Federal Subject Heads Given Another Potentially Troublesome Task – Reporting Russian Combat Losses in Ukraine

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 3 – Moscow has been extremely chary about reporting combat losses in Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, electing instead to make the heads of the federal subjects responsible for doing so, lest it become immediately obvious to all Russians just how large these losses have become.

            But that decision, like the decision to make the federal subject heads responsible for fighting the coronavirus pandemic, may backfire on the center not only by infuriating governors who will have to take the heat but also highlighting the extent to which “Russian” combat losses are concentrated in non-Russian areas and among rural Russians rather than urban ones.

            Moscow has not announced that this is as a policy, but the Club of the Regions portal has documented such gubernatorial actions in 13 regions, divided almost equally between non-Russian republics and predominantly rural Russian oblasts and krays so far (club-rf.ru/news/60386).

            But analysts with whom the portal overwhelmingly suggest that the governors are doing what Moscow wants them to do in order to distract public attention from the size of the losses in Ukraine and to prevent the spread of rumors about them that may be more extreme than the actual facts of the case (club-rf.ru/detail/6089).

            Most of these analysts say there can be no doubt that Moscow took this step because it is very much aware of how alarmed many Russians are about such losses and also because the center knows that no one expects the governors to have information about totals. The regional heads know only about losses in their areas. They thus can’t tell more than that.

            By shifting reporting from Moscow to the regions, the center ensures that journalists will not be able to find out more; but it also creates two problems familiar from the pandemic: On the one hand, there are now going to be competing figures that will lead some to conclude that all officials are lying.

            And on the other and more dangerous still, there is a certainty that those who live in a republic or kray where the losses are highlighted will conclude that Moscow is using its men as cannon fodder in order not to use urban Russians who might spark the kind of immediate protests if there were many deaths reported in major cities.

            But over time, this approach will lead many rural Russians to become increasingly resentful of Moscow as such and many non-Russians to become more nationalistic and hostile to the country as a whole.