Karelian Activists Seek to Make Dual-Language Ballots Automatic For Themselves and Others

Paul Goble     

            Staunton, July 7 – Karelian activists are seeking to make dual-language ballots automatic in areas where ethnic minorities life rather than leaving question of whether to have such ballots printed up to local officials who often refuse to prepare such ballots even when requested to do so.

            The Russian constitution specifies that non-Russians have the right to ballots and other election forms in their native languages; but that provision of the basic law increasing is ignored by officials. Now activists in Karelia are trying to change that (mariuver.eu/2026/07/07/aktivisty-trebujut-bjulletenei-na-nacionalnyh-jazykah/).

            They are calling on Karels and Weps to continue to bombard election officials with demands that ballots be printed in their languages and to force the government to live up to its constitution not only there but elsewhere, demands that may seem a small point but are an indication of the kind of action that may have some chance of success.

            After all, calling on Moscow to live according to its own laws and constitution was one of the strongest tactics of the Moscow Helsinki Group in the last decades of Soviet power not because that organization got its way but because it gained support for the idea of a law-based state, something the Karelian activists clearly hope can happen again. 

Duma Approves Measure Taking Regulation of Migrant Workers Away from Labor Ministry and Giving It to Interior Ministry

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – The Duma has now completed passage of a bill that takes the regulation of migrant workers away from the ministry of labor and gives it to the interior ministry, a step that seems set both to further centralize control in the hands of the police and to limit the crazy quilt of regulations which now vary from region to region.

            The measure makes two important changes that justify that conclusion. It gives the interior ministry rather than the labor ministry the power to define the list of professions migrants may fill; and it specifies that Moscow can now give migrant workers with permission in one place to exercise that right in others (nazaccent.ru/content/45671-professii-dlya-migrantov-teper-budet-vybirat-mvd-rossii/).

            If the measure is signed into law and there is every reason to believe it will be as it was pushed by the ruling United Russia Party, that will expand the role of Moscow and the police in regulating immigrant labor and thus allow the center to rewrite regulations in regions that the central government judges to be at odds with its interests. 

Per Capita, Russians in Far East Fall Victim to Politically Motivated Criminal Cases Far More Often than Those in Other Federal Districts, ‘Memorial’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – The Memorial human rights organization reports that 2.5 per every 100,000 residents of the Russian Far East fell victim to politically motivated criminal cases during the first half of this year, the highest rate per capita of any federal district in the Russian Federation.

            Memorial researchers say that the reason for this is that increases in charges against Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the Far Eastern FD, almost one in four of such political charges involved religious groups whereas in other federal districts, the share was only seven percent (semnasem.org/news/2026/07/08/dalnij-vostok-vnov-stal-liderom-po-chislu-politicheski-motivirovannyh-ugolovnyh-del-na-dushu-naseleniya).

            They note that this is not the first time that the Far Eastern FD has led the Russian Federation in terms of such charges. The same thing was true throughout 2025 and thus continues a trend in which Russian officials far from Moscow are increasingly likely to bring such charges confident that they won’t be held to account by outside coverage. 

            Because this trend is greatest in the Far East and because it involves a religious group rather than an overtly political one, this aspect of repression in Putin’s Russia receives far less attention than it deserves given how few journalists or diplomats visit the region or even track what is going on there on a regular basis.

Moscow Payments to Women who Have a Child Don’t Compensate for Income They Lose by Doing So, New HSE Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – A Russian woman who gives birth to a child loses on average 14 percent of her income compared to her coevals who do not give birth, and such losses are not compensated fully by government payments intended to reverse the decline in fertility rates there, according to a new Higher School of Economics study.

            This “maternity tax” as Russians now refer to it, the HSE study says, grows in size because women with children often shift to part time work or are unable to go on business trips or get training their childless counterparts do and as a result aren’t promoted (province.ru/society/4501069-shtraf-za-materinstvo-pochemu-jenshchinam-v-rossii-nevygodno-rojat/ ).

            Another consequence of this “tax” is that the gender gap in pay is increasing as the government pushes more women to have children without providing them with full compensation for the costs of doing so. This year, for example, according to HSE, that gap increased for the first time since 2013.

Tallinn has Given Russian Church in Estonia Six Months to Appoint a New Metropolitan and Sever All Ties with Moscow

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – The Estonian interior ministry has sent a letter to all religious associations in that Baltic country that they have until December 28 to bring their groups into compliance with a law that prohibits such organizations from being subordinate to religious groups in a foreign country or face the prospect of dissolution.

            In five of the six cases, the letter is pro forma as they are already in compliance; but it raises the stakes regarding the future of the Estonian Orthodox Christian Church as the EOC of the Moscow Patriarchate has renamed itself (news.err.ee/1610071837/estonia-gives-orthodox-church-6-months-to-choose-between-god-and-the-kremlin).

            The EOCC faces two challenges in bringing itself into compliance with Estonian law: It must dismiss those on its governing board whose Estonian residence permits were not extended in the last 10 years and removing all references to the Moscow Patriarchate in the basic documents governing the operation of the Estonian church.

            The first will be difficult given that the EOCC’s metropolitan who was required to leave Estonia two years ago after losing his residence permit still serves on the governing board of the church. But the second will be even more difficult because the denomination insists that its governing document makes the ROC MP that makes it the supervisor of the Estonian Orthodox.

            Priit Rohtmets, a Tartu professor church history, says that while the EOCC will likely seek to reduce the role of the Moscow Patriarchate in governing its life, it is uncertain whether it will be able to eliminate all references to the ROC MP in its basic documents. That sets the stage for a crisis in relations between Tallinn and Moscow later this year. 

            That is especially unlikely, he says, because the ROC MP is almost certainly going to be willing “to let the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church. Even if, from the perspective of the church here, such a move would be justified and well-founded, Moscow likely still has an interest in preserving the existing church structure and its influence over the church in Estonia.”

Russian Draftees to Fill Ranks of Fire Fighters Depleted by Low Salaries and Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – Every year, Russia faces an enormous number of forest fires and needs thousands of firefighters to prevent them from spreading. That challenge has been made more difficult because of the fire fighters’ low salaries and the bonuses given to those who serve in Putin’s war in Ukraine.

            Now, in another revival of a Soviet-era practice, the Russian government is seeking Duma approval for a law that will allow the authorities to have thousands of soldiers to be dispatched to fight major fires (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2026/07/07/1211664-soldat-srochnikov-otpravyat-v-pozharnie-chasti).

            As of now, the emergency services ministry has been able to use military personnel to fight fires only when the fires affect closed areas, although there is evidence that since last year, the authorities have exceeded their legal writ and been extending such programs to allow military personnel to fight fires elsewhere as well.

            The fact that the government is now seeking to legalize and thus extend this practice is yet another example of how Putin’s war in Ukraine has distorted the Russian economy and how the Kremlin, instead of recognizing that, is taking measures like this one to put that country on a war footing for the future in unexpected places. 

            The emergency services ministry has not yet said how many soldiers it will seek to use; but this program will certainly take enough to further complicate Moscow’s task of finding enough men to fill the rapidly depleted ranks of its military units now fighting in Putin’s war.

No Senior Russian Official Should be Allowed to Hold Any Office for More than Eight Years, Yaroshenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – Aleksey Yaroshenko, a prominent analyst of Russian regional affairs, says that his country must adopt a law that would ban officials from remaining in senior positions for more than eight years, a step that would reduce corruption and give the state apparatus more flexibility.

            This call for a radical form of term limits, he argued, will not only do that but will encourage younger people who will then know that they will have greater chances at advancement rather than being held back by their seniors who remain in place for years (absatz.media/news/170812-v-rossii-predlozhili-zapretit-chinovnikam-zanimat-post-dolshe-vosmi-let).

            But the main advantage, Yaroshenko says, is that it will ensure “the rotation of personnel” and thus ensure that over time there will be “more different people with different opinions and approaches,” something that can only make the implementation of central policies more effective.

            There is virtually no chance that his proposal will even be considered seriously let alone adopted in Putin’s Russia: too many heads would have to roll and there would be enormous chaos in both the political system and the bureaucracy. But the fact that this idea has now been proposed indicates how angry some Russians are about officials remaining in office for so long.

            Indeed, Yaroshenko’s words are a way of talking about the departure of Putin and his entourage from power in a way that is less likely to lead to persecution or prosecution and represent yet another example of the slippage of public support for the Kremlin leader, however much the author of this idea might dissent from that possibility.