Moscow Planning to Use Artificial Intelligence to Identify Most Russians Using VPNs and then Block Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct 16 – Russia’s Ministry for Digital Development hopes that by using artificial intelligence (AI), it will be able to identify Russians going on line via virtual private networks (VPNs) and then block them with a 95 percent success rate, according to sources close to the discussions as reported by Kommersant.

            At present, “the intelligent algorithms” the ministry uses and which do not qualify as AI aren’t able to achieve anything like that success rate and even earlier plans to exploit AI for these purposes were predicted to have only a 70 percent success rate, the Moscow newspaper says (kommersant.ru/doc/9027535).

            One source explains that Moscow’s new confidence reflects its judgment that “AI automates and accelerates the analysis of connection patterns—such as packet size and rhythm, session duration, and the ratio of incoming to outgoing traffic and thus make it possible to relatively quickly identify VPN servers based on indirect indicators.”

            Independent experts say that the use of AI will allow Russian officials to identify and block APNs but add that there will be “many false positives,” where individuals who are not using APNs will be identified as having done so and thus will be subject to repressive moves by the authorities.

            If Moscow is able to achieve the 95 percent success rate in blocking the use of APN systems, however, that will put an enormous crimp in the online efforts of opposition and Western sites which regularly encourage and increasingly count on their users to employ APN technologies.

Kremlin’s Threatening Rhetoric about Kaliningrad Not Just about West but also about Attitudes of that Exclave’s Residents, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 15 – Moscow’s threats that it will use nuclear weapons if the West tries to isolate Kaliningrad from the Russian Federation reflect not just its geopolitical agenda but also its continuing concerns about the independent-minded attitudes of that exclave’s residents, according to Vadim Shtepa.

            The longtime specialist on regionalism in Russia who edits the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal argues that what Moscow is doing is not just about the Western alliance but also about its nervousness that Kaliningrad’s population is anything but the loyal one Moscow claims and that many in the West uncritically accept (rus.postimees.ee/8563901/vadim-shtepa-kak-putin-prevratil-kaliningrad-v-antievropeyskiy-voennyy-placdarm).

            Shtepa concedes that the Kremlin’s threatening language is more about its effort to portray its policies as a response to Western moves than anything else but says that “it is possible that it is connected not with a foreign danger for this region but with Moscow’s fear that the attitudes of residents there can have changed in serious ways.”

            “In the 1990s,” he writes, “Kaliningrad oblast was close to being the most Europeanized region of the Russian Federation.” Its residents almost all of whom had passports traveled more often to neighboring Poland and Lithuania than to the Russian Federation from which it was separated by land and sea.

            Such trips, he argues, “for work, study or simply tourism, essentially changed and Europeanized the consciousness of the residents of the oblast” and set them apart from ethnic Russians elsewhere and even led to the formation in Kaliningrad of the Baltic Republic Party. (On that party, see ps:/windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/an-independent-konigsberg-will-be.html.)

            Until Putin banned all regional parties in 2001, that party which advocated that Kaliningrad become “the fourth Baltic republic” elected officials to local and regional bodies. And while it is no longer legally operating, the values it reflected have not disappeared.

            The isolation of Kaliningrad because of Moscow’s moves in Ukraine in fact have intensified such feelings, Shtepa suggests, given that people who once travelled freely to European countries now cannot and that they see Moscow itself is willing to change borders in Ukraine and so ask why they can’t do the same.

            Over the last 25 years, Moscow has militarized the exclave not simply to pose a challenge to the West but also to prevent such attitudes in Kaliningrad from intensifying. But the longer Putin’s war in Ukraine goes on and the more bellicose his behavior becomes, the more likely it is that such attitudes will again be on the rise.

56 Veterans in Duma Assigned to Committees having to Do with Military Concerns and Youth Issues but Not to Key Budgetary and Tax Bodies

Paul Goble                                           

            Staunton, Oct.14 – Committee assignments in the new Duma have been announced, and they show that the 56 veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine have been assigned having to do with military and military-medical concerns and youth issues but not to the key budgetary and tax bodies.

            Given that committees arise where most of the work of the Duma currently gets done, that speaks volumes about how the Kremlin plans to use veterans there and what it says about Putin’s view that the future of Russia will be much like what it is now. But it also reflects the fact that new legislators in Russia as is the case in other countries rarely are put on key committees.

            For a detailed survey of the 26 Duma committees to which the 56 veterans have been assigned (in eight other committees, no veterans have been named as members and for a discussion of what this says about Putin’s current thinking and future plans, see novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/10/14/natselilis-na-detei.

Elite Russian University Students Value Self-Realization and Freedom of Choice More than Putin-Promoted Traditional Values, New Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 14 – Four out of five students at the Plekhanov Economic University say their key values are self-realization and freedom of choice rather than a commitment to the traditional values the Putin regime is promoting, Eduard Chekmaryev and Olga Subbotina say.

            The two Moscow political scientists base that conclusion on the basis of a survern y of more than 200 students at the Plekhanov Economic University (“Civilization Approach in Transforming Systems of Today’s Russia Governance,” Vestnik of the Russian University of Economics. 2026: (5):253-266 in Russian at vest.rea.ru/jour/article/view/2911/1587).

            They stress that the source of these values come from the personal experiences of the students rather than the influence of the West but that it shows that the Putin regime has been far less successful in spreading its preferred set of values than many currently believe.

            At the same time, they suggest that those who say their chief values are self-realization and freedom of choice are more likely to be creative and innovative than those who accept the Putin agenda, a pattern that means these ideological outliers may contribute more to the future of Russia’s development than those the regime prefers.

Moscow Claims Russians are Consuming Less Alcohol than in Any Year since 1987 but Sales of Home Brew Apparatuses have Reached an All-Time High

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 14 – The Russian health ministry is celebrating the fact as of September,  Russians consumed about 10 percent less alcohol last year than the year before; but the officials are significantly undercounting the amount of alcohol Russians are producing on their own and selling to each other, Svobodnaya Pressa says.

            Russian sales of equipment to produce samogon – “home brew” – of various kinds have surged, and that suggests, the portal continues, that actual alcohol consumption by Russians has not fallen but in fact risen given that the ministry figures estimate the amount of illicit production at far less than what domestic and foreign experts say (svpressa.ru/society/article/536041).

            Russians are turning to home brew for two reasons, Svobodnaya Pressa suggests. On the one hand, legally produced alcohol is increasingly expensive especially given rising taxes on it; and on the other, many families are turning to cheaper home brew to keep their children from using drugs instead of alcohol.

            Price as a driver of increased samogon production has long been recognized; but its use to forestall young people from turning to drugs is a relatively new development at least as far as public discussions are concerned. But given the rising tide of drug use, the portal suggests, many parents feel they’d rather have their children drinking – and using samogon as that is cheaper.

            According to Svobodnaya Pressa, official figures suggest that the number of sales of illegal drugs in Russia increased by seven percent over the last year, a figure that is likely an understatement. And as a result, parental comments to the effect that they’d “rather have children drink” are “heard more and more often” in Russia.

Putin Fears Russians Will Ask Questions about War in Ukraine after It Ends for Which He has No Answers, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Vladimir Putin very much wants something he can call a victory in Ukraine, Abbas Gallyamov says; but at the same time, the Kremlin leader is “subconsciously afraid” of what will happen after the end of the war there because Russians will ask questions about the conflict for which he has no answers.

            The former Putin speechwriter  who now is a prominent Putin critic says that the Kremlin leader’s fears about this occasionally surface because after the, both the population and the elites will want to know why was the conflict needed and he won’t have a good answer for them (echofm.online/opinions/putin-podsoznatelno-boitsya-pustoty-kotoraya-pridyot-posle-zaversheniya-vojny).

            It is widely recognized that if Putin suffered defeat in Ukraine, he and his regime would be in trouble; but Gallyamov’s obseration suggests that he will also be in trouble if the war ends with something that he can plausibly claim is a victory, albeit one that is highly unlikely to be absolute.

            Consequently, although the commentator doesn’t say so in this post, Putin is likely to move far more slowly to end the war than many currently expect and be far more willing to launch new wars to prevent Russians from asking difficult questions about Russian losses in Ukraine even if he claims victory.

Moscow So Desperate for Migrant Workers in North and Far East that It May Exempt Them from Requiring Russian Language Proficiency

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Russia needs the influx of migrant workers into the North and Far East so much that the interior ministry has recommended that the government do away with the compulsory tests of immigrants introduced in 2015 on their knowledge of Russian and Russian life if they are willing to work in those distant areas.

            The ministry’s action so far is only a recommendation and applies only to the so-called “advanced development territories” in these distant regions which have 1500 firms facing labor shortages (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/10/13/mvd-peredumalo-trebovat-ot-trudovykh-migrantov-znaniia-russkogo-iazyka-i-osnov-gosudarstvennosti-no-tolko-tam-gde-est-defitsit-kadrov-news and nazaccent.ru/content/46050-migrantov-na-dalnem-vostoke-mogut-osvobodit/).

            Nonetheless, it is a remarkable move given how knowledge of Russian and Russian life by those who want to work in that country have been central and widely popular elements in Putin’s messages about migrant workers. Indeed, he has suggested that those who don’t know Russian should not be allowed in or, if they have, should be forced to leave.

            But by opening the possibility that the need for workers may trump even such demands for linguistic knowledge, the ministry’s announcement is certain to spark debate because by itself it will infuriate three key groups:

            First, it will infuriate firms elsewhere who are also finding it difficult to get workers. They are certain to ask why should those in the North and the Far East be allowed to hire people who can’t meet the standards expected of others and to protest if they are not offered similar arrangements.

            Second, it will anger many Russians who believe that Putin is really committed to making knowledge of Russian and Russian ways requirements for coming into the Russian Federation to work. If the Putin regime is prepared to sacrifice that principle for profit, they will also want to know why.

            And third, it will infuriate many in the North and the Far East who will see such an arrangement as yet another example of how Moscow continues to treat them and their regions like colonies, with one legal regime for those viewed as genuinely “Russian” and a very different one for those viewed only as sources of raw materials. They too will have questions.

            Consequently, what might appear to be a small and even reasonable policy innovation has the potential to deepen existing fissures in Russian society and create new ones, exactly the opposite of what Putin wants and needs at present. That makes it likely that this proposal may be killed before it is adopted, but even proposing it is dangerous.