One recommendation the society has made could actually lead to changes, if not in the use of Russian servicemen on the battle fronts but in their treatment after they return home. Up to now, Russia has not used the latest international definitions of PTSD, and the society calls for the adoption of these and for updating treatment protocols. 

Another Act of Muscovite Discrimination Against Non-Russians: Russian Officials Seek Return of Disproportionate Share of Ethnic Russian POWs

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 31 – Moscow drafted and sent to fight in Ukraine a disproportionate number of non-Russians and now it is discriminating against them at the other end as well: Only 66 percent of POWs Ukraine has held are ethnic Russians, but among those Moscow has sought to have returned in prisoner exchanges, 83 percent were members of that dominant ethnic group.

            That is a clear sign of ethnic discrimination, according to the I Want to Live project which examined statistics on returnees between 2022 and 2025; and it is certain to further exacerbate ethnic tensions in the Russian Federation (svoboda.org/a/pochemu-semji-voennoplennyh-iz-natsrespublik-govoryat-o-diskriminatsii/33764665.html).

            Mariya Vyshkova, a Buryat expert on the ethnic composition of those killed on the Russian side, says that she and other observers “have noticed all this time that representatives of the indigenous peoples of Siberia and other national minorities, when captured, are much less likely to be exchanged than ethnic Russians.”

            Until now, however, this was “more of an intuitive feeling based on news reports and stories we received; but now these figures confirm that. Why is this the case? On the one hand, she says, “we can say that this is discrimination on ethnic groups: representatives of ethnic minorities are considered less valuable.”

            “But it seems to me, she says, “that this is a matter of political visibility, of what political consequences there may be if this particular individual is not exchanged and thus is also a matter of how noticeable his story is” and how likely it will attract media or at least public attention.

            She adds that non-Russians “really get used to the fact that they are second-class citizens and that they are much less likely to be heard … In general, this reflects reality.” Consequently, it is difficult to say which plays the larger role: the way they are viewed or the fact that they have fewer opportunities to get publicity.”

Since End of 2025, ‘Not a Single New Foreign Brand has Entered Russian Market,’ ‘Vedomosti’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – Trade between countries is not simply about the volume of sales but also about the circulation of brands. When trade is relatively free, new brands move from one country to another; when it is restricted either by outsiders through sanctions or the regime by the promotion of import substitution, such circulation slows or even stops.

            The Moscow newspaper Vedomosti reports that since the beginning of 2026, “not a single new foreign brand has entered the Russian marketplace, according to the CORE.XP consulting company (vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2026/05/29/1201058-v-rossii-vpervie-za-poslednie-godi-ne-poyavilos-ni-odnogo-inostrannogo-brenda).

            In 2025, 12 new foreign brands did, the consulting company says; in 2024 and 2023, 24 each; and in 2021 and 2022, 16 each.  The Russian government is likely to view this as an indication that its program for import substitution is working, although the rising tide of Russian consumer pessimism casts doubt on that conclusion.

            As far as Western sanctions are concerned, this is evidence of what the most thoughtful observers and officials have pointed out. It takes a long time for sanctions to work; but when they do, the citizens of the countries against which they are targeted not only don’t get what they were used to getting but don’t have a chance to acquire new products from outside either. 

Putin Plans to Return Dzerzhinsky Statue to Moscow's Lubyanka Square Soon, Zygar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – The Putin regime is planning to put the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka,whose removal in August 1991 signaled the collapse of communism in the USSR, back up in Lubyanka Square in front of what was KGB headquarters and now is that of the FSB, according to Mikhail Zygar.

            The well-connected telegram channel author made that statement in his column for the German news magazine Der Spiegel and suggests this action will occur soon, close to the 35^th anniversary of when the statue was taken down and close to the 35^th anniversary of that action (vot-tak.tv/93559691/pamyatnik-dzerzhinskomu-moskva-vozvrashenie).

            More than 40 monuments of Dzerzhinsky have been put up in the Russian Federation since Putin came to power, but the return of the largest one to the Lubyanka Square would certainly lead many to decide that the current Kremlin leader plans to take Russia back even further toward the aggressiveness and repression of Soviet times.

In Calling for Book on Putin’s Ancestors, University Head Says He ‘Understands What the Kremlin Expects’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – Some of the most obsequious moves by Russian officials appear to be independent efforts to curry favor with the Kremlin, but others are clearly taking place because the Kremlin has ordered them or has ensured that it has put in place people who know in advance what Putin and the Presidential Administration want.

            A case of the latter concerns the actions of Andrey Loginov, rector of the Russian State University of the Humanities, who has pushed what to many seem actions more “Catholic than the pope” or in this case more Putinist than Putin but who is in fact ready to say that he knows what the Kremlin leader wants and is acting accordingly.

            Several weeks ago, Loginov’s university posted an announcement offering to pay someone to compile a book on the ancestors of Vladimir Putin between 1861 and 1917 (agents.media/rggu-nachal-iskat-biografa-roda-putinyh-kogda-rektor-ponyal-chego-ot-vuza-ozhidaet-kreml/).

            This announcement draw snickers from Putin critics but it was fully consistent with what Loginov, a longtime official in the Presidential Administration, has been doing since becoming rector two years ago in promoting Kremlin ideas and an extreme Russian nationalist agenda including courses on people like Ivan Ilin and books on the war in Ukraine.

            When others have taken similar actions, they have been careful to specify that they were acting on their own so that if too much criticism arose, those above them could change things quickly and in any case could avoid taking any responsibility for such steps. But Loginov has taken a different tact.

            The rector says that “in the course of two years of work in the university, I have formed a clear vision of our tasks and possibilities. We understand what is expected of the Russian State University of the Humanities in institutions above us, from the Presidential Administration to the Russian Academy of Sciences.”

            Loginov is thus saying that he is doing what he has been told is “expected,” a declaration that shows just how far Putin has gone in promoting his personalist and nationalist agenda and how even the most outrageous steps in this direction must be laid at his feet rather than blamed on anyone else. 

Duma Now Focusing on How to Save ‘Ethnic Russian State-Forming People’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – The Kremlin has been devoting ever more attention to the collapse of the Russia population as a whole given that fertility rates are now well below the replacement level of 2.2 children per woman per lifetimes overall and below even on child per woman per life time in major cities.

            But behind this concern about the decline of the population of the Russian Federation as a whole has always been a particular worry about the decline in the number of ethnic Russians because in the minds of Putin and his regime, they represent “the state-forming people” on whom the fate of the country depends.

            The Kremlin has usually been cautious in the ways it expresses that concern lest it exacerbate anti-ethnic Russian attitudes among non-Russians, a category that is gaining in share even if in many cases its component parts are also declining because they are declining less rapidly than the ethnic Russians.

            But now, in a sign that the Putin regime is going to be more open about what it really cares about – and thus about what it doesn’t care nearly as much about – the Russian Duma has held a roundtable on “Legislative Support for the Development of the Ethnic Russian State-Forming People” (svpressa.ru/society/news/517572/).

            The round table had as its subtitle “Problems, Prospects and the Role of Civil Society in shaping the Desired Vision of the Future,” an indication that the Russian parliament acting at the behest of the Putin regime is likely to pass a variety of laws in the coming months to try to boost birthrates among ethnic Russians in particular.

            Focusing on ethnic Russians alone and especially doing so by stressing that they and they alone are “the state-forming people” of the country are going to infuriate many non-Russians who will view such actions as yet another sign that they are second-class citizens in the Russian Federation and prompt ever more of them to think about alternative outcomes.