Loyalty Not Need to Be Key Test for Kremlin Aid to Federal Subjects, Putin Decrees

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 5 – Vladimir Putin has issued a decree listing 20 new indicators as to how the heads of Russia’s regions and republics will be evaluated (kremlin.ru/acts/news/64970). Its main consequence is that the country’s poorest regions will have to demonstrate their unqualified loyalty if they are to get any assistance from Moscow.

            That means that regions that most need such assistance won’t get it unless they show their obeisance to Moscow and that other regions more subservient to the center will be first in line to get aid they need less than many others, according to the Sobkorr portal (sobkorr.org/news/601D2DACEFD6A.html).

            In some respects, this only codifies what has been the practice of the Kremlin in recent years, with Putin routinely deciding to give more money to loyalists like Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya rather than to regions and republics that need such aid more but have leaders who are less slavishly obedient and loyal.

            As a result, unless the leaders of the latter change course as many of them are likely to given this new decree, income differentiation and the standard of living are likely to diverge still further, leaving the poor poorer and the better off better off, in an example of the worst kind of state-sported social Darwinism.

            Putin’s decree also specifies that the federal subjects and their leaders will be evaluated in terms of how well they promote the improvement of demographic, economic, and digital development; but the concern about loyalty above all is reflected in the fact that that element is listed first of the 20 new measures.