Majority of New Russian Museums on Putin’s War in Ukraine Directed at Young People, ‘Vot-Tak’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 6 – Since Putin called in 2023 for memorials about the war in Ukraine, officials across the Russian Federation and in the occupied territories of Ukraine have opened at least 153 museums devoted to Putin’s “special military operation,” the Vot-Tak portal reports. Of these, almost 60 percent are located in institutions for children and young people.

            The actual focus on young people is actually larger than that, the portal says, because many other museums which have opened special exhibits on the war in Ukraine have sought to attract young people even more than their elders, an indication of precisely what the Kremlin leader presumably wants (vot-tak.tv/92487118/muzei-svo-v-rossii).

            This approach is worrisome because it suggests that Putin wants to raise a generation of young people committed to his militarist course, something that he sees as outlasting both his campaign in Ukraine and even his own presidency and ensuring that his militarist values will shape the values of those still too young to serve in the Russian army. 

Lifting Sanctions on Belarus for Release of Prisoners Alone Resembles FRG-GDR Deals during Cold War and is Helping Keep Lukahenka’s Regime Alive, Bialiatski Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 6 – One can only welcome the release of political prisoners, Belarusian Nobelist Ales Bialitski says; but if that is not part of a broader effort to change Lukashenka’s regime, it shouldn't involve the lifting of Western sanctions now as it is a repeat of what happened in the Cold War when West Germany purchased prisoners from East Germany and helped prop up the Communist regime in the latter.

            Just as East Germany’s rulers could always arrest more people and seek more Deutschemarks for their release, Bialitski says, Lukashenka can always arrest more people in order to get more from the West unless the West recognizes that and seeks fundamental change (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20260406-алесь-беляцкий-снимать-санкции-с-беларуси-рано-хунта-торгует-людьми-только-и-всего).

            The Belarusian Nobelist, who has served two terms in Lukashenka’s prisons and was release only at the end of last year, says he of course welcomes the US “humanitarian effort” in Mensk which “is leading to the release of political prisoners.” But, he argues, everyone “must view the situation with clear eyes.”

            “Today, the Belarusian regime is a junta that enjoys absolutely no public support, holds thousands of political prisoners hostage, and has engaged in this human trafficking solely for the sake of lifting economic sanctions,” he says. “The process itself is a positive one—people are being released. Yet, new ‘human cargo’ is constantly being rounded up.”

And he continues: “We must look at least one step ahead and strive for the complete cessation of political repression; otherwise, the entire endeavor is utterly meaningless. What is unfolding now mirrors what we witnessed during the Soviet era, when the GDR simply sold political prisoners to West Germany in exchange for West German Deutschmarks”

During the Cold War, this process of exchanging prisoners went on and one, “with new prsioners being taken to replace those who had been sold, effectively a business that on the whole served to bolster the stability of the authoritarian system in the GDR.” Something all too similar is now happening with Belarus.

What is needed instead of such deals, Bialitski says, are “long-term strategies and long-term projects” from both the Americans and the Europeans, something that requires a clear understanding of how Lukashenka operates and why his dictatorship and ties to Russia are so dangerous for everyone.

Over Last Decade, FSB has been Building Regional Headquarters in Cities Across Russia, ‘Komi Daily’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 4 – Over the last decade, the FSB has built new regional headquarters in 12 cities across the Russian Federation so as to be in a better position to control the situation in the federal subjects where they are located rather than representing some kind of decentralization, Elena Solovyova of the Komi Daily says.

            What is striking is how similar the buildings all are, she says, large, with numerous floors below ground and self-contained as far as energy supplies and the activities of the officers who work there (komidaily.com/2026/04/04/raskidyvaya-shchupaltsa-kak-fsb-zakreplyaetsya-na-periferii-usilivaet-kontrol-i-zashchishchaet-giperboreu/).

            According to Solovyova who provides addresses and other details, these mini-Lubyankas have been given not only new buildings but increased responsibilities and powers because running things closer to the action is more efficient and effective than trying to run everything from Moscow as had been the case earlier.

            Such regional centers will also allow the FSB to focus on particular ethnic, religious or regional groups that might be missed by officers at the center who are forced to take a broader view and thus increase the ability of the organs to identify and then control all those who, their bosses assume, are a threat to the Putin system. 

Caspian Littoral Countries Expanding Dredging in Response to Rapidly Falling Water Levels

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 6 – All five Caspian littoral countries – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Turkmenistan – are currently expanding or at least planning to expand their dredging operations on that body of water in response to the rapid decline in the sea’s water levels.

            The water level of the Caspian has been falling for some time, but none of the littoral states have built and deployed the number of dredging barges needed to cope with this. Russia has reached out to China and Iran for help, and Azerbaijan has asked Turkey to play a role. But now, with water levels so low, all are devoting more attention to this issue.

            Russia has announced that it has begun dredging operations on the Volga-Caspian Sea Shipping Canal in order to allow its larger ships including vessels of the Caspian Flotilla and to continue to expand its trade with Iran (casp-geo.ru/na-volgo-kaspijskom-morskom-sudohodnom-kanale-nachalis-dnouglubitelnye-raboty/).

            Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have now reached agreement on joint dredging operations in the waters of both countries and in waters further beyond their coastal zones to ensure that trade between them can continue to expand and that they can maintain access to extraction facilities (casp-geo.ru/kazahstan-i-azerbajdzhan-sozdayut-sp-dlya-dnouglubitelnyh-rabot/).

            Iran and Turkmenistan have more limited programs but Iran’s sleet of dredging barges and ships is sufficiently large that it has been helping Russia with a problem Moscow lacks the fleet for. (For background on this, see  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/03/caspian-sea-water-level-has-fallen-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/falling-water-levels-forcing-moscow-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/turkish-company-moves-super-heavy-cargo.html.)

Afghan Migrant Workers Could Threaten Russia Just as They have Threatened Iran, Shustov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 5 – Earlier this year, Moscow announced that it was in discussions with Kabul about having Afghans come to Russia as migrant workers; but before taking that step, Aleksandr Shustov says, Moscow should focus on what happened in Iran when such people came in and what Tehran was then forced to do.

            The Iranians discovered, the Russian commentator says, that there were Israeli agents among the Afghan immigrants and that these agents helped Israel target key individuals and institutions in Iran last year (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-04-05--k-chemu-mozhet-privesti-afganskaja-trudovaja-immigracija-v-rossiju-86889).

            In response, Shustov continues, Iran was forced to deport most Afghans in Iran lest they continue to undermine Iranian statehood on behalf of Israel; and Moscow should recognize that a similar influx of Afghan migrants to Russia could carry with it the same or even greater dangers for Russia.

            Given hostility in Russia to immigrants from Muslim countries, several writers have suggested that letting in Afghans would be a mistake, even though they could replace Central Asians who have left and even though Afghanistan is very supportive of the idea because of the transfer payments home such people would be likely to make.

            But Shustov’s words and his close attention to what is going on in Iran represents a significant increase in such opposition, all the more likely to be attended to in the Kremlin because of what is taking place in Iran now with the Israeli-American attacks. Indeed, what this generally Kremlin loyalist says likely reflects the views of many in the Russian government.

            If that is the case, then the possibility Moscow will allow in Afghan migrant workers anytime soon is likely to be put on hold at least for the time being, something that will only exacerbate Moscow’s problems in trying to fill the jobs that workers from Central Asia had been filling.

Rising Hidden Unemployment Hitting Russia’s Industrial Regions Harder than Its More Agrarian Ones, Yakimov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 5 – To put the best face on things, Moscow counts as unemployed only those who register with the authorities as such and who have no jobs at all, ignoring the increasing number of workers who have seen their hours and thus their incomes slashed as the economy has deteriorated, Yaroslav Yakimov says.

            The Siberian economist says that real unemployment, which counts both those laid off and those who have seen their hours cut back significantly, is far higher than the two percent that Moscow likes to claim and is now rising rapidly in many of the federal subjects of Russia (sibmix.com/?doc=20656).

            (For background on this growth and even more figures than Yakimov provides, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/russias-hidden-unemployed-now-coming.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/01/hidden-unemployment-in-russia.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/11/hidden-unemployment-in-russia-up-150.html.)

            The Siberian economist notes that the regions “suffering the most from this ‘hidden unemployment’” are not the agrarian and often non-Russian ones as was the case earlier (On that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/10/real-unemployment-may-now-be-40-percent.html.) but rather the industrialized and predominantly ethnic Russian ones.

            Among the sectors where such hidden unemployment is now most common and growing are manufacturing, construction, and the hospitality industry. In the last, a third of the employees – 33.9 percent – “have been shifted to art-time work,” and in manufacturing, the figure is 27 percent – 1.7 million people – and in construction – 22.7 percent or 271,000.

            According to Yakimov, “Enterprises that boosted production in 2023–2024 thanks to import substitution are now facing a decline in demand. Laying off staff means losing skilled personnel—talent that is virtually impossible to replace later on” while “shifting employees to part-time schedulesoffers a way to preserve this ‘professional core’ until better times return.”

“Given the simultaneous slump affecting the vast majority of industries,” the analyst says, “employees have nowhere else to turn. This is, of course, a troubling trend; strictly speaking, for an individual worker, the distinction between being laid off and being placed on part-time status is tenuous at best.”

And this trend has led to “a rapid surge in demand for side gigs and supplementary work—a trend that has grown by 10–11% nationwide over the past year, and by as much as a third in certain regions,” including Yaroslavl, Mari El and Astrakhan, to name just the leaders in this development.  

As a result, the economist continues, “the very concept of a "primary job" is becoming diluted. We are shifting toward a "portfolio employment" model, wherein an individual's income is derived from two or three distinct sources. This shift is partly a forced measure and partly a paradigm change” as young people choose this option.

 But the change for most is not voluntary. Most reflect “a structural realignment” in the economy with “human resources are being reallocated in favor of the military-industrial complex—at the expense of virtually every other sector. Civilian industries simply cannot compete with the wage levels offered by the defense sector.

The former are thus “losing skilled workers and are being forced to scale back production. Official unemployment figures will likely remain ‘low,’” Yakimov says; “but this will be solely because individuals are formally classified as employed—even if they are working only half-time or scraping by on sporadic odd jobs.”

Regionalism in Russia Need Not Be Ethnically Based or Secessionist, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 5 – Two notions, both inherited from late Soviet times, dominate the way in which many in Russia’s capitals and abroad view regionalism, Vadim Shtepa says. On the one hand, they assume it must be ethnically based; and on the other, they think that its raison d’etre is to promote and pursue separatism. 

            But neither of these notions is true, the editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal which focuses on regionalism in Russia today. Instead, many regional movements are not based on ethnicity; and many of them are not pursuing independence but rather genuine federalism and autonomy (region.expert/regionalist/).

            A classic example of such misconceptions is a recent essay by Valery Panyushkin who insists he is not a regionalist because his desire for his home city of St. Petersburg to have more authority is neither ethnically based nor based on the conviction that the only way to achieve that is by pursuing independence (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/25/sto-yazikov-ili-ugrozhaet-li-rossii-raspad-a190800).

            “Residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg habitually view themselves as ‘more progressive’ than the inhabitants of Russia’s other regions,” Shtepa says; but as Panyushkin’s article shows, many of their residents “remain stuck in the categories of the Soviet era,” including the idea that all regionalism is ethnically based and focused on separatism.

            That was not true even in the waning days of the USSR; and because of the departure of the former non-Russian republics, most of whose movements toward independence were rooted in ethnicity, the relationship between regionalism, on the one hand, and ethnicity and separatism, on the other, has been much reduced.

            In the three decades since the USSR disintegrated, there have been many cases which show that “Russian regionalism is by no means ethnic in nature” or always about secession Among the most prominent are the case of the Urals Republic, the Shiyes protests against a trash dump, and Khabarovsk protests in support of their governor who had been arrested by the FSB.

            To understand what is going on in Russian regions, Shtepa argues, one needs to remember that and not just over-remember the past and assume that nothing has changed from a time when the USSR was only 50 percent ethnic Russian to one where it is now closes to 80 percent. 

            Russian regions do want a very different relationship with Moscow than the one they have now, but they do so not because of ethnicity or out of a conviction that only independence will give them the chance to achieve that. Instead, they want a new deal between the center and the federal subjects, some of which may want to leave but many of which seek only genuine federal arrangements.