In Only Three of the 47 Numerically Small Peoples in Russia, Do a Majority Now Speak Their Native Languages, ‘Vedomosti’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 9 – To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Moscow’s Vedomosti newspaper feature a statistical description of the 47 nationalities Moscow recognizes in the Russian Federation, groups which together number approximately 315,000 or 0.2 percent of that country’s population.

            Among the most significant of the numbers the paper reports are the following (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2026/08/09/1219585-korennie-malochislennie-narodi).

·       Only three of the 47 of the numerically small indigenous peoples in Russia have a population in which the majority of members speaks the native language of the group. Moreover, four of the five with the highest percentage of native language speakers showed a decline in that figure since 2002.

·       Fifteen of the 47 now have fewer than 1,000 members – a few have less than 100 members -- and thus are at risk of extinction in a generation or so, while one, the Nenets, with 49,800 as of 2021 may be dropped from the list because Russian law specifies that such groups must be smaller than 50,000.

·       Between the censuses of 2002 and 2021, only 13 of these groups increased in numbers, while 29 of them declined, with the five others remaining the same.

·       With only a few exceptions, urbanization is playing a key role in the decline of the size of these nations, whose members are more likely to assimilate to others when they leave rural areas and move into cities.

Forest Fires Now a Political Problem in Russia Because Bloggers Cover Them More Quickly than Officials Do and Set the Terms in Which They are Discussed, Russian Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 14 – Forest fires are rapidly becoming a major political problem in Russia because independent bloggers can get to the scene and report far more quickly than officials do and thus set the narrative in which those fires will be discussed, putting officials increasingly on the defensive, Valery Prokhorov says.

            In an Octagon Media post, the Russian commentator says that this problem is especially glaring in the case of forest fires where officials have been especially slow to react and then come up with an official version they can disseminate and set the terms of discussion (octagon.media/istorii/pochemu_lesnye_pozhary_v_rossii_prevratilis_v_politicheskij_faktor.html).

            Prokhorov, a political scientist who is a member of the Russian Association of Political Consultants, says that officials must respond far more rapidly in order to “reduce the time between the emergence, detection, management decision and public explanation.”

            “The shorter this gap,” Prokhorov says, “the less space remains for sensations, politically charged interpretations of what is happening and the trivial guidance of the shadow of a wicker by idle commentators.” Otherwise, the political weather in Russia will be set not by officials but by bloggers who are more fleetfooted than they.

Putin Can No Longer Hide that Russians are Paying for His War in Ukraine – and that Could Trigger an Explosion, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 14 – Historically, Russia’s rulers “have sought to avoid openly compelling Russians to foot the bill for their imperial adventures” using a variety of means to get money for these or to hide what they are doing, Sergey Shelin says. Putin was able to do that until this year, but his ability to do so in the future is very much in doubt.

            Between 2022 and 2025, Moscow earned more money from oil sales abroad than it spent on the war in Ukraine, the Russian commentator points out and thus could hide from Russians the costs of the war to them (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/14/dengi-na-voinu-rezhim-tolko-seichas-stal-zastavlyat-poddannih-za-nee-platit-a203447).

            But now the costs of the war have risen and earnings from the sale of oil abroad have fallen or at least not kept pace; and the Kremlin has been forced to extract more money from the population in ways that are becoming ever more evident, Shelin says. Precedents suggest this will create a dangerous situation for Russia’s current rulers.

            Because the regime “lacks sufficient oil revenues to continue its aggression,” the commentator continues, “it is therefore tapping into the funds of its subjects,” so far largely in ways that relatively few Russians understand are going to support the war effort. But over time, it has been compelled to coerce ordinary Russians into openly financing the war.

            This year, this pressure will intensify by means of the raising of VAT from 20 to 22 percent and by rising deficits which must be financed and which involve “diverting far more funds from private savings into war loans than even the record three billion rubles that were seen last year.”

            Shelin traces the experience of Russian governments with war financing from the time of the Crimean War. In all cases except World War II which was viewed as an existential battle, these governments have consistently sought “to extract whatever funds a given war needed while resorting to direct taxation of the population only in exception cases.”

            According to Shelin, “the regime’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a war comparable in scale to the Crimean or Russo-Japanese conflicts, but with one crucial difference: there is no end in sight. Unwilling to accept defeat, Putin frames the conflict as an existential struggle … but the average Russian doesn’t believe him on this point.”

            The commentator concludes: “Russia’s imperial history has shown that subjects remain loyal—and even understanding—regarding a regime’s militaristic ventures, provided the regime conceals the sources of funding and does not force them to pay for its campaigns directly.” In that event, the survival of the regime is at risk.

            Either the regime will have to find a way to convince Russians that they are engaged in an existential battle as was the case in World War II, it will have to increase repression to get the money it needs with a backlash in that event all too likely, or it will be compelled to change course in order to save itself.

            Russian regimes over the past two centuries provide examples of all three. What Putin will now do and whether his choice will be sufficient to cover the spending on Russia’s latest imperial adventure very much remains to be seen; but recent trends suggest that the answer to that question is likely to come very soon indeed, Shelin concludes. 

Dugin Says Russia Must Empty Moscow and Other Large Cities to Save the Country from an Upcoming Nuclear War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 14 – Aleksandr Dugin, the outspoken Russian philosopher who has enormous influence on the Kremlin, says that the populations of Moscow and other large cities must be evicted and dispersed to villages so as to save the country from what he says is a looming nuclear war with the West.

            If Russians remain in the major cities, these will become far easier targets for Western attacks, he says, arguing that if people are spread out in villages, the West won’t be able to kill as many (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/14/nebudet-nimoskvi-nisankt-peterburga-dugin-prizval-massovo-viselyat-rossiyan-izmegapolisov-radi-yadernoi-voini-szapadom-a203505).

            In the past, Dugin has called for the de-urbanization of the country so as to boost the birthrate given that fertility in villages has remained relatively high while that metric in major cities has fallen to well below replacement levels. But this is his first invocation of the need for rapid deurbanization in anticipation of a war.

            Like many of Dugin’s other pronouncements, the Russian government is unlikely to follow his advice. Indeed, there are good reasons to think it can’t given the increasing desire of Russians to live in major cities rather than in smaller ones or villages. But his words undoubtedly do reflect the kind of hallway talk in official circles that is now going on.

            And his decision to add the threat of a nuclear war to the reasons for taking such actions may gain more support for the so-far limited de-urbanization efforts some officials have promoted; but the disappearance of Moscow or St. Petersburg or even their significant decline in size is to say the least highly improbable.

Ethnic Russian Regions on Track to ‘Abolish’ More Villages This Year than Ever Before

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 13 – Predominantly ethnic Russian federal subjects have officially shuttered 120 villages, mow of which are already ghost towns or on the way to being so, putting the Russian Federation on track to eliminate far more than the record 134 closed in 2025, the Club of the Regions says.

            Novgorod has closed the most so far this year, 35, the portal says. Kostroma is second with 23; Arkhangelsk with 19 and Perm Kray 11, the portal says. In other regions, almost all of them predominantly ethnic Russian, officials formally closed down between one and five villages (club-rf.ru/news/65214).

            This pattern reflects the emptying out of the ethnic Russian countryside that Putin and others have expressed so much concern about; but because villages in Russia cease to exist not when they lose people but when regional or all-Russian officials say they do, the closure of villages that the Club of the Regions reports now is striking.

            The portal says that such actions now are “at odds” with what Putin has been talking about; but at the same time, it reflects the budgetary constraints that the regions are experiencing as a result of Putin’s war in Ukraine. Unless they officially “abolish” such villages, they are expected to maintain political structures for them even if there are no people there.

            In most cases, the regional authorities simply close down operations of village governments when these places lose all or all but a handful of people; and so the closures this year not only reflect regional budgetary problems but also the collapse of ethnic Russian villages on which the demographic future of the Russian nation has depended. 

Ever More in Russian Elites Want Collective Leadership instead of Personalist Dictatorship, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 14 – Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter who is now a fierce critic of the Russian president, says that ever more members of Russian elites and maybe eventually even Putin himself would like to see the country move toward a Politburo-style of collective leadership in place of the current personalist dictatorship.

            According to the commentator, “the problem for Russian elites is no longer so much whether they like Putin or not but rather whether it is possible to allow one individual to make decisions on his own if he is seen to be taking steps that threaten the system’s structure” and thus survival (pointmedia.io/story/6a7ed07e75d0d3346a25cb74).

Until recently, Gallyamov continues, “Putin’s monopoly on power provided elites with stability, but now that very monopoly is becoming the main source of risk.” And they are looking to what China has done to avoid the problems that can arise and share decision-making power among members of the top elite.

“After Mao’s death,” he argues, “his successors came to the conclusion that the country could no longer depend on the mental and physical condition of one person,” with “Deng Xiaoping convinced that “the source of the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution lay not just in the personality of Mao but in the excessive concentration of power.”

            Russian elites, many of whom admire China and consider it worthy of emulation, are now thinking the same thing and want to see their country evolve in a similar direction. Among ideas circulating, Gallyamov suggests, is the notion of “merging all ‘patriotic parties’ into a single national party and creating a politburo officially.”

            With such an arrangement, the members of this body would “try to balance Putin” who “of course would remain first among equals but cease being the only indisputable master of the country. Major decisions would collective, literally through official voting. Let Putin have two votes instead of one but the rest should have a vote,” Gallyamov says.

            According to the commentator, Putin likely “will agree to this at some point” because he recognizes that a dead end is approaching. His departure from power is too radical a move, but shifting part of the responsibility for what should be done next can serve as a way out” for Putin.

            As an example of how this would work, Gallyamov says that it is likely that “Putin can’t stop the war by himself, so there must be an arrangement under which others can do it. If that happens, Putin’s pride will suffer less” as he can say he wanted to go on but others around him in the Politburo didn’t agree. 

Penza Blogger Creates a Chat to Protect Residents form Officials Seeking to Force Them to Sign Military Contracts and Fight in Ukraine – and People in Other Regions are Relying On it Too

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 12 – Stanislav Morozov has just created a chat on line that shows what officials are doing to hunt down and force men there to sign military contracts and go to fight in Ukraine and helping Russians there and elsewhere resist such actions by highlighting this abuse of power, according to the Horizontal Russia portal.

            In the first ten days, more than 1200 people signed up to his chat. Most were from the Penza Region, but Morozov says that Russians in other regions have asked that they not be dropped because they fear officials may use similar tactics on them in the future and want to resist as well (semnasem.org/articles/2026/08/12/idet-ohota).

            What the right-wing blogger is doing, the portal continues, is demonstrating to the Kremlin that it will not be able to “drive people to the war by force” and that if the Kremlin wants to continue the war, it must come up with a kind of agenda that the Russian people can and will support.          

            As of now, the Chat Morozova on the VK channel has not been blocked; and its editor, Morozov says, that he will not move to what might be a safer Telegram channel because far more Russians know how to interact with VK than are ready and able to use the latter means to get news and information.

            Morozov says that he asks those who go on his chat to be careful with their language lest officials target them and says that in the first 12 days of its operation, the chat has managed to protect at least one resident from forcible impressment into the Russian military and made far more aware of this danger.

            Commenting on this development, Aleksey Tabalov, who heads the School of the Conscript Project, said he welcomes what Morozov is doing because it will make it more difficult for the authorities to use their current forceful methods to raise men for the army in Ukraine.

            After this lesson from Penza, the activist says, officials are likely to become more careful and this new forceful mobilization will become “quiet and secretive,” with officials not risk acting brutally in public but instead visiting people in their homes or workplaces on the basis of lists provided by the draft agency.