A Truly Disturbing Proposal: Putin Calls for Filling Depleted Ranks of Police with Veterans of His Expanded War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 4 – For several years, Russian officials have sounded the alarm that the country suffers from a shortage of policemen given that low salaries, poor working conditions, and the possibility of making more money either by volunteering to serve in the army or joining private security companies have led more to resign than force has been able to hire.

            In some places, especially at the local level outside of Moscow, as many as 40 percent of the positions in the police are currently unfilled, forcing the remaining offers to work overtime and meaning that the police force often lacks the personnel need to combat crime and especially its more serious and violent categories.

            Vladimir Putin has proposed a solution, one that might lead to a filling of the ranks of the police but that should concern all worried about crime fighting and the rule of law (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/03/04/s-ikh-psikhologicheskoi-zakalkoi-putin-predlozhil-zakryvat-defitsit-kadrov-v-politsii-za-schet-uchastnikov-voennykh-deistvii-v-ukraine-news).

            Speaking to the collegium of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of which the police is a part, the Kremlin leader said that he favored recruiting police from among the veterans because “their combat experience and psychological and physical training” makes them serious candidates for the police (vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2026/03/04/1180679-putin-v-strukturi).

            There are at least three serious problems with this idea. First, the police and the military have fundamentally different purposes and pursue those purposes in fundamentally different ways. Suggesting that the approach of one will work well in the other fails to take these differences into account.

            Second, many of the returning veterans suffer from the brutality of combat and the presence in their midst of criminals who agreed to serve in the military to get their sentences commuted, experiences that mean many veterans are hardly good candidates to enforce the law in a humane way. They are thus likely to be more disposed to use violence than current officers.

            And third, a major reason the Russian police can’t hold officers is that pay is so low. For returning veterans, the difference between the money they were getting to fight in Ukraine and that they would receive for joining the police is so large that few are likely to want to join and those that do may be even more inclined to engage in corrupt practices than police already there.

            Putin’s proposal in this regard may go nowhere, but his readiness to suggest this idea indicates that he doesn’t fully understand any of these problems or alternatively and even more worrisome, he wants a police force of the future to be far more willing to use violence than even the Russian police are now. 

Moscow Compiles Digital Catalogue of Russian Heritage Monuments at Risk of Collapse in Hopes Private Sector will Rescue Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 3 – The Moscow State Institute for the Study of Art has prepared, on the basis of a presidential grant, digital catalogue of more than 150 heritage monuments including churches and historic sites that are decaying and at risk of collapse in the hopes that people from the private sector will contribute to their salvation.

            Most of the buildings in question are from villages in the Central, North-West and Volga federal districts who lack the resources needed to prevent these sites from being lost for all time. (The catalogue, available at https://archconservation.ru/objects, is discussed at nazaccent.ru/content/45206-v-rossii-zapustili-katalog-obektov-naslediya/.)

            As the catalogue grows and becomes widely known, it may trigger restorationist efforts in various parts of the country, ethnic Russian and now, that, along with ecological protests, have led in the past to the rise of concern about what is being lost and thus to activism that serves as the basis for the emergence or growth of nationalist and regionalist groups.

            That is all the more likely because in announcing the compilation of this list, the specialists have made it clear that the government isn’t prepared to contribute much money to rescue these decaying sites and that it is counting on people and groups in the private sector to shoulder this burden alone.

Moscow Charging Ever More Youths with Political Crimes to Signal Its Ready to Repress Anyone who Opposes Putin, Memorial Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 27 – There are now almost 300 young people in Russia known to be behind bars for political crimes, according to the Memorial human rights organization; and the actual number is almost certainly higher given the difficulties of gathering such information, Anna Karetnikova of that group says.

            She tells the Horizontal Russia portal that each of these cases is of course a profound human tragedy but that it is especially important to recognize what the Putin regime is doing by charging, convicting and then incarcerating young people in Russia today (semnasem.org/articles/2026/02/27/podrostki-politzeki).

            According to Karetnikova, “there is no need today for mass repressions like those of 1937 [because] Russians read the news and get scared. So to scare 100 million people, it’s enough to take ten doctors, ten teachers, ten women, ten youths, ten trans people, ten drivers and show society” what can happen if anyone steps out of line.

            “By locking up children along with everyone else,” she argues, “the authorities are showing that they don’t care whether you’re an adult or a child, a man or a woman. If you’re deemed to be an enemy, you’ll end up in prison.”

            But the incarceration of children for political crimes, Karetnikova continues, also shows that the state recognizes that it hasn’t been able to educate young Russians in ways that keep them obedient and that the only course open to the authorities is to bring political charges against them and put them in prison.

            Of course, she concludes, young people will leave prison and return to society; and tragically, the things they will have learned about the world while behind bars will make recidivism likely and infect the society in even more profound ways. If Russians tolerate such arrests, they may become so desensitized with time that might put up with executions as well.

Regions and Republics will Turn on Moscow if They Sense the Center is Weakening even More Rapidly Now than They Did in 1991 to Get More Autonomy or Even Independence, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 2 – As Putin’s popularity has declined, the Kremlin leader has increasingly turned to repression to keep himself in power and deployed propaganda to obscure this change in order to prevent the population of the Russian Federation from concluding that the power of the center, now based on repression alone, is weakening and decide to take action, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            If people in the federal subjects draw that conclusion, the former Kremlin speechwriter now classified as a foreign agent says, they will seek to gain more power for themselves, with some even pressing for independence (idelreal.org/a/habirov-vytaschit-kuchu-pretenziy-k-moskve-na-raz-abbas-gallyamov-o-regionalnyh-elitah-i-rossii-posle-putina/33688921.html).

            And as was the case in 1991, such a shift could happen very quickly. Then in a matter of months Ukrainians went from saying they supported the continued existence of the USSR to demanding independence for their republic. Today, Gallyamov says, there are reasons to think such a process would occur even more rapidly than it did in Gorbachev’s time.

            On the one hand, he says as he argued four years ago, the war in Ukraine is likely to have had the effect of weakening ethnic Russian national identity, even though he concedes that this has been obscured by patriotic propaganda and that it can’t currently be measured given the ways in which repression makes sociological studies extremely problematic.

            And on the other, in the regions and republics, anti-Moscow anger is growing, with ethnic Russians almost as likely to share it as non-Russians both in predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays and in non-Russian republics where many ethnic Russians share the anti-Moscow feelings of the non-Russians they live amongst.

            Such anti-Moscow are feelings thus different and more powerful than what is usually described as nationalism, even though they typically receive less attention. Indeed, Gallyamov says, he prefers not to speak about nationalism at all because it conceals the hostility to the center which is broader and deeper than ethnic agendas of various national intelligentsias.

            According to him, anti-Moscow feelings may feed off and/or grow into nationalism, but in the initial stages, such concerns are likely to lead local elites who back Moscow lest they lose their jobs to change sides and thus speed up the devolution of power and even efforts to disintegrate the Russian Federation.

            In many ways, he concludes, the longer elites in the federal subjects remain dominated by anti-Moscow feelings rather than narrower ethno-nationalisms, the more success they are likely to have in gaining more autonomy or even independence because such a stance will make it harder for the Kremlin to mobilize against them.  

Armenian Border Guards Replace Russian Ones on Armenia’s Border with Turkey

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 1 – More than 34 years after gaining independence when the Soviet Union disintegrated, Armenia now has its own officers guarding all of that country’s borders, now that Russians who had been guarding Armenia’s border crossing with Turkey have turned over the operation of that site to the Armenians.

            This completes a process that began when Moscow handed over control of Armenian border crossings with Azerbaijan in 2024 and then transferred such control over Armenian border crossings with Iran and over border control points at the Yerevan International airport. (vpoanalytics.com/sobytiya-i-kommentarii/diversifikatsiya-po-armyanski-rossiyskie-pogranichniki-pokinuli-zastavu-akhurik-na-granitse-s-turtsi/).

            This represents a major expansion of one Armenia’s sovereignty and represents a significant decline in Russia’s influence there, although Moscow does maintain a 4,000-man military base at Gyumri in Armenia that Yerevan has announced that it does not plan to seek the closure of anytime soon.

            But it is even more important as an indication of just how long it has taken to dismantle Soviet-era arrangements in some cases – Tajikistan also retained Russian border guards until 2005, for example – and of how changes in that direction have accelerated since the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine.

Local and Regional Media in Russia Play Major Role in Promoting Putin’s War in Ukraine as ‘a Given’ and Entirely ‘Normal,’ ‘NeMoskva’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 26 – When people talk about propaganda on the war in Ukraine, they typically focus on outrageous statements of Moscow TV personalities; but the NeMoskva portal suggests that local and regional media play a major role in delivering the message that the Kremlin now wants, that the war is “a given” of Russian life and entirely “normal.”

            The portal examined more than 200 outlets in regions and localities across the country and spoke with numerous experts on the Russian media scene and said that the propaganda in this part of the Russian scene is less propagandistic and often isn’t even recognized as such by viewers and readers (nemoskva.net/2026/02/26/propaganda-dlya-normisov/).

            That is because local and regional media do not cover the war as such and seek to include stories about those from the region who have been touched by it within the normal flow of coverage about life more generally. That encourages Russians to think about the war as something “entirely normal” and more simply “a given.”

            In reporting the study and especially its conversations with media experts who appear to be in universal agreement, NeMoskva says there are a number of ways in which these outlets are promoting such a view: They talk about how the area is “making its own contribution;” their main hero is “the local soldier, ‘one of us;” they celebrate as “another hero the regional volunteer;” they “heroize those who have died” in the conflict; and they either “idealize” or at least minimize the problems of veterans coming home.

            Such messaging is calmer and more reassuring that the comments of Moscow figures like Vladimir Solovyev and thus corresponds to the way most Russians want to think about it: “They simply want to live their own lives” and see the war as something in the background, according to several commentators.

            One of these commentators pointedly notes that “the regional media do not ‘sell’ the war directly but ‘combine’ it with the whole information flow.” That gives the media at the local and regional levels a kind of “therapeutic effect,” one that makes the war something very much like the weather: it just is – and no one needs to do more than support it.

            And NeMoskva concludes: “Regional propaganda integrates into normalcy and creates a context that becomes acceptable to the audience. All of this, taken together, "holds together the social fabric" in the face of prolonged conflict and helps people feel at least some sense of support.”

As a result, for the consumers of this media, “the fighting becomes a backdrop and that helps the authorities achieve both of their goals: ensuring an influx of people and resources and preventing people from thinking that what is going on in Ukraine is an all-out war” that is going to radically change their lives or even force them to do more than they are doing now. 

Russia’s Far Right Using Denunciations as Primary Weapon to Attack Minorities, Memorial and ‘NeMoskva’ Portal Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 27 – The extreme right in Russia has begun using denunciations on the internet as its primary weapon to attack both migrant workers and ethnic minorities because by putting up charges online extremist groups are able to attract the attention of law enforcement personnel who then pick and choose among those against whom to bring charges.

            That trend has been documented by the NeMoskva portal which tracks developments outside of the Russian capital and by the Memorial human rights organization (nemoskva.net/2026/02/27/ohota-na-bryunetov/ and sova-center.ru/en/xenophobia/reports-analyses/2025/02/d47102/).

            Indeed, these two sources say, the far right and the police are working ever more closely together. The far right sees its attacks being confirmed by official action and has increased its chances of getting it by increasing adopting police language in the internet denunciations they issue. Indeed, it is clear that the police and not others are their intended audience, the two say.

            And the police are only too pleased to have the far right groups bring to their attention actions or reported actions by migrants and minorities so that police and prosecutors can choose among those denounced rather than having to engage in any investigations on their own especially when their political bosses point them in that direction.

            This convergence of the far right and police has been going on since the 1990s but the internet has only exacerbated that trend. Memorial’s Stefaniya Kulayeva in fact cites the words of prominent human rights activist Sergey Kovalyev that the Russian police “aren’t catching bandits but ‘brunettes,” a reference to the darker hair of many minorities.

            Among the extremist Russian nationalist groups which use this tactic the most often are the Russian Community and the less well-known Man’s State, which NeMoskva described as “an internet community based on misogynistic and nationalist discourse, “formally” in defense of traditional values but in fact oppression, women, journalists, LGBT people and migrants.