Russian Courts Convicting Record Numbers for Treason, Espionage, and Crimes by Military Personnel, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has released data on convictions during the first six months of 2024. They show that courts there sentenced record numbers of people for treason, espionage, and crimes committed by military personnel, the Important Stories portal says.

            In the first half of this year, according to the portal’s journalists, “52 people were convicted of treason, 3.5 times more than in the same period a year earlier and more than have been convicted in any whole year since 2015” (istories.media/tanews/2024/10/18/gosizmenniki-shpioni-terroristi/).

            Perhaps more significantly, the court figures show that during the first half of 2024, Russian courts found 6,000 Russian soldiers guilty of various crimes, three times more than in the same period in 2023 and 7.5 times more than for that period in the years preceding Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine.

            The crimes for which Russian servicemen were convicted are increasingly serious and the percentage being sentenced to prison is now 4.5 times greater than was the case in pre-war years (istories.media/en/news/2024/10/15/russian-soldiers-have-become-more-likely-to-receive-real-sentences-as-punishment/).

            Russian courts also sentenced more Russian civilians for terrorism and extremism during the first half of 2024. According to Important Stories, 366 were sentenced for terrorism; and 340 were convicted of extremism, both up by double digits from 2023 and even more when compared with earlier years.

Minnikhanov Visits Memorial to Ivan Grozny’s Soldiers who Died Attacking Kazan Khanate in 1552 Having Earlier Banned Meeting to Remember Its Defenders

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – The Kremlin’s efforts to rein in Tatarstan have just taken another step forward, one certain to undermine its authority among Tatars: Republic head Rustam Minnikhanov has visited a memorial to Russian troops who died during the sacking of the Kazan khanate in 1552 after having earlier banned a meeting of Tatars to remember its defenders.

            Between 1989 and 2021, Tatars assembled every year on October to remember those who died in Kazan fighting the Russian advance. At first, only a few hundred did so and then tens of thousands in the 1990s. But as Putin increasingly moved against the republic, Kazan officials were forced to restrict the size and location of such meetings and then in 2022 to ban them.

            (For this history, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/10/kazan-refuses-to-authorize-meeting-on.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/this-year-tatars-wont-mark-anniversary.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/10/latest-ban-on-tatarstan-memorial-day.html.)

            Over the last decade, the Russian Orthodox Church and Moscow officials have devoted more attention to marking the 1552 battle at a monument built two centuries ago in tsarist times to those Russian soldiers who lost their lives in the course of their conquest of Kazan (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/muscovite-plans-to-memorialize-russians.html).

            And earlier this year, the government of Tatarstan announced that it had allocated 300 million rubles (three million US dollars) to refurbish the Russian monument (m.business-gazeta.ru/news/628522), but few Tatars thought that their own leaders would go there, especially on such a sensitive anniversary.

            Now, however, that has happened, sparking anger among Tatars not only at Minnikhanov who has shown himself increasingly deaf to the demands of the Tatars but at Moscow for its increasingly hostile attitude (idelreal.org/a/dlya-chego-publichno-sech-sebya-ruslan-aysin-o-poseschenii-minnihanovym-hrama-voinam-pogibshim-pri-vzyatii-kazani/33163431.html).

            Minnikhanov’s visit to a Russian shrine may seem a small thing to many outside observers, but it is likely to prove anything but, given that it shows there are apparently no limits to what the Moscow-imposed head of Tatarstan is prepared to do to satisfy the wishes of the Kremlin at the expense of his own nation. 

Putin to Bring Back Stalin-Era Sports Parades in Red Square

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 19 – Vladimir Putin is justly criticized for his Stalinist approach to rule; but in most cases, his approach is analogous to the late Soviet dictator. However, there are exceptions in which the current Kremlin ruler is reviving activities that almost precisely those that Stalin promoted and even subsequent Soviet leaders dropped after his death.

            One of those involves the parades of athletes through Red Square, a practice started in 1919 under Lenin but became annual in 1931 after Stalin had consolidated power and then was immediately dropped in 1953 after he died (moscowtimes.ru/2024/10/19/v-rossii-vozrodyat-stalinskie-sportivnie-paradi-a145389).

            In October 2023, Putin said he favors such celebrations because they can help make sports “a norm of life” for three out of every four residents of the Russian Federation. Now, now he has directed the sports ministry to organize the first of these revivals of a Stalin practice in 2025.

            Such Soviet sports marches in Stalin’s time resembled similar marches in Hitler’s Germany, and this parallel contributed mightily to the conclusion that the two regimes, despite their hostility at one level, were manifestations of the same totalitarian approach. Putin’s revival of these celebrations will likely lead many to draw comparisons with fascist regimes. 

By Denying Russia is Now China’s Junior Partner, Putin Only Calls Attention to that New Reality, ‘Moscow Times’ Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – Sometimes a denial has the effect of calling attention to something than silence would have. Such appears to be the case with Vladimir Putin’s insistence that there is no basis for suggesting that Russia is becoming “the junior partner” of China, to judge from a new article in The Moscow Times.  

            Asked at a press conference at the BRIKS conference in Kazan whether he now considers Moscow to be “the junior partner” of Beijing, Putin said there was no basis for such suggestions because the two countries deal with each other as equals (moscowtimes.ru/2024/10/18/putin-otkazalsya-schitat-rossiyu-mladshim-partnerom-kitaya-a145379).

            The Kremlin leader’s words will disturb both those Russians who have long been accustomed to viewing Russia as the “senior” partner in this relationship and others who will see the statistics the newspaper offers that show both China’s role in Russia and Russia’s dependence on China growing.

            Among the figures The Moscow Times offers are the following:

·       The Russian economy is more dependent on China than that of any other country except for North Korea.

 

·       China is rapidly increasing its presence in the Russian economy, with Chinese firms now accounting for more than a third of all new businesses registered in Russia this year.

 

·       Moscow continues to sell gas to China at discount prices far below what it might be able to get from other countries.

 

·       China now dominates the new car market in Russia but shows no interest in building plants in Russia to manufacture them that might employ Russians.

Plans to Restore Chechen District in Dagestan by 2025 Foundering on Property Disputes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 19 – Moscow and Makhchkala have committed themselves to restoring the Chechen district in Dagestan by 2025, something that would be possible only if most of the ethnic Laks now populating that region are resettled elsewhere. But plans for that have run into difficulties because Lak property owners are insisting on compensation for any takings.

            That district, which runs along Dagestan’s border with Chechnya, existed until 1944 when Stalin deported the Chechens. When the Chechens were permitted to return, the Aukh District was not restored. Instead, it has remained the Novo-Lak district named for the ethnic Laks who had moved there in place of the Chechens.

            After the demise of the USSR, the Chechens were promised both by Moscow and Makhachkala that they would be allowed to restore the Aukh district, that property they had owned there earlier would be restored to them, and that the Laks would be resettled elsewhere in Dagestan.

            But the Laks don’t want to leave unless all of their property claims are satisfied, they are fully compensated for any property they give up, and are provided with equivalent housing and land elsewhere in Dagestan. Not surprisingly, these competing claims are in the courts, with both Chechens and Laks saying they will carry their cases to the highest Russian courts they can.

            That makes it unlikely that this issue can be resolved anytime soon and quite possibly not before 2026 or even later. And it also means that these cases and the human tragedies they reflect will spark more serious conflicts between the Laks and the Chechens, the latter of whom have the backing of Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov.  

            (For the complicated history of this dispute and its growing potential for violence, see  kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/346298/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/banal-corruption-reason-dagestan.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/moscow-and-makhachkala-risk-violence.html.)

Moscow Not Sending Those Convicted of Draft Evasion to Prison, ‘Vyorstka’ Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – One of the more interesting anomalies of Russian judicial action since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine is that in the course of all of 2023 and the first half of 2024, Russian courts did not send to prison any of the 1378 men they convicted of draft evasion, Vyorstka reports.

            Instead, a handful were given suspended sentences or fined 100,000 rubles (1,000 US dollars) or even more, the independent Russian news outlet says, sentences that are unlikely to cause those who want to avoid service to think again (t.me/svobodnieslova/5780 reposted and discussed at nemoskva.net/2024/10/18/ni-odin-uklonist-ne-sel-v-tyurmu/).

            The absence of real sentences for this crime, especially at a time when serving personnel are now receiving them is striking and may very well reflect concerns that imposing harsh sentences for such actions might affect the sons of too many important people or bring the costs of the war home to a larger number of Russians. 

Putin’s Russia Moving toward One Definition of Totalitarianism where Everything Not Permitted is Compulsory, Grashchenkov Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – More than a half a century ago, I was privileged to take the last course Hans J. Morgenthau taught at the University of Chicago. Among the many wise things he said that have remained with me in the years since was his relating of an anecdote about the difference between democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

            Morgenthau said that there were of course many differences but he insisted that the key one was this: in a democratic political system, everything not prohibited is permitted; in an authoritarian regime, everything that not permitted is prohibited; and in a totalitarian one, everything permitted is compulsory.

            His words have come to mind on reading a new comment by Ilya Grashchenkov about Putin’s Russia in which he asks whether “everything that isn’t permitted is going to be prohibited” (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-18/ilya-graschenkov-teper-v-rossii-vse-chto-ne-razresheno-zaprescheno-5225612).

            That is the classic definition of authoritarianism, the head of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy says, and a good description of a political system where the vice speaker of the Duma, Anna Kuznetsova, has declared that it is time to ban not just this or that activity but “destructive information as a whole.”

            Of course, under the terms of Morgenthau’s anecdote, that would simply mean that Russia would be a full-blown authoritarian state. But because Kuznetsova doesn’t propose to specify everything that she thinks is “destructive,” the next step will be to pass a law telling Russians what they must do in all cases, the very definition of totalitarianism.

            Putin has opened the way to this outcome because he routinely talks about things that he either wants to ban or doesn’t define; and so Russians can expect that the Kremlin leader will move on from measures like the one Kuznetsova is now urging to catalogue not of what is banned but of what is permitted and therefore in most cases at least compulsory.

 

Russian Regions Offering Ever Higher Bonuses to Those who Sign Up for Military, Causing Some to Travel to Those who Offer More and Others who Took Lesser Amounts Earlier to Regret They Did, ‘SibReal’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – Rarely a day goes by when one or another region increases the bonuses it is prepared to pay for those who sign up on their territories to serve in the Russian military, a situation that is prompting some men to travel enormous distances to get more money and others, who took lesser amounts earlier, to suffer buyer’s remorse.

            The Kremlin has stimulated this by signaling that it will evaluate governors and lower-ranking officials in terms of how many men they sign up, regardless of whether they are registered as residents of the place where they do (sibreal.org/a/kak-glavy-regionov-sorevnuyutsya-v-verbovke-kontraktnikov-na-voynu/33153191.html).

            This gives some better-off federal subjects real advantages not only in terms of the number of men they will be able to sign up but also in terms of the future prospects of the officials in them who at a minimum can expect to remain at the same level they now are and more likely can expect preferment, while those in poorer regions will have poorer prospects

            But the amounts now being offered are so large that they are having a negative impact on regional budgets; and the rapid rise in such bonuses is having another consequence already that may prove more serious in the future and even make it more difficult for the regions at Moscow’s urging to sign more men up for military service.

            According to several people the SibReal portal spoke with, some men who signed up earlier when bonuses were lower now regret that they did not wait and get still more money. If such attitudes are widespread, that suggests that some men who might be willing to serve will now delay in the hopes that the authorities will offer them even more money to do so.

            That could mean that in the short term at least many regions will face ever greater difficulties in meeting the quotas the Kremlin has assigned them – and that could both harm the recruitment levels Moscow is counting on and the prospects of regional leaders who fall short on this measure. 

Many Russian Schools with Support from Teachers and Parents Already Excluding Immigrant Children, Ghettoizing the Country, ‘Bumaga’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – Last month, the LDPR proposed stripping the children of immigrants without Russian citizenship of the right to free public education, an action that many observers said would create more problems than it would solve and suggested was only a PR move by a party known from them (tass.ru/obschestvo/21787701).

            But an investigation carried out by the independent Bumaga news agency finds that many Russian schools are already refusing to take in such children, leading to their concentration in schools that do accept them and to numerous cases where older immigrant children don’t go to school at all (paperpaper.ru/shkoly-getto-vmesto-socialnyh-liftov/).

            Both of these consequences are leading to the ghettoization of immigrants, to slower adaptation of migrant children to Russian life and to a sometimes violent youth culture that already means that while there are fewer immigrants now than in the past, the problems they pose are growing.

            And while there are no statistics available on how large either of these trends has become, the Bumaga study of the situation in St. Petersburg suggests that both are large and growing and will have a negative impact first on both migrant and non-migrant children in the schools and then on Russian society more generally.

            According to Bumaga, schools, teachers and the parents of non-immigrant children support excluding immigrant children because their presence means that teachers hthe goave to devote more attention to those who do not know Russian well and that attention means that all the students get less training in the subjects the government will test them on.

            If the children do less well, school directors and teachers will not receive higher pay and the parents of all children will do less well on the tests and thus have fewer opportunities to go on to higher education.  Consequently, there is a large group of people who oppose admitting children of non-citizenship immigrants to the schools.

            The solution, Bumaga says, activists and experts say, is to establish special schools for immigrants so as to provide them with the training in the Russian language they need if they are to remain in Russia. But some acknowledge that there is a danger that setting up such schools could also lead to ghettoization as well.

Under Putin, Russia’s Constitutional Court Now ‘a Potemkin Village of a Dictatorial Regime,’ Lukyanova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s Constitutional Court has become “a Potemkin village of a dictatorial regime,” an organ prepared to rubber stamp anything the Kremlin wants and whose decisions are typically ignored by the Duma and treated as a joke by other Russian courts, Elena Lukayanova says.

            The author of a detailed history of the Court between 1992 and 2015 (hse.ru/data/2015/12/14/1134491815/Блохин П.Д. диссертация. 09.12.2015.pdf) tells the Vyorstka news agency that the court tries to appear active by taking up issues not properly its own (https://verstka.media/pochemu-konstitucionniy-sud-nachal-zanimatsia-ne-svoim-delom).

            She says that in the 1990s the situation was very different, and the court’s actions were worthy of study. But now, no one can take it seriously or should devote time to considering what it is doing.  Other experts the independent news agency surveyed seconded Lukyanova’s judgment. 

Any Large-Scale Return of Kyrgyz Workers Now in Russia to Their Homeland will Destabilize It, Kyrgyzstan Deputies Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – Russia’s intensifying anti-immigrant policies and attitudes are leading to the flight of many Central Asian migrant workers to their homelands. There has been a great deal of discussion about the impact of their departure on Russia but far less about what their return to Central Asia will mean for the countries of that region.

            But increasingly Central Asian elites are focusing on the problems that the return of migrant workers who have been in the Russian Federation will create, with ever more suggesting that the return of such people will send incomes plummeting and undermine stability in the region.

            The latest example of such expression of concerns came yesterday from Kyrgyzstan where parliamentarians denounced the mistreatment of Kyrgyz migrants in Russia and expressed fears many of them will now return to their homeland (stanradar.com/news/full/56043-migratsija-mozhet-poshatnut-politicheskuju-stabilnost-kirgizii.html).

            Their return, the deputies said, will seriously reduce incomes in those portions of Kyrgyzstan from which most migrants come, exacerbating social and economic tensions, and even threatening the stability of the country. In fact, the parliamentarians said, there was evidence that this is already happening.

            Officials and commentators in other Central Asian states from which migrant workers to Russia come have said much the same and even begun to think about how they can counter those consequences especially if Moscow does not end but rather intensifies its anti-migrant policies (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/dushanbe-prepares-for-massive-return.html).

As Putin’s War in Ukraine Grinds On, Moscow Cuts Funds for Fighting Cancer for Third Year in a Row

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – The Russian government has slashed spending on fighting cancer each year since the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine. It plans to reduce spending in 2025 to 140 billion rubles (1.4 billion US dollars), down from 153.7 billion rubles (1.53 billion US dollars) in 2023 and 189.6 billion rubles (1.89 billion US dollars) in 2022.

            That will release more money for the war, but these cuts will have the effect of further depressing Russia’s already dire demographic crisis, one that up to now the Kremlin and the Duma have talked a lot about but have taken measures that won’t compensate for the additional deaths these cuts will lead to (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-16/pavel-pryanikov-nado-vnesti-yasnost-v-kampaneyschinu-po-demografii-5223501).

            In addition to cuts in spending on treating cancer, Moscow also has announced even deeper cuts in spending on medical care for those suffering from circulatory illnesses and other major diseases as well on the construction and reconstruction of medical facilities in which such people might be treated (rbc.ru/society/16/10/2024/670d28b69a7947654366da44).

            Such cuts will lead to more deaths from these serious illnesses, reducing life expectancies among older people on which Russia increasingly relies for boosting that figure (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/despite-increased-deaths-among-young.html) and worsen Russia’s demographic crisis, yet another consequence of the war in Ukraine for Russians.

Patrushev Using New Position to Promote Changes in Russian Naval Policies that Threaten the West

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – When Putin transferred Nikolay Patrushev from his position as secretary of the Russian Security Council and appointed him as a presidential assistant in charge of the restored Naval Collegium, many saw that as a clear demotion and even suggested it might cause Putin to challenge Putin.

            Those suggestions (cf. windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/06/putins-recent-personnel-moves-threaten.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/newly-elevated-naval-collegium-to.html) have overshadowed and distracted attention from a more important development.

            As Vzglyad commentator Aleksandr Timokhin argues, Patrushev has used his new position to promote the rebuilding of Russian naval and merchant marine capacity and to lead Putin to adopt a far more aggressive stance against the West on the world’s oceans (vz.ru/society/2024/10/17/1292275.html).

            Indeed, he implies, Patrushev may have emerged from his supposed demotion in an even stronger position and one with more immediate and troubling consequences to the West than even his sometimes paranoid denunciations of what he sees the West as doing inside Russia (e.g., jamestown.org/program/kremlin-worried-about-ukrainian-wedges-inside-russia/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/newly-elevated-naval-collegium-to.html).

            In his new position, Patrushev has been working to overcome three major obstacles to Russia’s becoming a major naval power: the longstanding Russian focus on the army rather than the navy as the basis of its strength, serious problems in Russian shipbuilding, and the paucity of exercises that can serve to intimidate others by highlighting Russia’s strength in this area.

            As Timokhin notes, these three problems have combined to lead to the decline of the Russian fleet since Soviet times, leaving the country’s navy with only approximately a quarter of the ships in the American navy and meaning that there is not a single book in recent times on the uses of the Russian fleet in non-nuclear conflicts with the West.

            Putin has put Patrushev in this position to overcome these problems, the commentator continues; and Patrushev has the knowledge and energy to achieve far more in this regard than the Russian naval leadership has achieved in recent decades, putting it on course to be far better able to respond to and challenge the navies of the West. 

Estonian Parliament Says Stalin’s Deportation of Crimean Tatars was a Genocide and that Moscow is Continuing that Crime Against Humanity in Russian Occupied Crimea

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 16 – On the occasion of the 80^th anniversary of Stalin’s deportation of 200,000 Crimean Tatars from their homeland, the Estonian parliament voted overwhelmingly to denounce that action and point out to the world that Putin is continuing that policy in Russian-occupied Crimea.

            The Riigikogu condemned the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars during which many of them died and from which they were able to return only in November 1989 (rus.err.ee/1609492547/rijgikogu-priznal-massovuju-deportaciju-krymskih-tatar-genocidom and riigikogu.ee/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Zayavlenie-Rijgikogu-Priznanie-massovoj-deportatsii-krymskih-tatar-1944-goda-aktom-genotsida-RU.pdf).

            But it went further and declared that the Russian Federation is continuing this act of genocide since it occupied Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, demanded that this criminal policy be ended and said that the territorial integrity of Ukraine must be restored there and elsewhere as well.

            The Estonian deputies called on the international community to show solidarity with the Crimean Tatars and continue to denounce the annexation of Crimea that has been carried out by the Russian Federation, the continuing genocide of the Crimean Tatar nation, and the restoration of their land.

            This is the ninth Riigikogu declaration about Ukraine since Putin began his expanded war there in February 2022. In these others, the Estonian parliament condemned Russia for its genocide against the Ukrainian people and declared that Moscow under Putin is a terrorist regime.

            The Estonian parliament also has spoken out in favor of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO and the bringing before an international tribunal all those Russian officials responsible for crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

            The Estonian deputies have thus shown more courage than their counterparts in other Western countries even though Estonia shares a common border with the Russian Federation and many observers say that it could be Putin’s next target for invasion if he succeeds in defeating Ukraine.   

Abortion Rates, Down by Almost 90 Percent Since End of Soviet Times, Continue to Fall Across Russia Except in Tyva and Moscow, Sakevich and Denisov Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 16 – Abortion rates in the Russian Federation have fallen by almost 90 percent in the Russian Federation since the end of Soviet times, as other means of contraception have become widely available, according to new research by Viktoriya Sakevich of the Higher School of Economics and Boris Denisov of Moscow State University.

            There are two exceptions to this trend, according to the two demographers who have focused on abortion for many years: Moscow where the large number of migrant workers has pushed the number of abortions up in recent times and Tyva which has not yet passed through the birth control revolution that has taken place elsewhere.

            As the number of migrant workers in Moscow declines or at least as efforts to keep those who are allowed to come from bringing their families with them and as Tyva undergoes the kind of demographic revolution that access to other prophylactic measures more common, these anomalies will decline and eventually disappear.

            But instead of taking such findings seriously and relying on anecdotes largely from the Russian capital, Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid says, the Kremlin has decided to move toward restricting access to or even banning abortions altogether (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/21079 resposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=670F57404D248).

            This pattern, El Murid suggests, is typical of the Kremlin’s approach when it comes to demographic questions. It is failing to pay attention to what is really going on and why, and it is regularly fighting the wrong battles as a result, often devoting its attention and energies to battles that Russia has already won or can’t possibly hope to win by the means the Kremlin has chosen.

Moscow Now Seeking to Kill Off Finno-Ugric Peoples in Russian Federation, Estonian Deputy Warns

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 16 – Russia has a long history of repressing Finno-Ugric nations; but since Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has intensified this effort to the point where one can now say Moscow is seeking to kill off these nations by depriving them of their languages and their contacts with Finno-Ugric countries abroad, Juku-Kalle Raid says.

            Moscow has always worried about the Finno-Ugric nations within its borders, despite their small size, because they sit on top of some of the largest reserves of natural resources in the Russian Federation, the head of the Finno-Ugric support group in the Estonian parliament says (elu24.postimees.ee/8116261/elu25-juku-kalle-raid-venemaa-spikker-kuidas-tappa-meie-sugulasi and mariuver.com/2024/10/17/kak-ubivat-nashih-rodstvennikov/#more-79033).

            And it believes that Western attention to them is intended to deprive Moscow of its access to these resources and thus weaken the Russian state, a view that has been pushed not only by Russian commentators but increasingly by Russian officials as well as they have undermined both the languages and contacts of these groups.

            Moscow has cut back the study of these languages in schools in Finno-Ugric republics to an hour a day and that is available only to pupils whose parents apply for it, something that ensures these parents will be closely followed by the FSB. But even that possibility is not available to many members of these nations who live beyond their republic borders.

            Consequently, Raid continues, Moscow has seriously reduced the number of Finno-Ugric nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation who speak their native languages. And over the last five years and especially over the last three, Moscow has focused on isolating these nations from the three Finno-Ugric countries – Estonia, Finland and Hungary.

            Since 2020, Moscow has blocked Finno-Ugric groups from participating in conferences on the Finno-Ugric world in Estonia, the country that has organized the most frequent meetings, and has declared groups inside the Russian Federation who attempt to maintain ties extremist, Raid says.

            Despite these Russian efforts, the Estonian parliamentarian suggests, it is critically important for Estonia, the two other Finno-Ugric nations and the West more generally to continue to support the Finno-Ugric nations within Russia lest Putin use his war in Ukraine as cover for the ethnocide of those peoples. 

Russia Can’t Become a North Korea or Iran Despite Hopes of Some and Fears of Others, Nikulin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 15 – Many Russians fear that the efforts of the Putin regime to isolate their country from the world will leave it like Moscow’s new allies, North Korea and Iran, but such fears ignore the enormous difference between those two countries and Russia, differences that mean Russia will never become like them, Andrey Nikulin says.

            The Russian philosopher points out that North Korea “was built from nothing, on the ruins of a post-colonial country that had been destroyed by war” and that Iran, after the 1979 revolution forced into emigration the thin layer of Westernized elites (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-16/andrey-nikulin-pochemu-rossiya-ne-smozhet-stat-iranom-ili-severnoy-koreey-5222860).

            As a result, both the one and the other could function more or less well on the basis of populations that were already predisposed to be isolated from the world, Nikulin continues, a far different situation than the one that Russia, with its experience of communism and Westernization, now does.

            Russia today, however much some may want  it to self-isolate, lacks the possibility of doing so and to completely isolate itself from the outside world, he suggests. “If more primitive societies, like primitive organisms, sacrificing part of their cells, could relatively easily adapt to such changes, in some ways without even noticing them,” Russia can’t do so.

            According to Nikulin, “Russia with all its problems is a much more highly developed organism that is integrated into the surrounding space, and as such, cannot afford to lose its nervous or circulatory systems and at the same time feel as carefree as a worm cut in half can,” the situation of North Korea and Iran.

“No amount of propaganda can weed out the conditioned reflex [in Russia] of going to Wikipedia in search of answers to questions, removing from the consciousness the meager understanding of decency and the rudiments of humanism taken from Western culture, or making its population forget about the existence of complex technology or gadgets.”

Moreover, although it is seldom commented upon, “even its imperialists and chauvinists, broadcast the remnants of European and American ultra-conservative thought,” a characteristic of Russian society when “coupled with many other factors — blocks the possibility of degradation of society so serious as to slide down to the level of our new ‘friends.’”

Consequently, the pursuit of isolation will “either finish off both society and the cuntry itself half way to Iranian or North Korean ideals or force it, when the risk of the physical end of the state becomes obvious, simply out of a sense of self-preservation to turn around and wander back into a dull future, one illuminated by the light of a Western sun.”

Despite Hype, Baku and Tehran Still Far from Agreement on Railway Connecting Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan via Iran

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 15 – Rovshan Rustamov, head of Azerbaijan Railways, says he and his Iranian opposite number, Ali Zaqeri Sardrudi, have agreed on the construction of a railway from Azerbaijan proper to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan via Iranian territory. But experts say they are still far apart on key issues.

            Given warming relations between Baku and Tehran and Armenia’s refusal to open a land corridor via Zengezur (casp-geo.ru/predstaviteli-azerbajdzhana-i-irana-obsudili-mezhparlamentskoe-sotrudnichestvo/), many observers have taken Rustamov’s declaration at face value and seen it as clearing the way for the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty.

            But Farkhad Mamedov, director of Baku’s South Caucasus Research Center and an advisor to Russia’s Valdai Club, says the two governments are still far apart on key issues that must be resolved before this alternative to the Zengezur corridor could open (vestikavkaza.ru/news/baku-i-tegeran-dogovarivautsa-o-zeleznodoroznom-zangezurskom-koridore.html).

            The three most important are these: first, the two have not agreed on financing; second, they haven’t agreed who will take the lead in building it since Iran doesn’t have railways in the region in question; and third, and perhaps most serious of all, they haven’t agreed whether the route will be the international gage Iran uses or the Soviet Russian gage Azerbaijan does.

            If this route were to be international gage as Iran wants, that would mean that Azerbaijan cargoes would have to transfer from the Russian gage to the Iranian one and then back to the Russian gage in the course of any passage between the two parts of Azerbaijan, something that would make this route far less attractive to Baku.

            For background on what some have called the Arax route, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/could-arax-corridor-put-end-to-zengezur.html.

Moscow’s Compatriots Program Attracting Ever Fewer Returnees, Interior Ministry Figures Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 14 – The Russian government program for resettling compatriots who return to their homeland has collapsed by 80 percent since the Crimean Anschluss with the number doing so having fallen from 45,500 in 2015 to 4500 in the first half of 2024, according to official figures from the Russian interior ministry.

             According to Galina Ragozina, an expert with the Resettlement Organizations Forum, Moscow has only itself to blame. The fallout from its war in Ukraine, increasing hostility to immigrants as a whole, and the need for compatriots to take language exams have all pushed the numbers down (ng.ru/politics/2024-10-14/1_9114_migration.html).

            Other experts point to related difficulties. Mikhail Burda, a Moscow scholar who serves as an advisor to the World Russian Popular Assembly, says that many compatriots are afraid to return lest they be forced to serve in the Russian military and be sent to fight in Putin’s war in Ukraine.

            And Aleksey Yesakov, vice president of the Coordination Center for Support of Compatriots Abroad, says that Russians now living in “unfriendly” countries face problems with processing documents and enormous costs of moving from where they are now living back to Russia.

            He urged the government to create a special ombudsman for compatriots who would promote their interests and also for Moscow to reduce or eliminate consular fees for processing them if they apply to return to Russia and must secure translations of official documents proving their status.

Duma Votes to Increase Penalties for Russians who Engage in Armed Uprisings from 20 Years Imprisonment to Life Behind Bars

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 15 – The Duma has passed on first reading a new law that will increase the maximum penalty for those who engage in armed uprisings from 20 years to life if these actions result in deaths or “especially serious consequences.” The minimum penalty for participation in such uprisings remains unchanged at 12 years behind bars.

            Deputies said they had been considering such an increase in penalties since June 2023 when the Wagner revolt happened, but it remains unclear whether the passage of this measure now reflects simply the length of time it has taken the parliamentarians to act or instead highlights growing fears among the powers that be (ehorussia.com/new/node/31705).

            Even if the latter is not the case, the passage of this law may simultaneously frighten many supporters of the regime who will assume that they are likely to become targets or opponents who may assume that this is a sign that the regime is weakening and thus becoming more paranoid.

            That combination of conclusions does not promise well for the future stability of Russia, and thus the passage of this measure may have exactly the opposite impact that its authors and those who support it in the Kremlin hope for.   

Putin’s Call for Restoration of Traditional Values Dangerous Because Such Values are So Varied and at Odds with Existing Social Structures, Grashchenkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 14 – Calls by the Putin regime for the restoration of traditional values are inherently dangerous because the values of the past are so varied that the advocates of one will almost invariably come into conflict with the advocates of another, Ilya Grashchenkov says; and that will force the regime to move back to those of contemporary society.

            Indeed, the president of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy says, there are signs of the emergence of so many different traditions that it won’t be long before the Putin regime or its successor will be compelled to change course (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-15/ilya-graschenkov-kakoy-obraz-zhizni-schitat-v-rossii-chelovecheskim-5221743).

            It has turned out that various groups in Russia are seeking to restore various traditions, ranging from blood feuds to playing at being animals, a pattern that has highlighted both the fact that “traditional values” are too varied and that promoting them in general will spark conflicts among them.

            The Putin regime may believe that it can control the situation and impose only one form of traditional values, but that belief is without much foundation if the Kremlin tries to impose values at odds with the social structure of the country as when it seeks to have urban Russians procreate at the same level as rural ones in a country that is 75 percent urban.

            As a result of both these conflicts and these obstacles, Grashchenkov says, Moscow will have to back away from its call for traditional values and move toward ones more in congruence with society as it actually exists and in order to avoid having groups of extremists seize on calls for traditional values to promote ideas at odds with the regime.

 

Neither Russians nor Western Specialists on Russia are Prepared to Face Up to the Reality that Russia is an Empire which Must Be Decolonized, Margolis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Russians insist that their country has never been a colonial empire like other empires and thus that therefore it doesn’t need any decolonization and that calls for that are a personal attack on Russian identity, according to Radio Liberty commentator Yekaterina Margolis.

            That attitude unites Russians from the most passionate supporters of Putin to most of his most passionate opponents, she says, but more than that, it infuses the thinking of most but fortunately not all of Western specialists on Russia to this day (svoboda.org/a/razbityy-gorshok-ekaterina-margolis-o-rossiyskom-kolonializme/33153734.html).

            “Western experts on Russia are formed in Slavic departments where this imperial narrative and Russian-centricity were and remain the norm. Professors who sent time in (anti)Soviet Moscow kitchens absorbed the very same Russian views in which the image of Russia as the largest colonial empire was absent in principle,” Margolis says.

            She adds that “of course, there are exceptions: the work of Ewa Thompson, Richard Pipes or the great book, Natasha’s Dance: a Cultural History of Russia by British historian Orlando Figes and his recent The Story of Russia, but they haven’t changed the general situation in Slavic studies of public consciousness.”

            This is the case not least because “Russia invests so much effort and provides support for the myth about its special cultural and historical greatness, its exceptional nature and especially its mysterious quality,” something that precludes both investigations and even questions about Russian imperialism. Decolonization of this knowledge is critical if progress is to be made.

            In support of her arguments, Marolis cites a recent article by Olena Apchel, a Ukrainian theater director and activist who is now fighting in the Ukrainian military against Russian invaders (“Deep Trauma and Intellectual Laziness,” in Ukrainian, at lb.ua/culture/2024/09/20/635574_glibinna_travma_intelektualna.html).

            Russians and Western specialists on Russia feel real discomfort when anyone suggests that Russia is an empire and like all empires must ultimately be decolonized. Instead, they hold onto a vision of Russia as something apart that is not to be subject to the same processes that have taken place elsewhere.

“This lack of a view of equals [among European intellectuals in relation to Ukrainians] obviously has its basis in the imperial past, it clearly shows solidarity with hidden chauvinistic gigantism (lost for the Germans and not lost for the Russians), this view rests on habits, on a long-established Eurocentric view, based on the great fear of a repeat of world war.”

“And this,” Apchel continues, “of course, has as its basis a subconscious resistance to the very idea of ​​​​granting the right to subjectivity to cultures that were colonized in the past … Humanity is only now beginning to realize that it is the responsibility of old empires to study the languages ​​and cultures of countries on the periphery. And not [as now] the other way around.”  

Margolis continues: “Epistemological decolonization is thus relevant not only for Russians, but also in the West … It must go hand in hand with the de-imperialization of the very structure of knowledge about Russia and the analysis of the imperial roots of its culture and history.”

If that doesn’t happen, she argues, “Harvard or Oxford graduates will not only be used in secret by Kremlin propaganda but will themselves contiues to work to maintain Russian imperial dominance.”

There are some signs that this view of Russia is beginning to break down in the West. Perhaps the most important of these, Margolis says, was the April 18 Council of Europe resolution on the decolonization of Russia which declares that Russia is an empire not a federation and that its peoples are being subject to the worst forms of colonial oppression.

But that is only a first step, and far more needs to be done if first specialists on Russia and then the Russians themselves are to end their denial about Russia as an empire and support its victims by supporting its decolonization.