Since Putin’s War Began. More Russian Women have Been Jailed and Suffered More Abuse Behind Bars, ‘Vyorstka’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 -- While the total number of Russians behind bars is less than in the past, the number and share of women among them have risen dramatically as have the mistreatment they have received, according to a detailed study of the situation by the independent Vyorstka portal.  

            The number of men behind bars has declined for two reasons, it says. On the one hand, the war has taken out of civilian life many in the age cohorts most likely to commit crimes; and on the other, men can get out of jail by volunteering to fight in Ukraine (verstka.media/zhenskij-prigovor-pochemu-v-rossii-rastyot-achislo-osuzhdyonnyh-zhenshhin).

            At the same time, the siloviki have arrested and courts have sentenced to imprisonment ever more women for crimes that had sometimes been overlooked earlier given the more violent ones committed by men, something the police have done to keep their numbers up and prove they are doing their jobs.

            Once incarcerated, Vyorstka says, on the basis of conversations with experts and activists, women are treated far worse them men, often because they lack the clans within prisoners that sometimes have succeeded in convincing jailors that everyone will be safer and better off if concessions are made.

            In 2008, 140,000 Russian prisoners were women. That figure fell to 73,300 in 2020 but has now risen again to 87,305, figures that meant women formed roughly 15 percent in the first two of these years but now almost 20 percent – 19.94 to be precise – at the present time, the portal continues.

Russian Businesses Call on Kremlin Not to Force Them Pay to Support Population Growth

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – Igor Shchegolyev, presidential plenipotentiary for the Central Federal District, says that companies which provide cash, time release and other forms of support to workers and their families have met “the gold standard” as far as their responsibilities for helping to solve Russia’s demographic problems.

            Others agreed, but business leaders urged Moscow not to make these steps obligatory given the economic problems they face. Doing so, they suggested, could further undermine the ability of their firms to survive in the current ecoinenomic environment (https://readovka.news/news/242281/).

            Given that Putin has made solving Russia’s demographic problems including the continuing decline in fertility rates to ever further below the replacement level of 2.2 children per woman per lifetime, such opposition by businesses to calls for them to bear some of the burden are intriguing if not unexpected.

            Clearly, some business leaders feel they can openly resist effort to force them to bear more of the costs of trying to turn the country’s demographic situation around, resistance that they were far less likely to offer in the past but may feel that the situation has changed and a kind of real political struggle has returned.

            And it is such judgments that are the most important aspect of this resistance, not the specifics of what Moscow officials have said is desirable or even the specifics of what Russian businessmen are saying they’ll do if they can but don’t want to be forced to do if they can avoid it.

Worried about Opposition If It Doesn’t’ Achieve Victory, Kremlin Discussing How to ‘Sell’ Ending War in Ukraine with Less, ‘Dossier’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 7 – Earlier this year, Russia’s Presidential Administration prepared a report on how best to “sell” an agreement on Ukraine that will be less than many Russians assumed Moscow would achieve and that could spark both anger and even  opposition in that case, according to a PA document the Dossier portal has obtained.

            According to that document, the PA has begun to prepared what might be called “the model of victory” including “propaganda narratives with the help of which it will be possible to ‘sell’ a peace agreement to Russians despite the high losses among Russian soldiers and the absence of significant results” (dossier.center/ura-pobeda/).

            The document specifies that “one must know when to stop as going too far constitutes defeat and continuing the special military operation would amount to a Pyrrhic victory,” a judgement that reflects the view of Sergey Kiriyenko’s “close associates” who “warn that continuing the war in Ukraine could force the revision of ‘fundamental positions.’”

            Those include, Dossier says, “the implementation of a general mobilization and the complete and final conversion of the entire economy to a war footing,” steps that would be deeply unpopular and make the achievement of Putin’s other goals for the country almost impossible to achieve.

            Preparing such a plan is needed, its authors say, because the most likely scenario for ending the war would be “far from the goals” Putin has declared as the reason for conducting it. And the compromises that such an accord will entail must somehow be presented as “a great victory and contribution of the president personally.”

            The PA document says that “the main achievements” of the operation will be “territorial conquests,” additional natural resources, a land bridge to Crimea and control of the shoreline of the Sea of Azov, and “the acquisition of millions of new Russian-language citizens,” according to Dossier.

            At the same time, the document says, “the propagandists plan to continue to insist that in the course of ten to fifteen years, Ukraine will cease to exist and the European Union will suffer a major economic shock” and that after such an agreement, Russia’s neighbors will adjust themselves to this new reality whatever they say now.

            But it continues, the reasons for preparing such a document are obvious: “if a war which has carried off the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens ends without obvious achievements, certain segments of Russian society may view that in a negative way,” especially the z bloggers and veterans.

            The first will be compelled to change their line and jailed if they do not, while the second must be given new positions and tasks to show how important they are to Russia and its future, the document says. For all other Russians “tired of the war and their problems,” the PA says Moscow will be able to announce good news about developments at home and abroad.

            At home, it says, Russians will face an easing of problems including the end of drone attacks and easing of sanctions and thus economic development; and abroad, they will see Russia having returned to a position as a world power that has been able thanks to the special military operation to redefine the world order and make Russia its leader well into the future.

            Dossier concedes that “it is unknown whether Putin will approve this plan,” despite PA support and the fact that it is based on a Russian endgame for Ukraine very close to what is currently the Kremlin’s negotiating position.

Russia’s Northern Capital Must Remain Both Petersburg and Leningrad, Yaremenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – The debate over whether to restore the name Stalingrad to Volgograd continues, but despite the centrality of World War II in Putin’s thinking and his hostility to the founder of the Bolshevik state, there has been nothing equivalent in the case of Petersburg/Leningrad.

            Instead, Nikolay Yaremenko, editor of the Rosbalt news agency, says, both names of the city and the combination of imperial and Soviet names for streets and squares not only coexist but reenforce the unity of the city on the Neva (rosbalt.rInstu/news/2026-05-03/leningrad-peterburg-toponimika-podviga-5588342).

            “In the run-up to Victory Day, the question of naming the city and its landmarks transcends the realm of linguistics, becoming instead a part of the broader discussion regarding historical justice,” Yaremenko says, especially as it is obvious that no one can speak of “the blockade of St. Petersburg.”

            Moreover, according to the commentator, “the name "Leningrad"—within the context of the years 1941–1944—has long since detached itself from the persona of the political figure in whose honor it was originally bestowed; it has instead evolved into a semantically constitutive element of ‘the blockade lexicon.’”

            Yaremenko continues: “’the toponymy of heroism’ manifests itself most vividly in the names of streets, squares, and monuments that emerged during the post-war era. While the city center preserves the classic fabric of St. Petersburg, the mass-development districts to the south and north constitute a frozen chronicle of the city’s defense.”

            Importantly, “These names serve as a kind of ethical compass, a reminder that the well-being of today’s St. Petersburg was paid for by the resilience of the people of Leningrad.
 the writer insists, adding that “an ideological analysis of ‘Blockade-era toponymy’ reveals that, for the city, the synthesis of both names is of critical importance.

“St. Petersburg is a museum-city, a cultural capital, and ‘a Window on Europe, while Leningrad is a soldier-city, a symbol of resistance unparalleled in history. Any attempt to "purge" Leningrad-era place names from the urban landscape would result in a form of philological amnesia,” he argues.

And he concludes that “by preserving Leningrad-era names of streets and landmarks in modern St. Petersburg, we affirm that the city’s history is not divided into “black” and “white,” but constitutes a single, unbroken continuum—a process in which the grandeur of the imperial capital was safeguarded by the fearlessness of the people who called themselves Leningraders.”

Fertility Rates in North Caucasus Falling with Chechnya Alone having One Just Above Replacement Level

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 4 – Historically and in the minds of many still today, the North Caucasus is a place where families include many children. Even Vladimir Putin is given to recommending that Russians copy the North Caucasian pattern to overcome Russia’s population decline (kavkazr.com/a/pravozaschitniki-raskritikovali-predlozhenie-putina-zhenitj-detey/33629760.html).

            But in reality, Natalya Kildiyarova of the Kavkazr portal says, that picture is out of date. Fertility rates, the number of children per woman per lifetime, have been falling across the North Caucasus (kavkazr.com/a/konets-demograficheskogo-isklyucheniya-chto-proishodit-s-rozhdaemostjyu-na-severnom-kavkaze/33748640.html).

            Except for Chechnya, which has a fertility rate of 2.56, just above the replacement level of 2.2, all the other national republics there have rates below that level and thus are seeing their populations decline. That means that the region is no longer the outlier it once was but is going to decline in total population, albeit not as rapidly as most of the rest of Russia.

            That of course means that the North Caucasus will in fact increase compared to predominantly ethnic Russian regions, but far less than many have been predicting and that Moscow has counted on to make up for losses in Russian areas where the fertility rate is now 1.0 or even lower. 

            On another related matter, a demographer with whom Kildiyarova spoke on condition of anonymity ts that this decline is part of a broader trend in modern societies and should not be explained by reference to the war in Ukraine. The statistics available simply do not support such conclusions, he says.

            The anonymous demographer says that his research suggests that 0.5 percent of men aged 18 to 60 have died while fighting in Ukraine but that the percentages of such losses are lower in the North Caucasus than they are in many other federal subjects and thus less likely to have a demographic impact.

            In Chechnya, for example, the percentage of men killed in Ukraine is only 0.12 percent. In Ingushetia, it is about 0.2 percent and in Dagestan, approximately 0.25 percent, far lower than the all-Russia average and much lower than in Buryatia where combat losses are 1.6 percent of the population, and Bashkortostan where the figure is 0.8 percent.

15 Languages Spoken in Russia a Century Ago have Died Out and a Third of the Remaining 155 are Now at Risk of Sharing That Fate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 4 – Fifteen languages spoken in Russia a century ago have died out with the passing of their last speakers, and a third of the remaining 155 are at risk, mostly among the numerically small peoples of the north and far east where in some cases fewer than ten people now speak some of their languages, according to Semen Syrdyk, an ethnic activist.

            The most recent language to die in the Russian Federation was Aleut which ceased to be a spoken by anyone there in 2022 when the last speaker passed away, but approximately 50 are at risk because only a few people use them. In 10 cases, fewer than 10 people know the language  (mariuver.eu/2026/05/04/korennje-narody-i-jazyki-rossii-na-grani-ischeznovenija/#more-85571).

            Syrdyk points out that Russian census data overstates how many people speak these languages because many who have only a passive or incomplete knowledge and in fact don’t use these languages in heir daily life nonetheless claim the titular language as their own. That means the situation of these tongues is far more dire than many now think.

            As is true in other countries, languages spoken by such small numbers are at risk because of urbanization, the passing of traditional ways of life and assimilation; but in the Russian Federation now, these tongues are particularly at risk given Putin’s active promotion of Russian at the expense of all other languages.

Fertility Rate in Belarus Lower than Russia’s and Only Slightly Higher than Ukraine’s, a Country at War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 4 – The fertility rate in Belarus is now 1.22 children per woman per lifetime, lower than in the Russian Federation where that measure stands at 1.3 and only slightly higher than in Ukraine, a country now at war where tis metric stands at 1.0. All these figures are below the replacement level of 2.2 and will lead to more population declines.

            On the one hand, more tan 70 percent of the world’s countries now have fertility rates below replacement levels, according to the Visual Capitalist Project as reported by the Belarusian Think Tanks portal (visualcapitalist.com/mapped-every-countrys-fertility-rate-births-decline/ and thinktanks.pro/publication/2026/05/04/belarus-v-kontse-mirovogo-reytinga-po-koeffitsientu-rozhdaemosti.htmcl).

            But on the other, Belarus like the Russian Federation has relied more heavily on population growth, an extensive rather than intensive way, that boosting productivity in the workplace. Consequently, these declines are having a serious negative impact on economic growth, one reason both Minsk and Moscow are worried about these figures.