FSB Fighting Losing Battle against Illegal Armorers who Convert Weapons flowing into Russia from Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 14 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, guns from that conflict have been flooding into the Russian Federation where they are adapted by underground armorers for use by private individuals, criminal organizations and at least potentially anti-Moscow underground organizations.

            Over the last four years, the FSB has repeatedly reported that it has identified and closed down the armorers involved in this process and closed them down. For those claims and their frequent repetition, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/05/guns-flooding-into-north-caucasus-from.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/fsb-raids-underground-armament-firms-in.html and the sources cited therein.

            This week, the FSB made a similar announcement, declaring that it, together with the interior ministry and the Russian Guard, had arrested more than a hundred people involved in this illegal arms trade in 43 regions of Russia, among which the North Caucasus was singled out as a major focus (vfokuse.mail.ru/articles/69641897-fsb-soobshila-o-raskrytii-chernyh-oruzhejnikov-bolee-chem-v-40-regionah/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/426613).

            The fact that this announcement is so similar to earlier announcements by the FSB shows that the Russian siloviki are currently fighting a losing battle on this front and that both more guns are flowing from the front into Russia and that more people are now involved in this illicit process than earlier, yet another way Putin’s war in Ukraine is coming home to Russians.

              Russian experts say there may now be more than 30 million guns in private hands, many of them illegal, and that even in Moscow there may be as many as 250,000 residents who have almost 700,000 guns in their possession (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/more-than-quarter-million-muscovites.html).

              Most of these figures involve guns that are registered, but not all – and the means there is almost certainly going to be an upsurge in violent crime and even violent underground political activity, something that means siloviki who go after such people may discover that they face newly armed opponents.

Aral Sea Basin Now a CO2 Emitter which Threatens to Increase Global Warming rather than a C02 Sink which Restrained that Trend, Kazakh Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – The impact of the death of the Aral Sea on surrounding areas is well-documented and much of the discussion about what to do now is between those who want to find more water to flow into the seabed, a difficult task indeed, and those who want to plant trees on the former seabed to prevent the spread of dust and dangerous elements.

            Those favoring a focus on planting trees to hold the soil in place have had the upper hand not only because such steps can be taken by the government that controls the specific littoral of the former sea but also because planting trees is much easier than changing water use patterns on the rivers which had filled the sea in the past.

            But new research on the death of the Aral suggests that the consequences of its death are larger and more international than any had thought earlier and that it could even be the case that international payments to fight global warming could lead to the restoration of the sea by providing money for dealing with the feeder rivers.

            What this research shows, Kazakhstan investigators say, is that as long as the sea was in existence,  vegetation on its bed help enormous among of carbon dioxide; but now that the sea has died, all of that CO2 is being released, increasing global warming and harming more than just those around the sea (vlast.kz/obsshestvo/70851-vysohsee-dno-aralskogo-mora-stanovitsa-istocnikom-ugleroda-cto-s-etim-delat.html).

            According to European research cited by the Kazakh experts, international payments to support carbon sinks and reverse the release of more carbon dioxide could amount to as much as 15.8 billion euros (18 billion US dollars). That could be sufficient to take the steps needed to change water use patterns on the feeder rivers and allow the Aral Sea to make a comeback.

            This is almost certainly an overly optimistic view; but the fact that it is being offered may change the debate over the Aral and other threatened bodies of water, shifting the balance away from those who see the death of these bodies of water as irreversible to those who now can show just how dangerous to how many countries failure to take steps in that direction would be.

Inflation in Russia Hitting Poor Far Harder than Those Better Off as Prices for Basic Foodstuffs Increasing Nearly Twice as Fast as Overall Inflation, Rosstat Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – Moscow more or less regularly releases information on inflation rates in the Russian Federation but only occasionally provide data on categories of goods that hit different income groups differently. Now, it has done so and these show that inflation is hitting the poor far harder as those with higher incomes.

            Specifically, the new Rosstat data show that prices for the basic foods of the simplest of diets have been increasing at a rate nearly twice as high as those affecting other foods and consumer items purchased by better off Russians (nsn.fm/economy/rost-tsen-na-bazovye-produkty-pitaniya-v-rossii-operedil-inflyatsiu).

            Sadly, that is a pattern in many countries; but in Russia it means that just before the Duma elections, Russians have been given confirmation that in the first seven months of 2026, poorer Russians saw the cost of foods they rely on rise by more than eight percent while overall inflation as reported by Rosstat went up by only 4.75 percent.

            For some foods, the jump in prices reached more than 36 percent, with the largest increases concentrated in those on which the impoverished rely.

Veterans of Putin’s War Ever More Frequently Attacked or Even Killed on Their Return Home and They Want New Law to Protect Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – In yet another indication that the veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine are not viewed as heroes by all Russians, a small but increasing number of them are being attacked or even killed on their return home, Svobodnaya Pressa reports; and other veterans are demanding that laws be adopted to protect them.

            The portal lists cases from across the Russian Federation and says that Russian politicians and Duma deputies are committed to adding to the criminal code language that would increase the punishment of perpetrators if their victims are veterans of the war in Ukraine at the fall session of the Russian parliament (svpressa.ru/society/article/531444/).

            Some of the attacks appear to reflect the belief of many Russians that the veterans have a lot of money and thus can be robbed. Others are likely the product of personal dislike. But some of them appear to be acts of brutality directed at the veterans as a class, an attitude that is exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin wants to see.

            On the one hand, if Russians see veterans attacked, it will be harder to get new volunteers to fight; and on the other, if veterans feel that they will always have the law at their backs, they may be prepared to violate the law for their own purposes, something many Russians have already expressed fears about. 

            Consequently, what might appear to be a marginal problem has the potential to grow into a major one, not just because the number of such crimes is increasing but because of what many Russians will conclude this trend means.   

Bashkir Advocate of Federalism Putin Personally Ordered the Arrest of Released from Prison after Serving More than Seven Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – Ayrat Dilmukhametov, a Bashkir activist and advocate of the establishment of genuine federalism for Russia, whose third jail sentence began with a direct order from Vladimir Putin, has been released from a Russian prison in Krasnoyarsk after serving 7.5 years behind bars (https://t.me/aspecty/47511).

            A passionate advocate federalism for Russia, Dilmukhametov attracted the attention of Vladimir Putin who appears to have recognized that his arguments would attract support from both non-Russians and Russians were a greater threat than any nationalism  was behind the Bashkir’s imprisonment (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/kremlin-gave-direct-order-for.html).

            For background on his ideas, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/08/only-real-federalism-can-save-russia.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/imprisoned-for-advocating-federalism-in.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/02/imprisoned-bashkir-activist-says.html.

Russia’s Hybrid War against the West has Been Ongoing for 200 Years, Lea and Borukh Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – In a new article on “The Origins of Russian Fascism,” Aaron Lea and Baruch Taskin trace the ways that extreme right members of the first Russian emigration and early Soviet practices played an important role in Hitler’s Nazism and how both the ideas and the actions of the latter returned to Russia and reenforced governing patterns there.

            That history, the two Israeli analysts say, shows “Putinism is not an exception to Russian history but its norm” and that what the current Kremlin leader is doing reflects the longstanding Russian belief in existence of a threat requiring an authoritarian leader, a repressive state at home, and aggression abroad, a belief it sent to Germany a century ago (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6AA3F9BB0CB91&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

            What is on view in Moscow now is not some innovation on Putin’s part or of a conspiracy.  Conspiracies, after all, “don’t live for centuries,” Lea and Taskin say. Instead, “it is a structural continuity,” with the same diagnosis and prescription passing from one generation to the next, changing the packaging but preserving the contents.”

            And that explains, the two argue, why “the Kremlin isn’t just exporting ideology: it is funding the European far right, turning ‘the liberal order’ into a target for coordinated attacks via think tanks and bot farms,” the latest Russian industry “created to paralyze the will of the West” and something the Nazis did as well, following earlier versions of this Russian model.

            In this latest Russian campaign, they write, “the main export product is not money or content: it is an idea: the liberal order as a conspiracy, national sovereignty is a sacred value and a strong leader as the only answer to chaos” – exactly the ideas Russian emigres brought to Germany in the 1920s and that continue in Russia today.

            In short, Lea and Taskin, once again, Russia’s “hybrid war with the world is in full swing,” just as has been the case for 200 years. And Europe, which has seen all this before but has forgotten the lessons of that reality, “is just beginning to label it state terrorism,” thinking that this is something new rather than the well-forgotten old it in fact is. 

Udmurt Scholar who Committed Suicide 7 Years Ago to Protest Murder of His Native Language Remembered by Others Moscow is Oppressing

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Seven years ago, Albert Razin, a 79-year-old Udmurt scholar, burned himself to death in front of government offices in his republic because he said that “if tomorrow my language is going to disappear, then I am prepared to die today” to protest against that future and to urge others to find ways to protest against it as well.

            Since then, Razin’s influence has only grown; and this year, representatives of may nations in Russia not only in the Middle Volga where Razin’s Udmurtia is located but across that country are remembering his tragic but heroic act as a call for action against Kremlin policies (facebook.com/groups/former.russia/permalink/2304109040369367).

            They are acting, as one Tatar now living in Germany put it, out of the conviction that “a people is alive as long as its language, memory, and people prepared to defend its national dignity are still alive.” What Razin did was an extreme act of protest, but others, these activists say, can and must do more to ensure their languages and peoples survive.

            Not surprisingly, most of these commemorations have been taking place among those non-Russians who have been forced to emigrate. But as the time from  his death has lengthened, Razin’s influence has only grown. For discussion of Razin’s death and  his influence in Udmurtia and more generally, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-last-udmurt.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/09/udmurt-scholar-gave-his-life-not-for.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/09/udmurts-remember-self-immolation-of.html.