Kremlin's Promotion of ‘Civic Religion’ Emptying Out Orthodox Churches, Soldatov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 3 – Despite being at war, something that usually drives up church attendance, Russian Orthodox Churches are drawing ever fewer attendees at services, the result, Aleksandr Soldatov says, of Kremlin's promotion of Orthodoxy as a “civic religion” with ever less religious content or concern about church attendance.

            As a result, the Novaya Gazeta commentator who specializes on religious questions says, this year for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union, a majority of Russians say they never attend religious services, and supermajorities of young people say the same thing (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/08/03/kopipastva).

            Initially, Patriarch Kirill tried to hide this development by photoshopping pictures of church services that appeared to be overfilled with worshippers; but that began an embarrassment as the parishioners shown came to be known as “copies.” But his concern has diminished as the church has become increasingly funded by the state.

            Consequently, the fact that attendance is down so far doesn’t appear to worry him as much as it did a decade ago; and such photo-shopping has come to an end, Soldatov says.  And the empty churches are there for all to see, especially as government television channels routinely broadcast pictures of services at major and some minor churches.

            According to Soldatov, there are three major reasons why church attendance in Russia has fallen so far. First, for many Russians, Orthodoxy is now a civic identity rather than a religious commitment, the result of the Kremlin’s promotion of the church as one of the ties linking Russians together but not doing the same for the faith behind such churches.

            As a result, many Russians who don’t believe in Orthodoxy or even in God but who came to churches in the 1990s as a kind of protest against Soviet atheism say they are Orthodox but don’t attend services, something that has transformed Orthodoxy from a religion in many cases to a political marker alone.

            Second, the covid pandemic got Russians used to not attending church and many who did so up to that point have not gone back even when one might think that likely given the travails brought on by Putin’s war in Ukraine and the traditional choice of a people at war to seek solace in the church.

            And third, Soldatov adds, there is an international trend away from traditional religiosity and church attendance, one that Russia has been affected by not least by the decision of the powers that be to publish translations of books published in the West that have sought to explain or even promote that trend.

Anxiety among Russians Returning to Record Level of End of 2022, New Poll Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 1 – After Putin declared a mobilization in October 2022, 70 percent of Russians reported that they or their acquaintances were feeling anxious. Thereafter, the share doing so fell significantly; but now it has risen to 57 percent, according to polls by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM).

            The new figure is not only the highest since the end of 2022 but was three percentage points higher than a week earlier, likely the result of drone attacks and talk about the likelihood of a new mobilization after the Duma elections (fom.ru/Dominanty/15365 and novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/08/01/trevoga-sredi-rossiian-vernulas-k-urovniu-dekabria-2022-goda-news).

            Among the events that Russians told FOM in a separate poll that they currently are most focused on were the war in Ukraine (43 percent) including drone attacks on targets in the Russian Federation (18 percent), drone attacks on Wildberries warehouses (10 percent), fuel prices and shortages (8 percent).

            Russian commentators suggest that the most recent increase in anxiety won’t be reversed anytime soon, with Ekaterina Schulmann saying that “we’re going for a record” in the near future (t.me/eschulmann/9086) and Ilya Grashchenkov saying no one should be surprised by the rise in anxiety levels given what is in the news (t.me/thegraschenkov/7026).

Russia’s Future will Be Result of Competition between Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces, Zubov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 2 – Just as was the case in 1991 when Soviet citizens voted for reviving the Soviet system and then a few months later supported the disintegration of the country, Andrey Zubov says, the future of the Russian Federation will be the outcome of competition between centripetal and centrifugal forces, Andrey Zubov says.

            At present, the Russian historian who now teaches in the Czech Republic says, there are forces pushing Russia in both directions, toward some kind of new unity and toward dissolution. How that will play out is uncertain (svoboda.org/a/rossiyane-do-sih-por-schitayut-sovetskuyu-vlastj-svoey/33820243.html).

            Many residents of the Russian Federation still view the Soviet Union as “their own,” Zubov says; and thus, they want to maintain or even expand Russia back to what it was. At the same time, however, many do not and seek the dissolution even of the Russian state into a number of new countries.

            For many, an empire is attractive “for the simple reason that in it you can dominate another person, people, social group and force them to do not what they want but what you do,” he continues. “This is the greatest pleasure, one even more captivating than sexual feelings” and so it retains support even when others reject the empire so they can live by their own rules.

            Many Russians remain attracted to an imperial arrangement, Zubov argues, and view the state as a means of maintaining their control. Only when they begin to see the state as a threat to themselves, as something they are not part of, do they change and seek a new arrangement for themselves if not yet for others.

            If that happens, and Russians realize that the state is not theirs but an alien force imposed on them as much as on others, he says, “then the liberation of Russian society will begin.”

            In the course of the interview in which he made that argument, Zubov made three others which deserve to be mentioned:

·       First, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is one of the key forces supporting the maintenance of the state and empire because of its tradition of servility; and fhe Kremlin does everything it can to keep it that way.

·       Second, when Putin passes from the scene, the government in Russia “will become different almost immediately,” seeking an end to the war in Ukraine and the restoration of relations with the West. No one besides Putin benefits from those things, but that doesn’t mean the essence of the state will change.

·       And third – and this may be Zubov’s most important insight – veterans returning from the war in Ukraine are likely to prove “mostly incapable of action” and won’t threaten the Kremlin; but those still fighting in Ukraine are “capable of more” and “a revolt at the front” is far more likely and a far greater threat.

Kremlin Stepping Up Pressure on Universities to Get More Men for Putin’s War as Part of Broader Effort to Block ‘a Generational Revolution,’ Vakhstayn Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 31 – The Kremlin has increased its control of higher educational institutions not just to secure more men for its armed forces now fighting in Ukraine but also and perhaps more importantly to prevent the emergence of “a generational revolution” that could challenge Putin, according to Viktor Vakhshtain.

            The Russian sociologist who left Russia in 2022 and now  teaches and does research in Israel says that the changes that had taken place in Russian universities in recent decades have led the Kremlin to “view universities not as centers of scholarship but as sources of an existential threat to state stability” (echofm.online/news/rossijskie-vlasti-usilivayut-kontrol-nad-vuzami-chtoby-izbezhat-pokolencheskoj-revolyuczii-viktor-vahshtajn).

"Everyone understands perfectly well that a university—including a Russian one which has enjoyed 25 years of autonomy—is actually a highly resistant structure,” Vakhstayn says. “You can’t simply remove a rector and appoint a new one; even replacing half the governing body wouldn't work.”

“You have to use different tactics—for instance, by discrediting the administration in the eyes of the faculty and the faculty in the eyes of the students. In the past, if you went to the dean and said, 'Look, I think I’m about to be drafted; is there any way to schedule a retake so I can finish in time or perhaps avoid expulsion until the draft period ends?'’”

Until 2022, most deans “would try to ensure you didn't get expelled or conscripted,” the sociologist says. “Now, however, the dean receives a quota to send a certain number of people into the army.” As a result, students “probably wouldn't go to that dean with your problems anymore," the expert says.

In the pre-2022 period, students felt protected and thus became increasingly radical in their responses. Now, they know they aren’t going to be defended by their universities and that threats to them from state agencies are far greater. The Kremlin hopes that will keep them from radicalizing, although it is possible that it will do exactly the opposite.

 

Russia Responsible for 19 of 24 Cases of Pollution of the Caspian in June, ‘Transparent World’ Monitoring Project Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 1 – Russian coastal facilities were responsible for 19 of the 24 cases of pollution of the Caspian Sea in June by facilities in that littoral state, Azerbaijan for four,and Kazakhstan for one, according to a study based on satellite imagery the Transparent World in the Caspian Sea organization has carried out.

            Some of this pollution was the result of the draining of sewage into the sea, the group said; but most involved oil, including spills from ships and leakage from oil storage facilities and harbors (t.me/twworldkasp/5436 and svoboda.org/a/za-mesyats-v-kaspiyskom-more-zafiksirovali-24-sluchaya-zagryazneniya-boljshaya-chastj-u-beregov-dagestana/33819812.html).

            This study will exacerbate relations among the five littoral states, relations that are already fraught because of conflicts about the impact of reductions in the flow of rivers that help keep the Caspian from falling any more rapidly than it has been in recent years as a result of global warming.

Ukrainian Drone Attacks Giving New Impetus to Discussions about Moving Russian Capital to Siberia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – For more than a decade, Russian officials including those at the very top have been mulling the idea that if Russia is to make a new breakthrough in its development and be less integrated with the West, it needs to open “a window on Asia” analogous to the Window on Europe that Peter the Great did by establishing his capital in St. Petersburg.

            That is, Sergey Aksyonov of Svobodnaya Pressa says, Russia needs to decentralize the country’s economy and move the capital to Siberia, either by building up one of the existing cities there or creating an entirely new one analogous to what Peter the Great did when he established St. Petersburg as his “window on Europe” (svpressa.ru/economy/article/525545/).

            Of course, it would have been easier and better if this decision had been made calmly during the “fat” years when the Russian economy was growing rapidly rather than now when Ukrainian drones are raining down on the existing capital in Moscow,  the commentator says.

            But better late than never, he adds, even suggesting that interest in moving the capital has increased because if the political leadership moves, there will be less reason for enemies of Russia, Ukraine now but others in the future, to attack the city and thus allow it to remain the major economic center of the country.   

            Such a consideration will likely reduce the opposition many businesses are mounting to the idea of moving the capital, Aksyonov suggests; and so what has been an idea more or less at the margins of official discussions is now assuming a more central place – yet another consequence of the drone attacks on Russian thinking. 

Moscow’s Cutback in Release of Statistics Snowballing, as New Data Can’t be Released without Reference to Old Leading to Ever Larger Gap between Reporting and Reality

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – Moscow has stopped releasing statistical data on a broad range of metrics especially since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine; and those cutbacks are now snowballing as the authorities end publication of more and more data sets and those they do release, which depend on suppressed data, are ever less accurate.

            During the first six months of 2026, the To Be Precise portal says, the Russian government stopped releasing data on the work of the courts and did not issue the bulletin on social supports (tochno.st/materials/suddep-perestal-obnovliat-dannye-o-rabote-sudov-a-na-emiss-aktualizirovali-vsego-54-pokazatelei).

            The loss of access to such data is serious, the portal says; but it points to another development which may prove even more consequential. Much new data on a wide variety of issues depends for its accuracy on comparisons with earlier data on the same subject. If the earlier data isn’t available, then soon such data sets can’t be released and now aren’t.

            That has enormous consequences for those seeking to analyze what is happening in Russian society, but another consequence that may prove to be even more serious happens when statistical organs release inaccurate data because they have to make estimates when the release of accurate date is stopped.

            That creates a situation where the difference between what the Russian government says and Russian officials and businessmen rely on and the real situation continues to grow,  something that introduces distortions in policies of all kinds as those involved assume that there are far more or far less of something than is in fact the case.

            That outcome will affect elections, draft quotas, production figures, and almost all issues where what the government or businesses do relies on data the government chooses to release, including data that by nature are inaccurate and becoming ever more so.