Serious Shortages of Policemen and Jailors Make the Lives of Russians Less Safe, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 16 – Both the Interior Ministry and the Federal Penitentiary Service are suffering from serious shortages of personnel and the result is that Russians who need their help not only are not getting it but that the officers in both are turning to ever more repressive means to try to do their jobs, according to the Important Stories portal.

            Russia is an increasingly repressive state not only because of Kremlin polices but also  because budgetary pressures mean that 20 percent of policemen positions at the interior ministry and a third of jailor slots at the Federal Penitentiary Service – are currently unfilled (istories.media/stories/2024/09/16/nasiliya-bolshe-bezopasnosti-menshe/).

            That means that there aren’t enough policemen to respond to calls for help or guards to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner violence in the country’s places of incarceration. Moreover, those employed in these capacities often use repressive means to do their jobs and thus reduce make Russian residents even less safe.

            The situation is becoming worse not just because of budgetary stringencies but also because ever more of those who might be willing to become policemen or jailors have chosen to go to fight in Ukraine where bonuses and pay are significantly higher, the Important Stories portal says.

            Unless this situation is corrected, the Russian state may find itself with ever fewer policemen and jailors and the Russian people with ever fewer prospects for defending their lives and liberties. 

Russia’s Disintegration Not Required for Its Future Well-Being but Its Coming Apart Must be Possible and Any Union Voluntary, Ethnic Russian Opposition Figure Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 17 – After Yuliya Navalnaya accused those seeking independence of trying to “artificially divide” peoples who have “a common background and cultural context,” the leaders of regionalist and ethno-national movements reacted with fury. But leaders of the ethnic Russian opposition did not, a pattern that suggests they agree with her.

            But one of the members of the latter, Yevgeniya Chirikova, a prominent member of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition, now has and says bluntly that while “the disintegration of Russia is not a requirement for future happiness,” it must remain a legal possibility because regions and republics must remain in Russia only on a voluntary basis.

            The activist who has lived in Estonia for the last decade made that point on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=dgJozCHhmAM) and has reiterated it in the course of an extensive interview with the IdelReal portal (idelreal.org/a/evgeniya-chirikova-o-dekolonizatsii-rossii-s-kakoy-stati-russkie-hotyat-reshat-za-drugih-/33122167.html).

            Putin’s repressive and exploitative approach to the regions and republics within the Russian Federation has led ever more of them to think that the only solution for themselves is independence, Chirikova says. If the leaders coming after him want these regions and republics to remain within Russia, they must treat them differently.

            To be successful, she continues, they must treat the regions and republics with respect, not make decisions about them without them, and demonstrate their commitment to the well being of these regions and republics by allowing them to become independent if the latter decide that they are not being treated well.

            Many ethnic Russians in the opposition say that the country must not disintegrate because there are so many ethnic Russians in the republics, but there are ways to deal with that including referendums, Chirikova says. And she points out something else: Many ethnic Russians in the republics support independence because that is the only way they see to defend their values.

            What has happened in the Baltic countries and what is happening in Ukraine now show why, she continues. Moscow threatens the former and has invaded the latter because they have chosen a different course, democracy not dictatorship and cooperation with the world rather than unrelieved hostility.

            Those aren’t ethnic values; they are human values. Putin doesn’t respect them, but the leaders who come after him must. As long as Putin remains in power and if his successors fail to break with his policies, republics and regions will want to escape from Moscow’s rule. Some may want to even if Moscow does change its approach.

            But many regions and republics may be willing to remain in Russia if they are guaranteed better treatment and if their fright to free exit when they want to is ensured, Chirikova concludes. Otherwise demands for the decolonization of Russia will only intensify, exacerbating a vicious circle in which repression will lead to decolonization efforts and those to more repression.

            And that expansion of repression, she warns, will hit ethnic Russians at least as much as the non-Russians, however much Putin and his team try to suggest that the situation is otherwise. 

Buryat Man Finds a Home Not in Buryatia or Moscow but in the US

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 16 – The Horizontal Russia portal often tells the stories of non-Russians in the form of comic strips. Its latest traces the life of a 39-year-old Buryat man who did not learn his national language, felt out of place in Buryatia and in Moscow, but then found a home as a Buryat in the United States.

            Below is an informal translation of the text of this cartoon strip, but readers are encouraged to go to the original to view the striking illustrations (semnasem.org/articles/2024/09/16/nerusskij-mir-buryat-vladislav-polyubil-oshushenie-inakovosti-tolko-kogda-uehal-iz-rf):

Vladislav values and loves his culture and supports its traditions, but it has turned out that it is simpler to do that abroad than at home. His life in Russia and especially in Moscow was full of fears, for his life, for a roof over his head, for work.

I was born in Ulan-Ude in Buryatiya. I never learned the Buryat language because my mother didn’t teach it to me. When she came from the village to the city and entered a teacher training academy there, they laughed at her because she spoke Russian with an accent. So that I might not have such problems, my mother spoke with me only in Russian.

Even now people in the city don’t speak Buryat. The language remains only in the villages. I studied in an ordinary school where there were no lessons in Buryat. When I left Ulan-Ude, all the signs there were in Russian.

 In 2014, I moved to Moscow. I wanted to see something of the bigger world. I had to live somewhere and therefore I agreed to look at a room owned by an elderly woman. When she found out that I was a Buryat, she refused to rent me the room. At that time, there were many signs saying that their owners would rent “only to Slavs.” Then I went to a forum of the Buryat people and rented a room from one of my co-ethnics.

In Moscow you begin to sense your differences from other Muscovites. And this sense is both defensive and frightening. You at any moment unconsciously feel that people may treat you badly just because you are non-Russian and don’t look like a Slav.

I found a job as a dispatcher for Aeroflot at Sheremetyevo. My “non-Russian” appearance constantly led to conflicts with passengers. Often they complained about my looks, and onetime I had an argument with one passenger about baggage and he replied “who are you, some Korean?

At work, I made friends with a Kyrgyz guy. Our boss came and said to us: “What are you doing? You don’t need to organize a landsman group here.” We stayed quiet and didn’t point out to our boss that Buryats and Kyrgyz are different peoples. It was offensive that she didn’t even make a distinction.

Once I was going home from work on the bus. One of the stops was near a football stadium. After a match, a large group of fans got on. I was terrified when they began to shout nationalist slogans. I knew that such football fans could be aggressive and even beat people of other nationalities.

Being aware of my ethnic background became acceptable when I moved to the US in 2017. There is racism in the US, but people struggle with it, and people are afraid to display it openly. In the US, I made friends with Buryats because Buryat culture is very traditional and we try to maintain ties with a very large number of relatives. Even here in another country.

Putin Talks about Turning Away from Europe But Neither He nor Russians Really Have – and That Reality will Define the Future, ‘Continuation Follows’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – Vladimir Putin talks constantly about rejecting the West and turning to the East but largely because he is disappointed and even outraged that the West did not accept him on his terms, the Continuation Follows portal says. But in fact, neither he nor even more Russians in general have done so and that reality will define the future.

            Even at a time when Moscow propagandists assert that China and even North Korea are closer to Russia, the portal continues, “adoration of the West has only intensified and in no way has gone in the other direction” as seen by the coverage of Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson (prosleduet.media/details/adoration-of-the-west/).

            “At the dawn of his political career, Vladimir Putin very very much wanted to be friends with Europe and not simply become friends but perhaps even before part of some block.” For him, “the West was important, needed and loved in Russia.” But this didn’t happen because the West wasn’t prepared to take Russia in unless it transformed itself in ways it had required others.

            Putin’s disappointment at that led him to deliver his “legendary Munich speech” in 2007 in which he said Russia would go its own way and if that meant breaking with the West so be it. But this disappointment was that of a spurned lover rather than someone who had concluded that there was no commonality. And that sense was even deeper among other Russians.

            Unfortunately, Kremlin propagandists do everything they can “to make every Russian a hostage of Putin’s psychosis” even though the Putinists “do not know and do not want to recognize that many Russians long ago became part of the globalized world,” not just the Western but the whole world including the West.

            That is obvious if one looks at how Russians dress and act and at what they admire, the portal argues, characteristics of Russians today that show that “we have outgrown the current regime,” even if because of its coercive powers, they are forced to mouth its statements which they increasingly do not accept.

            The editors of the portal conclude that “this picture will soon be changed; and [after Putin leaves the scene,” it will be these modern Russians who will restart a new, healthy and independent life in our country,” a Russia that will remain and indeed become even more part of the West than ever before.

            And no one has to do anything for this to happen except to wait out the survival of “the current elderly elites who are stuck in the delirium of post-Soviet trauma.” In short, this future and not the one Putin talks about will come simply as the working out of the life expectancy of the members of the current elite.

 

Russian Political Mentality So Internally Contradictory that No One Should Be Surprised when the Country Repeatedly Lurches from One Direction to Its Opposite, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – Having compiled a list of the 37 main characteristics of the political consciousness of Russians, Abbas Gallyamov observes that they are so contradictory that no one should be surprised when the country lurches from one direction to another. Indeed, that is practically inevitable.

            “Sometimes two mutually exclusive characteristics are so close to one another, that a quite small push is all it takes to set the country off in a new direction which seems to be in complete opposition to what has gone before,” the Russian commentator who earlier served as a Putin speechwriter says (pointmedia.io/story/66e3f235dc48800406e0f4cc).

            A recent example of such radical shifts, Gallyamov says, is the public view of Prigozhin who began as “a counterrevolutionary force” but is now, less than a year later, “transformed into the chief revolutionary who shook the system more than all other opposition figures taken together.”

            If one collapses the 37 points into one, he suggests, then the only term that describes Russian political mentality is “contradictoriness, the capacity to contain the uncontainable and combine what can’t be combined,” or as Bunin put it, “we are like a tree from which one can make both a club and an icon.”  

            What is most intriguing, Gallyamov continues, is that “Russian politicians are generally unaware of this duality. They are typically too immersed in the current situation to think more broadly or reflect on the situation critically. “Self-reflection is not a Russian strong point, and so each change in direction is perceived completely new and unprecedented” even though it isn’t.

            The commentator makes another important observation. He says that he doesn’t see “any special reasons” for Russians to be proud of this contradictory nature or to consider their country superior to others; but at the same time, he says, there aren’t compelling reasons for Russia to engage in self-flagellation as they often do.

            “We are who we are because of the path we have travelled,” he concludes. “We are the sum of what has happened to us in history and nothing more than that. Existing shortcomings must be criticized and corrected, but Russians shouldn’t give up on themselves. After all, history which shapes us is not yet over.”

Russian Commentator Outraged that Kazakh State TV Says Large Swaths of Russia are Kazakh

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – Largely in response to Russian talk about annexing northern Kazakhstan, Kazakh nationalists have long talked about how portions of Russia, including southern Siberia, Astrakhan, Orenburg, and the Altai were once Kazakh lands and should be again.

            The Kazakhstan government has consistently distanced itself from such talk, saying again and again that it has not official claim on lands now part of the Russian Federation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/10/kazakhstan-has-no-official-claims.html) and the talk itself has been confined to websites and telegram channels that reach only a few people.

            But last week, Kazakhstan state television featured a program in which the host spoke about Kazakh historical claims to portions of the Russian Federation, a development that has infuriated Russian commentators who imply that Astana is behind this  (asia24.media/main/tv-kazakhstana-kazakhi-trebuyut-ot-rossii-otdat-sibir-astrakhan-orenburg-i-altay/).

            In the words of one Telegram channel operator, Mikhail Onufriyenko, what Kazakh TV and by implication the Kazakh government are saying is that there was and should be again “an empire under the name of Kazakhstan,” that lands inside Russia are in fact Kazakh, and that Astana should demand their return.

            And according to another, Anton Budanov, who heads the Budanbay-Kazakhstan and Central Asia telegram channel, this all flows from the attention some in Kazakhstan are giving to the false notion that the Kazakhs were a subject colonial people in tsarist and Soviet times and must seek decolonization, an idea promoted by the West.

            What is perhaps striking is that the response to the Kazakh broadcast has been limited to the Russian blogosphere. Russian officials at least in public have not denounced it. The reason for that is clear: any denunciation from them would attract more attention to the Kazakh TV program and complicate Moscow’s relations with Astana. 

Religious Stability in Russia at Risk Because of Both Changes in Relative Size of Christianity and Islam and the Rise of Buddhism, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – The stable relations among the traditional religions of the Russian Federation – Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism – that have long existed are now at risk because of the changing size of the first two and increasing activism by the third, according to the editors of Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

            In a lead article, the editors note that Patriarch Kirill said recently that “Russia is an example of practically ideal relations between Orthodoxy and Islam” but also that changes in their relative size because of immigration and differences in growth rates are creating problems that need to be addressed (ng.ru/editorial/2024-09-15/2_9093_red.html).

            Kirill himself always makes clear that such challenges are coming primarily because of immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus, but as the newspaper points out, the number of Muslims in Russia is increasing not only because of them but because of higher growth rates among indigenous Muslim nations in Russia.

            But if the relationship between the two largest religions, Orthodoxy and Islam, have long attracted the most attention, the recent increase in activism by the country’s much smaller Buddhist community are now increasing to the point that it will become “a third force” as far as religions are concerned and upset the current balance as well.

            For background on recent changes in the Buddhist world in the Russian Federation, see /windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/two-structures-one-in-buryatia-and.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/russias-buddhist-nations-want-ulan.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/06/tyva-will-be-first-republic-in-russia.html

Yagnobs, Last People Deported by the Soviets, Continue to Return to Their Ancestral Homeland to Save Their Language and Culture

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – The Yagnobs, the last remnant of the pre-Turkic Sogdian civilization in Central Asia and the last people to be deported in Soviet times – in 1970 -- continue to return to their isolated mountain fastness in highland Tajikistan in a last-ditch effort to save their language and culture from absorption by the Tajik majority.

            But despite support from Dushanbe to do so, the Yagnobs there number only about 600, down from 4,000 in 1970. Most are older, few live there year around, and the young are in residential schools where they are being taught in Tajik. Consequently, the survival of this people is anything but assured asiaplustj.info/ru/news/tajikistan/society/20240913/yagnobtsi-vozvratshayutsya-na-rodinu-chto-tyanet-ih-tuda-gde-zhizn-slozhna-i-opasna; for background, see  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/10/yagnobs-last-nation-soviets-deported.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/last-remnant-of-sogdian-civilization.html).

If the Yagnobs die out, Sayfiddin Mirzoyev, a specialist in linguistics at the Tajik Academy of Sciences who has written textbooks for that people, the world will lose a window into both pre-Sogdian civilization and the origins of the Tajik nation. Consequently, he suggests, Dushanbe should give more than just tax breaks to help them survive.

Silantyev Demands Moscow Ban Two Leading Muslim Organizations

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 16 – Roman Silantyev, a specialist on the Islamic community of the Russian Federation who has long been rumored to have close ties with the FSB and the Moscow Patriarchate, is demanding that the Investigative Committee ban the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Russian Federation and the Council of Muftis of Russia.

            Both groups which are headed by Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin are “the most criminalized religious organizations of the country” and a threat to the country’s legal order even though they control “no more than seven percent of the really functioning Muslim communities” in Russia (https://t.me/tsennostirf/2576 and sova-center.ru/religion/news/extremism/counter-extremism/2024/09/d50433/).

            According to Silantyev, Gaynutdin and his subordinates are active supporters of Wahhabism, the Nursi movement, Hizbut Tahrir and other already banned groups and that 41 of the Muslim leaders subordinate to the two organizations he wants to ban have already been convicted of extremism.

            Silantyev has a long history of attacking the Muslim establishment and Gaynutdin personally (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-radical-muslims.html, windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/12/window-on-eurasia-silantyev-says-more.html and windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/01/window-on-eurasia-silantyev-says-muslim.html).

But this time his appeal may have more serious consequences. That is because the Kremlin has put in place a law-like system to declare any group it dislikes extremist and therefore subject to a ban. Earlier banning groups would have required special measures but not it can be done without much fuss. 

Were such a ban to be imposed, that would leave the Central MSD in Ufa under Mufti Talgat Tajuddin in the best place he has ever been to claim the status he styles himself as "the supreme mufti of holy Rus." Silantyev is an admirer of this defender of traditional Soviet-stye Islam and so his appeal to ban Gaynutdin's organizations may presage a new effort to form a single Muslim Patriarchate.

Claiming Russia is Fighting NATO and Not Just Ukraine Helps Kremlin Keep Russians from Asking Inconvenient Questions about Russian Failures, Konyeva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – The longer the war in Ukraine has gone on, the more the Kremlin and its propagandists have insisted that Russia is opposed there not by the Ukrainians alone but by the West and NATO, at least in part because that makes the failures of the Russian Army less disturbing to the Russian people, according to Yelena Konyeva.

            That is because most Russians have long been accustomed to the idea that NATO is strong and serious opponent, the founder of the ExtremeScan agency that has monitored opinion in Russian regions bordering Ukraine says (svoboda.org/a/neobnulyaemyy-effekt-provala-sotsiolog-o-sobytiyah-v-prigranichje/33117882.html).

            But few Russians are ready to accept that the Ukrainian military could hold its own or even advance against the Russian army; and were they to begin to do so, that would likely prompt the kind of questions about the state of Russian forces and the Russian leadership that no one in the Kremlin wants asked, Konyeva continues. 

            That is just one of the many important observations she offers in her latest interview with Radio Liberty. Among the others are the following:

 

·       The Kremlin decided not to use the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk to mobilize the Russian people because it was obvious to the Russian leadership because its members feared the consequences.

 

·       “For many residents of Kursk Oblast, the war began not in February 2022 but only now in August 2024” when Ukrainian forces entered their region.

 

·       The shock many Kursk residents felt about the Ukrainian incurious passed quickly because there have not been any signs of repression by Ukrainian forces. Instead, Ukrainian military personnel have distributed water and medicines to the Kursk population.

 

·       The situation has been further calmed by the disappearance of official Russian structures and their replacement by volunteer organizations who work with the Ukrainians.

 

·       Russian attitudes toward other countries is entirely the product of Moscow propaganda rather than any personal experience.

 

·       But Russians are increasingly concerned about the war and that is having an impact on their attitudes toward Putin and his regime.

 

Yampolskaya who Earlier Said Russia Survives because of God and Stalin Outrages Non-Russians with Her Latest Elevation and Remark

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – Vera Yampolskaya, notorious for her earlier comment that Russia has survived because of God and Stalin, has outraged non-Russian both by being elevated to head a new presidential council on languages and her declaration that “if Russian is not a native language, then Russia is not a Motherland.”

            At the end of August, Putin replaced the Council on Russian Language with a Council for the Realization of Government Policy in Support of Russia and the Languages of the Peoples of Russia and then named Yampolskaya to head it (idelreal.org/a/esli-russkiy-ne-rodnoy-to-i-rossiya-ne-rodina-aktivisty-raskritikovali-zayavlenie-sovetnika-putina-/33112634.html).

            Yampolskaya’s notoriously Russian nationalist views – on her history in that regard, see idelreal.org/a/32569842.html – Putin’s own words in his order creating the new body, and the fact that only three of the 50 members of the council are non-Russians shows where the Kremlin is heading as far as non-Russian languages and the peoples who speak them are concerned.

            Among those denouncing her words are the following:

·       Farit Zakiyev, a Tatar activist, says that he is glad Yampolskaya said what she did because it makes clear to all exactly what Moscow wants to do, first suppressing non-Russian langauges and then doing away with the national republics. 

·       Daavr Dorzhin, a Kalmyk activist, says that he can’t call Russian a native language because it isn’t for him. Statements like Yampolskaya’s recall Franscisco Franco’s war against Catalan; but it is worth remembering that Franco is dead and Catalan is very much alive.

·       Dorzho Dugarov, a Buryat activist, says simply that “Buryatia isn’t Russia and Russian for us isn’t a native language,” not exactly the conclusion that Yampolskaya and her backers in the Kremlin want non-Russians to draw.

·       Ruslan Gabbasov, a Bashkir activist, says that Yampolskaiya’s words are nothing new. They are fully consistent with what the Kremlin has been trying to do over the last decade but are useful because they are so explicit.

·       Aida Abdrakhmanova, a Tatar activist, says Yampolskaya’s words are especially cynical and evil because they were delivered precisely on the 10^th anniversary of Albert Razin’s self-immolation to protest Moscow’s destruction of his Udmurt language and the languages of other non-Russian nations.

Russian Nationalists Likely to Play Far Larger Role after Putin Departs, Verkhovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – When Putin departs from power, the role Russian may very well expand, Aleksandr Verkhovsky says; and the sooner the Kremlin leader does so, the larger that role is likely to be at least in the short run. That is because those known as Russian nationalists are far better positioned to play a role than were their predecessors.

            At the end of a survey of how difficult it is to define Russian nationalism and how much the consensus view as to what it consists of has evolved, the director of the SOVA analytic center which tracks this phenomenon offers his thoughts on what is likely to happen in the future when Putin leaves the scene (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2024/09/13/kto-vy-russkie).

             A major reason behind his conclusion that Russian nationalism will likely play a larger role then is that this trend of opinion has evolved under the impact of what one could call “the present-day official ideology of a unique brand of nationalism, which the powers have advanced to a large extent as alternative to the ideas of Russian ethno-nationalists.”

            The Russian nationalist movement of 15 years ago “still had a strong attachment to white racism, which was not very popular in Russia and a totally unpopular attachment to neo-Nazi roots,” two characteristics which meant that it could hardly hope to gain large numbers of supporters and challenge the regime.

            But in 2014, at the time of the Crimean Anschluss, the Russian nationalists split, not so much about whether they viewed Ukrainians as Russians, part of a triune people including Russians and Belarusians, or as a separate nation than their own past ideological positions domestically.

            There are many explanations, but “it is impossible not to notice that the pro-Kiev Russian nationalists were closer to white racism while the pro-Donetsk ones, for all their ethno-nationalism, were closer to the themes of the greatness of the state and its confrontation with the West,” according to the SOVA analyst.

            That brought “the pro-Donetsk people closer” to the Kremlin’s approach while the pro-Ukraine trend lost out and appears to have “exhausted itself” as far as the future is concerned, he continues. “But one should not conclude that this excluded” their links to those who opposed the regime on other issues.”

            When xenophobia which had been declining in the second decade of this century returned to its earlier levels after the launch of the expanded invasion of Ukraine and the authorities’ use of anti-immigrant notions to win support domestically, “politically organized opposition nationalism” based on such ideas “had almost completely disappeared.”

            The desire of the authorities to generate support from below and the anti-immigrant attitudes Kremlin propaganda exacerbated is leading to a redefinition of official nationalism from one focused exclusively on great power imperialism toward a more complex mix, one that opens the way for the rise of oppositional nationalism from below.

            How this will play out remains uncertain, Verkhovsky says, but if politics does reemerge in Russia with the departure of Putin, then “today’s Russian nationalists have a somewhat better chance of mobilizing support than did their predecessors” – and that means they are likely to be a force to be reckoned with.

            Compared to the nationalists of ten to 20 years ago, the new unofficial nationalists are less revolutionary, less tied to criminal groups, less explicitly white racist and more interested in defending Russian traditions and supporting Moscow’s great power aspirations, according to the SOVA director.

            How far these groups will evolve in that direction depends to an important degree on how long Putin remains in office. The longer he is there, Verkhovsky suggests, the greater the evolution in these directions and thus the greater the role of Russian nationalism and those who represent it will be. 

Ingush Outraged by Vladikavkaz Plan to Include Portion of Ingushetia in North Ossetia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – Two weeks ago, Vladikavkaz announced that it had sent out for review its plans to include within North Ossetia land that had belonged to Ingushetia before its people was deported in 1944 and that was not given back to them when those deported returned, a failure that sparked a bloody border war between the two republics in 1992.

            Earlier this month, officials in the historically Ingush regions North Ossetia says it will annex denounced the plan, and they have been followed by denunciations not only by Ingush officials in Magas but also by activists there who fear that Magas may not resist this land grab (fortanga.org/2024/09/ingushetiya-protiv-izmeneniya-granicz-vlasti-respubliki-blokiruyut-proekt-severnoj-osetii/).

            Such fears arise from the fact that in 2018, Magas said it would not change the borders with Chechnya but then the republic’s leader signed a deal with Grozny that did just that, costing the republic a large swath of its territory and sparking mass demonstrations that continue to echo in the courts.

            Despite Moscow’s repeated insistence that Magas and Vladikavkaz sign a border agreement, the two have not done so, and the dispute continues. But the Ingush government has declared a moratorium on any border changes until at least 2030, making what Vladikavkaz is trying to do at a minimum premature and more likely the trigger of new protests.

            Any such new protests almost certainly would be far more radical than those which took place in 2018-2019 given the repression that Moscow and Magas have visited on that republic, the support its people have received from Ukraine, and the formation of an Ingush independence movement.

            So far, this latest dispute has remained within the chancelleries of the two governments; and it seems likely Moscow will work to try to ensure that it remains there. But if North Ossetia takes any additional steps, the mass protests that roiled Ingushetia after the handover of land to Chechnya are likely to return and, in contrast to the earlier ones, could become violent.

Violent Crime in Russia Not Up Since Start of Expanded War in Ukraine but Interior Ministry Expects It to Rise when Veterans of that Conflict Return Home

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – While serious crimes involving the Internet and drugs have continued to rise in Russia since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, the number of violence crimes such as murder, rape and assault has continued to fall. But Russian interior ministry officials expect the latter to go up once veterans begin to return in massive numbers.

            Despite expectations, ministry experts say, violent crimes have not gone up largely ecause men in the age groups most likely to commit them are off the streets and on the battlefield. When they return, however, violent crime is likely to surge  (tochno.st/materials/cislo-tiazkix-prestuplenii-v-rossii-dostiglo-rekordnyx-znacenii-za-12-let-no-eto-ne-sviazano-s-rostom-nasiliia-glavnoe-o-prestupnosti-v-2023-godu).

            The To Be Precise portal says that violent crimes committed by foreigners have risen by 10 percent since 2019, but there is no open source confirmation of official claims that migrant workers are committing almost all of these and more. And what statistics have been released show that crimes by foreigners fell by three percent between 2022 and 2023.

            The portal also reports that violent crime is highest in Siberia and the Far East, regions where alcohol consumption is highest, and lowest in the North Caucasus, a Muslim region where alcohol consumption is far lower than the all-Russian average (tochno.st/materials/kakie-regiony-rossiie-opasnye-reiting-prestupnosti-ot-esli-byt-tocnym).

            The portal’s conclusion about crime in the North Caucasus excludes Chechnya where crimes like disappearances and the elimination by other means of opponents of the regime would likely dramatically affect the total figures, distorting the regional pattern, because figures about such crimes are not accurately reported by either Grozny or Moscow.

COVID Infections Again on the Rise in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – With the start of the school year, COVID infections are again on the rise in Russia as in many other countries, with more than 8,000 new infections and eight deaths in the city of Moscow alone last week. Experts expect this wave to peak in a month or two but prove far less widespread and lethal than was the case three and four years ago.

            A major problem in both the diagnosis and treatment of COVID now, Russian health specialists say, is that the symptoms are so varied and often so mild that many cases are misdiagnosed as something else and that new vaccinations may not work because the virus is mutating so quickly (svpressa.ru/society/article/429221/).

            Many of the vaccine boosters now being offered, Russian officials say, protect people against only a few of the strains out there. That message will likely keep many Russians from seeking the vaccine, just as was the case three and four years ago, and mean that there is a risk that the growth in the number of COVID cases could be far larger in Russia than elsewhere.

            The Moscow specialists insist that there is no chance that the number of new cases will rise to the level of 200,000 a day as was true in 2020; but if Russians don’t get vaccinated and do not adopt healthy practices like washing their hands frequently and getting enough sleep, there is a real danger of an epidemic in Russia that could fuel the rise of COVID elsewhere. 

As Part of Its War against Ukraine, Moscow Seeks to Erase Popular Memories about Mass Repressions in Soviet Times

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – Not only is Moscow planning to revisit the rehabilitations of some victims of Soviet repressions thus allowing the Kremlin to reverse specific findings (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/moscows-plan-to-revisit-rehabilitation.html), but it is eliminating from the list of such repressions many of the greatest Soviet crimes.

            This summer, the Russian government released an amended concept of its policy document on memorializing victims of political repression to erase in an Orwellian manner popular memories about those events (forbes.ru/forbeslife/520462-iz-koncepcii-o-pamati-zertv-politiceskih-repressij-ubrali-upominania-rada-repressij).

            The new edition of this concept paper drops the declaration that “Russia cannot fully become a state governed by the rule of law and assuming a leading role in the world without perpetuating the memory of the many millions of its citizens who became victims of political repression.”

            It also drops all references to the persecution of religious groups and representatives of the pre-revolutionary elite who remained in the Soviet Union, collectivization and the famine associated with it, the Great Terror and the GULAG and the peoples who were deported in whole or in part. 

            The new document also fails to say that these and other repressions were illegal and that those who were victims have a right to rehabilitation. Moreover, all data about political repression has been removed as have the characterization of Soviet repressions as having a mass character.

            Irina Shcherbakova, one of the founders of the Memorial Society, says that it is clear that the Kremlin now wants to send a message that “the state is stronger than the individual and htat anyone who does not agree with this is either crazy or an enemy or both” (svoboda.org/a/ochenj-podlaya-istoriya-v-rf-stirayut-pamyatj-o-massovyh-repressiyah/33117449.html).

            She adds that this latest Moscow action is part of the Kremlin’s “propaganda war against Ukraine” and is intended to “show our population once again that the Soviet government was good and that all those who opposed it” – including the Ukrainians – “were always Nazis” who must be destroyed.

‘Russia’s Easily Accessible Mineral Deposits Almost Exhausted,’ Resources Minister Kozlov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – The Russian Federation has immense natural resources, but the most “easily accessible deposits” from which Moscow now extracts them will run out in five to 15 years, the country’s natural resources minister says, forcing geologists to explore new ones in far less accessible parts of the country.

            Much of Russia east of the Urals and especially in the far north has not even been explored by geologists, Aleksandr Kozlov says; and many of the places where new deposits are likely to be found are far from roads, railways or shipping lines (tass.ru/ekonomika/21839257, ria.ru/20240911/minprirody-1972131144.html and themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/12/russias-easy-to-reach-mineral-deposits-nearly-depleted-minister-says-a86349).

            Consequently, the minister suggests, Russia will have to build expensive new infrastructure to allow the country to gain access to this mineral wealth, face the prospect of critical shortages or seek to import from abroad minerals that it is used to getting from domestic sources.

            Environmental groups are concerned that Moscow will build such new infrastructure without much regard for either the environment or the population living in these regions and thus inflict serious damage on both (kedr.media/news/minprirody-legkodostupnye-mestorozhdeniya-poleznyh-iskopaemyh-v-rossii-pochti-ischerpany-za-nimi-pojdut-na-neosvoennye-zemli/).

            That is especially likely given the melting of the permafrost that underlies nearly all the territory where new deposits of minerals are likely to be found. As a result, the costs of building infrastructure will rise dramatically, possibly beyond Moscow’s ability to fund them (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/09/global-warming-threatens-russian.html).

            China might be able to afford to pay for such infrastructure, but its approach to Russia in the past concerning such a possibility suggests that Beijing would want concessionary access to and prices for such resources, thus limiting their flow to Russia and increasing Moscow’s dependence on China.

Moscow Suppressing Religious Groups in Occupied Ukraine Except Those ROC MP Controls, Specter Press Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – The Russian government is currently conducting a worldwide campaign against Kyiv for a new law that requires religious groups there headquartered in countries attacking Ukraine to break those ties or face the prospect that they will be closed down by the authorities.

            But Moscow has not acknowledged and international media have not paid attention to what has been going on in Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine since 2014. There, the Russian authorities have been actively suppressing all denominations except those subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

            In a detailed, 4500-word article, investigative journalist Dmitry Durnyev of the Specter news portal describes how Russian occupation officials have closed down all churches not linked to the ROC MP since 2014 and especially since Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (spektr.press/bog-porugaem-ne-byvaet/).

            A handful of independent churches do survive, Durnyev acknowledges, but only on sufferance. Such churches must profess their unquestioning loyalty to Moscow given that the threat they too will be closed down hangs over them, especially as the war, now approaching its 1000^th day continues. 

            There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about Ukraine’s law on religious group, but attacks on it by Moscow are hypocritical given that what Moscow has been doing in Russian-occupied areas is far worse than anything that could even potentially happen occur in Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/whats-next-for-moscow-church-in-ukraine.html).

            At the very least, those who are critical of Ukraine's legislation need to be even more critical of what Moscow has actually done rather than viewing Russian critics as its allies regarding Kyiv's handling of a church whose leaders have repeatedly shown themselves not only ready to take orders from Moscow but to work against Ukraine.

Russians are Protesting a Lot about Many Things Even If They Aren’t Taking to the Streets to Denounce Putin’s War, ‘NeMoskva’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – The image the Putin regime wants to present and that many reports about Russia today reflect is that Russians aren’t protesting, either because they support what Putin is doing, the Kremlin’s view, or because they have been cowed into silence because they fear the consequences, the view of many outside observers.

            But in fact, as the Nemoskva portal points out, Russians continue to protest across the country against many things just not those connected with Putin’s own policies and thus likely to get them into trouble (nemoskva.net/2024/09/11/v-rossijskih-regionah-protestuyut-protiv-krematoriya-vysotok-i-hrama/).

            In its latest weekly roundup on protests, the portal which covers developments outside of the Russian capital that are typically ignored by the Moscow media says that Russians have protested against the construction of new crematoriums, the lifting of restrictions on the height of buildings, and the construction of new churches.

            Such actions are seen by most Russians as “non-political” and thus unlikely to land them in difficulties with the authorities, but they are an indication that the willingness of Russians to go into the streets on things of importance to them has not disappeared but only been put on hold by fears of repression.

            That helps to explain why Putin continues to increase repression across the board. He and his entourage are certainly aware that if he ever loosens up, Russians now taking to the streets to protest about building heights or the construction of churches in their neighborhoods will quite prepared to demonstrate against him and his regime as such. 

Nearly a Third of Russians Aren’t Having Children Because of War in Ukraine, Poverty, and Unhappiness with Putin’s Political Course, Higher School of Economics Poll Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – A new survey by Moscow’s Higher School of Economics reported in Voprosy ekonomiki finds that nearly a third (30.6 percent) of Russians have decided to postpone or not have children at all because of the war in Ukraine, poverty, or unhappiness with Putin’s political course (t.me/moscowtimes_ru/25537).

            That helps to explain why the number of children born during the first half of 2024 is far below that of the last pre-war year and in fact is now at the level this statistic was in 1999, the year before Vladimir Putin came to power. But tragically, independent demographer Aleksey Raksha says, Moscow seems intent on making the situation worse.

            According to him, a draft law the Duma is considering that would require psychological counseling before a divorce could be granted even if both parties agree to that would have the effect of driving down the number of marriages and the birthrate as well (pointmedia.io/story/66e183a9dc48800406e0f4c6).

            That is because such counseling would inevitably delay not only the granting of divorce by Russian courts but also the formation of new marriages likely to result in additional children. Raksha says that the experience of China confirms this but that Russian lawmakers are ignoring that and thus making further declines in the number of births likely.

            According to another Russian demographer Dmitry Zakotyansky, the best way to boos the number of children born is not placing such limits on divorce but rather addressing problems of poverty, increasing the rights of women, and lowering the level of force and tension in society by changing the direction Russia is moving in.

            The entirely reasonable focus on family values that Putin and others regularly talk about should not lead to the preservation of marriages “at any price,” he says. Instead, it should be about improving conditions within the family and the social and political environment in which Russian families currently live. 

 

Moscow’s Plan to Revisit Rehabilitation of Soviet Era Repression Victims Likely to Prove Explosive, Grashchenkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Russian prosecutors plan to reopen the question of the rehabilitation of victims of Soviet era crimes, a plan that will at the very least reopen old wounds because so many people were directly or indirectly involved and because many will draw parallels between repression then and repression now, Ilya Grashechenkov says.

            The director of the Moscow Center on Regional Politics argues that the plan, which is intended to ensure that no one who supported the Nazis was rehabilitated (rbc.ru/politics/09/09/2024/66df460a9a79473380608274) will inevitably raise questions about others as well (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-09-10/ilya-graschenkov-k-chemu-privedet-peresmotr-del-o-reabilitatsii-zhertv-repressiy-5190631).

            According to historians, on the order of 20 million people were repressed during Soviet times, but only a few more than 630,000 have been rehabilitated since the end of Soviet times, the scholar says. The cases of 340,000 more were considered but the authorities decided not to rehabilitate them.

            But these are miniscule figures given that specialists say that as many as 11 million Soviet citizens could qualify for rehabilitation. Consequently, any effort to review even the small number who have been rehabilitated to ensure they followed Moscow’s approach on fascism will touch a nerve among the twice that number of Russians today with direct links to them.

            Perhaps still more dangerously, such a review, Grashchenkov suggests, will reopen questions about the Soviet state and its role in all this, questions that will soon grow to include others about the actions of its successor Russian state as well.

Decolonization Far More Likely to Happen in Russia if Its Backers Focus on Ethnic Russians who’ve Become Regionalists and not Just on Non-Russians Alone, Kuban Regionalist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – There are two widespread misconceptions about the future of Russia, one of which holds that that country can continue in its current borders but be transformed into “’the beautiful Russia of the future” and the second that the only people who should be involved in decolonization are indigenous non-Russians, Vladimir Miroshnichenko says.

            The Kuban regionalist who now lives in Chile says that the first of these misconceptions has been widely examined and criticized but that the second has not. That is a tragedy because history suggests that there are very few cases when indigenous peoples on their own have achieved the goals of de-imperialization (region.expert/creoles/).

            In the case of Russia, Miroshnichenko continues, the exclusive focus on the non-Russians ignores that in many non-Russian areas, ethnic Russians form a significant portion or even a majority of the population and that in the Russian Federation as a whole, the ethnic Russians form at least a two to one majority over the non-Russians.

            Ignoring them is a serious mistake, because such an approach ignores the fact that many ethnic Russians who have moved into non-Russian areas in fact have become “creoles, descendants of immigrants from the empire for whom regional self-identification now takes precedence over ethnicity.

            Such people should be viewed as potentially important allies of the cause of de-imperialization rather than its inevitable opponents, Miroshnichenko says. If they are not, then the process of de-imperialization will be harder and more bloody and may even become impossible if such people come to view those seeking de-imperialization as their enemies.

            It is entirely natural that the Kuban is the region within the current Russian borders where talk like Miroshichenko’s about creoles is most natural because there ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Cossacks have intermarried and often changed identities (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/03/tradition-of-ukrainian-and-cossack.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/moscow-insists-not-only-that-kuban-isnt.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/faced-with-repression-in-1920s-many.html).

            That has sparked ever-increasing attention by Kyiv to the Kuban which Ukrainians refer to as “the crimson wedge” (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/06/kyiv-must-devote-more-attention-to.html), attention that alongside the growth of regional identities there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/crimson-wedge-activist-says-kuban-seeks.html ) has alarmed Russia and led the Kremlin to attack this development (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/moscow-insists-not-only-that-kuban-isnt.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/moscow-declares-two-ukraine-wedge.html).

            As I and others have argued in the past, Russian federalism has been at risk from the outset because too few people either in Moscow or the regions and republics paid attention to the Russians both in predominantly ethnic Russian areas and in non-Russian areas as well (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/02/tragedy-of-russian-federalism-now.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/russias-regions-not-just-its-non.html).

            And as both I and others have argued as well, the real disintegration of the Russian empire will occur when and only when the supporters of the coming apart of the Russian state focus as much on the ethnic Russians and their role in this process as they do now on the non-Russians (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/06/real-disintegration-of-empire-will.html).

Barbarous Actions of Russian Forces in Ukraine Product of Continuing Influence of Soviet Ideology, Savin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – Many observers blame the barbarity of Russian military actions in Ukraine on Putin, Dimitry Savin says. He certainly bears responsibility for these horrors, but their real source lies in the Soviet tradition of “ideologically motivated sadism and barbarism,” a tradition that the Russian Federation has continued as something that binds it together.

            The editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian portal Harbin says Russian liberals and the West generally want to blame anyone or anything else other than Soviet leaders and their approach to opponents but that this approach has horrific consequences both within Russia and in Moscow’s relations with others (harbin.lv/istoki-antifashistskogo-sadizma).

            From the outset, Soviet leaders blamed and targeted for attack not individuals responsible for specific actions but rather entire groups whose very existence was deemed unacceptable and thus whose destruction by any means including sadism and looting was held to be the highest good, Savin continues.

            That approach, which continues in Ukraine, thus has its roots in Soviet ideology rather than in fascism, Savin says. Soviet leaders talked about fascism long before Hitler and World War II and long after it as well. And Putin is using this longer tradition in Ukraine rather than only taking ideas from the war against Hitler as many assume.

            Neither Russian liberals nor the West understands this, he says. On the one hand, most Russian liberals think about the world around them in terms heavily informed by this Soviet approach of believing that once an enemy group has been identified, all means are justified in destroying it. They disagree with the Kremlin only about which group that is.

            And on the other, European and American liberals don’t want to blame the Soviet system as a whole for anything. Instead, they prefer to separate out “’bad’ Stalinism’ from ‘good’ communism and socialism” and thus to blame all of Moscow’s crimes on longer Russian historical traditions “but not on Marx, Lenin and communism.”

            “As a result, those forces which appear to be trying to fight the Kremlin in fact act as its defense lawyers.” But “the price of this is too high,” Savin argues. Moscow remains a threat to the Russian population and to outsiders as well, a trend that is likely to continue and expand unless the true sources of “Russian barbarism” are recognized and attacked.

            Unfortunately, the conservative commentator says, the chances that Russian and Western liberals will come to their senses are not great and thus the chances that more such crimes will continue in the future is “very high” indeed. 

 

China Plans to Expand Its Presence in Norway’s Svalbard Archipelago, Helping Moscow Now But Challenging It Later

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – Beijing plans to work with Russia on scientific research on Svalbard, according to Marc Lanteigne at Norway’s Arctic University, a move that will set off alarm bells in the West now because of Russia’s attention to Norway’s archipelago and in Moscow later because it is another sign that China is becoming senior partner to Russia in the Arctic.

            Lanteigne told Thomas Nilsen of The Barents Observer that Svalbard is increasingly more important to China as a research center because Beijing has largely been frozen out of Canada and Greenland (thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2024/09/svalbard-research-becomes-more-important-china-professor-says).

            Building on its cooperate with Russia in the Antarctic and responding to Moscow’s call for BRICS countries to work together in the Arctic, the Norwegian research continues, China is ready to expand its activities on Svalbard and more generally with Russia in other parts of the Arctic region.

            In the short term, Moscow will certainly welcome China’s increased involvement, especially since Beijing agrees with the Russian government that Norway is violating the spirit of the Svalbard Treaty by limiting the focus of research there and thus may help Russia advance its broader goals in the region (https://jamestown.org/program/moscows-first-move-against-nato-could-take-place-in-norways-svalbard-archipelago/)

            But over the longer haul, Moscow along with the West will have much to worry about if China’s role expands to the point that even at the Western end of the Northern Sea Route Beijing becomes the paramount power and pushes Russia aside (jamestown.org/program/china-helping-russia-on-northern-sea-route-now-but-ready-to-push-moscow-aside-later/).

            According to Lanteigne, China has “the unusual luxury” of working with Russia but “not slamming the door” to cooperation with other countries while advancing its own interests.

Orenburg Corridor Arose Because Kazakhs Wanted a More Ethnically Kazakh Capital City, Kazakh Journalist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – Orenburg was the capital of the Kazakhstan Autonomy between 1920 and 1924 because Moscow viewed this predominantly Russian city as a way to maintain central control there, but it was handed over to the RSFSR largely as at the insistence Kazakhs that their republic have a more ethnically Kazakh capital, Bakyt Zhanabergen says.

            The Kazakh journalist who specializes in historical questions says that the archives show that Kazakh communists repeatedly asked Moscow to move the capital of their autonomy from Orenburg to more Kazakh cities because they believed that would improve the administration of their autonomy (spik.kz/2002-kak-orenburg-perestal-byt-stolicej-kazahstana-i-vernulsja-v-sostav-rossii.html).

            Zhanabergen’s findings are part of an ongoing debate about what has come to be known as the Orenburg Corridor, the Russian oblast separating Kazakhstan from the Middle Volga. Some Kazakhs now want it back (jamestown.org/program/kazakh-nationalists-call-for-astana-to-absorb-orenburg-outraging-moscow/), and  many in the Middle Volga want it joined either to them or to Kazakhstan to open way for the independence of that republic and others (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/tatars-and-bashkirs-must-recover.html).

            Moscow has been alarmed by such calls and by the suggestions of Ukrainian analysts that the Orenburg Corridor threatens Russia’s territorial integrity more than almost any other issue (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/ukrainian-interest-in-orenburg-corridor.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/orenburg-corridor-threatens-russia-more.html).

            Zhanabergen’s article appears to be an effort to damp down Kazakh interest in the corridor by pointing out that the Kazakhs had good reason to give up Orenburg; but however that may be, it will do little or nothing to limit interest in the corridor in the Middle Volga (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/tatars-and-bashkirs-must-recover.html and jamestown.org/program/the-orenburg-corridor-and-the-future-of-the-middle-volga/).

            And it certainly challenges the view, held by many in the Middle Volga that Moscow created the Orenburg corridor to block the republics of that region from achieving independence, something they say would have happened in 1991 had that Russian corridor not existed (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/if-tatarstan-had-bordered-foreign.html).

            But the result of the appearance of this article is likely to have the unintended consequence of boosting attention to the Orenburg Corridor given that activists in all three places, Kazakhstan, the Middle Volga and Ukraine see it as increasingly fateful for the future (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/tatars-stress-turkic-and-muslim.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/10/bashkir-activist-ready-to-give-up.html).

Navalnaya’s Comments about Common Culture of Russians and Non-Russians Only Deepen Divide between Them, Radicalizing Both

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – Speaking in Slovenia, Yuliya Navalnaya, the widow of the Russian opposition politician, suggested that those calling for the independence of the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation were ignoring “the shared backgrounds and culture” of Russians and non-Russians alike.

            Her words which echo those of Kremlin propagandists have outraged non-Russians who see the world in an entirely different way and beyond question have deepened the divide between Russian liberals and non-Russian activists, Gulnara Shuraleyeva, one of the latter, says (themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/06/navalnayas-decolonization-critique-proves-that-russias-liberal-opposition-hasnt-been-listening-to-indigenous-voices-a86280).

            And that in turn has led to the radicalization of many who may have hoped for cooperation and the development of genuine federalism but see Navalnaya’s words as evidence that even if liberals like her came to power, the situation of the non-Russians would remain dire unless they are able to get out from under Moscow’s thumb by securing their own independence.

            (For examples of such commentaries, see idelreal.org/a/narody-uderzhivalis-v-imperskih-kleschah-siloy-ruslan-aysin-o-kritike-navalnoy-dekolonialnoy-povestki/33109265.html, t.me/League_FN/2081, indigenous-russia.com/archives/39545, indigenous-russia.com/archives/39541 and svoboda.org/a/razzhigaet-nenavistj-blogery-posporili-iz-za-slov-yulii-navaljnoy/33108644.html.)

            By backing the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation just as clearly and unqualifiedly as does the Kremlin, Navalnaya may have won plaudits from Russian nationalists and regime loyalists as well as from those in the West who oppose the disintegration of Russia just as they opposed the disintegration of the USSR thirty years ago.

            But gratuitous remarks like hers will do little to slow the coming apart of the Russian Federation just as similar ones at the end of Soviet times didn’t slow a similar process but in fact had the unintended consequence of accelerating its demise, however hard those who made such remarks then now try to take credit for exactly what happened.

Russia has Exhausted the Power Generating Capacity It Inherited from Soviet Union, Energy Minister Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – Russia has exhausted the reserves of electric power generation left over from Soviet times, Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov says, and today it has little chance of replacing it given both Western sanctions that keep Moscow from acquiring needed spare parts and the absence of domestic spending in the sector.

            And despite Vladimir Putin’s assurances that Russia will overcome all problems in this area, the energy minister said the situation in the Russian Far East is now so bad that energy production there is at high risk of collapse (tass.ru/interviews/21798711 and moscowtimes.ru/2024/09/09/glava-minenergo-zayavil-ob-ischerpanii-ostavshihsya-ot-sssr-rezervov-energetiki-a141663).

            Tsivilyov’s pessimism in contrast to Putin’s upbeat optimism rests on the conclusions of Russian experts. According to them, even the Russian capital won’t be able to generate enough electricity in the future with shortfalls seriously restricting economic growth (so-ups.ru/future-planning/public-discussion-genshema/2042/).

            According to one expert, Oleg Shevtsov, head of Trans-Energy, half or more of Russia’s aging power plants and power distribution arrangements can’t be repaired let alone increased in capacity because of sanctions and the absence of domestic funding and supply (newizv.ru/news/2024-07-20/elektroseti-v-rossii-iznosheny-na-50-70-gde-zhdat-novyh-otklyucheniy-elektrichestva-432026).

            Unless something changes and quickly, Russia likely faces brownouts or worse, developments that will limit its ability to maintain existing levels of economic production even in key areas like the military-industrial sector. Putin clearly hopes for better; but as so often in Russia, the result is likely to be otherwise. 

Putin’s Speeches Now Resemble Those of CPSU General Secretaries, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – There are many ways in which Russia increasingly resembles the Soviet past, but one of the most intriguing is the fact that Vladimir Putin’s speeches increasingly resemble stylistically and in terms of reaction those of CPSU general secretaries to plenums of the central committee.

            They are of little or no interest to anyone “except those who write them,” the London-based Russian analyst says; and no one listens to them “except those who have to do so because of their positions.” As a result, these public actions are of less moment than many think (t.me/v_pastukhov/1238 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=66DE94FA9C2B3).

            But even more important, “the vacuum of thought” that such speeches then and now display is unintentionally highlighted by “unnecessary details” that are intended to fill the time and distract attention from genuinely important and much larger issues while suggesting the man in power is really in charge.

            Putin’s latest speech in Vladivostok exemplifies this return to the past, Pastukhov continues. He said nothing about the war and maintained that “everything is calm, that we live as we did, and that we have grandiose plans,” although the specifics of even those were largely absent concealed behind a wave of meaningless newspeak.

            And as was so often the case in Soviet times, the leader’s speeches once again must be analyzed not so much by a consideration of what they contain but what they don’t and how the absence of comment about Ukraine, China or even Belarus is where the real story lies just as was true in Brezhnev’s time.