Moscow has Charged 9,000 Russians with Extremist Crimes over Last Decade, Draft Anti-Extremism Strategy Document Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – The Russian interior ministry has posted online a draft project of a new Strategy for Countering Extremism. A replacement for the 2019 measure, the draft focuses on Ukraine, migrants, and foreign use of ethnic and religious groups to destabilize the Russian Federation.

            To a large extent, the new draft simply sums up what Putin officials have been saying over the last several years, but it does provide statistics that highlight just how sweeping Moscow’s counter-extremism program has become. (For a summary and discussion of the new draft, see sova-center.ru/misuse/news/lawmaking/2024/07/d50188/.)

            Over the last ten years, the draft says, “Russian law enforcement organs” have identified and brought charges against Russians for extremist behavior. They have brought criminal charges against 9,000 people. (The difference between these two figures likely reflects the fact that some have been charged with more than one crime.)

            Moreover, SOVA says the document shows, Russian courts have banned more than 70 organizations and identified more than 170 foreign structures as “undesirable.” The authorities have also declared “more than 3,000” texts “extremist” and thus to be excluded from circulation in the Russian Federation.

To ‘Normalize Being at War,’ Kremlin Plans to Re-Establish Soviet-Style Control over Russia’s Cultural Life, ‘Dossier’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Having first worked to suppress opposition to the war in Ukraine and then sought to heroize Russians fighting there, the Kremlin has now decided to make the war a normal part of the life– and to do that, it has concluded it must revive Soviet-style control over the arts and demand complete obedience by those getting state funds, the Dossier Center says.

            According to the center’s investigative journalists, Sergey Novikov, the had of the Presidential Administration office for social programs, reached that conclusion at the end of 2023 as the war lengthened and has been authorized to put his ideas into practice in the arts sphere (dossier.center/svo-culture/).

            Novikov, a longtime ally of Sergey Kiriyenko has been called “a hunter of ideological enemies” (https://meduza.io/feature/2024/07/08/ohotnik-na-ideologicheskih-vragov), who has long been responsible for compiling “black lists” of artists who fail to hew to the Kremlin line about the war and other issues.

            But now, Dossier says, he is pursuing a much large goal – “the introduction of the Putin war in Ukraine into the lives of Russians” so that that war and war in general will become part of their lives and thus be viewed by them as inevitable and natural rather than something out of the ordinary that might be changed.

            The only way to achieve that, the investigative journalists say Novikov has concluded is to restore the system of carrots and sticks that the Soviet government used to ensure that its messages were repeated by writers and other artists to the population. The Putin regime has taken some steps in that direction, but now Novikov promises to take additional ones.

Duma Votes to Put Justice Beyond the Reach of Poorer Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – The Duma has approved a measure that will significantly raise the cost of almost all court filings both initial and appeals, effectively putting any hope for justice from that quarter beyond the reach of the poorer segments of the population of the Russian Federation.

            The new measure, likely to become law, raises the amount of money anyone turning to the courts must pay, by as much as 15 times, an amount that will be beyond the means of many Russians to pay (istories.media/news/2024/07/23/vlasti-vveli-novii-obrok-dlya-grazhdan-poshlini-v-sudakh-povisyat-v-10-15-raz/).

            That means that ordinary Russians won’t be able to bring suits in court to protect their rights and property or to appeal decisions against them, although the amounts are not so great – the largest of these new fees – 900,000 rubles (nine thousand US dollars) – is not so great that Russia’s better off citizens won’t be able to pay.

            The measure thus represents yet another example of the way in which the Putin regime is creating a social and political system in which there are two classes of people – the wealthy allies of the Kremlin who are able to enjoy at least some of the rights ostensibly guaranteed by the constitution and everyone else who lacks that possibility.

Just as after 1945, Russia Likely to Become More Repressive after War Ends, Malgin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Many Russians expect that when Putin’s war in Ukraine ends, they will face a crime wave, declining incomes, and an economy incapable of making the transition to peacetime needs, Andrey Malgin says; but they have not focused on an even more ugly prospect:  that their country will become even more repressive, just as happened in 1945.

            Because of government propaganda, the Russian commentator says, “the level of hatred” among Russians “towards the external enemy is extremely high.” But if the war ends, the government will tell its people that Russia “has achieved its goals” (moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/24/repressii-v-rossii-kak-neizbezhnoe-prodolzhenie-voini-a137559).

            “But the level of hatred [among the Russian people] will not go away,” Malgin says. Instead, it will begin to focus on other and domestic targets – and the government will have its own reasons for ensuring that happens lest popular discontent be directed instead against the powers that be.

            Indeed, the government has already “begun to prepare” for this reality and is “increasingly drawing the attention of the population to internal enemies,” targets that represent “an inexhaustible source of evil” because the government can portray almost anyone inside the country except itself as an enemy.

            As a result, Malgin concludes, “the end of the war, no matter how it ends, will hit the country with a level of repression it has not seen for decades” because “for the authorities this will be the only way to direct hostility” away from the people in power towards others and allow those in power to remain there.

            At the end of World War II, many Soviet citizens expected that after the war, the Kremlin would reward them for their efforts in fighting the Germans. Now, many Russians believe that once the war ends, things will get better at home. Malgin’s article is a useful reminder that just the reverse may happen again. 

Duma Proposal Sets Stage for Broad Attack on National Autonomies in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Mikhail Matveyev, the KPRF deputy who is deputy chair of the Duma Committee on Regional Policy and Local Self-Administration, has proposed replacing the term “national-cultural autonomy” with the term “national-cultural union” and allowing the government to ban any of these groups which received financing from abroad.

            Not only would the passage of this proposal represent a serious downgrading in the only formal status that more than 200 ethnic communities across the Russian Federation but it would give the state an additional whip hand over them by allowing Moscow to ban them almost at will (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/legal/2024/07/d50194/).

            The likely trigger for this proposal, however, is not so much a broad attack on national autonomies as such but rather to block calls by some Central Asian diasporas who want to form them in regions near Moscow (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/russians-alarmed-by-calls-for-tajik.html).

            In the current overheated atmosphere concerning immigrants, this proposal is likely to pass for that reason alone; but if this measure does become law, the Kremlin almost certainly will employ it to further restrict or even bad the only corporate bodies ethnic communities have if they are not located within a non-Russian republic of the same nationality. 

            For background on the national cultural autonomies that arose in the 1990s and have had a checkered history since then, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/russias-national-cultural-autonomies.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/russification-and-assimilation-of-non.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/12/national-cultural-autonomies-failing-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/russias-national-cultural-autonomies.html.

Putin’s War in Ukraine has Divided Russian Protestants and Reduced Change that They will be Added to ‘Traditional’ Religions There, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – Russia’s 1.5 million Protestants are as divided about Putin’s war in Ukraine; but because of the nature of Protestantism, pastors and bishops of Protestant denominations have generally tread lightly either in their support of the war or their opposition lest they be removed by those who elected them, the Horizontal Russia news portal says.

            But both that caution and the long tradition of close contacts between Russian Protestants and their co-believers in Ukraine have angered the Kremlin and undermined the chances which seemed very good before 2014 for Protestantism to become the fifth “traditional” religion in Russia (semnasem.org/articles/2024/07/24/mezhdu-propagandoj-i-pisaniem-kak-vojna-v-ukraine-izmenila-zhizn-rossijskih-protestantov).

            That is no small thing because Russia’s Protestants who don’t identify as such unless they are active in the faith form roughly the same number as Russian Orthodox Christians who attend church and follow church rules. Thus, what the war has done has likely blocked any chance that Protestants will enjoy the state support and protection that the four traditional faiths do.

            And in some regions, such as Siberia and the Far East, where Protestants are especially numerous – and it is estimated that they now form as many as 10,000 congregations across the country – that means that large numbers of Christians are likely to be subject to increasing persecution by the Putin regime.

Kazakhstan Becomes More Kazakh and Less Russian as Ethnic Russians Continue to Leave and Kazakhs to Return Home, Statistics Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – Despite the influx of ethnic Russians after Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine and the decision of ethnic Russians already there not to move to Russia in wartime, the departure of ethnic Russians has now resumed at roughly the same rate and the influx of Kazakhs has continued as well.

            As a result, the slight uptick in the share of ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan’s population in 2023 has been replaced by the pattern of earlier years, with the Russian share of the population continuing to decline and the Kazakh share again increasing, Aleksandr Shustov says (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-07-24--ottok-russkih-iz-kazahstana-rezko-sokratila-svo-74637).

            To make his case, the Russian analyst cites data from the Kazakhstan government as well as from the Russian embassy in Astana. In 2022, 16,000 ethnic Russians left Kazakhstan, while 4,400 arrived. That meant that the ethnic Russian share of that Central Asian country’s population fell by almost 11,700 even as the war began.

            In that year, he continues, Kazakhs continued to return home far more often than to leave, with 7200 registering their return and only 1400 departing, for a positive increase of 7200, further shifting the ethnic balance which has been moving against the ethnic Russians since the 1980s.

            In 2023, the situation changed, with the exodus of Russians falling “almost six times,” Shustov says. Specifically, the outflow of ethnic Russians fell sharply, with 10,100 leaving the country but 8100 entering it, meaning that the number of Russians there fell by only 2,000 (stat.gov.kz/ru/industries/social-statistics/demography/publications/157454/).

            Ethnic Kazakhs, however, continued to arrive, with some 10,000 returning in 2023; and because only 1100 left, that meant that the Kazakh share of Kazakhstan’s population increased by 8800, further increasing their majority. They form almost 75 percent of the population, while Russians who once held a majority are down to less than 14 percent.

           A large number of Russian "relocaters" did come to Kazakhstan but many of them returned or went on to other countries rather than register as permanent residents. As a result, they have not been counted by Astana in its summary data on migration in and out of the country.

            Russian flight occurred in all regions of Kazakhstan except the three Western oblasts and the capitals. In those there was an increase in the number of ethnic Russians, Shustov says, but only an “insignificant” one that likely reflects the arrival of Russians leaving Russia because of the war.

            Figures from the first quarter of 2024 suggest that Russian flight has accelerated and the return of Kazakhs has continued, he says. During those three months, 608,000 more Russians left than arrived; and 3500 more Kazakhs arrived than left (stat.gov.kz/ru/industries/social-statistics/demography/publications/158501/).

 

Nearly a Quarter Fewer Immigrant Workers Arrived in Russia in 2023 than in 2022, Rosstat Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 22 – In 2023, Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistical agency, says, 560,400 migrant workers arrived in Russia, 23 percent fewer than in 2022. It is likely that the number arriving in 2024 will be even smaller given the increasing hostility of Russians to migrants and the declining number of businesses that feel compelled to defend them.

            The Rosstat figures are available at rosstat.gov.ru/compendium/document/13283. They are discussed in most detail at rbc.ru/economics/22/07/2024/669a2afd9a7947271d418486. And because the debate about what Russia should do about immigration, they are certain to inform and even enflame discussions in the days ahead.

            Among Rosstat’s key findings are the following:

·       Nearly a third of all immigrants came from Tajikistan (31 percent), with ten percent from Kygyzstan, and nine percent each from Ukraine, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan was the country of origin for four percent, and the other Central Asian country, Turkmenistan, accounted for half of that.

·       More than half (55 percent) were men; and 76 percent were of working age, with the largest age cohort between 20 and 24.

·       Most have middle education; few have higher educations and even fewer have no education at all.

·       80 percent of migrant workers want to live in cities rather than rural areas. The top three regions are Moscow Oblast, Tyumen Oblast and the Kanty-Mansiisk AD. They account for 57 percent of all migrants who arrived in 2023.

Regions and Republics Now Facing Crises with Their Own Trash Crises, Not Just from Moscow’s Sending Trash to Them from Major Cities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 22 – For almost a decade, the Russian government’s efforts to cope with the mounting trash problems of that country’s major cities have sparked protests in regions and republics that they are being swamped. The most significant but hardly the only such protest was in Shiyes.

            But it is not just the major Russian cities that are producing more trash than they are equipped to process. Many of the federal subjects are also generating more trash than they can deal with, something that is likely to trigger a new wave of protests in those areas which are the hardest hit (versia.ru/pochemu-v-regionax-nekomu-vyvozit-musor).

            According to a new survey, the federal subjects most in trouble are in order the Altai Kray, Vologda Oblast, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnoyarsk Kray, Magadan, Novgorod, and Novosibirsk Oblasts, the Altay Republic, Buryatia, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Tyva, Tomsk and Chelyabinsk Oblasts.

            These are among the poorest federal subjects, and officials there, pressed to meet other demands, have not made the investment needed to keep up with the ever-increasing amount of trash their residents are generating. If protests do break out, they will likely now be directed not just at Moscow as was the case in Shiyes but at Moscow and the federal subject leaders.

            The Kremlin may welcome this because it could allow it to deflect objections to its plans to send more trash from Moscow and St. Petersburg to poorer  regions, but any benefit the Putin regime may get from this is likely to be short-lived because NIMBY attitudes are certain to be reenforced rather than reduced by having two targets for complaint.   

Russia is “a Slavic-Turkic State,’ Altai Conference Participants Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 21 – The Altai State University hosted a forum on the Slavic-Turkic World on the Space of Greater Altai July 18-20. Its participants stressed that “Russia is a Slavic-Turkic state” and urged that Moscow declare the Turks “a state-forming” people along with the Russians to strengthen ties at home and links to the broader Turkic world.

            The Turkic peoples now form eight percent of the population of the Russian Federation, the participants observed, and their numbers and share are rapidly increasing because they have higher birthrates than the Slavs and more Turks from abroad are taking Russian citizenship (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-07-23--bolshoj-altaj-i-evrazijskoe-edinstvo-74615).

            Consequently, as Russia turns to the east, it should recognize the Turkic peoples collectively as a state-forming group, something that will help Russia at home and abroad and make it clear to all that the Altai in Russia is the true homeland and proper focus of Turks around the world.

            Three things about this are noteworthy: First, it is a rare example of talking about groups broader than nations as playing a state-forming role. Second, it re-enforces the Eurasianist idea that Russia is not just Russian but Turkic as well. And third, it signals that at least some in Russia want to challenge Turkey for the right to be considered the center of the Turkic world.

Despite Repression and Lack of Moscow Media Attention, Russians Continue to Protest – and Sometimes Succeed in Forcing Change

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 21 – Since the beginning of July, Russians have taken part in protest actions across the country, the editors of Kholod Media say. Most of these actions have been small, far from Moscow and about local issues, all reasons why they have in most cases failed to attract the attention of central media. But remarkably some have succeeded in forcing change (holod.media/2024/07/22/10-protestnyh-akczij-o-kotoryh-vy-mogli-ne-znat/).

            Perhaps the most intriguing of these unreported protest actions took place in Perm on July 17. Then a group of more than 250 people calling themselves “Russians Against Islamization” assembled to demand that officials block the construction of a mosque there (activatica.org/content/663af95c-8c50-4708-8e2d-e099320cf755/zhiteli-permi-vyshli-na-miting-protiv-stroitelstva-mecheti, t.me/perm36/14085 and t.me/horizontal_russia/38311).

            Meanwhile, on July 4, in Nizhnevartovsk in the Khanty-Mansi AD, 50 people came out to protest plans to build a Russian Orthodox church in a residential district there (t.me/horizontal_russia/38047). Participants said they weren’t against a new church but only its location near their housing (https://muksun.fm/news/2024-07-04/tserkvi-tut-ne-mesto-v-nizhnevartovske-lyudi-vyshli-na-miting-protiv-stroitelstva-hrama-5129702).

            Earlier, on July 7, 300 residents of Ulan Ude in Buryatia assembled to protest the plans of officials to build a new “super” prison colony there, something that would involve the destruction of more than 160 hectares of land (t.me/Baikal_People/6196,   t.me/Baikal_People/6213 and t.me/rusnews/38283).

            And on July 14, villagers in Ulyanovsk Oblast organized a demonstation to protest against the erection of fences in a local woods, something that they said would deprive them of the opportunity to walk there as has long been their custom (t.me/horizontal_russia/38215 and ulpressa.ru/2024/07/20/zhiteli-sela-smorodino-pozhalovalis-na-ograzhdenie-lesa-chastnoj-firmoj/).

            Attracting more attention and forcing officials to respond have been protests about power outages in Dagestan, Krasnodar, Anapa, and Rostov (t.me/rusnews/56831,  t.me/rusnews/56717, t.me/horizontal_russia/31793,  t.me/horizontal_russia/38374,  t.me/horizontal_russia/38386 and vk.com/my_bataysk?w=wall-64588835_285988&ysclid=lytz0es2t0651751676

            And finally, there were at least two protests against increases in the price for communal services, one in Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic and another in Biysk in the Altai. In both, participants called on their fellow citizens to stop voting for capitalists and in the Komi republic for the governor to resign (t.me/horizontal_russia/37906,  t.me/horizontal_russia/37906, vk.com/wall-140177262_24221  and vk.com/wall-140177262_24258).

            In short, Russia is not quite as quiet as Putin likes to present it and as all too many in the capital and in the West prefer to believe. 

Aliyev Pledges to Support Independence Movements in French Colonies, as Activists from Them Assemble in Baku to Form United Front

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 21 – In the latest sign of the deterioration of relations between Baku and Paris, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has pledged to do everything in his power to promote the independence of France’s last remaining colonies, as activists from them assemble in Baku to form a united front to achieve that end.

            Earlier this year, France blamed Azerbaijan and Russia for supporting pro-independence protests in New Caledonia; and Paris recalled its ambassador from Baku for consultations in protest (m.lenta.ru/news/2024/07/21/prezident-azerbaydzhana-poobeschal-podderzhivat-borbu-frantsuzskoy-polinezii-za-nezavisimost/).

            Now the  Baku Initiative Group (BIG) formed at the end of 2023 has assembled representatives of these colonies in the Azerbaijani capital to form an International Front for the Liberation of the Last French Colonies (https://www.rt.com/news/601288-french-overseas-territories-liberation-front and azertag.az/ru/xeber/v_baku_prohodit_sezd_dvizhenii_za_nezavisimost_kolonizirovannyh_franciei_territorii_video-3100234).

            Paris and pro-French groups in these colonies have denounced the move, but it likely signals plans by Moscow to promote instability in these places and the readiness of Baku to cooperate in such an effort. How far either will go is uncertain, but this is a classic example of how Moscow is using others to try to undermine the Western powers. 

Moscow Furious Yerevan Delaying the Opening of Russian Consulate in Syunik/Zengezur

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 22 – Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Mariya Zakharova has expressed Moscow’s displeasure that Yerevan, having agreed in November 2022 to the opening of a Russian consulate in Kapan, the capital of Armenia’s Syunik Oblast and allowed an advance party to begin work in September 2023 is dragging its feet about the opening of the consulate.

            The issue is especially sensitive because Kapan is located at the eastern end of what Azerbaijanis refer to as the Zengezur corridor, which was supposed to be reopened to traffic, and because Iran already has a consulate there and Turkey is talking about opening one (svpressa.ru/politic/article/423442/).

            Russia has a consulate general in Gyumri, next to its military base; but Armenia has a far larger diplomatic presence in the Russian Federation: consulates in St. Petersburg and Rostov, diplomatic offices in Novosibirsk and Vladikavkaz and six honorary consuls as well. Consequently, Moscow feels well within its rights to press its case on Kapkan.

            But because Yerevan has been distancing itself from Russia, the Armenian authorities have apparently decided not to open a Russian consulate in Kapkan in the near future; and their decision, has made this issue of a consulate whose presence affects not only Armenia but Iran and Azerbaijan an extremely sensitive geopolitical one.

            Moscow is thus trying to force the issue, the Svobodnaya Presssa commentary says, confident that it will eventually get its way especially given that the West very much wants the Syunik/Zengezur corridor to open and might even see a Russian presence as making that more likely and a useful balance to the spread of Iranian influence.

Immigrants from Central Asia have Profoundly Affected Muslim Community in Russia, Leader Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 21 – The Muslim community, both its composition and its leadership, have been “transformed” by the influx of migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus over the last two decades, according to Muslim leaders and experts on religion and society in the Russian Federation.

            Mufti Rushan Abbyasov, the leader of the Muslim community in the suburbs of Moscow, says that 25 years ago, most Muslims in his parishes were Tatars or Bashkirs; but now, the ethnic composition not only of the believers but of their leaders is far from diverse, reflecting the influx of immigrants (profile.ru/society/prikrylis-nikabom-spor-o-religioznom-dress-kode-obnazhil-fundamentalnye-problemy-rossijskih-musulman-1551378/).

            The religious infrastructure that was set up in the 1990s and early 2000s, he continues, “turned out to be not prepared for such an influx of believers.” There are too few mosques and so many immigrants instead of attending them are forming their own “illegal prayer rooms.” That too is “a source of tension.”

Road Trip through Predominantly Ethnic Russian Regions Throws Light on How Different They are from One Another

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 22 – The predominantly ethnic Russian regions around Moscow are generally discussed as a group, one in which they share common demographic and economic problems. But last week, Anatoly Nesmiyan, who blogs under the screen name El Murid, made a 5,000-kilometer road trip through them and found an amazing diversity.

            Viewed from his car, the blogger says, three of the federal subjects, non-Russian Tatarstan, and predominantly ethnic Russian Samara Oblast and Krasnodar Kray, looked good. Their roads were generally in good repair and facilities along them provided the services one needed (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/19598 and kasparov.ru/material.php?id=669DFCED9EDE6).

            At the other extreme was another predominantly ethnic Russian region, Voronezh Oblast, El Murid said, a place that looked as if it has already been bombed, as the Russian anecdote has it. Its roads if one can call them that are a disgrace and the services along them are sparse and of poor quality.  Other regions El Murid visited were in between.

            The blogger noted that there was no difference in the condition between paid highways and free public highways. Bringing all the roads and the services up to them is a task of 20 to 30 years; but it will never be carried out by leaders who are distracted by “nonsense like ‘we can repeat.’”

            El Murid’s point is that the leaders of the country should be focusing on those issues rather than on their aggressive plans abroad, but his road trip report is also a sign that oblasts and krays often lumped together are in fact very different from one another, the result of a variety of factors that deserve to be the object of attention. 

Children and Grandchildren of Russia’s Top Leadership Not Serving in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 22 – A major source of Soviet patriotism in World War II was the fact that the country’s top leaders, including Stalin, sent their sons and grandsons to fight; but today, members of the Russian elite successfully kept their offspring out of the military, something that is likely to offend ever more Russians as the war lengthens and combat losses mount.

            In a nearly 7,000-word article, Mira Livadina, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta, documents the fact that the offspring of Russia’s president, prime minister, spokesman, other senior officials and politicians, and active supporters of Putin’s war have avoided service (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/07/22/elitnye-roda-voisk).

            At the very least, this pattern will raise questions in the minds of those who have lost a child, grandchild or husband; but more than that, it will increase the divide between the population and the Kremlin and undercut Putin’s continued effort to portray what he is doing in Ukraine as an extension of what the Soviet leaders and people did during World War II.

Since March 2022, Almost 7,000 Russians have been Fined for ‘Discrediting the Army,’ But More than 200 have Fought Back with Some Success

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 19 – Since Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, nearly 7,000 Russians have been fined for “discrediting the Russian army,” a charge that is so elastic that the authorities have applied it widely in the hopes of repressing any signs of dissent against the Kremlin’s policies.

            But what is striking is that more than 200 Russians who have been fined on this account have fought back in the courts and even achieved some success, according to an investigation carried out by Vyorstka media and OVD-Info (verstka.media/bolshe-200-rossiyan-dobilis-peresmotra-shtrafov-za-diskreditaciyu-armii).

            Of these, 119 have successfully challenged the imposition of these finds in appellate courts, 89 have succeeded in getting the appeals courts to return their cases for rehearing to courts of first instance, and 47 have had the amount of the fines originally imposed significantly reduced, the investigation found. 

            On the one hand, those who have achieved such success are only a microscopic portion of those who have been fined. But on the other, they likely constitute a large portion of those who have chosen to appeal and thus show the way that others could follow with at least the possibility of achieving some relief – and thus limiting the Kremlin’s ability to use this repressive policy.

Biden’s 2024 Captive Nations Week Declaration Continues His Re-Invigoration of that Commemoration

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 19 -- When the US Congress passed the resolution in 1959 requiring the president to issue a proclamation on Captive Nations Week every July, this measure was viewed both by its authors and those opposed to it as directed against the repression of nations by communist regimes.

            Until the collapse of the Soviet bloc and then the USSR in 1989 and 1991, these messages served as an indicator of how the US government viewed these communist. In the years since, the messages have celebrated the freeing of nations in the former communist states and focused on nations who remain under communist rule.

            That is appropriate because of how much progress in fact has been made, but it is incomplete for two reasons. On the one hand, it ignores the fact that the Captive Nations Week resolution focused not on communism as a doctrine but communism as a practice that involved repression not limited to communist states.

            Victories over communism led to many victories, but many who proclaimed themselves as non-communists or even anti-communists have continued or revived the kind of ethno-national repression that the Soviet communists carried out in the past and that the few surviving communist regimes, China first among them, are carrying out to this day.

            And on the other hand, focusing on progress alone not only overshadows just how much evil has been and is being carried out by nominally non-communist regimes and also how much work remains to be done in countries like the Russian Federation. There, for example, two of the nations the resolution spoke of, Idel-Ural and Cossackia, remain victims of repression.

            Two years ago, President Joe Biden corrected this trend and returned to the principles underlying the original resolution’s concerns about the victims of imperialist oppression regardless of what those carrying it out call themselves (whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/07/15/a-proclamation-on-captive-nations-week-2022/).

             Biden made three key points: First, Captive Nations Week is not about anti-communism per se but rather about repression, regardless of what the states carrying it out call themselves. Only three of the regimes he lists among the world’s most repressive are communist – Cuba, North Korea and the People’s Republic of China.

            The other six are either former communist countries or have never been communist – Russia, Iran, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – and it is no accident that the US president listed Russia first among all these countries, not because of its communist roots but because of its continuing imperialist behavior.

            Second, Biden was explicit that governments which repress their peoples at home as all nine of these countries do seek to repress others abroad through various kinds of aggression abroad. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is only the most obvious case of this; and it is no surprise in the current environment that the American president focused on that.

            And third, and this may be the most important aspect of the Captive Nations Week resolution this week, Biden makes clear that Americans can’t remain unconcerned about such repressive be it within countries or between them and their neighbors. They must “stand in solidarity with the brave human rights and pro-democracy advocates around the world.”

            The US leader concludes with the following words: “May Captive Nations Week reinvigorate our efforts to live up to our ideals by championing justice, dignity and freedom for all,” words that apply not only to communist countries, post-communist countries, countries that have never been communist and the US as well.

            In his just-released proclamation of Captive Nations Week this year, Biden continues the course toward a broader understanding of what this memorial day is all about at a time, when as he says, “the struggle between dictatorship and freedom continues” (whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/07/19/a-proclamation-on-captive-nations-week-2024/).

            The American president highlights the fact that “Russia is waging an illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.  For 2 years, the Ukrainian people have fought with extraordinary courage and bravery ... The autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine and if we will let this illegal aggression go unchecked.” 

“We cannot let that happen,” Biden continues, but he adds that “we support the equal and inalienable rights of all people everywhere,” including the oft-violated rights of women, indigenous groups, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and those wrongfully detained around the world.

All this represents an expansion of the ideals that lay behind the original Captive National Week congressional resolution in 1959, but all are consistent with it. And this year, faced with challenges to democracy within the United States, Biden adds an especially important but equally consistent point: “we must continue to secure our freedom and democracy here at home.”

Kremlin’s Failure to Focus on Nationality Problems Threatens Survival of Russian Federation, Fetisov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 19 – For 20 years, the Kremlin has failed to address nationality issues in the Russian Federation and worked hard to keep the systemic parties from doing so; but as a result, now that the issue of migrants has risen to the top, the country finds itself at risk of moving along a path like the one that led to the demise of the USSR, Dmitry Fetisov says.

            The political scientist who is a frequent commentator for the Club of the Regions portal says that the issue of immigrants has been “artificially” exacerbated by the media and would never have gotten so serious had it not been for the Kremlin’s insistence that the systemic parties not talk about it earlier (club-rf.ru/theme/591 ).

            In the Kremlin itself, Fetisov continues, there are both supporters and opponents of toughening policies regulating immigration. “But the parties have not been addressing this problem.” The last to do so was Rodina in the 2005 Moscow city elections; and after that, the Putin regime ordered the systemic parties not to touch this issue lest it spark inter-ethnic conflict.

            But now that the issue of immigrants has captured the minds of so many Russians, the failure of the parliamentary parties to address it seriously means that there is a danger that the Russian people will turn to extra-systemic parties and that there may arise “large protest actins which we have not seen for a long time,” the political scientist says.

            Indeed, he argues, “this is a dangerous situation as it actually was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union.” When officials failed to address problems agitating the people, the people turned to others. Addressing the migrant issue requires the cooperation of all branches of government, but the legislative one, under pressure from the Kremlin, isn’t involved.

            According to Fetisov, Putin’s decision to disband the ministry for nationality affairs was “one of the major mistakes” he has made because it allowed those not focused on the issue of ethnic conflicts to take actions, such as lobbyists for the construction industry, who want to have cheap labor, to take actions that now threaten the country.

Islam's Rise in the Middle Volga Major Defense of Tatar Ethnic Identity, Kazan Scholars Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 19 – Over the last decade, surveys show, ever more Tatars and especially those who are younger have become practicing Muslims; but the rest, who are still in the majority among the Tatar community who have not become more Muslim have been more subject to assimilation into a non-religious “neo-Soviet people.”

            What that means, the Tatar-Bashkir service suggests in a survey of these polls published so far only in Tatar, is that the survival of the Tatar nation likely depends on whether more Tatars turn to Islam fast enough to counter the assimilatory pressures that Moscow hopes will reduce the salience of nationality for them (azatliq.org/a/33030820.html).

            While the article did not discuss whether this pattern holds in other non-Russian nations that historically have professed Islam, the likelihood is high that it does. And that helps to explain what Ruslan Aysin says is Moscow’s decision to try to solve its ethnic problems by portraying Islam as extremist (idelreal.org/a/vystroennaya-strategiya-borby-so-vsem-nerusskim-musulmanskim-ruslan-aysin-o-sobytiyah-poslednih-mesyatsev/33042598.html).

            The Tatar analyst describes how Moscow propagandists in recent weeks have played up a statement by a Kazan Muslim leader saying that men have the right to beat their wives. While that isn’t anathema to Putin and his traditional values, it is something likely to alienate those on the fence in the Muslim republics.

            If Aysin is correct in his analysis, Russia is likely to see a new campaign against Islam featuring any statements by Muslim leaders that Moscow propagandists and other officials can present as extremist in the hope that many nominal Muslims will decide not to become more Islamic and thus remove one of the chief props that has been holding up their ethnic identities.

West Fears Disintegration of Russia Just as It Did in 1918 and 1991 But Must Prepare for It and for a Long Period of Involvement There Afterwards, Berlyand Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 19 – “The military and political defeat of Russia and its disintegration is in the interests not only of Ukraine but of the free world and even in the interests of the peaceful future of a large part of the population of Russia itself,” according to Irina Berlyand, a specialist on culture and language who moved from Moscow to Kyiv eight years ago.

            Because that is so, she argues, the main allies of Ukraine inside Russia or among Russian emigres are not the liberal anti-war and anti-Putin elements in either place but rather the still-captive nations within current Russian borders (svoboda.org/a/irina-berlyand-pro-bratskiy-narod-uzhe-stydno-govoritj-/33033375.html).

            “Unfortunately, almost all Russians and the West do not want to understand” the need for the demolition of the last empire, Berlyand says. Instead, “the West fears the disintegration of the Russian Federation just as it did the disintegration of the Russian Empire in 1918 and feared the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.”

            Those who oppose the disintegration of Russia both within that country and abroad argue that this is either impossible or dangerous because it will leave weapons of mass destruction in the hands of “inadequate” people, arguments that echo those heard a century ago and again in the years leading up to 1991, the expert continues.

            Moreover, anti-Putin people in Russia and many in the West continue to believe that there is “no reason for disintegration” because they think that it is possible a new Gorbachev will emerge, someone who will turn Russia back to the West and at the same time will “prevent the collapse of Russia,” a new leader “with a cool head and a warm heart.”

            But Berlyand says this does not look likely or even desirable as “the chances that a new Gorby will appear are “close to zero.”

            She says that she hopes for the military defeat of Russia but “can’t imagine what it would look like,” although she has serious doubts that it would resemble the defeat of the Third Reich. That led to the occupation of Germany, something that allowed German society to “’overcome Nazism’ under conditions of foreign rule rather than of its own free will.”

            Russia or its parts are unlikely to be occupied in the same way, Berlyand continues; and as a result the overcoming of Putin’s Rassism, “a disease no less dangerous and serious than Nazism,” will take “at least two generations” and require the demilitarization and denuclearization of all of that space.

            The threat of revanchism must also be fought by ensuring that those who have already committed crimes like the war in Ukraine bear criminal liability for their actions – and that will involve not just Putin and a handful of his team but a much larger group and thus require far more efforts by outsiders than they seem willing even to contemplate.

650,000 who Left Because of Putin’s War in Ukraine Remain Abroad, ‘The Bell’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 18 – Some of the Russians who left their homeland after the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine or when the threat of general mobilization appeared greatest have returned, but according to the independent Bell news agency, some 650,000 still remain abroad, a figure far lower than many other estimates have suggested.

            That figure is also far less than the millions who left after 1917, during World War II or immediately after the collapse of the USSR; but it is larger than the number of Jews and ethnic Germans who left in the final decades of Soviet power (thebell.io/issledovanie-the-bell-ob-emigratsii-iz-rossii-novyy-biznes-volozha-i-kak-investoram-vospolzovatsya-snizheniem-stavok and rusmonitor.com/razvilki-relokaczii-dorogi-pyatoj-volny.html).

            This new diaspora consists overwhelmingly of young professionals who are not interested in taking part in any political struggle but only with pursuing their own personal goals. There are exceptions, of course, but they are just that and so this wave is likely to play a much smaller role politically in the West and in Russia than its predecessors.