Kremlin Wants to Compile Complete Lists of Individual Members of Numerically Small Peoples of the North and Far East

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 5 – Because members of numerically small peoples of the North and Far East are eligible for special benefits, many people have tried to claim that they are members and the Russian authorities have sought to limit their ability to make such claims and get those benefits.

            This has led to corruption and also to court cases in which some individuals have won registration and others have not (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/moscow-now-compiling-not-just-list-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/russian-courts-rejecting-efforts-by.html).

            Now, Magomedsalam Magomedov, a senior official of the Russian Presidential Administration, says that Moscow wants to compile a full and accurate listing of all the members of such groups to ensure fairness and prevent corruption (forumvostok.ru/programme/business-programme/?day=5.09.2024 and svpressa.ru/society/article/428572/).

            At one level, of course, this is an entirely reasonable measure; but it is likely to involve purging some members from these groups and allowing others, including those with no ethnic ties to them, to gain access to membership and hence benefits. But this step points to an even more serious change in Moscow’s policies regarding nationalities more generally.

            The approach Magomedov is advocating for the peoples of the north and the far east could easily be extended to smaller ethnic communities in the Caucasus and even to larger nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation, a move that would give Moscow even greater powers to control the situation but spark more anger and activism in these groups.