Russia Destroying Itself by Trying to Maintain Its Former Empire, Eppl Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – Overcoming an imperial past is never easy for any country, Nikolay Eppl says, because it requires the rejection of the imperial ideas that had been at the core of national identity and the acceptance of the genuine independence of former colonies that the metropolitan center had long considered its own.

            The Russian analyst, who now lives in the Netherlands and is the author of the 2020 book An Inconvenient Past, says that Russia has not done either and still believes that what was once Moscow’s must remain part of Russia’s patrimony and control or Russia itself will disintegrate (svoboda.org/a/nikolay-epple-neprorabotannoe-proshloe-privelo-k-voyne-/32941550.html).

            That has led Moscow to war in Ukraine; but that conflict, Eppl insists, will not save Russia but ultimately destroy it -- yet another case in the long history of how dying empires have hastened their end by insisting that the past must remain in place, refusing to recognize new realities, and not redefining itself to fit into the new world.

Putin Refused to Take Advantage of What Elections Can Do for an Authoritarian Regime and Will Suffer as a Result, Belyayeva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – Elections in autocratic states like Russia today can be extremely useful to their rulers as tests of loyalty among officials and in the population and as guides to changing either officials or policies in order to remain in effective control, Nina Belyayeva argues.

            But if the regimes do not make use of them in that way, the former HSE professor of constitutional law who now lives in the Republic of Georgia says, then those regimes will become ever more repressive and descend into stagnation (nemoskva.net/2024/05/12/vybory-kak-test-sistemy-chego-ne-smog-putin-i-chto-pokazala-protestnaya-publika/).

            Unfortunately, Belyayeva says, the Putin regime is a classic example of a regime that has failed to use elections even in ways useful to its own survival and therefore will become ever more repressive, ever less responsive to changes in society, and ever more stagnant the longer it remains in place, all things that will only hasten its end.

            But the problem is even deeper than that, she continues. Putin so far has been able to maintain control but he is losing the trust of the population. Therefore, while she is not insisting that Putin has “lost the levels of power … he has lost the trust and instead of the expected growth in the level of his legitimacy, it has fallen.”

            And with that decline, Belyayeva argues, there has been an increase in protest sentiments, “something extremely dangerous for an authoritarian regime which relies on obedience, fear and silence.” That is “just the tip of the iceberg” but no less powerful just because it remains covert and takes the form of jokes and memes.

            It may be difficult to imagine just what this protest will look like when it raises its head, but that will definitely happen, she suggests. And as it does, there will be those within the regime will who take notice and press those above them to adapt precisely to save themselves and the regime.

            If the autocrat continues to ignore even their advice, things will end in “an explosion,” Belyayeva concludes.

Russianization of Services in Tatar Mosques Sparking Sharp Debate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – As recently as the end of Soviet times, the mosques of Moscow conducted services in Tatar because that was the language of the dominant Muslim community in the Russian capital, with the mosques there shifting to the use of Russian only when the influx of immigrants from Central Asian republics made that a requirement.

            In Tatarstan itself, until the last decade or so, the services in almost all mosques were in Tatar; but there too, that has begun to change with many mosques, especially in urban areas, already shifting to Russian or at a minimum offering simultaneous Russian translations of the Tatar service.

            This shift has sparked a sharp debate on a telegram channel, with some saying spreading the faith is more important than the language used and others insisting that this shift in language in the mosques will help kill off Tatar and destroy the nation as well as the faith (milliard.tatar/news/propoved-v-meceti-na-tatarskom-yazyke-kakie-dovody-za-i-protiv-privodyat-protivniki-i-storonniki-5475).

            Those who welcome or at least don’t oppose the shift from Tatar to Russian say that many of the faithful are either Russians or Tatars who no longer use Tatar regularly and that it should not be the job of the mosque to promote the national language but rather to maintain and spread Islam.

            But those who oppose this trend argue that unless the mosques continue to use Tatar, they will be helping Moscow destroy the Tatar language and the Tatar nation and even that the shift to Russian will lead to a shift to Christianity and to an even more rapid destruction of the Tatar nation.

             Among the most interesting suggestions of those who oppose the Russianization of Muslim services in Tatarstan is that Kazan should insist that Tatar should again be written in the Arabic script as it was before 1917, something that would make it easier for Tatars to learn Arabic and would defend them against Russianization more generally.

Is Baku Branch of ROC MP Positioning Itself to Seek Autocephaly?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – Ever more Russian Orthodox churches in the former union republics, even those where the number of congregants and parishes of such denominations are vanishingly small are putting themselves in position to at the very least threaten to pursue autocephaly. The latest to do so appears to be the Baku bishopric of the ROC MP.

            Problems between the Moscow Patriarchate and its branch in Azerbaijan have been growing. Moscow was furious that the previous head of the ROC MP in Baku had celebrated Azerbaijan’s retaking of Azerbaijan and in choosing a new head earlier this year passed over the cleric most had expected to assume that job and named a locum tens instead (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/moscow-patriarchate-faces-mounting.html).

            But since that time, relations between the Baku church and Moscow have deteriorated. Most importantly, the Baku branch has changed the language of services in its churches from Russian to Azerbaijani even though most of its congregants are Russians (versia.ru/dostizheniya-arxiepiskopa-rpc-feofilakta-v-azerbajdzhane-ne-ubedili-sinod).

            Baku took this step reportedly without consulting the influential Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the South Caucasus and apparently without getting the approval of Moscow for a move that puts it on collision course not only with the Patriarchate but with the increasingly active Roman Catholic church there.

            Moreover, according to the Versiya report, the new leaders of the church and along with them the Azerbaijani government very much wanted the head of the ROC MP in Azerbaijan to be headed by a metropolitan rather than a mere bishop but did not get their way, at least up to now; and that is becoming a source of irritation in Baku.

            And there is another issue that separates Baku and Moscow. Some in the Baku church want to stress the Christian nature of Alania, the state that existed prior to the consolidation of nations in the South Caucasus, by celebrating Orthodox saints from that state; but Moscow and some in Baku fear that doing so will add to problems among the countries there.

            None of this necessarily means that the Baku Orthodox leadership is about to pursue autocephaly; but taken together, they suggest that that denomination or at least its leadership in cooperation with the Azerbaijani government wants to pursue a more independent course, another defeat for the Moscow church and one the Ecumenical Patriarchate will certainly exploit.

Putin-Era Official Art Not ‘Socialist Realism 2.0,’ Cultural Specialists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 12 – Given Putin’s revival of many aspects of the Soviet past, many are quick to label the official art his regime has been promoting as “socialist realism 2.0,” but specialists on Russian culture say that is inappropriate because in two important ways, the situation in Russian art today is fundamentally different than was the case in Soviet times.

            On the one hand, these experts say, socialist realism was about promoting a communist future by downplaying current problems, pointing to the ways in which everything in the USSR was getting better and better and offering up positive heroes looking to the future for emulation (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/05/12/novoe-pokolenie-nuzhdaetsia-v-polozhitelnom-geroe).

            Putin’s official art in contrast is based not on a vision of the future toward which Russia is moving but on a conception of Russia in which continuity with the past defines everything; and as a result, there is no possibility of offering a positive hero who is struggling to achieve a new and better future.

            And on the other hand, the Soviet system was bureaucratized to the point that Kremlin orders for socialist realism could be realized and faced few competitors. The Soviet regime decided what the country was striving for and made sure that any critics were silenced or at least marginalized.

            Today, these organizations are missing, profit seeking dominates over promotion of this or that message, and the regime is so far incapable of excluding other messages provided by art either through the Internet or other means. As a result, official art now can meet demands for escapism but not provide the kind of messaging socialist realism did.

Two Lessons of Soviet Collapse Russian Elites Must Learn to Avoid a Repetition, Delyagin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – Most Russians now recognize that the Soviet system collapsed for political rather than economic reasons, Mikhail Delyagin says; but many of the latter remain unexamined, a pattern that if it continues could threaten the current Russian political system in the future.

            Two are particularly important now given the challenges the Russian Federation currently faces, the Moscow commentator and Duma deputy says, the Soviet Union’s lack of a mechanism for the renewal of elites and the regime’s increasingly out-of-date view of the working class (zavtra.ru/blogs/povestka_dnya_42_znat_i_pomnit_politicheskie_uroki_kraha_sssr).

            According to Delyagin, the lack of a mechanism for the renewal of elites is the more often cited of these, even though most Russians fail to recognize that Stalin sought to introduce competition via the 1936 constitution and that the nomenklatura responded by a fratricidal struggle known to history as “the Great Terror.”

            The failure of the Soviet elite to understand that the working class had fundamentally changed led to a conflict between the Kremlin and the creative class is less often referred to but may be even more critical for what happens in the future given that many at the top of the Russian political spectrum still do not understand the changes in the working class.

            As several commentators have noted, Delyagin says, in Soviet times, “the party apparatus knew that it had to serve the working class but did not see the fundamental change in the nature of that class as a result of the scientific and technological revolutions.” Instead, it continued to base itself on the older industrial image of the working class, a group that was ever smaller.

            The nomenklatura’s focus on the industrial portion of the working class kept the leadership from recognizing that that group had changed “from a progressive force into a reactionary one” and meant that Moscow came in conflict with the state and “the advanced part of society,” the technical intelligentsia, and made it “an involuntary enemy of the state.”

            At the end of Soviet times, he continues, “the hostility of the party nomenklatura toward the technical intelligentsia was also caused by a reorientation of the economy from cost reduction toward income growth” as “inflating costs turned out to be a simpler and more natural way for monopolies to increase income.”

            “That in turn,” Delyagin writes, “reduced the interest of the powers to implement new technologies … Indeed, the very term ‘implementation’ expressed with a discouraging frankness the unnaturalness of any progress for the ossified management system.”  Unfortunately, that lesson has not yet been learned, and the disasters of the past could thus be repeated.

Russian Samizdat Today ‘isn’t Underground Literature as in Soviet Times but a Form of Contemporary Art,’ ‘Meduza’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 10 – Samizdat, the Russian term for self-published material, was widespread in the last decades of the Soviet Union and served as an important means for making available works that communist government didn’t approve of and the ideas of those who hoped to change or even overthrow that regime.

            With the end of censorship and the rise of the Internet, samizdat almost completely disappeared. And the final nail in its coffin appeared to be a 2001 Russian law that allowed anyone to publish any work without official permission as long as some typographer agreed and the number of copies involved was 999 or less.

            But increasing repression under Vladimir Putin and the increasing unwillingness of printing firms to publish materials likely to get those who agree to do so in trouble, samizdat has reemerged in Russia, although much of it is not so much political as artistic, a sharp contrast with Soviet times.

            The Meduza news portal surveys this development by means of an interview with Anna Dial, an artist and the founder of The Unknown Person publishers (unknownperson.art/) (meduza.io/feature/2024/05/10/rossiyskiy-samizdat-segodnya-ne-podpolnaya-literatura-kak-v-sssr-a-vid-sovremennogo-iskusstva).

            Dial, who has chosen to leave Russia, says that most of the materials publishers like hers issue are experimental art rather than political; but she suggests that as repression has increased since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine that has begun to change and more and more of these publications do feature explicitly political content.

            Among the many points she makes about this phenomenon, one is especially noteworthy. Almost none of the products of this new samizdat ever find their way in the regular media or the Internet. As a result, they remain below the radar screens of both the regime and of those who hope to understand what the Kremlin is doing. 

Once Popular Radio Armenia Jokes have All But Disappeared

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 13 – Before the collapse of the USSR, jokes that took the form of “Armenian Radio is asked” and then provided an answer were among the most popular forms of humor among Soviet citizens; but now, they have all but disappeared even among Armenians who have moved abroad and have tried to keep that tradition alive.

            One of the reasons that this form of joke was so popular is the range of topics it involved. Some Radio Armenia jokes were critical of the Soviet experience – according to one, Radio Armenia was asked whether mankind could build communism to which it replied that it could but that it would be better to try it with test rats first.

            But others were not or at least ambiguous, with one particularly well known joke specifying that Radio Armenia was asked where the borders of the Soviet Union are to which it replied that they were anywhere Moscow wanted them to be. Perhaps for that reason, they were less often the target of persecution and were rumored to be favorites of Leonid Brezhnev.

            In a new article about this phenomenon, Armenian journalist Mamikon Babayan discusses the rise and fall of such jokes and why they are unlikely to make a comeback under the conditions of post-Soviet realities (vestikavkaza.ru/articles/cto-takoe-armanskoe-radio-i-imeet-li-ono-otnosenie-k-armenii.html).

            According to Babayan, Radio Armenia jokes didn’t have their origin in Armenia, although he acknowledges that some claimed they had grown out of a mistake by a real Yerevan radio broadcaster who once observed that “in the capitalist world, man exploits man, while in the socialist one, things are just the reverse.”

            But other researchers say that such jokes emerged and were called Radio Armenia jokes because the residents of that South Caucasus republic listened more often to Western music than did the residents of other republics and supposedly were subjected to less censorship by the authorities.

            At the time of glasnost, Radio Armenia jokes became more. One of the last Radio Armenia jokes that spread across the USSR went as follows: “Radio Armenia is asked: ‘Is it possible to make love on the street?’ Radio Armenia answers: ‘yes, its possible but difficult because passers-by will interfere with advice.”

            But as Babayan observes, the popularity of such jokes faded not only because television became freer and then the Internet spread but also because such “jokes were relevant only in the context of the Soviet cultural paradigm.” As a result, even efforts by Armenian comics to keep them alive have largely failed.  

Moscow Won’t Break Diplomatic Ties with Baltic States Because Its Embassies Defend Russian Speakers There, Zakharova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 10 – In another sign of its contempt for attack on the existing international order which is based on citizenship rather than ethnicity or language, Mariya Zakharova, Russian foreign ministry spokesman, says that Moscow won’t break diplomatic ties with the Baltic countries because its embassies in those countries defend Russian speakers.

            She adds that those include but are larger than the numbers of citizens of the Russian Federation who reside there, another example of the way in which Russian government institutions are subverting other countries by seeking to mobilize those who aren’t its citizens but do speak the language of ‘the Russian world’ (ria.ru/20240505/pribaltika-1943931610.html).

            Zakharova’s words were expanded upon by Sergey Belyayev, head of the Russian foreign ministry department which oversees relations with the Baltic countries. He says that “Russia does not have the moral right” to neglect such compatriots in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2024/05/11/1036529-moralnogo).

Moscow Kept Bandera’s Two Sisters in Siberian Exile for Almost 50 Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 10 – Evidence of just how deep Moscow’s hostility runs to Ukrainians who resist Russia or even those who are close relatives of those who do is highlighted by the case of Oksana and Marta Bandera, two sisters of Ukrainian partisan leader Stepan Bandera, who were kept in Siberian exile decades after others Stalin sent there were allowed to return.

            Olga Sorokina, a journalist for the SibReal portal, tells their story, no easy task given that the number of those who knew them is rapidly dwindling and the Russian FSB still refuses to release their files to researchers  (sibreal.org/a/ni-mogily-ni-pamyati-sestry-stepana-bandery-proveli-v-sibirskoy-ssylke-pochti-50-let/32650348.html).

            Marta, born in 1907, and Oksana, born in 1917, both became teachers in their native Western Ukraine. They were arrested along with their father, who was executed, and then sent into exile in Krasnoyarsk Kray. They were forced to work but not given food and survived only as the result of the assistance of friends.

            In 1960, the two were freed from their status as “special settlers,” the Soviet term for exiles. But in contrast to most others, the two Ukrainian women had a special note placed in their documents that this action did not mean that they had the right to return to the place from which they had been exiled.

            Thus, the two Ukrainian women, whose only “crime” was being related to Stepan Bandera, remained in exile, Marta until her death in 1983 and Oksana until 1990 when friends of the family came to her place of exile and brought her and the remains of her sister home to Ukraine.

            Thus, Marta spent 42 years in exile; and Oksana, 49, terms far longer than they would have received from any crime except being related to Stepan. In Ukraine, Oksana received many honors and much support. She died in 2008. The sister’s brother, Stepan, was murdered in Munich by a KGB agent in 1959.

Putin Goes Far Beyond Stalin in Defending All Russian Actions against Non-Russians, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 10 – Vladimir Putin’s new decree goes far beyond Stalin in defending all Russian actions against non-Russians past and present and in insisting that non-Russians must have as their heroes not those who allied themselves with Russians but only those who abjectly subordinated themselves to Russian leadership, Kharun (Vadim) Sidorov says.

            As such, the Prague-based specialist on nationality policy says, Putin’s words take to a new and normative level ideas which the Kremlin leader and his supporters have been talking about for some time (idelreal.org/a/kreml-sobralsya-perepisyvat-istoriyu-narodov-rossii/32940606.html).

            His May 8 decree – for background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/05/putin-declares-ethnic-russians-state.html – declares that “the peoples of Russia are a single cultural community of the Russian world,” thus violating the provisions of the 1993 Constitution and a raft of international agreements the Kremlin has signed.

            But even more important than that, Sidorov continues, are several other provisions of the decree. Paragraph 5 specifies that “Russia is a great country with a centuries’ long history, a state civilization which unites together ethnic Russian and many other peoples on the space of Eurasia into a single cultural-historical community.”

            This formulation not only denies the subjecthood of the non-Russians that was recognized by the Soviets and is enshrined in the constitution but “actually denies the self-determination of particular peoples of Russia not only in the form of independent states but even in the form of an equal union of the peoples of Russia.”

            The various peoples of the Russian Federation in Putin’s understanding are now to be “viewed not as a union (federal) political community, the ideology of which corresponded to the concept of ‘a multinational people’ but as parts of a single cultural and historical community” as defined by Putin.

            A glance at the past shows just how radical a change this represents, Sidorov says. “After the collapse of the Russian Empire, the communities were able to restore in it a new ideology form in part thanks to their recognition of the nominal right of its peoples for national self-determination.”

            Soviet policy thus first demanded and then allowed for the denunciation of Tsarist Russia as “a prison house of peoples” even when it eventually blocked any criticism by non-Russians of the policies of the communist leadership. But now, the Kremlin wants to “rehabilitate the nationality policy of the Russian Empire and the Muscovite kingdom.”

            “If in the Soviet period, Russia’s colonial policy toward those it conquered could be condemned, now,” Sidorov says, “this will be viewed as an officially unacceptable ‘negative assessment of events and periods of national history” to the point that no national heroes will be acceptable. Instead, only those who servilely backed he Russians will be allowed.

            As a result, while until recently it was possible to “openly speak and write about [Russia’s] bloody conquests or even genocides” as long as these were confined to past actions, “now, not only all the past of Russia will be presented as ‘bright’ but corresponding histories for the peoples of Russia will be prepared and cadres readied to promote that version.”

            Paradoxically, Putin is rehabilitating Russian imperialism and colonialism “under the banner of fighting against both.” But while he is banning any discussion of troubling parts of Russia’s history, people in the West are increasingly willing to talk about and denounce their own colonial pasts.

            And as for neo-Nazism, Sidorov concludes, “the fight against it by Putin’s Russia has become a cover for a policy whose similarities with the policies of Nazi Germany are now being discussed around the world.” On that point, he cites Alexander Motyl’s “Is Putin’s Russia a Nazi State?” The Hill, March 10, 2024 at thehill.com/opinion/international/4521958-is-putins-russia-a-nazi-state/.

Russians have Never Changed Russia But Instead have Adapted Themselves to the State, Sergey Medvedev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 10 – Russians on their own have never changed Russia, Sergey Medvedev says. Instead, they have adapted themselves to whatever those the state wants as they are now doing under Vladimir Putin. And that will continue unless and until that state is completely destroyed.

            In an interview to Vera Rylkina, editor of Strana i mir, the professor at Prague’s Charles University, says that there are societies which are capable of changing their lives and the role of the state on their own (sakharov.world/medvedev-v-rossii-lyudi-paralizovany-gosudarstvom-kak-kroliki-udavom/).

            American society is one of them, Medvedev says. It has an enormous number of shortcomings and social problems, but in the last 20 years alone, it first chose Obama, a black president, and then Trump, an absolute redneck.” By so doing, it showed itself ready to “constantly change itself and try to find the best way forward.”

            But there are other societies which don’t change the circumstances under which they live but instead adapt themselves to the powers that be, he continues; and Russia is one of them, “a type associated with large eastern despotisms and empires.” In them, the people adapt and change themselves rather than change their leaders.

            This pattern was laid down in Russia a long time ago, Medvedev continues. Today, it is simply being exploited and made ever more extreme by Putin. Almost all Russians have “fit into this fascist state, settled down and lived with it: some with indifference, some with enthusiasm, and some with disgust. But they live with it” rather than trying to change it.

            Until this state is destroyed, it will prevent the rise of human subjectivity” among Russians, and “the cycles of Russian history will repeat themselves.” That is what has been happening for so long and in recent decades. “The Bolsheviks came, the Bolsheviks left, the free market came, then the Putinists and the fascists came.”

            “So many changes” at one level, Medvedev argues; but “none at all at a more fundamental one,” just as Chaadayev said almost two centuries ago. And as a result, the Russian population – it isn’t really a society – has been kept in a state of “extreme infantilism” without a sense of responsibility or a readiness to think long term.

            According to the Prague-based Russian scholar, “people are completely unready to ‘mortgage themselves’ for a better future. They will plan for a few days ahead but not for a year or two or for their old age. That is completely understandable because they know that sooner or later, the state, a pure evil, will come and take everything away.”

            Indeed, he concludes, if you want to understand Russia, visit its cemeteries. There, unlike those in many other countries, “there is a total lack of old graves,” a pattern that “says a lot about the culture of memory, about responsibility, and about the subjectivity” of those who bury their dead but don’t continue to respect them or try to make things better.

Even If Russians had More Children, That Wouldn’t Stop Russia’s Demographic Decline, Academy of Sciences Study Concludes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – Even if Russians were likely to follow Vladimir Putin’s advice and suddenly have more children, that would not stop the overall decline in the total population of the Russian Federation in the coming decades, according to a new study by the Institute of Economic Prognostication of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

            That 266-page study points out that changes in the size of the population depend not just on the number of births and deaths but on the age and gender structure of the existing population. And because that structure is what it is, Russia will see its population decline by 10 million over the next 25 years unless there is a massive increase in immigration.

            (For the full text of that study, see ecfor.ru/publication/rossiya-2035-k-novomu-kachestvu-ekonomiki/; for a summary of its demographic findings and predictions, see krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/102291.)

            The overall decline in the Russian population in the absence of new immigration is “not the only challenge ahead for Russia,” the study says. Two others are critical: a rapid aging of the population and a decline in the relative size of the working-age cohorts that can support the pensions of the former.

            To prevent economic and social disaster, the Academy of Sciences scholars say, Russia needs to increase immigration, raise productivity, and achieve vastly higher rates of economic growth. The former is politically toxic at least now, and the latter two extremely problematic under the current Kremlin regime.

Russians Increasingly View Victory Day Not as a People’s Holiday but as an Official Action

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – The Public Opinion Foundation reports that the share of Russians who view Victory Day as a people’s holiday has fallen from 58 percent in 2018 to 51 percent now while the share of those who identify it as “a government holiday” has risen from 31 percent to 39 percent over the same period.

            That shift, Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid says, “makes this date completely different from what it was in the past and points to its decline, albeit still slow, given the traditional view that official events are staged rather than natural (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/18297 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=663B9FD38A214).

            “Instead of a quiet and purely family event involving the memories of grandfathers and great-grandfathers,” El Murid observes, “there are now marching columns of rumbling equipment, the slogan ‘we can repeat’ on foreign cars and obligatory patriotism about the need to rally round today’s commander in chief who promised [Russians] accelerated entry into heaven.”

Moscow Arresting Ever More Imaginary ‘Traitors’ but Isn’t Charging Real Ones with that Crime, Pavlov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – Last year, Russian officials sentenced 39 people for treason, 2.5 times more than the year before, Ivan Pavlov says; and in 2024 and 2025, these figures are likely to go up still further to unprecedented heights. But those convicted of treason are seldom guilty of it; and those guilty of it are seldom charged with that crime.

            The Russian lawyer says that “the absolute majority” of those convicted last year were scholars, journalists and others whose work seldom if ever brought them into contact with government secrets and that almost none of those convicted were military officers or government officials whose work did (theins.ru/opinions/ivan-pavlov/271379).

            Indeed, Pavlov says, this pattern continues one of the last several decades in which those in the former category are charged to spread fear and mobilize the population against enemies and in which those in the latter either aren’t charged with anything or are charged with other crimes lest that embarrass even more senior officials who appointed them.

            Such arrangements satisfy the Kremlin and also members of the security services who recognize that in following this pattern they will gain preferment and promotion without the risks of doing something else. But because that is the case, it is entirely possible that real traitors are going free while the innocent are being punished, reducing the authority of those in charge.

New Dawn Party Attracts Some Non-Russians but Sparks Skepticism among Others

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – The founding congress of the Dawn Party, organized by Yekaterina Duntsova, who sought to run for Russian president  but was blocked by the Kremlin, attracted some non-Russians who expressed the hope that it could serve as a bridge between Russian liberals and non-Russian nationalists.

            But at the same time, it sparked skepticism among other non-Russians who fear that this latest political move will end by reaffirming their fears that “Russian liberalism ends” whenever the interests and needs of non-Russians are concerned (idelreal.org/a/dlya-kogo-budet-rassvet-zaschitit-li-partiya-duntsovoy-prava-i-interesy-natsionalnyh-respublik/32936210.html).

            Duntsova told this congress which took place in Moscow last week that she wants to work with the republics and regions and plans to form branches of the party in 50 federal subjects, a commitment that attracted some non-Russians to her banner (dw.com/ru/ekaterina-duncova-o-sozdanii-partii-rassvet-my-mezdu-dvuh-ognej/a-68992724).

            But those who attended were skeptical and expressed concern that the party’s leaders were out of touch with most non-Russians and their concerns and, still worse, that Duntsova’s people weren’t really interested in listening to them. As a result, they said, they came to spread their ideas and found backers from other regions and republics but not in the party.

            One of their number, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Duntsova’s backers are primarily drawn from “the urban middle class, students, young specialists and representatives of small business,” the people who earlier backed Yabloko and Navalny and who follow Yekaterina Schulman and Maksim Kats.

            Kharun Sidorov, a Prague-based expert on the non-Russians, said he wasn’t surprised by this division. Again and again, he stressed, non-Russians have been shown by Russian liberals that the latter aren’t really ready to do much for them in return for their active support. As a result, non-Russians may cooperate but they can only achieve their own ends on their own.

            “Many representatives of national movements joined the Russian democratic opposition with pure intentions and the naïve conviction that the protection of the national rights of their peoples is an integral part of the general Russian democratic discourse.” But they have been disabused and see that Russian liberalism ends not just with Ukraine but with any ethnic issue.

            These movements thus have had to conclude that “Russian liberals do not reflect the interests of the indigenous peoples or regional communities and that they have the same unitarist, assimilationist agenda that has been mainstream within the entire Russian political community since the end of the 19^th century.”

            Unless Russian liberals change, the best anyone can hope for as far as relations with the regions and republics are concerned is cooperation but not integration, Sidorov says.

Soviet Experience Shows Forming Military Units on an Ethnic Basis Both Ineffective and Dangerous, Krutikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – Just as Vladimir Putin uses historical references to make his case, other Russians turn to history to discuss issues that at least to begin with may be too sensitive to be addressed directly.  One such issue involves the formation of units in the Russian military on the basis of regions and republics.

            After Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow charged the regions and republics with providing more soldiers and even allowed some of them to form military units on the basis of such personnel (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/by-ordering-regions-to-form-units-to.html and jamestown.org/program/moscow-turns-to-regions-to-replace-losses-and-boost-forces-in-ukraine/).

            Some of those units, most prominently those from Chechnya, continue to exist; and as Moscow struggles to find more men for its war effort, a new article about the history of the national units in the Soviet Union’s Red Army suggests that a debate is going on behind the scenes as to whether the Russian government should build on that effort.

            The answer of its author, Yevgeny Krutikov, is a resounding no. After surveying the rise and fall of national units in the Red Army before, during and after World War II, the military analyst says that Soviet leaders concluded that “on the whole,” the use of national military units were an unfortunate mistake (vz.ru/society/2024/5/9/1267170.html).

            While many soldiers and officers in these units fought well, the overall quality of military preparation and readiness to obey orders from above was far lower than in ordinary military units. Consequently, any advantages as far as reducing ethnic clashes within the military were mitigated by these failings.

            According to Krutikov – and his words on this point are especially important in the current context – the real problems these units presented came not from the soldiers or officers in them but from “the leaderships of the national republics” who viewed these units as their own rather than part of a single united army, something unforgiveable in time of war. 

Putin Declares Ethnic Russians ‘State-Forming People’ of His Country

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – When Putin rammed through his constitutional changes in 2020, the Kremlin leader managed to offend both ethnic Russians angry that he failed to openly declare that their nation was “the state-forming people” of Russia but limited himself then to making reference to “the language of the state-forming people.”

            At the same time, he outraged many non-Russians at that time who viewed his half-way measure as a clear indication that they were about to be reduced at a constitutional level to second-class citizens in a country in which they have played significant roles but that Putin still felt somewhat constrained in that regard.

On that controversy, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/state-forming-language-now-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/01/to-save-country-from-collapse-zyuganov.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/03/if-ethnic-russians-are-only-state.html.

But Putin has now taken the step many Russian nationalists have hoped for and many non-Russians have feared and openly declared that the ethnic Russians are “the state-forming people” of his country by inserting that phrase in his order on state policy regarding historical education (kremlin.ru/acts/news/73989).

Specifically, the Kremlin leader said that state policy governing historical education must promote “the formation of an all-Russian civic identity and the strengthening of the community of the Russian world on the basis of traditional Russian spiritual, moral and cultural-historical values.”

And that goal is to be achieved by “preserving the memory of the significant events in the history of Russia, including the history of the state-forming Russian [russky] people, part o fhte multi-national union of equal peoples of the Russian Federation and the history of other peoples of Russia.”

Russian nationalists are already celebrating these words as an indication of where Putin wants to take the country in the coming years (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=118274). There is little doubt that non-Russians will respond with horror about the Russianization and Russification that such a formula presages.

And the deepening of the divide between them is likely to be more important for the future than the repressive nature of Putin’s decree that some liberal critics have already noted (severreal.org/a/etu-pamyat-ne-ochistit-gosudarstvo-beret-istoriyu-pod-kontrol/32939571.html and ng.ru/politics/2024-05-08/100_08052024_history.html).

Kyiv Must Reintegrate Donbass as a Distinctive Region or Ukraine will Remain Vulnerable to Moscow’s Subversion, Kuromiya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 7 – Hiroaki Kuromiya, a Japanese American historian who is a leading specialist on the Donbass says that if Moscow retains control of the Donbass, that region will be destroyed but that if Kyiv fails to reintegrate it as a distinctive one, Ukraine as a whole will remain vulnerable to continuing Russian subversion.

            The author of Freedom and Terror in the Donbas (Cambridge UP, 1998) says that Moscow has little interest in the Donbass as such and will reduce it to just another Russian region if Putin succeeds in retaining control there (meduza.io/feature/2024/05/07/donbass-byl-obrechen-na-rossiyskoe-vtorzhenie-est-li-u-nego-buduschee-posle-okonchaniya-voyny-i-kakim-ono-mozhet-byt).

            The Russian occupiers will build on the Russian language used by most residents of the Donbass to wipe out all aspects of Ukrainian culture which form an important part of the character of Donbass residents. But if, as he hopes, Kuromiya says, Ukraine restores its control over the region, there are other problems that must be avoided.

            Many Ukrainians in the central and western portions of Ukraine view the Donbass, because of its Russian-speaking majority, as alien, and in the event of the restoration of Ukrainian control, they are likely to try to conduct a mirror image of Moscow’s approach and wipe out all elements of Russian culture there.

            That would be disastrous to the future of the Donbas and to Ukraine as a whole, the historian suggests.

            “I am certain,” he says, “that before the Russian invasion, the majority of the population of the Donbass saw their future as part of an independent Ukraine and not as a region annexed by Russia.” They voted for Ukrainian independence in 1991 and, despite problems, they retained that position in 2014.

            But there was and remains a minority in the Donbass with a different view. The region has long attracted outsiders seeking freedom from oppression or for opportunity as well as adventurers who see this borderland as a kind of Wild West in which they can function. Moscow has relied on these, and some Ukrainians wrongly view them as defining the region as a whole.

            The historian continues: “I am worried that Russia will destroy the Donbas as such. If it remains within Russia, its people will not e able to count on generous hope  from Moscow [because] for Moscow, the Donbass is important only as a lever against independent Ukraine and the West.”

            At the same time and “unfortunately,” Kuromiya continues, many in Kyiv are not interested in the Donbass as such and “although the West is vitally interested in the outcome of the war, it has shown little real interest in the fate of the Donbass. That doesn’t promise the region anything good.”

            According to the historian, “the only chance to preserve the Donbass, its past and future is if the residents of the Donbass will make a final choice in favor of Ukraine instead of Russia.” For that to happen, “Ukrainian society must relate to the people in the Donbass as its compatriots even if they are Russian speakers.”

            “After the war, Ukraine will probably have to go through a painful process of forgiveness and reconciliation; but this outcome will be much better than war and destruction,” he continues. “If Ukraine takes back the Donbass and expels Russia from Ukraine, the West should make a significant effort to help rebuild Ukraine, including the Donbass.”

            That is the only good way forward because “without bringing peace and prosperity to the Donbass, Ukraine will remain vulnerable to Moscow’s subversion.”

Measles, Whooping Cough and Flu Now at Record Levels in Russia, ‘To Be Precise’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – The incidence of measles, whooping cough and flu in Russia rose to record levels in 2023 and continues to rise this year, the To Be Precise portal reports, the result of the cyclical nature of infectious diseases, vaccine shortages, and reluctance to get vaccinated and other problems that arose during the pandemic, the To Be Precise portal says.

            The increases last year were dramatic, the portal notes. The number of cases of measles, for example, rose from 102 cases in 2022 to 13,000 last year, with increases of other infectious diseases comparable (tochno.st/materials/v-rossii-rekordnaia-za-mnogo-let-zabolevaemost-koriu-kokliusem-grippom-i-menee-rasprostranennymi-infekciiami-obieiasniaem-s-cem-sviazana-vspyska)

            Some of this development reflects the cyclical nature of infectious diseases which have especially large outbreaks every four to six years as the infecting agents change. But most of it reflects the shortage of vaccines resulting from sanctions and the inability of Russian pharmaceutical companies to make up the difference and the impact of the pandemic.

            The pandemic led to increasing public skepticism abound the world about the utility of vaccines and that to a fall off in the percentage of children being vaccinated for many diseases that can be reduced to a handful if everyone gets his or her shots. But the declines in Russia were especially large, and the upsurge of infections is the result.

            Also contributing to the rise in the number of infections, To Be Precise reports, is the strategy the Russian medical system has adopted. Instead of seeking to immunize everyone, it is now trying to give shots only to those who do not have antibodies. But that means that available vaccines are often going to people who don’t need them and not to those who do.

 

Russia has Removed Its Guards from Armenian-Azerbaijani Border but Not from Armenia’s Borders with Iran and Turkey, Kremlin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – At Yerevan’s request and in a way consistent with Moscow’s withdrawal of its so-called “peacekeepers” from Azerbaijani territory, the Russian government has removed Russian border guards from the Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier but not from Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says.

            Russia has maintained border posts in Armenia since the 1990s, but Yerevan’s anger that Moscow did not use its forces in the region to protect Armenia against Baku’s recovery of Karabakh has prompted Armenia to demand that it pull these forces, especially after Moscow removed its “peacekeeping” contingent there (ekhokavkaza.com/a/32939559.html).

            Earlier, Yerevan demanded and Moscow removed border guards from Armenia’s international airport; and now, the Russian government has taken the logical next step. But it has not pulled Russian guards from Armenia’s borders with Iran or Turkey as an increasing number of Armenians want (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/withdrawal-of-russian-troops-from.html).

            That gets the Russians out of the way of continuing protests by Armenians about Yerevan’s decision to return several villages to Azerbaijan as part of the border delimitation effort by the two South Caucasus countries (jamestown.org/program/armenian-protests-over-return-of-four-villages-to-azerbaijan-threaten-peace-process/).

But at the same time, Moscow’s latest move is likely to encourage Armenians to demand that Russia take the additional step of closing its military base in Gyumri, a desire that is already echoing in Tajikistan as well (jamestown.org/program/moscow-fearful-of-losing-its-military-bases-in-armenia-and-tajikistan/).

Protests along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan continue and have spread to some Armenian cities, but the Armenian Apostolic Church whose local hierarch has been a leader of those protests has now backed away from a full-throated support of the protesters, thus reducing the pressure on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (akcent.site/novosti/31421).

After Two Years of Putin’s War, Desertions among Buryats More than Triple

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – In the first months of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow media celebrated the role of ethnic Buryat soldiers in that effort, a celebration that led many in Russia and many in the West to believe that the non-Russians were disproportionately ready to fight either out of patriotism or for the money the Kremlin was offering them.

            But now as that war enters its third year, new figures about desertion show that whatever willingness the Buryats had to go to war earlier quickly waned. In the two years before 2022, 55 soldiers from Buryatia and Irkutsk Oblast were charged with desertion. In the two years since, 141 in the republic and 41 in the oblast have been, an increase of more than three times (baikal-journal.ru/2024/05/06/kontrakt-istyok-i-zahotel-vernutsya-domoj/).

            Some of this increase, of course, is the product of the increasing number of Buryats and Russians from Irkutsk who are in uniform. But much of it reflects both unhappiness with the war and military life and the frequent mistreatment of ethnic minorities by ethnic Russian officers and fellow soldiers – as well as Moscow’s effort to staunch this rising tide of desertions.

Barring a Defeat in Ukraine, Putin isn’t Going to Change Course or Be Overthrown, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – Putin “constantly lies but despite that he is one of the most predictable politicians” of his time, Sergey Shelin says, precisely because he does not have any fixed goals besides eliminating any opposition to himself, maintaining the consonance he has with the opinions of most Russians, and by so doing increasing his own power.

            Because of his success in all three areas, the independent Russian commentator says, there is no reason to think that, barring a major defeat in Ukraine, he is going to be overthrown  or somehow become a reformer (moscowtimes.ru/2024/05/08/put-putina-o-chem-govoryat-trendi-a130240).

            Putin did not come to power with any agenda beyond ensuring that no one would get in the way of what he wanted to do at any particular time. He has created an elite around him that does not feature anyone prepared to challenge him, and he has demonstrated again and again that he has a good feeling for what the Russian people will agree to and thus has their support.

            The only time that he suffered a major pushback from the population was when he declared partial mobilization; and in response, Putin has done everything he can to avoid having to declare such a policy in the future, something that acts as a constraint on his ability to engage in a larger war, however bombastic his comments may be.

            But even if he is quite willing to modify specific policies to protect himself and boost his power, Shelin argues, Putin is not prepared to follow Gorbachev and launch any broad reforms precisely because he remains firmly convinced that any such approach would not only lead to his loss of power but to the destruction of Russia.

            In sum, the commentator argues, Putin’s time in power has shown him “how much he can afford. He has no experience of failures in imposing anything on the country – everything has always worked out on the domestic front.” His only fears are about the West which he is firmly convinced wants to destroy him and his Russia.

            Consequently, since coming to power a quarter of a century ago, the Kremlin leader “has moved in one direction, maximizing his power, avoiding unnecessary movements, not striving for revolutions, destroying everything in his way, and hoping to hold out at the top until he can hand over Russia to one of his secret children or grandchildren.”

            In this, Shelin concludes, “no other political doctrine is visible. The symbiosis of ruler and power turned out to be unpredictably strong, very beneficial for Putin, deeply corrupting for Russia, and extremely dangerous for the outside world.” And there are no signs that this situation is about to collapse unless or until he loses in Ukraine or somewhere else abroad. 

 

Russians Opposed to War in Ukraine have Options as Putin Marks Victory Day, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – As Putin leads his regime in a celebration of Victory Day, which of course is not no much about events 80 years ago than about those taking place now, Russians who oppose the Kremlin leader’s war in Ukraine have some good options, according to the editors of Horizontal Russia.

            The editors of that portal, which reports on developments in Russian regions beyond Moscow’s ring road, say that such Russians can mark the day in ways that will promote their position rather than that of the Kremlin leader and thus transform it into “another May 9^th” (semnasem.org/articles/2024/05/08/drugoe-devyatoe-maya).

            Here is their list:

·       “Tell a friend how to avoid serving in the army.”
·       “Help veterans.”
·       “Speak with your elderly relatives about their lives.”
·       “Visit the graves of your ancestors.”
·       “Fine out more about the life of your family during the war.”
·       “Lay flowers on the Eternal Flame or other memorial.”
·       “Fulfill the dreams of a veteran” possibly by turning to a web page that lists them (мечтаветерана.рф/).
·       “Read honest books about the war to your children” and consider giving copies of such books to small rural libraries (vk.com/knigi.sever).
·       “Volunteer to digitalize the diaries of soldiers” (prozhito.org/page/volunteers/).
·       “Talk about the lives of your relatives during the war on social networks.”

And if you do any of these things, the editors say, tell “Horizontal Russia” about it via the portal’s chat box (https://t.me/sevenbyseven_bot) and thus be reassured that you are not alone in your views about the current war however hard the Kremlin tries to make you feel that way.  

 

‘Cold Schism’ in Orthodox World Likely to Become ‘Hot’ if Moscow Church Continues to Back Kremlin and Its War at Home and Abroad, Chapnin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – The Moscow Patriarchate’s unqualified support for Putin’s aggression abroad and repression at home has already led to the isolation of the Russian church in world Orthodoxy and the beginning of what may be called “a cold schism” between the ROC MP and Ecumenical Patriarchate and its supporters, Sergey Chapnin says.

            The researcher at Fordham University’s Center for Orthodox Studies says that despite Moscow’ s provocations, both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its supporters in other ancient Orthodox churches have been restrained up to now (okno.group/?p=978&preview=true reposted at sibreal.org/a/rpts-kak-korporatsiya-na-sluzhbe-u-kremlya/32933279.html).

            But Chapnin, a former publications official at the Moscow Patriarchate, says that the situation is deteriorating and that other patriarchates may soon be prepared to attack the Moscow church more directly and turn what has been a “cold” war between them in the past to a “hot” one in the future.

            The potential for such a development is critical because “the ROC MP is not the whole Church” in the Russian Federation, Chapnin continues. “There are also Orthodox communities which are formally part of that Church but ideologically oppose it. They are small, but they persist and everyone hopes that the future lies with them.”

            That is because the ROC MP “in the form in which it has emerged as an ideological institution of a totalitarian state will become of no use to anyone after the regime falls.” Whether it will find the strength to change or simply split and be replaced by others remains to be seen. ROC MP leaders will likely fight to keep things as they are, but they aren’t the only player.

            But it is certainly and unfortunately the case, that “there is no magic wand” and that until the departure of Putin from power “and possibly until the death of Patriarch Kirill, no reforms [in the ROC MP] are possible.” But moves by the Ecumenical Patriarchate could give rise to the emergence of an alternative Orthodox Church in Russia far closer to the Christian tradition.

            (For background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/russian-orthodox-finding-ways-to-break.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/roc-mps-repression-now-means-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/kirills-support-for-putins-war-has.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/orthodoxy-even-more-divided-in-russia.html.)

To Form Dnepr River Flotilla, Moscow Taking Units and Equipment from Caspian Flotilla, Black Sea Fleet and Baltic Fleet

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – To form the Dnepr River Flotilla that will be used against Ukraine, the Kremlin has had to take units and equipment from the Caspian Flotilla, the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet, actions that highlight how hard-pressed the Russian military is and weaken Russia’s presence in those three places.

            On March 20, Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu announced the revival of the Dnepr River Flotilla. That announcement and subsequent reports that the new military grouping would be provided with its own air and marine support have attracted a great deal of media coverage in Russia.

            But what is actually going on may be less than meets the eye because it is now being reported by Vzglyad that the Dnepr Flotilla is at least initially going to consist primarily of ships and men taken from the Caspian Flotilla, the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet rather than raised specifically for it (vz.ru/society/2024/4/28/1265661.html).

Tehran wants to Expand Its Influence in Central Asia and Use Tajikistan to Help It Do So, Tomsk Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Over the last two years, Tehran has sought to increase its influence in Central Asia, convinced that changes in the region and more broadly make that an important goal; and it views Tajikistan, a country with which it shares some but far from all cultural characteristics, as a key player who can help it to do so, Yevgeny Troitsky says.

            According to the senior scholar at the Center for Eurasian Research at Tomsk State University, Tehran has six reasons for expanding its attention to Central Asia and compelling ones to believe that Dushanbe can be an important ally in pursuit of that goal (ia-centr.ru/experts/ia-centr-ru/politika-irana-v-tsentralnoy-azii-v-novykh-usloviyakh/).

            The six reasons behind Iran’s expanded focus on Central Asia are as follows:

·       First, Tehran is worried about the weakening of the position of Russia in that region because of Moscow’s concentration on Ukraine.

·       Second, it is also disturbed by the increasing influence of Turkey on the region especially via Azerbaijan but also in Turkmenistan.

·       Third, it is worried that destabilization in Afghanistan will lead to destabilization in Central Asia more generally and that could lead to clashes on the Iranian border and the flood of refugees into Iran.

·       Fourth, it is concerned about the increasingly pro-Western stance of the Pakistan government.

·       Fifth, Tehran believes that having joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it is now in a better position to reach out to Central Asian countries.

·       And sixth, Tehran has concluded that having normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, it will be able to refocus attention from the south to the north and thus be better able to influence Central Asian countries.

While the Iranian government in the first instance wants to ensure that Central Asian countries do not become allies of Turkey but instead remain neutral and is prepared to expand trade relations with all the countries in the region, it is devoting particular attention to work with Tajikistan, Troitsky says.

The Tomsk scholar points out that “among all the countries of Central Asia, Tajikistan is closer to Iran in a cultural sense,” with a closely related language but with two important differences: Tajiks are primarily Sunni Muslims rather than Shiite, and they were far more secularized by the Soviet authorities than Iran has been for more than a generation.

But despite those limiting factors, Troitsky continues, “over the last several years, the two countries have been developing political, economic and even military-technical cooperation,” including the opening of an Iranian drone factory in Tajikistan and the announcement of plans to agree to a radical expansion in relations over the course of this decade.

Among the steps Tehran and Dushanbe have agreed to already are the renewal of direct flights between the two countries, the formation of a joint investment council, and a dramatic expansion in Iranian investment in Tajikistan, first and foremost in the petroleum sector but also for infrastructure projects like the completion of the Andzob tunnel.

No Real Evidence for Notion that a KGB Conspiracy Brought Putin to Power, Mitrokhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – The idea that some kind of KGB conspiracy was behind Vladimir Putin’s rise to power is almost two decades old and has gained new followers in recent times, Nikolay Mitrokhin says; “but in reality, we have no evidence for the existence of such a conspiracy” – beyond the insistence that the fact that we don’t shows that it does.

            Moreover, the Russian scholar at Bremen University says, those who promote this idea can’s explain why their supposedly grand conspiracy advanced to the presidency “an insignificant representative of one of its regional departments rather than ‘a heavyweight’ like [Yevgeny] Primakov (t.me/NMitrokhinPublicTalk/3392).

            “In fact,” Mitrokhin continues, “Putin at the time of the rapid advancement of his career represented not ‘the clan of the Leningrad KGB’ but first of all and no matter how trite it may seem, Sobchak and his team as well as his own mafia clan, represented by ‘the Ozero cooperative,’ one of the numerous such groups in the Russian political elite of that time.”

            According to the Russian scholar, “were it not for Yeltsin’s naïve belief … that his ‘successor’ should be ‘young,’ then the leader of Russia’s largest and richest clan, the gas clan, Chernomyrdin, would have become president – or the mayor of Moscow and leader of his own clan, the Luzhkov clan, or the real political head of the special services community, Primakov.”

Two Senior Armenian Cartographers Say 1991 Soviet Borders Were Illegitimate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Two Armenian ethnographers say the 1991 administrative borders of the former union republics of the USSR which the successor states and the international community agreed would be the basis for international borders are illegitimate because Moscow drew them without the participation or agreement of the republics involved.

            Their challenge, if it were to be accepted and that is unlikely because the position they take is opposed by both Yerevan and Baku, would make the delimitation of borders in the region far more difficult than it now is and could trigger more conflicts within and between them   (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/399647).

            But their comments are important because Rouben Galichian, a senior Armenian scholar now living in the United Kingdom, and Hranish Kharutian, a former deputy mayor of Yerevan, provide new details on the way in which the Soviet government drew and redrew the borders of the union republics without giving all the republics most immediately involved a say.

            Galichian, who has written numerous books about cartography in the South Caucasus, focuses on the eight villages along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border that are now subject to dispute (jamestown.org/program/armenian-protests-over-return-of-four-villages-to-azerbaijan-threaten-peace-process/).

            He says that Moscow transferred these villages from Armenian to Azerbaijani control between 1936 and 1939 without the involvement of Yerevan and that “Azerbaijan cannot offer a single document about the transfer of these territories to it” as “neither in Armenia nor in Azerbaijan are there any archival documents confirming the transfer.”

            “In those years,” he continues, the USSR General Staff on its military maps marked these territories and designated them as exclaves so as to “put Armenian roads” under the control of the Kremlin rather than for any other purpose.

            Khartyan, for her part, notes that “border issues which were discovered during the period of the Trans-Caucasian Federation up to 1936, according to archival materials of stenographic records of meetings, featured arguments that nomadic herdsmen needed a legal basis for crossing administrative borders.”

            “When nomads drove cattle to pastures in Armenian villages, conflicts arose,” she says. “The issue seemed to be an economic one, but the conflict over land and pasture issues turned into an interethnic one. Enclaves were created so that nomads had the opportunity to move to territories belonging to other republics. This was Soviet policy."

            Kharatyan has a copy of one such decision dated February 18, 1929. At that time, the Trans-Caucasus Federation executive committee voted for changing borders at Armenia’s expense, something it was able to do only by taking a decision when the Armenian representative was no longer present.

            At the present time, the Yerevan ethnographer says, the relevant documents aren’t in Yerevan or Baku or Moscow but only in Georgia. Unfortunately, however, Georgian officials now are denying Armenian scholars like herself access to these materials, something that further complicates the situation and a precise compilation of the historical record.

            (For a broader discussion of just how frequently Moscow changed union republic borders in Soviet times, see my article, “Can Republic Borders be Changed?” RFE/RL Report on the USSR, September 28, 1990, pp. 20-21, at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/borders-in-post-soviet-space-were.html.)