Ethnic Immigrants in Major Russian Cities have Fertility Rates More than Twice as High as Those of Ethnic Russians There, Academy of Sciences Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 7 – Ethnic minorities in major Russian cities are rapidly increasing their shares of the population there because on average the women in these communities have fertility rates more than twice as high as those of indigenous ethnic Russians, according to a new study released by the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

            The study found that ethnic Russian women in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk have between one and two children per woman per lifetime, their non-Russian counterparts in immigrant communities, both from abroad and from non-Russian republics within Russia, have fertility rates of between three and four (mk.ru/social/2025/11/06/genetiki-soobshhili-o-tom-kak-v-stolice-menyaetsya-populyacionnyy-sostav.html).

            This means not only that the non-Russians will quickly increase their share of the population even if in-migration were to be significantly reduced but also that there will likely be more inter-ethnic marriages and a shift in the ethnic and confessional composition of Russia not only in these cities but more generally, the authors of the study suggest.

            Such trends are also likely to exacerbate the feelings of ethnic Russian nationalists who fear the impact of rising percentages of non-Russians in their cities and increases in the number of intermarriages between Russians and non-Russians as a result and especially this evidence that Russian cities and Russia itself are becoming ever less Russian.

Lukashenka’s New Foreign Policy Elite More Focused on China than on Russia, Turarbekova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka has not only followed Russia in reorienting Belarus away from Europe toward Asia but has gone far beyond Vladimir Putin in preparing a new foreign policy elite that is focused more on China than on any other country, including the Russian Federation, according to Roza Turarbekova.

            Between 2020 and 2025, the Kazakhstan-born Belarusian analysis who taught for many years on the faculty of international relations at Belarus State University says that this reflects what she calls “the de-Europeanization” of Belarus and promises more of the same in the future (dekoder.org/ru/article/pyat-faktorov-predopredelili-deevropeizaciyu-belarusi).

            According to her, after these changes, students at a faculty whose graduates dominate Minsk’s foreign policy operations are focusing on Asia and China in particular; and “even the Russian direction” about which so many speak “is not nearly as clearly expressed” – and while “courses on European themes remain, there are no none about the United States.”

            This shift is reflected not only in the fact that a faculty for the study of contemporary China has been established but in the titles of theses and articles by graduate students. For the years between 2020 and 2024, Turarbekova says, “33 of the 80 were devoted to China, while only 22 were to Europe, only four to the US, and only five to Russia.”

            These shifts do not mean that Belarusians as a whole have reoriented away from Europe and the West, the scholar says; but they do indicate that Lukashenka is now even more focused on China than on anywhere else – and that those countries receiving less attention as a result are not only the Europeans and the Americans but even the Russians.

Support for Declaring Ivan the Terrible a Saint Again on the Rise in Russia

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – In the 1990s, some Russians called for Ivan the Terrible to be canonized as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. That movement was not encouraged by either the religious or secular authorities of their country. But now there are signs that the cult of the notorious medieval Russian ruler is reemerging and growing in strength.

            The erection of a statue of Ivan in Vologda has been the occasion for discussions of this, even though most have suggested that this move was simply yet another of the outrageous actions of that federal subject’s governor, Georgy Filimonov, wo has gained notoriety by his dry law, prohibition of abortions and formation of groups of new oprichniki.

            But the cult of Ivan the Terrible is far larger and deeper than that, commentator Ivan Zheyanov argues in a new article on the PointMedia portal, and very well may succeed this time around in having the notorious Russian ruler named a saint by the Moscow Patriarchate (pointmedia.io/story/690a1597e657f59b666dce48).

            The late Patriarch Aleksii and the current one Kirill both declared that it was unthinkable that the church could declare Ivan the Terrible a saint, with the current head of the Russian Orthodox Church even declaring that he considered the case “closed” for all time (ria.ru/20240716/kirill-1960059761.html).

            But despite that, groups like the Russian Community and Forty Forty and the so-called Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, all increasingly close allies of the Patriarchate, have stepped up their efforts to promote a cult of Ivan the Terrible; and Patriarch Kirill has said that Ivan’s reputation has been besmirched by Western propaganda (patriarchia.ru/article/105296).

            The major reason that all these groups and individuals want to boost Ivan is not that he demonstrated any commitment to Christianity – that would be impossible to do – but rather that he recognized and promoted a view of the tsar as the primary defender of the Russian state by his harsh policies and thus provides the true model his successors should follow.

            Given that focus and given that the ROC MP has often canonized Russian rulers for their secular actions, it is thus not unthinkable that the church may do so in the case of Ivan the Terrible, something that will please those Russians who appear to believe that even Stalin wasn’t harsh enough

Kremlin Gives Non-Russians New Holidays as It Steals Their Present and Threatens Their Future

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 5 – Students of imperial systems frequently speak of what they call “the folklorization of robbery,” the practice whereby the imperial center offers minorities the chance to flaunt their cultural traditions as a way of covering that center’s suppression of the rights of these peoples and threatens their survivals.

            That is exactly what is happening in Putin’s Russia, Valery Panyushkin says in a commentary for The Moscow Times where he suggests that that is exactly what the Kremlin leader is doing with his two new holidays for minorities at a time when Moscow is stealing ever more from the minorities (moscowtimes.ru/2025/11/05/folklorizatsiya-grabezha-a179222).

            The journalist who identifies himself as being from Ingria, the land around St. Petersburg in Russia’s Northwest, says that allowing people to flaunt their culture two days a year does little to make up for what the state is doing against them on those days and on all the other days of the calendar.

            And in confirmation of that, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin almost on the same day Putin was announcing the two new holidays for minorities confirmed a new plan for the development of the Russian Arctic that will put at risk even the survival of minorities there (echofm.online/stories/mishustin-utverdil-novyj-plan-razvitiya-arktiki-on-stavit-pod-ugrozu-korennye-narody-regiona).

            Very few Russians or non-Russians will have any doubts about what is going on. The only ones who can be counted on to believe the Kremlin’s version and overlook what the Russian government is doing are useful idiots in the West who will celebrate the holidays and suggest that they show that Putin and his regime are in fact concerned about minorities.

            That could hardly be further from the truth. To paraphrase a Russian general who said in the 19^th century that Russia needs Armenia but it doesn’t need Armenians, Putin needs the resources in the regions where non-Russians live and the non-Russians themselves as cannon fodder. He doesn’t need the non-Russians and is no respecter of their legitimate rights. 

Putin’s Governors Come from Narrow Range of Institutions, ‘Club of the Regions’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 6 – Much attention has been paid to the governors’ school the Kremlin has set up as a source of these cadres that more than half of the governors now in place are its graduates (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/05/putins-governors-school-playing.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/more-than-half-of-heads-of-russian.html).

            Now, analysts at the Club of the Regions have done a deeper dive and considered what were the last positions of the heads of federal subjects had before Putin named them as governors. The Club’s analysts found that these officials came from a remarkably small range of institutions (club-rf.ru/theme/616):

·       Five came from each of the two houses of the Federal Assembly, the Council of the Federation and the State Duma.

·       Four came from the Presidential Administrtion.

·       Three came from the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.

·       And two came from each of the following structures: the Political Representation of the North-West Federal District, the ministry for economic development, the ministry for industry and trade, and the All-Russian Peoples Front.

Kremlin Plan to Bring Ukraine War Veterans into Duma will Further Degrade Russian Political Life, Reznik Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – Maksim Reznik, a former deputy of the St. Petersburg parliament and now a Russian opposition figure in emigration, says that the Kremlin wants veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine to occupy 40 percent of the seats of the Duma after next year’s country-wide parliamentary elections.

            Reznik and his colleagues at the Anti-War Committee say that such an outcome would not only reward those who have behaved badly in an aggressive campaign but lead to the further degradation of the Russian political system which is already in a pathetic state (pointmedia.io/story/6909b95ce657f59b666dce46).

            As the result, the Russian Anti-War Committee plans to launch a campaign against the election of any and all veterans of the war in Ukraine to the Duma, an effort that parallels but is distinctly different from plans by the Foundation for the Struggle against Corruption that was founded by the late Aleksey Navalny to oppose United Russian Party candidates.

            It isn’t clear what impact these efforts will have but the introduction of hundred of veterans of the Ukraine war will mean that the Duma won’t have people with political experience and the Kremlin will be able to use the parliament as a tool to advance its goals without any risk that it will serve as a check and balance to executive power.

            While Reznik does not mention it, what Putin appears ready to try to do recalls Stalin’s orchestration of “the Lenin levy” at the time of the Bolshevik leader’s death, an action that brought in many workers and peasants who overwhelmed the politically skilled Old Bolsheviks and set the stage for the rise of Stalin’s untrammeled dictatorship. 

Civil War Only One of Challenges Now Facing Russia’s Leaders, Kremlin Sociologist Warns

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 5 – When Aleksandr Kharichev, head of the Presidential Administration’s sector which monitors social processes and who serves as the Kremlin’s senior in-house sociologists published an article which among other things suggested that Russia now faces the challenge of a potential civil war, that was quickly picked up to the exclusion of all else he said.

            But in an article for the second issue of the new Russian Academy of Economics and State Service journal The Government, Kharichev pointed to five other challenges he says Moscow is currently facing and must address to prevent disastrous outcomes (ehorussia.com/new/node/33600).

            In addition to the possibility of a civil war, the Kremlin sociologist says, Russia faces he potential “loss of political, territorial and cultural sovereignty, depopulation, loss of public trust in the government, and the collapse of the political system, as well as ‘dehumanization’ and the transformation of Russians into ‘consumer subjects.’”

            His suggestion that Russia faces the possibility of a civil war guaranteed that his words would attract widespread attention, but these other challenges both singly and collectively are likely a more important part of his message to the Russian political elite generally and Vladimir Putin personally.

            The second issue of the journal containing his article has been published but not yet posted on its website and comments on it have depended on the readings by those with access to that (t.me/agentstvonews/12580  and vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2025/11/05/1152177-chinovnik-kremlya-sformuliroval-spisok-vizovov).

            When the second issue is posted, a more thorough commentary will be possible; but his article also has the effect of calling attention to this new publication; and a brief perusal of its first issue which has been posted suggest it is one that those who follow Russian politics will want to read regularly. For the first issue, see runivers.ru/gal/today.php?ID=643816.

 

Putin Says that ‘Without the Ethnic Russian People, Russia Cannot be Russia’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 5 – In yet another step toward further elevating the status of the ethnic Russians and forcing non-Russians to defer to them, Vladimir Putin who has been pursuing this line for some time said bluntly that “without the ethnic Russian people, Russia cannot be Russia” and that non-Russians must recognize that attacks on ethnic Russians are attacks on them too.

            In an address to his Presidential Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations, the Kremlin leader softened these remarks slightly by suggesting that “of course, the culture, customs and languages of every people in our vast country are also important and necessary.” But that was not the thrust of his remarks (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/78409).

            Instead, Putin suggested that because of the centrality of the ethnic Russian people, “the Russian identity, tradition, culture and language of our nation-forming people require the utmost care and protection” and that members of other nations in Russia must recognize that attacks on Russians from abroad are thus attacks on them as well.

            His sop to the non-Russians was his announcement that he has created two new holidays for the non-Russians, Indigenous Minority Peoples’ Day to be marked on April 30 and the Day of the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation to be celebrated every year on September 8.

            But Putin’s comments about the special role of the ethnic Russians means that these are little more than a further folklorization of these peoples and that Russianization and Russification of non-Russians who form more than a quarter of the population will continue as long as Putin is in power. 

Russian Schools in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg to Train Chinese Skippers of Ships Plying the Northern Sea Route

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang have signed an agreement under the terms of which Chinese pilots of ships plying the Northern Sea Route will be trained to do so at Russian universities in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg.

            The two sides hope that such Russian training for Chinese pilots will dramatically expand the number of Chinese ships which can pass along this route between Asia and Europe and thus help boost the amount of trade carried along the NSR (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-11-03/v-peterburge-budut-uchit-kitaytsev-prohodu-po-sevmorputi-5501194).

            That is not an absurd expectation, but Russia’s willingness to train Chinese ship captains in this way highlights both Russia’s own problems with building enough ships to come anywhere close to meeting the cargo goals Putin has set and China’s assumption of an ever larger share of the shipping along this route.

            In the short term, Moscow will likely be able to claim success if the amount of shipping goes up; but over the longer term, the increasing dominance of Chinese ships and crews will likely allow Beijing to dictate terms and ultimately Russia aside from what Putin views as a key Russian artery. (On that possibility, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/10/as-russia-falters-in-north-china.html and jamestown.org/program/china-exploiting-russian-weakness-in-arctic-and-moscow-has-reason-to-worry/.)

New Russian Office on Svalbard Headed by ‘SpitsGirl’ who Says Norway Restricting Moscow’s Rights There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – In the latest ratcheting up of Russian pressure on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, the Russian Geographic Society has opened an “expedition and tourist center” in Barentsburg. The RGS has close ties to the Kremlin and Russian defense ministry, and the head of the new office clearly speaks for them.

            She is Darya Slyumyayeva, is employed by Arktikugol, the Russian coal company with interests on the archipelago and hassmained fame as Spitsgirl for setting up and running a social media page (vk.com/spitsgirl)  that has promoted Moscow’s line on Svalbard and the Arctic more generally (thebarentsobserver.com/news/russian-geographical-society-opens-office-on-svalbard/439759).

            Last year, she laid out what is her and Moscow’s position on Svalbard. Arguing that that archipelago “plays an important role in the strengthening of Russia’s positions,” she complained that Moscow faces problems because Norway seeks “to establish its full and absolute sovereignty” there in violation of the 1920 treaty (arcticyouthnetwork.org/2024/02/19/near-the-north-pole-spitsbergen/).

            The new office opened just one day after Vladimir Putin spoke to the Russian Geographical Society and stressed that the Arctic is along with Ukraine “now among the Society’s main foci of attention” (rgo.ru/activity/redaction/news/vladimir-putin-predlozhil-sozdat-muzey-geografii-i-obyavit-2027-y-godom-geografii/).

            For background on Moscow’s efforts to expand its role on Svalbard, efforts to which the new office is likely to make both overt and covert contributions, see jamestown.org/program/moscow-using-svalbard-to-test-natos-readiness-and-resolve/ and jamestown.org/program/moscows-first-move-against-nato-could-take-place-in-norways-svalbard-archipelago/.

Russia Doesn’t Currently have an Ethnic Russian National Movement but Will Eventually have a Russian Nationalist Revolution, ‘Russian March’ Veterans Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – Two veterans of the Russian Marches which nationalists organized between 2005 and 2020 say that their country does not currently have a national movement of ethnic Russians, but both believe that one will emerge and that Russia like other countries will have national movement representing its largest nation.

            The Russian Marches were an attempt to create one, both say, but they were subject to repression by the Putin regime for the participation of some in these marches in the anti-government protests in 2012, something the Kremlin couldn’t forgive, and by the nationalist wave that arose after Putin seized Crimea (meduza.io/feature/2025/11/04/vnezapno-samym-russkim-stal-putin).

            The first of the Russian March participants, now speaking anonymously, says that the Presidential Administration “very much feared the emergence of an alliance of liberals and nationalists with the nationalists in the streets as street fighters.” But Putin’s moves against were what disordered and then destroyed Russian national movement.

            “Therefore,” he says, “there is no contemporary national movement.” And he explicitly says that he doesn’t consider the activity of the Russian Community and the Northern Man “a renaissance of the national movement,” although there are positive elements of each and out of them something may yet come.

            The second Russian March participant commenting on this is Sergey Bespalov, who later served as the coordinator of Navalny’s office in Irkutsk. He is optimistic: “Sooner or later in Russia will occur a classical national revolution. Putin has frozen this process for the time being, but it is impossible to defeat it.”

            He suggests that “Russia will become a state of the ethnic Russians or a federation of ethnic Russians and other peoples who populate its territory. People through the world feel they belong to some national group and the same thing will ultimately be true in Russia and this will take some political form.”

            Just what it will look like, Bespalov says, is as yet unknown, although he adds that “personally” he favors a broad federation,” one that won’t frighten the other peoples and make them nervous.

To Avoid Problems and Keep Their Jobs, Russian Officials Frequently Go Well Beyond Putin’s Specific Orders, Bondaryov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – Many believe that Putin gives the orders for each and every repressive move in the Russian Federation or at least defines their scope, Boris Bondaryov says; but in fact, many officials go well beyond even what the Kremlin ruler intends because they know that being pro-active is less threatening to their careers than simply doing what he specifies.

            As a result, it a serious mistake to place Putin for each and every act of repression in Russia today, the former Russian diplomat who resigned in 2022 to protest Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The culture of the bureaucracy plays a major role in expanding what is done beyond what Putin may plan (themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/03/dont-blame-putin-alone-for-russias-misdeeds-its-the-system-a91024).

            That is not to say that Putin is not responsible for many horrific actions or that he doesn’t set the tone, Bondaryov continues; but it suggests that the system he has molded includes bureaucrats who have learned that they won’t be blamed for being too repressive but may lose their jobs after the fact if they are not.

            And consequently, these bureaucrats rather than Putin bear primary responsibility for some of the more absurd and hyperbolic applications of Putin’s statements and actions. That means something else as well: for Russia to change, more will be required than just the departure of Putin from the scene. This bureaucratic culture will have to be changed too.

            For Russian bureaucrats, he continues, “passivity is a risk. The only way to protect yourself is to act. Or better – to overreact. Excessive zeal might earn you a scolding, but inaction leads to questions or even dismissal. It is not the fear of repression [that is behind such moves] but of losing one’s comfort and position.”

            According to Bondaryov, “this fear of becoming the one who failed to act, the one who didn’t notice or stayed silent, is one of the key psychological springs of the Russian state apparatus. It focuses people at the lower and middle levels of power to act on their own initiative without waiting for orders.”

            And they do not, “not out of ideological hatred or because Putin personally instructed them. They act preemptively to avoid blame as the weak link that would attract attention from above … This is how most repressive mechanisms actually operate: not only from the top downward, but from the bottom upward as well.”

Despite this, “the myth that all repressions come from the Kremlin is a convenient way to explain everything and swerve personal responsibility. It is easier to believe that a single villain gave an order than to accept that the system functions in such a way that thousands of individuals every day act as they do because it is safer and more advantageous for them.”

“But if we are honest, this system is upheld not by one person, but by countless individuals who make decisions locally. Their fears, careers, instincts for self-preservation and desire to demonstrate loyalty create the very environment we call repressive.’ And as long as we see only Putin in this, we will not understand how it truly works.”

Those in Moscow who Say that ‘Without a Victory over Ukraine, Russia will Cease to Exist’ are Living in a Past that No Longer Exists, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 --  As Putin’s war in Ukraine drags on, some of his ideologists are insisting that “without a victory over Ukraine, Russia will cease to exist” are living in a past that no longer exists and one, that if it is pursued for much longer, will condemn Russia to an unprecedented defeat, Dimitry Savvin says.

            The editor of the Riga-based Russian conservative Harbin portal says that in the 19^th century, there was some basis for this economically and demographically. At that time, Russia lived by the export of grain, and the ethnic Russians would have been under 50 percent of the population without Ukrainians (harbin.lv/est-li-u-rossii-budushchee-bez-ukrainy).

            Avoiding the loss of its main export earner and finding its ethnic core so small were thus legitimate concerns of Russian thinkers given the challenges they faced at that time. But today, Savvin suggests, the world has changed; but those who make this argument have not taken those changes into account.

            Russia no longer depends on grain exports. It relies on the export of oil and gas and those come from what is now the Russian Federation not Ukraine. And demographically, ethnic Russians form slightly more than 70 percent of the population of the state ruled from Moscow, and not the 44 percent they did over a century ago.

            Indeed, he continues, “for the preservation of the Russian ethnonational core as the basis of the Russian society and state, the war in Ukraine was not just unnecessary but has become a genuine catastrophe,” with mounting losses on the battlefield, a declining birthrate, and the influx of more culturally different immigrants from abroad.

            Loose talk suggesting that “’without the defeat of Ukraine, Russia will not survive’ is an out of date ideological scheme of the time of our great grandfathers and is not connected with the contemporary world. More than that,” Savvin concludes, “today is it openly absurd and thus deadly” for Russia.

            The only people who are prepared to talk this way and use such out-of-date thinking to justify this “bestial and insane war,” Savvin says, are the very same people who have been “the most odious enemies of the Russian peoples, those who since 1917 and continuing to this day sit in the Kremlin.”

            A loss to Ukraine will not destroy Russia, he suggests; indeed, it likely is the only way for Russia to begin the process of escaping out from under a regime that for more than a century has been the worst enemy of the Russian people.

Kyrgyzstan Entering a New Demographic Era with Falling Birthrates and Increases in Number of Pensioners

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 – Until recently, almost half of the population of Kyrgyzstan was younger than 25; but now that Central Asian republic has entered into a new demographic era, one of falling birthrates and greater longevity, positing challenges for Bishkek that it and analysts of the region seldom thought about earlier.

            Twenty years ago, the National Statistics Committee says, the average Kyrgyz woman had between 3.5 and 4 children. Now, that fertility rate has fallen to 2.8, still above the replacement level of 2.2 but increasingly eclipsed by the growing size of the pension-aged population (bugin.info/detail/kyrgyzstan-stareet-molod/ru).

            In the 1990s, pensioners formed no more than four percent of the population. Now, they represent approximately six percent of the residents of the country. And Kyrgyzstan’s demographers predict that falling birthrates and extended life expectancies will mean that they will form 12 percent of the population by 2050.

            That changes the demographic balance of the country. At present, there are roughly five working age Kyrgyz for every pensioner; but in 25 years, there will be only three – and the burden on the state will rise because there will be fewer young people in families to take care of the elderly.

            In addition, Bishkek must shift its spending from schools to hospitals because members of the oldest age cohorts are more likely to need care for diseases than are younger people; and the government must make plans for a very different pattern of outmigration to get jobs and send money home than the one on which Kyrgyzstan currently relies.

            For decades, analysts have focused on the rapid growth of population in Central Asia and the explosive number of young people there. But the figures from Kyrgyzstan suggest that the region is entering a new era, one that will require not only changes in policy but in analytic perspectives as well. 

‘Import Substitution of Holidays’ Running into Difficulties, Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 – The unofficial Russian ban on the celebration of Halloween is part of what may be called “the import substitution of holidays” by the Kremlin which seeks to eliminate such events by replacing them with homegrown holidays that are truly Russian, Aleksandr Arkhipova says.

            But this effort which has been gaining in strength over the last several years has run into difficulties as Russians find out that these “Russian” holidays either never existed or have pagan roots at odds with Russian Orthodoxy, the independent Russian anthropologist says (t.me/anthro_fun/3649 and novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/11/01/spasti-detei-ot-tletvornogo-vliianiia-zapada).

            That pattern is especially true of Moscow’s hope to displace Halloween with a Russian substitute. So far, the center has come up with two, one a supposed fall pumpkin festival that never happened because pumpkins came to Russia much later than they did in Europe and a second with origins in the pagan Slavic custom of remaining in touch with the dead.

            The latter resembles Halloween in some respects although the Western holiday at least has been Christianized while the proposed Russian substitute is completely pagan and thus is even more unacceptable to the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin than is the Christianized version of Halloween most of its celebrants know.

            But that doesn’t mean, Arkhipova and others suggest, the Kremlin will stop this form of “import substitution” than it is likely to do regarding any other. However, if it is going to be successful, it needs to know more about the holidays it wants to use lest the new ones end up creating more problems than foreign imports (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/11/01/teper-budet-tolko-novyi-god).

Moscow Only Predominantly Ethnic Russian Region Slated to be Present at PACE Forum

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 3 – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has announced plans to create a forum for discussion by representatives of the opposition in the Russian Federation. According to current plans, 30 percent of the seats will be allocated to representatives of the non-Russian nationalities.

            That has sparked complaints both among ethnic Russians and some non-Russians  as to whether that share is too large or too small and whether those peoples like the Chechens who have already declared their independence should be included in such a group at all (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/10/pace-suggestion-that-peoples-colonized.html and echofm.online/programs/opublikovano-na-ehe/opublikovano-na-ehe-chechenskie-naczionalnye-sily-prosyat-pase-sozdat-platformu-dlya-dialoga).

            But what has generally escaped attention is the fact that the only predominantly ethnic Russian region slated to be part of the PACE forum is the city of Moscow, an arrangement that Yury Shcherbachov makes it likely that the interests of predominantly ethnic Russian regions outside of Moscow will not be a focus (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6909054CB0075).

            On the one hand, that reflects a Russian reality, one that infects the Russian opposition just as much as any other aspect of life in that country, that everything that matters is centered in Moscow. But on the other, it also reflects the acceptance of that view by many in the West, who make an exception for non-Russians but not for Russians in the regions. 

            But both are insupportable positions if Russia is to make a transition to a democratic state given that the non-Russian republics form only about 20 percent of the population while the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays outside of the Moscow agglomeration form more than 60 percent.

            If the opposition in the Russian Federation and those in the West who are interested in seeing it succeed and displace Putin’s autocracy fail to take this into account, they will undermine almost any chance that the Russian Federation will be able to develop in a more positive way than it has.

            Indeed, what PACE appears set on doing is a kind of repetition of the mistakes Western powers made during the Russian Civil War – providing not enough support for the non-Russians to win independence but just enough to allow Moscow to exploit Russian nationalism against them and prevent most of them from winning their freedom. 

Seven Myths about 1937 that, Despite Available Evidence, All Too Many Still Believe In

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 31 – On the occasion of this year’s commemoration of the Memorial Day of Victims of Repression, Russian journalist Maksim Rychkov highlights seven myths about 1937 which reflect both the Stockholm syndrome into which the Russian people have fallen with their leaders and the ignorance of many in the West about both Stalinism and the Soviet system.

            In an article for the Most Media portal, the journalist lists the seven and then shows with careful documentation how each of them contributes to a situation in which many now remain willing to understate Stalin’s crimes and thus provide them with a justification for supporting him and his system (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/sem-mifov-vokrug-tridcat-sedmogo).

            The reasons he gives for rejecting these seven myths are or should be well-known both among Russians in the West, but what is especially striking is how many of these false notions about the past remain very much alive and are being cultivated and used by the Putin regime as it revives some of the most odious practices of the predceessorit admires.

            The seven myths are:

1.     There were repressions but they were limited in scope and time.

2.     Ordinary Soviet people weren’t touched by the repressions, only members of elites.

3.     The only real repressions were in 1937. Before and after that, there weren’t any serious enough to mention.

4.     Stalin didn’t know or at least didn’t know the extent of the repressions.

5.     The repressions happened because Soviet citizen in massive numbers denounced one another.

6.     The 1930s were a terrible time in world history, and what Stalin did was no worse than what other leaders were doing.

7.     The repressions helped the USSR win World War II.

None of these is true, but all are widely accepted.

Hidden Unemployment in Russia Up 150 Percent Since Start of the Year

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 2 – The Kremlin works hard to keep its official unemployment figures low whatever the economic situation in the country, but the Russian government’s labor ministry maintains a second figure which seldom gets much attention but may be a better indicator of the direction that country’s economy is headed.

            That is the figure of what Russians refer to as “hidden unemployment,” a category that includes workers who are sent  home early, transferred to part-time employment or included on lists of those likely to be laid off in the near future. Between January and October of this year, that figure jumped 150 percent (regionvoice.ru/skrytaya-bezrabotica-rvanula-vverkh-so/).

            At the start of 2025, there were 98,000 Russian workers on this list; now, there are 254,000 with much of the increase coming in the last several months, Tsargrad TV reports citing labor ministry figures (ekb.tsargrad.tv/news/jeto-uzhe-ne-zvonochek-v-prostoj-otpravili-250-tysjach-chelovek_1426250).

            Over this same period, official unemployment increased only a small amount, something that allowed Russian propagandists to insist that sanctions and other challenges were not hurting that country’s economy. But the hidden unemployment figures suggest the contrary and that in the coming months, the Russian economy is likely to decline still further. 

            Some firms are already shifting from five to four-day weeks, and more are likely to, although it is unknown at this point whether those who effectively lose fulltime jobs will be counted within the hidden employment listing. If they are, then the increase in that category will be even greater in the next several months than it has been since the start of 2025.

Estonian Villagers in Tyumen Oblast Refuse to Make Donations for Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – Because of the tumultuous history of Russia over the last two hundred years, there were until recently numerous villages throughout the country populated almost entirely by members of one or another nationality with ties to what are now independent countries and are increasingly viewed by Russian officials as a problem to be overcome.

Many of these people have left for their homelands or have been subject to dispersal as part of Moscow’s efforts to promote Russification, and they seldom receive much attention in the Russian media because the Kremlin has little interest in showing how it increasingly represses not only indigenous nationalities but those with foreign roots as well.  

            That makes a 4,000-word article on a Tyumen portal about the village of Antsensk which is now the only Estonian settlement in that oblast where the people speak their native language and retain their national culture especially interesting (72.ru/text/gorod/2025/10/27/75513572/ and mariuver.com/2025/10/31/kak-estontsy-tjumeni-stali-neugodnym-narodom/).

            Estonians resettled in the region in 1909 as part of Stolypin’s agricultural reforms; and despite everything, those few who have not returned home continue to use their native language, celebrate national holidays, and are Evangelical Protestants despite intense efforts at Russification.

            One way Tyumen officials have sought to force them to leave either for Estonia or for larger ethnic-Russian dominated settlements is to fail to provide even the most basic services for the residents of Antsensk. The village didn’t even have a marker until 2019, and it isn’t linked with other settlements by any road, only an often impassable track.

            Nonetheless, the Estonians of Antsensk, who have now been reduced the residents of four houses not only aren’t prepared to go anywhere but have annoyed local officials because as one of them pointed out, the Estonian villagers “are unwilling to ‘chip in’ even for humanitarian aid” for Putin’s military effort against Ukraine.   

Russia has ‘Minimum’ of 8,000 Political Prisoners, ‘NeMoskva’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – When people talk about the number of political prisoners in Putin’s Russia, they normally cite the figures given by Memorial and OVD-Info, which reported confirmed cases numbering 1144 and about 2,000 respectively. But the NeMoskva portal says there are far more and at a minimum numbering 8,000.

            There are three major reasons why the NeMoskva figure is so much higher, reasons that should compel all those concerned about the number of political prisoners in the Russian Federation to pay more attention to its reporting (nemoskva.net/2025/10/30/skolko-ih-my-vryad-li-uznaem/).

            First, many people now languishing in prisons or camps for political reasons are known only to their families or close friends; and outside of Moscow, this means that central institutions like Memorial and OVD-Info inevitably miss people whom NeMoskva picks up because it has a larger network of reporters beyond the ring road.

            Second, in cases of those who have attracted little attention in Moscow or abroad, many “politicals” feel it is wiser to conceal that reality than to trumpet it because especially outside the ring road, NeMoskva reports, they and their families are certain that making such declarations will only add to their woes.

            Second, unlike Memorial and OVD-Info, NeMoskva counts those who are incarcerated not just on conviction for specific “political” offenses but those jailed under other provisions of the political code but brought to trial for obviously political reasons, a growing category across the country.

            These remarks in no way are intended to denigrate the important work that Memorial and OVD-Info do. Rather they call attention to an additional source which provides important additional information to what these two provide, something increasingly important in a country where the government is not only repressing people but repressing coverage of its repressions. 

More than Half of All Russians are ‘Very Tired’ of War in Ukraine, according to a VTsIOM Poll Conducted for the Kremlin, ‘Vot Tak’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – The Kremlin asked the VTsIOM polling agency to conduct a survey on Russian attitudes toward the war in Ukraine. According to the Vot Tak channel which gained access to the results, 56 percent of Russians say they are “very tired” of the war and another 27 percent say they “agree in part” with that position.

            These figures represent an increase in both over the past year, by nine percent in the first case and six percent in the second and together represent the highest rate of war weariness yet measured in Putin’s Russia (vot-tak.tv/89729451/kreml-gotovitsya-k-vyboram-gosdumy-2026 and moscowtimes.ru/2025/10/30/bolshe-polovini-rossiyan-vpervie-zayavili-chto-ochen-ustali-otvoini-a178841).

            That the share of Russians who are tired of the war has risen so high is important, but perhaps even more important is the fact that the Kremlin feels the need to have such surveys conducted but not published and appears to have been doing so for at least the last two years, an indication that some around Putin are worried about such a trend given their claims about popular support for Putin's war. 

Future Disintegration of Russian State will Be Different than in 1918 or 1991 but Each of Those Cases Provides Lessons for All Involved

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – When people think about the possibility of radical changes in the future, they typically look to the past for precedents. Not surprisingly, those who are thinking about the disintegration of the Russian Federation are now talking about the two most recent occasions when the Russian state fell apart, 1918 and 1991.

            That is a useful approach as there are some important lessons from each both about what is possible and what is impossible, but the situation today is sufficiently different from both that it is a mistake for anyone to assume that what may happen in the future has been presaged by what took place earlier.

            Consequently, no one should hold up either of these as a model and basis for decisions but rather consider the ways in which each of these past events, although very different from the current situation, nonetheless holds clues as to what is likely to happen if and when the state now centered in Moscow falls apart and new countries emerge from its regions and republics.

            Most participants in this debate implicitly focus on 1991 rather than 1918 because the events of 33 years ago took place relatively quickly, largely peacefully, and resulted in quick international recognition of those the Soviet constitution specified had the right to gain independence and that so far has blocked Moscow from pursuing a quick revanchist policy.

            The situation in 1918 was very different: while the Russian Republic disintegrated relatively quickly, this was anything but a peaceful process and did not result in the kind of rapid international recognition and support for the new states that might have allowed more of them to survive Moscow’s revanchism during the Russian civil war.

            This focus on 1991 rather than 1918 represents a tendency among regional and ethnic players in Russia and the diasporas to engage in what Vadim Shtepa, the editor of the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert, has characterized as “wishful thinking” because it allows them to ignore the way things could easily go wrong (region.expert/analytics-practice/).  

            One reason some participants in this debate have pointed to the possibility that 1918 offers more useful lessons has been to offer a corrective to the optimism of those who focus on 1991 by pointing out the ways the situation now is very different from both years and from the more recent one in particular.

            Because the debate about 1991 versus 1918 appears to have entered a new and more critical phase as highlighted by the appearance of a programmatic article by Shtepa in The Moscow Times  (moscowtimes.ru/2025/10/30/vozmozhen-li-raspad-imperii-po-modeli-1918-goda-a178830), I want to take this opportunity to republish my arguments about these two dates.

            They were first presented in April 2023 to the Sixth Forum of Free Peoples of PostRussia in Washington, DC. (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/approaching-end-of-todays-russia-more.html and are available in a Russian translation at region.expert/1918-1991/). With the exception of a single overly optimistic date, I think they stand up well and merit attention.

Approaching End of Today’s Russia More Likely to Resemble 1918 than 1991

            Ever more people around the world recognize that the Russian Federation is on its way the dustbin of history, but most of them assume that the coming disintegration of that country will resemble what happened in 1991. While there are some elements likely to be in common with the events of 30 years ago, the future disintegration of the Russian Federation almost certainly will be like not the remarkably quick and easy divorce of 1991 and resemble instead the vastly most complicated, difficult, and in part quickly reversed results of the events of 1918 when Russia earlier fell apart along ethnic and regional lines only to have much of its territory reunited under Moscow’s yoke because of divisions among its opponents and the facility with which the Bolsheviks exploited them.

Understanding why the events looming on the horizon are going to be fundamentally different than those of 1991 and fundamentally similar to those of 1918 is critical not only for the peoples involved and the strategies they should adopt but also and perhaps especially important for outside governments who are again going to face a greater challenge than three decades ago, one that they need to meet in radically different ways, lest the gains of disintegration be lost by a reintegration made possible as was the case a century ago by the outsiders doing just enough to contribute to the rise of a new kind of patriotism but not enough to achieve what the outsiders in fact hoped for then or now.

Obviously, these differences between now and 1991, the similarities between the present situation in 1918, and the consequences for both those immediately involved and those who want to help them are numerous and ramified, far too large to cover in a single comment. But there are at least five major reasons in each case that deserve to be mentioned and may serve as a warning against fighting the wrong war as all too often happens with politicians as well as with generals. At the very least, even these can serve as a cautionary notice to those who now assume that what they hope for will be achieved easily and quickly.

Among the reasons that 2024 will not be like 1991, the following five are especially important:

·          First, in 1991, almost everyone knew what the prospects were as far as the numbers of countries that would emerge from the disintegration of the USSR and what their borders would be. There were 15 union republics, if one counts the occupied Baltic states among them, and thus there would be 15 countries. And the administrative borders they had would become state borders at the insistence of both Moscow and the West. Now, no one has any idea how many states will arise from the demise of the Russian Federation, with numbers running from one – the Kremlin’s preference – to more than a 100; no one knows what their borders will be; and no one knows who will be in charge of particular places. That very complexity and its dangers leads many to adopt a status quo approach but such an approach by definition only lays a delayed action mine under the entire situation as Putin’s moves in Ukraine and elsewhere show.

·          Second, ethnicity is not going to be the only factor in the future as it was in 1991. Regions and sub-ethnic groups are going to play a role, either by separating or uniting; and that means that no one can say in advance what the principles will be for state organization – unless and until outsiders declare certain ideas such as democracy and non-aggression as fundamental. State structures are going to have to be built from the bottom up rather than simply rechristened as was the case after 1991. Again, that makes the entire situation more uncertain and more complicated and will dispose many to favor the status quo as perhaps the lesser evil.

·          Third, at least in principle, the disintegration of the USSR took place according to the Soviet constitution. The future disintegration of the Russian Federation will not have that advantage – or alternatively that constraint. Because what happened could be presented as “legal” and hence “legitimate,” it was far easier for those who rechristened themselves as democratic and national leaders to win out than it will be for those without that asset but at the same time, the new leaders who do emerge likely will be more genuine than many of those who held on to power between soviet times and the aftermath.

·          Fourth, in 1991, Russia had a leader committed not to using massive force to preserve the status quo. Gorbachev was guilty of using force on occasion, especially in the Caucasus and the Baltics; but he was not prepared to drown opposition in blood. Does anyone think that Putin is the same?

·          And fifth, and perhaps most important, in 1991, the non-Russians had an ally in Boris Yeltsin who wanted to escape from Kremlin control and was prepared to have the non-Russian republics leave in order for the Russian Federation to be on its own. Obviously, there are some Russians who think the same way now; but there is absolutely no one in a position of power in Moscow who does. Moreover, there are too few even among those who are called the Russian opposition to change this balance quickly.

Among the reasons that 2024 will resemble in some critical ways 1918, the following five are especially important:

·          First, in 1918, the Russian state had disintegrated and various groups small and large sought a place in the sun, forming their own republics and armies and both cooperating and competing with each other. The situation in the future is likely to be far more similar to that than was 1991.

·          Second, 1918 was about regions not just ethnicities, with regional identities far more important in much of the country than ethnic ones. That is also true now, and I stand by my argument that regionalism is going to be the nationalism of the next Russian revolution.

·          Third, like in 1918, Moscow remains committed to recapturing the entire periphery; and outsiders, including the West are divided between those who favored a weak but single state and those who feared a strong state that had gotten rid of what for many was ballast.

·          Fourth, because outsiders were divided, they collectively did just enough to tar those Moscow opposed as “foreign agents” and to develop a Red patriotism which ultimately allowed Moscow to defeat most but not all of those who sought to form their own countries.

·          And fifth, the diversity of the structures first created from below and then destroyed by Moscow’s reoccupation was so daunting that many outsiders viewed the restoration of order as more useful than it was, failing to see that the restoration set the stage for repression and imperial revenge.

And among the reasons that those outsiders who want to help the peoples of northern Eurasia achieve freedom, peace and democracy need to recognize, the following five are especially important:

·          First, the West needs to recognize its mistake in 1991 when it proclaimed just about everyone a democrat and assumed privatization of the economy would solve everything, including weaning leaders from aggressive and repressive tendencies. If one wants democracy, rule of law, and obedience to international law, one must work to promote those things; if one assumes the economy will do that as all too many in the West did 30 years ago, the results will be what they have been.

·          Second, for all the problems that disintegration of the Russian Federation will inevitably involve, if the goal is to eliminate repression and imperial revanchism, that is the only way forward in the case of many areas. Hence being for what some call secession is in fact the best way to achieve what are the most important goals of the West now. Short of that, the West must promote genuine federalism for those parts that don’t go their own way. That will require a far more interventionist approach but there is again no other way.

·          Third, the West, as well as the non-Russians and many regionalists, must recognize that there will be some Russian state left at the end of the decolonizing and de-imperializing effort. That state must be a democracy and a federation. Otherwise, it will be a threat.

·          Fourth, the West must recognize that its role will have to be far larger than it has ever been in the past and far more invasive as far as many in Russia will view it. Managing that will not be easy; but failing to adopt that strategy will only postpone problems rather than prevent their reemergence. Had the West insisted on genuine federalism in the Russian Federation, there would have been no Putin and no war in Ukraine.

·          And fifth, the West must promote cooperation among Russians and non-Russians rather than assuming that this is impossible; and it must take the lead in having them talk to each other. If that doesn’t happen, then there is a very real danger that [the near future] will end not as 1991 but as 1918 – and that will be a tragedy for everyone.

 

Even in North Caucasus, Media Outlets are Preparing Residents for Closer Ties with China

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – Prior to 1991, Soviet propagandists played up ties between the USSR and China when relations were good and tried to ignore them when relations soured. Now, that relations between Moscow and Beijing are warming, Russian writers are again talking about the role of Chinese among them in earlier times.

            In North Ossetia in the north Caucasus, a statue to Chinese workers who joined the Bolsheviks was erected in Soviet times and the square on which it was cited came to be known as the Chinese square. Later officials renamed it, but the population continues to refer to it as Chinese (etokavkaz.ru/istoriya/kitaiskii-sled-vo-vladikavkaze).

            At the end of tsarist times, Chinese workers came to the North Caucasus to work. When the revolution broke out, many of them joined the Bolsheviks serving both there and elsewhere in the former Russian empire. Now, their stories are being revived in the official media, one more way in which residents of Russia are being prepared for a greater and longer Chinese presence.