Outrage Spreads about Gazprom Call for Writing Off Smaller Russian Cities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct.11 – Earlier this month, a senior official of Gazprom Invest said that small and even mid-sized cities weren’t worth saving and that Moscow should shift investments from them to megalopolises. That statement has sparked outrage among residents in these cities and among experts who say that writing off smaller cities would be extremely destructive.

            Almost immediately after the Gazprom Invest statement was reported (nakanune.ru/news/2024/10/02/2)2790195/), small city residents and  experts took to social media to denounce that as something intended to boost the bottom line of Gazprom by eliminating the need for it to extend gas lines to smaller cities.

            Now KPRF Duma deputy Sergey Obukhov has demanded that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin explicitly condemn the Gazprom Invest call and make it clear to all that Moscow has no intention of writing off smaller cities in much the same way it has written off villages over the past two decades (nakanune.ru/news/2024/10/12/22791561/).

            Neither Mishustin nor any other senior official has yet done so, but neither have they come out in favor of a proposal that issues from one of the Kremlin’s closest allies. That may mean that the Gazprom Invest suggestion will not become official policy but may go forward covertly as it were.

            But what has happened in the last ten days is a reminder that when policies affect large groups of Russians – and the small cities of the country are where about a quarter of the population of the Russian Federation now lives – public opposition can slow even if it cannot stop policies the Putin regime likely wants to put in place.