Russian Economy ‘Doesn’t Need Universal Higher Education,’ Minister who Oversees Universities and Science Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 19 – The rising demand for university degrees by the population, Valery Falkov says, “does not align with the economy’s needs” and is something that is “neither good nor right,” and the balance between specialized secondary education and higher education must be reset.

            According to the minister for science and higher education, “the demand for higher education that has built up over decades” means that today “practically every high school graduate” in Russia wants to go on to university. That must change and Moscow is taking steps to do so (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/06/19/rossii-ne-nuzhno-mnogo-liudei-s-vysshim-obrazovaniem-zaiavil-glava-minobrnauki-news).

            In reporting the minister’s words, Novaya Gazeta Europe points to the reduction in government funded slots and even the size of fee-paying students, increases in tuition this year with plans for more in the years ahead, tracking both pupils and students into the military for service in Ukraine, and restrictions on contacts with universities and scholars abroad.

            It is certainly true that Russia like many other countries needs the kind of skills that secondary schools can and in many cases do teach, such restrictions on higher education will inevitably mean that the chances for the scientific breakthroughs that all countries want will be especially limited in places like Russia.

            In the short term, this cutback in access to higher education will infuriate many Russians who had hoped that a higher education would give their children a greater chance for upward social mobility and thus the restriction of such chances will become yet another reason for an increasing number of Russians to be angry with the current regime.  

            

Moscow’s Violation of Rights of Indigenous Peoples ‘Systemic in Nature,’ New ‘Arctida’ Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 18 – Moscow’s violations of the rights of indigenous peoples is “systemic in nature,” according to a new study by the Arctida group, the first Russian NGO devoted to examining the situation in the Far North that was established in 2022 but then declared by Moscow to be “an undesirable organization” earlier this year.

            The 106-page study focused on six cases of the ways in which Moscow’s drive to develop the North has run roughshod over the rights of the peoples of the North and even threaten their survival. (The full text of this study is available at cdn.sanity.io/files/tsza235h/production/b821a512c1f38ecffb2b54133b74d3fe34bf5735.pdf).

            Its overarching conclusion is that “the violation of Indigenous peoples' rights in the Russian Arctic is systemic in nature, stemming not merely from isolated incidents but from the very structure of the prevailing regulatory and institutional framework” in the Russian Federatin at the present time.

“Under this framework,’ the study says, “indigenous peoples and communities bear the primary social, environmental, and territorial costs of resource development, yet lack commensurate influence over decision-making processes” with consultations mainly for show and often with government controlled GONGOs rather than the peoples themselves.

The Arctida report urges that Moscow’s approach must be changed, made transparent and involve representatives of the population at every stage of projects as participants rather than obstacles or objects of state action. Otherwise, the future of the numerically small peoples of the North is going to be grim indeed.

Kadyrov Treats Russians Far More Tolerantly than He Does Chechens, Pleasing Moscow but Alienating His Own People, ‘NeMoskva’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 18 – Ramzan Kadyrov has treated Chechens far less well than he has ethnic Russians and others who arrive to work with his regime, a policy that undoubtedly plays well in Moscow but that is infuriating and even alienating the titular nationality of his republic, Beka Atsayev says.

            This situation has reached the point, the NeMoskva journalist argues, that it is now possible to speak of “Two Chechnyas,” the one, mostly ethnic Russian or part of his government, that is loyal to Kadyrov and Moscow and the second, overwhelmingly Chechen, that increasing despises both (nemoskva.net/2026/06/18/dve-chechni/).

            The two exist in what can be described as “parallel realities,” an extreme form of what may exist in other non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation but one because of Chechnya’s past that that is making each more contemptuous of the other and leading the Kadyrov-Russian one to become ever more repressive, thus likely sparking an explosion.

            Among the manifestations of this division, Atsayev points to the fact that “non-Chechen citizens of the republic have the right to express disagreement with the decisions of the powers without repression following” while Chechens who dissent are immediately suppressed often in the harshest possible ways.

            Other examples he cites include the fact that Chechen police know not to issue tickets to Russian drivers for offenses that they would give citations to Chechen ones and the division of the prison system in Chechnya between facilities for Russians and facilities for Chechens, a kind of “segregation” that is seeping into ever more segments of life there.

            This may please Moscow in the short term, given its pro-Russian position, but it is an approach likely to so deepen divisions between Russians and Chechens that when there is an inevitable weakening of central power, the Chechens will increasingly act in an anti-Russian fashion, at least in part because of what Kadyrov is doing that the center welcomes now.         

            Despite its ethnic Chechen face, it is increasingly the case that the Kadyrov regime, despite is ethnic Chechen face, now appears to other Chechens as nothing more than an occupying force, a group of compradors who have sold out to Moscow – and in the future, that sense is likely to trigger exactly the kind of explosion Moscow installed Kadyrov to prevent.

Russia May Never See Another Upward Wave of Demographic Growth, Academy of Sciences Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 17 – In the Putin years as in Soviet times, Moscow officials have suggested that any downturn in the numbere of births reflects first and foremost a decline in the number of potential mothers, echoes of the far fewer women born during World War II, and suggested that when they are replaced by a more numerous successor there will be more babies.

            There is some truth in that but it is one that is declining as waves in the number of potential mothers have declined in size both upward and downward and as both have been overwhelmed by a decline in fertility rates as a result of modernization and urbanization, a reality Russian scholars have increasingly pointed out but been ignored by officials.

            Now, in a new study, Oleg Rybakovsky of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences argues that Russia may never have a new upward wave both because the amplitude of the waves in both directions is falling in size and fertility rates are declining for secular reasons and that current policies aren’t compensating for this fact.

            In the latest issue of Population Studies, the demographer at the FRC’s Institute of Socio-Economic Population Problems, he traces what has happened over the last 25 years – the period of Putin’s rule – and shows Moscwo has failed to see this and adopt policies that reflect this reality (narodonaselenie-journal.ru/index.php/population/article/view/11060/10724).

            In a discussion of Rybakovsky’s article, Nakanune journalist Yevgeny Chernyshov argues that this reflets a more general problem: the current regime doesn’t want to be guided by reality but instead acts on the basis of its own convictions many of which no longer correspond to what is actually going on (nakanune.ru/articles/124763/).

More than 40 Circassian Organizations in Turkey Protest Plans to Strip KBR Constitution of Provisions on Defense of that Republic’s Borders

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 17 – In Kabardino-Balkaria, local activists, most Kabards, a branch of the Circassian nation, have come out against the plans of officials there to strip their republic’s constitution of provisions that give the republic and its people the right to oppose any change in that federal subject (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/06/leading-opposition-figures-in-kabardino.html).

            They have now been joined in this protest by the leaders of more than 40 Circassian organizations in Turkey, something that has transformed a domestic problem into an international one for Moscow (zapravakbr.ru/ne-dopustit-peresmotra-klyuchevykh-osn/ and zapravakbr.ru/sorok-odna-kavkazskaya-obshchestvennaya-organizatsiya-turtsii-obratilas-k-rukovodstvu-i-parlamentu-kbr/).

            No non-Russian nation within the Russian Federation has more of its members living abroad than the Circassians – some seven million in all and more than half of those in Turkey – and consequently what Moscow does to the Circassians living inside the Russian Federation – about 700,000 – has an outsized influence.

            But more important, this foreign base of support gives Circassians within the Russian Federation a far greater ability to defend themselves and advance their cause and is one reason why the Circassian nation may be one of the first to escape Moscow’s control as the disintegration of Russia continues.

            For a discussion of that possibility, see this author’s argument at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/circassians-have-chance-to-lead-coming.html.

Putin’s ‘Turn to the East’ has Not Overcome the Divide between the More Prosperous Western Portion of Russia and the More Depressed Eastern One, Academy of Sciences Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 17 – In a new 405-page report, the Moscow Institute of Economic Prognostication says that Putin’s turn to the east has now narrowed the gap between the more prosperous western portion of the Russian Federation and the depressed eastern one as many had expected but in fact deepened that divide.

            The study details why this is so, largely the product of inertia, a decline in the size of federal funds deployed from Moscow to the regions, and Putin’s war in Ukraine which has boosted the defense industries in the west while sanctions have cut exports from the east (ecfor.ru/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/denezhno-kreditnaya-i-byudzhetnaya-politika-vzaimodejstvie.pdf).

            In discussing this report, Tatyana Rybakova of the NeMoskva portal says that “the deepening division of the economy of the country may lead to a situation in which we will have a successful west and a depressed east, especially in the case of the end of the war and the renewal of ties with Europe (nemoskva.net/2026/06/17/kuda-idut-dengi/).

            If that happens, something that seems inevitable unless Moscow changes course, she continues, “the talk about the disintegration of Russia will cease to be theoretical,”  driven by  this economic divide rather than the nationalisms of the non-Russian peoples that are usually seen as the cause. 

Many Countries Became Stronger after Defeats and Weaker after Victories and Russian has and Can Again Do So, Russian Blogger Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 18 – Russians must recognize that the claims the Putin regime and z bloggers are making are fundamentally wrong and that “anyone who wants a good future for Russia should not only wish for its speedy military defeat but also do whatever he or she can to ensure that outcome,” Dmitry Chernyshov says.

            Many countries, including Russia, “have become stronger after defeats and weaker after victories, the blogger writes on his Facebook account in words that have been picked up by EchoFM (echofm.online/opinions/mnogie-strany-stanovilis-silnee-posle-porazhenij-i-slabee-posle-pobed).

            Those who know the history of Russia and other countries already know this, Chernyshov continues; but those who don’t need to overcome the propaganda messages from the Kremlin and its allies.  Seeing how wrong three claims these sources routinely make is a first step in that direction.

            First of all, Russians must see that those who say that whether what Putin is doing in Ukraine is right or wrong, it is still their country. But it isn’t, the blogger says. “It is a country of chekists and bandits, not yours … nothing depends on you and you cannot choose or change power.”

            Second, Russians must reject the idea that since the war has started, it must be won. “Who told you such nonsense?” Don’t you see how much the war has cost in blood and treasure and that “by supporting the war, you become its accomplices?” That has to be recognized and acted upon.

            And third, following from that, Russians must see how absurd it is to say that one mustn’t change horses or leaders in the middle of things. That is precisely when you have to change horses/leaders if you want to change direction. Russians must thus stop equating the country and the state. “These are different things.

It is time to “understand that only defeat gives hope for changes in the country. The country will not cease to exist, but the power of the Chekists and bandits can.” And history shows that matters: “After the defeat in the First Crimean War, serfdom was abolished in Russia.”

With “a defeat in the Second Crimean War, there is a chance that the serfdom [Putin has put back in place] can be ended as well.

That Russia can benefit from defeat is something opposition politicians and commutators have been talking about for some time. Chernyshov’s post is an example of how their more abstruse discussions are coming down to the popular level and is thus particularly important for that reason.