Clash in Russia Over Country's Future between Stalinists and Black Hundreds ‘Inevitable,’ Prilepin Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 12 – Despite Putin’s efforts to combine the values of the Stalinists and the Black Hundreds, Zakhar Prilepin says, a clash between the two is inevitable; and on its outcome will depend not only how Russia is internally ordered but also how Moscow relates to the former Soviet space.
    In the course of a wide-ranging 9,000-word article in Kazan’s Business-Gazeta, the writer and nationalist politician argues that the world as a whole is engaged in a choice about what civilizational project it will seek to realize in  the future both at home and abroad (business-gazeta.ru/article/659600).
    In Russia, Prilepin says, this choice is between those who want a post-war Russia to be “a mono-ethnic Russian state with minimal national autonomies so that the country will never again disintegrate” and those who want Russia to play a central role in the creation of a new international order “so that we again stand at the head of a great anti-colonial revolution.”
    The former, which may be called the Black Hundreds vision, needs little to do with the former Soviet republics or other neighbors, while the latter, which is Stalinist in its orientation, wants to dominate them and expand Russian influence far beyond the current borders of the Russian Federation.
“These two concepts are already starting to fight each other. I think that in Russia there will be a clash between these two ideas,” Prilepin says. “The left, Leninist-Stalinists, on the one hand, and the neo-White Guards, Black Hundreds, on the other, are already gathering in two large flocks, and a clash between them seems inevitable to me today.”
Putin has a foot in both camps. Thus he has restored the Soviet anthem but talks about Ilyin, brought back the red banner but also Solzhenitsyn, and promotes How the Steel was Tempered as well as The Gulag Archipelago. But “the entire political system can’t be that complex and people are being increasingly pulled to one pole or another.
Consequently, the direction Russia will take will depend on the outcome of this clash, Prilepin suggests.

FSB Designates 172 Ethnic and Regional Groups ‘Terrorist’ Organizations

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 11 – The FSB has designated 172 ethnic and religious groups associated with the Forum of Free States of PostRussia “terrorist organizations” because that group has called for its followers to work for the decolonization of Russia and to take part in defending Ukraine against Russian aggression.
    Among those so described are Asians of Russia, Free Buryatia, Free Yakutiya, New Tyva, the League of Free Nations, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation, Free Idel-Ural, Free Bashkortostan, the Congress of Peoples of the North Caucasus, the All-Tatar Social Center, and the Karelian National Movement (zona.media/news/2025/01/10/spisok-172 and nemoskva.net/2025/01/11/fsb-dobavila-v-spisok-terroristicheskih-172-obedineniya-vklyuchaya-naczionalnye/).
    This move follows a decision by the Russian General Procurator to declare the Forum an “undesirable” organization in March 2023 and a ruling by the Supreme Court upholding that position (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/03/17/genprokuratura-priznala-nezhelatelnoi-organizatsiiu-forum-svobodnykh-narodov-postrossii-news and t.me/genprocrf/4472).
    Among the other institutions the FSB has now declared a “terrorist organization” is the Komi Daily, even though it has no relationship with the Forum. Its leaders are now seeking legal redress against the FSB move (t.me/komi_daily/706 and moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/12/vrossii-vpervie-priznali-smi-terroristicheskoi-organizatsiei-a152081).
    This new enumeration of terrorist groups includes some about which nothing has ever been heard and it is entirely possible that the FSB has done more to advertise the existence of such trends than any of those involved could have achieved on their own (e.g., the case of the hitherto unheard of Oryol Autonomous Republic (t.me/orlec/2195).

Russian Monastery Near Kazan Publishes Booklet Declaring Opponents of War in Ukraine ‘Cowards’ and ‘Traitors’

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 10 – The Raifa Bogoroditsky Monastery, a Russian Orthodox outpost in Tatarstan, has issued a booklet declaring that Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine are “cowards,” “traitors” and consumerists more concerned about their own well-being than that of Russia.
    The booklet urges Orthodox parishioners to show “deep respect … for those who have gone to fight” because Russia is “certainly right” in carrying out “a special operation” given that on occasion, war is “the only possible manifestation of  active love” (nemoskva.net/2025/01/11/net-vojne-krichat-trusy-i-veshhelyuby-potrebiteli-tak-napisano-v-bukletah-duhovnye-smysly-svo-ih-razdayut-v-hramah/).
    According to the booklet’s authors, who are not specified by name, war has other advantages because the experiences with death it provides those who take part in it, helps the faithful to decide whether “you are a believer or an unbeliever.” And it warns that “radical pacifism contradicts not only Christian traditions but elementary human logic.
    There are likely many such publications being put out by ROC MP branches, and their extreme militance shows yet again the wars in which the Moscow church is becoming ever more the ideological arm of the Kremlin as the war in Ukraine progresses (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/moscow-patriarchate-set-to-follow.html).  
    That militarist stance of the Russian church undoubtedly pleases the powers that be, but there is growing evidence that it is driving away many who had attended its services because its current message is so at odds with the Biblical traditions of Christianity (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/only-about-half-as-many-russians.html).

Belarus to Open Embassy at the Vatican

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 10 – The Belarusian government has announced that it plans to open an embassy at the Vatican later this year, a reflection of the facts that six to ten percent of the Belarusian population, centered in Grodno Oblast, is Roman Catholic and that the Vatican is one of the few foreign states that has hosted Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
    This announcement has attracted the attention of Moscow commentator Vsevolod Shimov because the Catholics of Belarus have been among the most active participants in demonstrations against Lukashenka while the Catholic hierarchy in his country has been loyal (fondsk.ru/news/2025/01/09/belorusskaya-katolicheskaya-cerkov-mezhdu-polshey-i-vatikanom.html).  
    Whether the opening of an embassy will affect that or the balance between Polish and Belarusian sympathies among Belarusian Catholics remains uncertain, but one thing is likely: when there is a transition in Belarus, the Catholic leadership is likely to play a major role and involve both the embassy and the nuciature (there since 1992) as well as the clergy.

War in Ukraine Slowing Moscow's Drive to Regain Blue Water Navy Able to Challenge the West

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 10 – A decade ago, Russia was on its way to losing any pretense to having a blue water navy, that is a stock of capital ships capable of operating far from the Russian coast (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/12/russian-blue-water-navy-in-reality-now.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/04/moscow-can-no-longer-afford-blue-water.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/12/russias-surface-navy-on-its-way-to.html).
    Now, given Putin’s geopolitical ambitions, Moscow is seeking to recover that capacity under the direction of Nikolay Patrushev, former secretary of the Russian Security Council who now heads the Naval Collegium (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/patrushev-denounces-western-moves-on.html).
    One sign of this is that the Russian navy is sending its still restricted number of capital ships on ever longer voyages in order to show the flag while it works to overcome the problems in this sector and especially its shipbuilding branch given both corruption and sanctions (thebarentsobserver.com/news/northern-fleet-gives-priority-to-faraway-voyages/422736).
    Another indication is its refitting of older ships with nuclear power and more modern electronic systems, although that approach can only go so far given the age of the ships involved like the Admiral Nakhimov in drydock since 1999 (meduza.io/news/2025/01/11/na-kreysere-admiral-nahimov-zapustili-yadernyy-reaktor-korabl-remontiruyut-s-1999-goda).
    As long as the war in Ukraine continues, Moscow has little choice but to use this tactic, yet another indication that that conflict by itself is preventing the Kremlin from developing the kind of deep water navy that could challenge the US and other Western powers in key parts of the world’s oceans.  

By Talking about Annexing Greenland, Pro-Kremlin Bloggers Say, Trump has Legitimized Moscow’s Actions in Ukraine and is leading Other Countries to Think about Seizing Neighboring Lands

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – Pro-Kremlin bloggers are delighted with US President Elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that he will annex Greenland, not only because in their view it undermines the past international order and divides the West but first and foremost because it legitimizes what Moscow is doing in Ukraine and led other countries to talk about expanding borders.
    And if Trump then absorbs Canada, one of their number asks, “why then can’t we do the same with the Baltic countries?” (business-gazeta.ru/article/659409, meduza.io/en/feature/2025/01/10/america-has-legitimized-redrawing-the-world-map and meduza.io/paragraph/2025/01/10/tramp-govorit-o-prisoedinenii-kanady-i-grenlandii-z-blogery-v-vostorge-vot-on-dolgozhdannyy-novyy-mir-gde-vse-reshaet-pravo-silnogo).
    The bloggers are most pleased with the say in which Trump’s words can be used to legitimize Putin’s actions but some of them are delighted as well that other world leaders are picking up on the idea of annexation and considering moving against their neighbors as well (e.g., vz.ru/opinions/2025/1/9/1307669.html).
    There is of course on limit to such Russian delight: no one must seek to absorb part of Russia regardless of available precedents. Those who even hint at that are already being denounced in the strongest terms as when Lithuania spoke about its traditions in Kaliningrad (eadaily.com/ru/news/2025/01/10/zaharova-nausede-uchi-istoriyu-durilka-kartonnaya).

Ukrainians Won’t Despair Unless US Cuts Off Support, Top Kyiv Sociologist Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – The share of Ukrainians confident that their country will defeat Russia has declined from more than 90 percent in November 2022 to 67 percent in November 2024, while the share of those who think that the future of their country overall is “rather hopeless” has risen from “only two percent” to 15 percent in a survey last fall, Yevhen Holovakha says.
    The director of the Institute of Sociology at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences says that he doesn’t expect “widespread despair” in the next year unless Trump tells Kyiv to “’accept Putin’s demands or we’ll cut off your lifeline’” (pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2025/01/9/7492626/ and https://meduza.io/feature/2025/01/09/kak-menyaetsya-otnoshenie-ukraintsev-k-voyne-i-peregovoram-s-rossiey-k-ishodu-tretiego-goda-vtorzheniya).
    Were such a message to be delivered, Holovakha continues, it “could significantly impact public sentiment.”
    As far as a negotiated settlement is concerned, he says, in May 2022, only 10 percent of Ukrainians were ready to give up some territory for peace, while 82 percent were opposed. A month ago, those ready to make territorial concessions had risen to 38 percent, but 51 percent remained against any such agreement.
    “In my opinion,” Holovakha says, Ukrainian “reliance will hold through 2025,” adding that he also “believes it will last into 2026 when Russia will begin to crumble because it won’t be able to sustain itself with enough weapons and manpower.”

Putin’s Favorite Newspaper Loses Nearly a Third of Its Readers in 2024

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – Vladimir Putin has made control of the media a key element of his political system, but in the last year, not only have Russian state television stations been losing audience but so too have state newspapers. According to the We Can Explain telegram channel “millions” of Russians have stopped reading them in the last year.
    The biggest loser in this regard in Moscow’s Komsomolskaya Pravda, long known as Vladimir Putin’s favorite newspaper and a major conduit of his ideas to the population. Over the last 12 months, its daily readership declined from 6.5 million to 4.3 million (t.me/mozhemobyasnit/19690  reposted at ehorussia.com/new/node/32064).
    Other media outlets which saw their readership decline include Gazeta.Ru, down 14 percent; RIA Novosty, down by 12 percent, and Lenta.Ru down by 11 percent. The government’s TASS news agency saw the number of its users decline by three percent. And these declines occurred despite the government’s injection of ever more money into this branch.
    As a result of this change in the media environment, the Kremlin has lost one of its most important levers of influence on the population and thus is likely to be increasingly persuaded that its best options to get the people to do what it wants are either outright bribes like the bonuses for those who join the military or repression.

Russia’s Northern Sea Route Carried Less than Half the Cargo in 2024 Putin Order and Less than 10 Percent of That Involved Passage over the Entire Route

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – For years, Vladimir Putin has said that the Northern Sea Route would carry 80 million tons of cargo between Europe and Asia by 2024. But in fact, it carried only 37.0 million tons – and only three million tons of that was cargo carried over the entire route, with more than 90 percent involving cargo carried between intermediate ports in northern Russia.
    That means that the NSR has not yet become the link between China and the European Union that many have expected it to, and a proposed sleight of hand for future statistics means that Moscow will likely declare more success in the out years without achieving anything like the trade Moscow has promised and many in the West fear.
    What Rosatom, the Russian government agency that manages the route plans to do, is to extend the NSR to include Kamchatka in the east and Kaliningrad in the west. That would allow Moscow to claim that the NSR was carrying far more cargo but it would only be between the current western end and eastern end and these two regions.
    This statistical tactic suggests Moscow is not going to have the real successes many are predicting because of its construction of additional icebreakers and that the Kremlin is looking for a quick fix statistically so it can declare victory even if there is no real victory available to declare,
    On these numbers and the likelihood Moscow will use them to play games about the NSR in the future, see rosatomflot.ru/press-centr/novosti-predpriyatiya/2025/01/09/11644-obem-gruzoperevozok-po-severnomu-morskomu-puti-ustanovil-rekord/ and thebarentsobserver.com/news/shipping-on-northern-sea-route-lags-far-behind-plans/422886.

Kadyrov Says He’s in Command of All Military Forces in Chechnya -- and Not Just Chechen Units

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – Having staked out his role as someone who trains Russian troops not only in Chechnya but across the country (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/chechnyas-kadyrov-expanding-his.html), Ramzan Kadyrov has now declared himself commander of all troops in Chechnya and said anyone who disagrees with that must be dismissed.  
    His words are undoubtedly at least in part bravado, but the fact that Kadyrov feels free to make such a declaration must disturb many in Moscow because it suggests that at least in Chechnya, Moscow’s control may not be nearly as tight as the Kremlin would like to believe (kavkazr.com/a/ramzan-kadyrov-zayavil-o-edinolichnom-podchinenii-emu-vseh-voennyh-v-chechne-/33269640.html).
    But there are two other implications, one immediate and one longer term, that may prove more serious. In the short term, Kadyrov’s suggestion will exacerbate relations between him and Chechen forces, on the one hand, and the Russian high command, on the other, in the fighting in Ukraine, reducing unit cohesion and effectiveness.
    And in the longer term, Kadyrov is doing what many analysts have suggested other regional leaders might do in the event that Putin leaves the scene unexpectedly and the center weakens. If other governors make similar claims, that could trigger a far worse civil war than anyone is now projecting.

If Russia Collapsed Tomorrow, Sakha People would Not Want It Restored, Zubareva Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – Many non-Russian activists suggest that large shares of their nations want independence and will pursue it when they have the chance. Ruslan Gabbasov, the émigré leader of the Bashkir national movement is among them. He suggests that roughly 80 percent of Bashkirs support independence (nv.ua/world/geopolitics/posle-vtorzheniya-rossii-v-ukrainu-v-bashkorstostane-usililos-stremlenie-k-nezavisimosti-novosti-rossii-50422110.html).
    And they are forced to explain the relative quiescence among their peoples by suggesting that Putin’s repression means that large numbers of their community are not prepared to act in any way that challenges the Kremlin because of the negative consequences such actions would have for them personally.
    Putin’s increasingly repressive approach undoubtedly plays a role, but it is hardly the only factor at work. Some non-Russians either because of inertia or concerns that their nations could not make it on their own are skeptical about the pursuit of independence. That doesn’t mean they are thrilled with Moscow’s rule but only that they are unsure of how to overcome it.
    Raisa Zubaryova, the founder of the Sakha independence movement who now lives in New York, provides some interesting observations about support for independence, why it exists, and also why it is not always manifest regardless of how much repression is visited upon activists (nv.ua/world/geopolitics/nezavisimost-yakutii-ot-rossii-aktivistka-rasskazala-skolko-yakutov-k-ney-stremyatsya-50480454.html).
    In her opinion, she says, “about 30 percent of the Sakha” are aware of the possibility of independence for the republic but “are simply silent.” However, “our people if Russia collapsed tomorrow would not want it to be restores. Everyone understands that we would have more opportunities if we had our own state.”
    Zubaryova adds: “I think that there are even in power people who sit, remain silent and are only waiting for the moment. Even among POWS … some are in favor. The task of our organization is to awaken this desire,” something we can see “how the processes of national consolidation have already begun among other peoples who live in Russia today.”

Putin May Visit Antarctica to Counter Western Claims and Assert Russian Interests, Moscow Commentator Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – Given US President-Elect Donald Trump’s remarks about Greenland and Canada, many observers around the world are focusing on whether the Arctic is about to become a cockpit of international conflict between east and west. But few of them are giving much attention to what soon happen in Antarctica where even larger disputes may break out.
    In an article for Moscow’s Svobodnaya Pressa portal, Russian commentator Sergey Aksyonov says that the Kremlin is very much alive to what is going on in the southern polar regions and that Vladimir Putin may even make a visit there to counter Western claims and assert Russian interests (svpressa.ru/world/article/445443/).
    The Kremlin has not confirmed any such plans, but a Putin visit is likely, Aksyonov says, because the Chilean defense minister recently visited Antarctica, adding fuel to concerns that the status of Antarctica, long defined as precluding any national claims, may be about to change as various countries seek to gain access to the natural resources there.
    Until now, both Russia and the West have opposed any plans by anyone to advance territorial claims on the southern continent. But with Trump’s election and talk about making claims in the north, that may be about to change; and Russia will not want to be left behind, the commentator continues.
    A Putin visit to Antarctica “would be a strong political move” in response to Trump’s talk about annexing Greenland and Canada, Aksyonov says. It would “discredit” any such neo-colonialist moves by the West and win Russia support from others who do not want to see Antarctica carved up now as the Third World was earlier.
    Prior to Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow had itself been focusing ever more frequently on Antarctica and gaining Russian access to natural resources there and had even talked about changing current treaty arrangements limiting outside countries from establishing their rule in one or another part of that land.
    For background on Russia’s earlier moves and the problems it ran into, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/east-west-conflicts-in-arctic-and.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/to-win-in-arctic-russia-must-fight-for.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/12/russias-icebreaker-fleet-suffers.html and jamestown.org/program/moscows-determined-plans-to-upend-international-accords-in-antarctic-facing-problems/.
    And for more recent moves, driven largely by the discovery of a huge oil field in Antarctica, and changes in Moscow’s naval operations, see jamestown.org/program/putin-says-moscow-to-exploit-new-oil-field-in-antarctic-undermining-key-treaty/ and www.thebarentsobserver.com/news/northern-fleet-gives-priority-to-faraway-voyages/422736.

Only about Half as Many Russians Attended Christmas Services This Year than did in 2020, Driven Away by ROC MP’s Chauvinism, Homophobia and Militarism, One of Those who Didn’t Go Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – Moscow played up the results of a VTsIOM poll showing that 63 percent of Russians marked Christmas one way or another (https://t.me/insomar/252), but data released by the Russian interior ministry about church attendance showed that ever fewer attended church services on this holiday.
    In 2020, the ministry said, 2.6 million Russians attended services – it did not provide data for the covid years but this year only 1.4 million did, a decline of almost 50 percent (moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/08/million-bogoostavlennih-na-rozhdestvo-v-hrami-prishlo-v-poltora-raza-menshe-prihozhan-chem-prezhde-a151868).
    There are likely many reasons for this decline, but Valery Panyushkin, a Moscow Times journalist who attended in the past but didn’t go to church this year says that the church itself has been driving people like himself away by its chauvinist, homophobic and militarist messages and few who have stopped going will consider returning until the messages change.

Ukrainian Parliament Declares Russian Actions Against Circassians a Genocide

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 9 – With 232 deputies voting in favor, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada today recognized Russian actions during and after the Russian invasion and occupation of Circassia to be a genocide that led to the deaths or expulsion of more than 90 percent of the members of that nation.
    The resolution specifies that Russian actions between 1763 and 1864 has “all the signs of genocide and that if such crimes were committed today, they would undoubtedly be recognized” as an act of genocide as defined by the UN Convention (unn.ua/en/news/rada-recognizes-the-genocide-of-the-circassian-people-committed-during-the-russian-caucasian-war).
    The Ukrainian parliament seeks to honor “the memory of all the victims of this crime and to express its solidarity with the Circassian (Adyghe) people” and condemns in the strongest possible terms “the genocidal actions” of the Russian authorities. It further called on the Russian Federation to recognize this action as a crime and to apologize for it.
    And the parliamentarians also “recognized the right of the Circassian (Adyghe) people in the diaspora to repatriate to the lands of their former settlement in the northwestern part of the Caucasus with the further realization of the right to national self-determination on their historical territory” and called on other countries to take similar steps.
    Circassians and their Ukrainian supporters have been seeking this declaration for more than a decade (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/circassians-press-for-kyiv-to-recognize.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/kyiv-now-reaching-out-to-circassian.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/ukrainian-parliamentarians-want-to.html).
    The approval of the resolution today represents a major victory for both and will undoubtedly lead to an expansion of other Ukrainian actions in support of the non-Russians within the current borders of the Russian Federation and a serious growth in the activism of the Circassians, both those in the homeland and those in the diaspora (jamestown.org/program/kyiv-set-to-expand-support-for-non-russians-in-russia/).
    Moscow can be expected to react with outrage and repression, but such moves are unlikely to be effective. Instead, they will radicalize the Circassians and make it less likely that the Kremlin will be in a position to bring stability to the North Caucasus or other non-Russian regions of the Russian Federation at any point in the future.  

Moscow Set to Divide Russia’s Languages into Three Categories: Living, Dormant and Extinct

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – New details are emerging about Vladimir Putin’s order to create a registry of the languages spoken in the Russian Federation, a step the Kremlin will use to further restrict the use of many of them (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/by-calling-for-state-register-of.html).
    Andrei Kibrik, head of the Moscow Institute of Linquistics, which apparently will play a key role in developing the list, says that his branch of the Academy of Sciences has developed a system of classification for languages (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2025/01/09/1085170-zakon-o-yazikah-narodov-rossii and nazaccent.ru/content/43366-v-rossii-poyavitsya-gosudarstvennyj-reestr-yazykov-narodov-strany/).
    “The institute divides all the languages of the country into three groups: the living, the dormant and the extinct,” Kibrik says. “Living languages are those which are constantly used in communication. Dormant languages are those which some people know some words. And extinct languages are those no one speaks any longer.”
    Until recently, most post-Soviet Russian writers have denied that there are any languages being added to the last category despite evidence that some are. (See, for example, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/moscow-announces-plans-to-save.html.) Moscow will likely use the “dormant” category to muddy the waters about those headed toward extinction.
    And to the extent that happens, ever more non-Russian languages will be deprived of the support that might allow them to survive, and ever more of those who still spoken them at least in part will be forced to shift over to the Russian language, a move that will undermine the possibility of the survival of their nations.  

Tallinn Set to Demand Moscow Church in Estonia Break All Ties with ROC MP or Face Liquidation

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – The Estonian interior ministry says Tallinn is preparing a new law for consideration next month that will require the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate break all ties within two months with the ROC MP or face liquidation by court action.
     The law will be cast as a ban on the activity in Estonia of any church which is connected with organizations which support military aggression and the use of force, as the Moscow Patriarchate does in Ukraine (rus.err.ee/1609570477/mvd-trebuet-ot-jepc-mp-razorvat-svjazi-s-rossijskimi-cerkovnymi-vlastjami).
    The Russian church in Estonia has already dropped the reference to the Moscow Patriarchate in its name and says it acts independently, but its leaders insist that they do not have the unilateral right to end canonical ties with the ROC MP (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/estonian-orthodox-church-of-moscow.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/dropping-reference-to-moscow.html).
    Given that the ROC MP almost certainly will not agree to end its canonical relationship with the EOC, this new Estonian law likely means that Tallinn will move to ban the EOC in Estonia and hope to include the Orthodox in that country in the Estonian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (EAOC).
    Some parishioners of the EOC will likely change their membership, but others are certain to go underground, setting the stage for an extension well into the future of conflict over religious affiliations in Estonia.

Official Unemployment in Ingushetia 12 Times Higher than for Russian Federation as a Whole, New Rosstat Figures Show

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistical arm, says that Ingushetia has the highest rate of unemployment in the country, 25.4 percent, 12 times the average for the country as a whole (rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/osn-11-2024.pd), with its figure likely understating the level of the problem even more than the all-Russian figure does.
    The situation in the other non-Russian republics of the North Caucasus, while not as dire as in Ingushetia, is also far worse than for the Russian Federation as a whole. In Dagestan, 11 percent of workers are unemployed; in Chechnya, 7.7 percent; in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, 7.2 percent, and in Kabardino-Balkaria, 4.8 percent.
    These republics also have far lower wages and salaries than other federal subjects of the Russian Federation; and the combination of high unemployment and low incomes is the major driver for the exodus of people from these republics to other parts of the country where they are often viewed and treated as aliens even though they all have Russian citizenship.  

Russians Again Drinking Less Beer and Wine and More Hard Liquor, Driving Down Life Expectancy and Increasing Violent Crime, Russian Statistics Show

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – For the first time since 2017, Russia’s alcohol control service has published statistics on alcohol consumption. They show that Russians are now drinking more than at any time in the last eight years and that their consumption is increasingly of hard liquor like vodka rather than beef, the drinking of which has declined.
    According to a HSE specialist speaking on condition of anonymity, this “Northern pattern” of alcohol consumption plays a major role in suppressing the life expectancy of Russian men, something that means they die far earlier than do Russian women (sibreal.org/a/roznichnye-prodazhi-alkogolya-v-rossii-obnovili-istoricheskiy-maksimum/33256302.html).
    But what is especially worrisome, he and other experts say, is that the recent increase in the consumption of hard liquor and the decline in the drinking of beer that the release of the new statistics shows reverses some, although not all, of the progress that Russia had made between 2000 and 2020.
    One of the reasons Russians are currently drinking more, these experts say, is that instead of speaking with their friends about their problems, they choose to drink alone and thus more heavily out of fear that they might be subject to denunciation if they say the wrong thing while drinking with others.
    Most attention focuses on the impact of alcohol consumption on users and the demographic consequences of that, these specialists say; but there is another and perhaps larger consequence that should be worrying people: more heavy drinking is leading to more crime and violence, trends that harm even those who do not drink heavily or even a lot.

Moscow Sooner or Later will Restart Regional Amalgamation Effort, Minchenko Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – Yevgeny Minchenko, a well-connected Moscow political consultant, says that reform of local self-government is now off the table because of opposition but that the amalgamation of federal subjects, leading to an increase in the size of those which remain and a decrease in their number is being talked about and will “sooner or later” be realized.
    In the course of a wide-ranging interview on Kazan’s Business Gazeta portal, the head of Minchenko Consulting argues that Moscow is going to have to focus again on the reconfiguration of the country in order to ensure the best use of economic and political resources (business-gazeta.ru/article/659270).
    He says that he was “amazed” when Kurgan Oblast Governor Vadim Shumkov told him in a “very calm” voice that his oblast “could be ‘attached’ to some region, such as Tyumen.” He wouldn’t have said that, Minchenko suggests, unless there was a new willingness to talk about changing the size and number of federal subjects.
    Minchenko’s remarks suggest that the next wave of regional amalgamation is going to be among predominantly ethnic Russian regions rather than between non-Russian regions and predominantly ethnic Russian ones, the rock on which Putin’s earlier moves to amalgamate the federal subjects appears to have foundered.
    But the other principle Putin has articulated, that poorer regions be attached to wealthier ones, seems to remain in place given that Kurgan Oblast is one of the poorer ethnic Russian regions and Tyumen in one of the wealthiest ones.

Chechnya’s Kadyrov Expanding His Military Training Network into Russian North, ‘Barents Observer’ Reports

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 8 – Ramzan Kadyrov has trained almost 50,000 Russian soldiers in his Spetsnaz University in Gudermes since that institution was established in 2013. Now, the Chechen leader is using graduates of that school to train Russian soldiers in other regions of the Russian Federation, including the Kola Peninsula, Atle Staalesen says.
    The editor of The Barents Observer says that the Gudermes school has helped Kadyrov solidify his influence with Vladimir Putin, who when he visited it said that it “plays an important role in the defense capacity of the whole country” (thebarentsobserver.com/news/kadyrovs-militant-network-is-expanding-into-the-russian-north/422803).
    The Kremlin leader likely welcomes Kadyrov’s expansion of his training network, but there may be a downside. The Chechen leader may be creating an alliance that could be used against the Kremlin in the case of a weakening at the center. At the very least, Kadyrov by this action reduces the ability of the center to rein him in.
    That Kadyrov may have such larger goals in mind is suggested by the fact that he now has a special representation office in Murmansk. Headed by Aslambek Asayev, it “closely cooperates with representatives of the security services” and “regularly meets with regional Governor Andrei Chibis,” Staalesen says.

Narva Becomes Cultural Capital of Finno-Ugric World and Gives that Title New and Expanded Meaning

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – Narva has become the cultural capital of the Finno-Ugric world for 2025 and because of its own ethnic heritage has given that title a new and expanded meaning, one likely to encourage the smallest Finno-Ugric peoples in the region and spark Russian anger about what Moscow will seek to present as evidence of Western interference.
    When people discuss ethnic relations in Estonia, they typically focus on the relative size of the Estonians and the ethnic Russians, ignoring the fact that there are also small percentages of Finno-Ugric peoples (other than Estonians) including Vods, Izhors, Ingermanland Finns and Narva Finns, Ekaterina Kuznetsova says (region.expert/narva2025/).
    But the designation of Narva as the cultural capital of Finno-Ugric nations this year has the effect of throwing into high relief their role, dispelling myths about them and giving them hope for survival, the head of the Ingria House and director of the Vod Cultural Center in that eastern Estonian border city says
    “Many know that in 1641 to 1654, that city was the administrative center of the Swedish province of Ingermandland; some even call Narva the historical ‘capital’ of Ingria; but unfortunately, few recall what took place there before and afer that period, Kuznetsova continues.
    Few know that the Ida-Virumaa region is “the historic motherland at one and the same time of five Finno-Ugric peoples” or that there existed in the 20th century both an Estonian Ingermanland and a Soviet version of that region as well, histories that have every chance to affect the future.
    “Estonian Ingermanland – Eesti Ingeri in Estonian – is part of the historical district of Ingria located in the western section of present-day Kingisepp Districtof Leningrad Oblast in the valley of the Narva River.” It became part of Estonia as a result of the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty and included Ivangorod, the Rosson River and 13 villages where some 1800 people lived.
    The Soviet government annexed it in 1944; but even before that, there had been what may be called Soviet Ingermanland, although many today are convinced that Moscow always denied the existence of such a place. But during korenizatiya in the 1920s, the Soviet authorities promoted Finnish and even Ingrian languages, although they suppressed them in the 1930s.
    The fact that so few people know about all this, Kuznetsova says, is the result of Stalnist repressions against these minorities and Moscow’s unceasing Russification campaign that led many Ingrians and others to reidentify as Russians and forget their national pasts, even though they would quickly discover it if they could look back a generation or two.
    Indeed, Kunetsova argues, such people who think they are Russians would soon learn that “in the first third of the 20th century, the majority of the population of present-day Leningrad Oblast did not know Russian and that the native languages for them were Vod, Izhor, Karelian, Vepsy, and Ingermanland-Finnish.
    (For additional background on these groups and especially on the Ingria movement, see Ott Kurs , “Ingria: The Broken Landbridge Between Estonia and Finland,” GeoJournal 33.1 (1994): 107–113; Ian Matley, “The Dispersal of the Ingrian Finns,” Slavic Review 38:1 (1979): 1-16; windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/12/ingermanlanders-launch-podcast-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/ingermanland-activists-open-house-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/09/ingria-will-be-free-petersburg-hip-hop.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/two-other-baltic-republics-remembered.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/07/a-new-aspirant-to-be-fourth-baltic.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/06/regionalism-threatens-russia-today-way.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/05/by-attacking-free-ingria-leader-moscow.html, and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/10/window-on-eurasia-ingermanland-is-ready.html.)

Criticism of State of Russian Forces in Ukraine More Often Found in Pro-War Russian Commentaries than in Anti-War Ones, ‘Holod’ Journalist Suggests

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – Many might assume that criticism of the state of Russian forces in Ukraine would appear primarily in anti-war commentaries and be largely absent from pro-war ones, but the situation in fact is exactly the opposite, Yevgeny Babushkin, a Holod writer who has examined several hundred Z-channels.
    Opponents of the war rarely get down in the weeds regarding the problems the Russian armed forces face, he points out; but those who favor the war and its goals do so because they believe such criticism can make the military effort there more effective (holod.media/2025/01/06/chto-volnuet-voenkorov-xxii/).
    Babushkin’s conclusion is important because many who are searching for details on the state of the Russian military in Ukraine operate on the mistaken assumption that they are more likely to find such criticism among opponents of the war than among supporters. But in fact the reverse is more often the case.

Nomadic People in Russian North Benefiting from Moscow’s Effort to Hold Populations along Arctic Coast

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – The non-Russian peoples have generally been the collateral victims of broader Soviet and Russian policies; but occasionally, they can beneficiaries of Moscow policies that were adopted not so much to improve their lives as to promote other goals of the centralized state.
    So it has happened over the last several years to the nomadic peoples of the Russian Far North. They have seen the number of their families jump by more than 30 percent between 2020 and 2024 to 6582 and the number of children in these families go up by more than 66 percent to 12,018 (tass.ru/obschestvo/22816253  and nazaccent.ru/content/43362-chislo-kochevyh-semej-v-rossii-vyroslo-na-tret/).
    Not surprisingly Russian officials and pro-Moscow commentators are celebrating this as being the result of Moscow’s solicitude to nomadic peoples and especially its willingness to open schools and other institutions that allow the nomads of Russia to continue their way of life. But the real reason lies elsewhere.
    Until recently, Moscow has run roughshod over nomadic communities in order to allow Russian companies to make profits for the Kremlin by exploiting the lands such communities have traditionally used. The only limiting factor in this push seems to have been that Moscow feared the nomads might at some point revolt (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/10/taking-reindeer-away-from-russias.html).
    But in recent years, Moscow has become worried about another problem -- its inability to hold enough people in the North to support the Northern Sea Route and Moscow’s geopolitical expansion in the Arctic – and it has made concessions to try to hold communities there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/russias-lack-of-infrastructure-makes-it.html and jamestown.org/program/moscow-struggles-to-deliver-supplies-to-populations-along-northern-sea-route/).
    Such concessions are a sign that the Nentsy and other nomadic groups may be able to extract even more benefits from Moscow not because the Kremlin is solicitous to them as nations but because Moscow has needs that the nomads may be able to help meet and thus be in a position to extract more from the center.  

Putin Unable to Satisfy Either Pro-Peace or Pro-War Factions in Russian Elite, Eidman Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – When it comes to the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is unable to satisfy either the pro-peace faction within the Russian elite which wants to go back to a time when they could use the money they’ve stolen inside Russia in the West or the pro-war one that seeks a thorough-going Stalin-style purge and the militarization of the country, Igor Eidman says.
    And the tensions between these two groups have intensified as talk about possible peace negotiations has increased, a development that highlights Putin’s weakness and makes it likely he continue the war in the same manner he has up to now, the Russian sociologist now living in Berlin says (t.me/igoreidman/1925 reposted at charter97.org/ ru/news/2025/1/6/625082/).
    In the Russian establishment, Eidman says, there are two distinct parties as far as the war in concern: those who favor a rotten peace and those who favor endless war. The first “unites most of the oligarchy and the bureaucracy.” The second “includes individual security officials and Putin associates including Medvedev as well as the fascist Z-movement.”
    The first of these “would like to accept Trump’s proposals about freezing the war,” but the second very much “fears such a development of events.” As a result, the two sides are taking to telegram channels to outline their respective positions, with Vladislav Surkov speaking for the first and Aleksey Chadayev and Aleksandr Dugin for the second.
    “Both are appealing to Putin,” Eidman says; “but he isn’t capable of carrying out the program of either. “With maniacal persistence,” the Kremlin leader “seeks to destroy Ukraine and isn’t ready to accept some new Minsk accord as his victory.” But “he is also unable to carry out some kind of mass purge and become the leader of total war.”
    For that, the Russian commentator says, the Kremlin leader is “too sybaritic and a coward, old and lazy.” Consequently, he is most likely to do “nothing new.” He will continue the war even as Russia “slowly decays from within,” something both groups who have taken a position fear.
    “When the parties of rotten peace and endless war finally understand that Putin will not meet them,” Eidman concludes, “then they can try to eliminate him. The party that manages to do this first will win. I'm betting on the party of the rotten peace.”

Moscow Announces Plans to Save Languages at Greatest Risk of Extinction Even as It Pushes More Non-Russian Languages in that Direction

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – One of the ways Moscow works to try to mislead observers about the Kremlin’s language policies is that officials frequently point to what the Russian authorities are doing to save the languages spoken by only a handful of people even as it works to reduce the number of speakers of larger minorities.
    Russian officials and propagandists can always be counted on to highlight the former whenever Moscow is criticized for the latter, a defense that all too often works and leads both specialists and journalists who occasionally write about language issues in Putin’s Russian Federation.
    Nonetheless, Russian efforts to help those nations whose languages are most at risk can only be welcomed not only because they may allow those peoples to retain their languages and identities while others are losing theirs but also and perhaps particularly because they highlight what a government that wants to save a language can do.
    The Yakutsk branch of the Moscow Institute of Native Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation has now announced plans to develop textbooks to help keep four such numerically small language groups alive (nemoskva.net/2025/01/06/v-rossii-sozdadut-uchebniki-po-vymirayushhim-yazykam-korennyh-narodov/).
    These include:
•    The Tofalars, a Turkic nation in Irkutsk Oblast numbering slightly more than 700. But they are on the brink of disappearing because experts say that only three Tofalars speak their national language fluently and that the possibility of passing the language to the next generation has been reduced to almost zero.
•    The Chelkans, a Turkic group in the Altai formerly known as the Lebed Tatars, who number fewer than 1300. They do not have a recognized literary language and thus are being assimilated by other Turkic language groups.
•    The Nanays, who number 11,600 in the Russian Far East, of whom fewer than 1500 speak their titular language according to government officials but only 300 do according to specialists. Their language is rated by the latter as being on the brink of extinction as well.
•    And the Evenks, who number almost 40,000 in Russia but only about 3,000 speak the titular language.
The special situation of the Nanays and the Evenks may explain why Moscow is taking this action: Many of the members of these nations live in China, and the Chinese have a much more developed system of supporting their languages than the Russian Federation has had in recent decades.

Zarifa Sautiyeva, Only Woman Among Ingush Seven, Released from Prison Colony after Completing Her Sentence

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – Zarifa Sautiyeva, the only woman among the Ingush Seven and for many beyond Ingushetia the face of resistance to Russian repression there, has been released from a prison camp after completing her sentence, including time in pre-trial detention. The other six remain behind bars, and her fate now that she has been set free is uncertain.
    Sautiyeva, who had been the popular deputy director of the Memorial Complex for Victims of Repression before her arrest, has suffered from ill-health while incarcerated. Her case, unlike that of many other non-Russians, attracted the attention of Russian and international human rights activists.
    On her release, see t.me/aifsk/31557 and abn.org.ua/en/news/the-ingush-activist-zarifa-sautieva-is-free/, For background on this remarkable activist and the support she has received, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/zarifa-sautiyeva-from-student-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/zarifa-sautiyeva-ingush-political.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/02/171-russian-rights-activists-and-public.html.

Moscow Orthodox Leaders Met with Russian Officials Far More Often in 2023-2024 than Earlier But Continues to Lose Parishioners. ‘Vyorstka’ Finds

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 6 – On the basis of an examination of 11,000 press releases from the Moscow Patriarcahte, the Vyorstka news service determined that senior Orthodox churchmen met senior Russian officials far more often in the last two years than earlier but that this did not prevent a decline in the number of Russians identifying as Orthodox.
    In 2023, Patriarch Kirill met with heads of federal subjects twice as  often as he had the year before, largely because he and other churchmen were lobbying for abortion bans and an expanded role for the church in government propaganda (verstka.media/kak-vyroslo-vliyanie-rpcz-na-rossiyan-v-god-semi).
    But the interaction between senior churchmen and senior government officials was not limited to the very top. When Vyorstka considered meetings between metropolitans and heads of synod departments and all senior officials, it found that there were 265 in 2023 alone and roughly the same number in 2024, far outstripping the numbers in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
    The government obviously welcomed the church’s contribution, but the church’s hardlines on many issues, including abortion, put many Russians off; and the share of Russians identifying as Orthodox Christians declined throughout this period, a trend that suggests working so closely with the  government may be counterproductive as far as the church is concerned.

Migrantophobia Threatening to ‘Ukrainianize’ Russia and Undermine Its Unity, Eurasianist Warns

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 4 – Attacks on migrants by Russian nationalists threaten to play the same role in the Russian Federation that attacks on ethnic Russians and Russian culture did in Ukraine, undermining its unity and threatening the survival of the state, Aleksey Dzermant, an ethnic Belarusian who supports a multi-national Russian state and Eurasianism.
    What is happening today in Russia with nationalists attacking Central Asian migrant workers and often by extension non-Russians generally recalls what happened in Ukraine, a place “extremely similar in all relations to Russia” and where Ukrainian nationalists at the urging of the West began by attacking ethnic Russians (gumilev-center.ru/kak-ukrainiziruyut-rossiyu/).
    “No one doubts that illegal immigration must be stopped and that crime among migrants must be fought but for this, one must work with the particular features of the Russian political and economic system” rather than allow it to be hijacked by nationalists who are in fact doing the work of the Western enemies of Russia, Dzermant argues.
    If Russian nationalists are not reined in on this issue, he suggests, then Russia will be at risk of becoming a second Ukraine, a development that will undermine everything the Russian nationalists say they are for and will help the West weaken the multi-national people of the Russian Federation.
    This is a remarkably blunt assessment of Russian nationalist attacks on immigrants and indicates that there are at least some among the Eurasianists who are often mistakenly lumped together with the nationalists who are worried about what the current wave of migrantophobia may lead to in their country.  

Revival of USSR No Longer Merely a Hope but Something Inevitable Quite Possibly in 2025, Wasserman Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 5 – Until relatively recently, most people assumed that the revival of the USSR was “impossible,” Anatoly Wasserman says; but now it as become obvious to an increasing number of people inside Russia and beyond that its revival, in the near future, is “inevitable.”
    The reason for that, the Duma deputy and pro-Kremlin commentator says, is that continental empires, of which the Soviet Union was one, are deeply rooted in history. They may fall apart for a time, but they are fated to come back together sooner rather than later (mk.ru/politics/2025/01/05/eto-neizbezhno-vasserman-nazval-datu-vozrozhdeniya-sssr.html).
Like other continental empires, Wasserman continues, Russia has fallen apart at various points but then come back together “generally in a larger and better form than it was before.” The prospects for that return are increasingly bright, and he suggests that it is entirely possible that the revival of the USSR may come during 2025.
Such predictions by Wasserman, long a proponent of Russian nationalism and imperialism, are no surprise; but there appearance in Moskovsky Komsomolets suggests that they reflect a growing pattern of thought in the Kremlin and thus must not be ignored as such extremist remarks typically are.
Instead, what Wasserman is saying and the timetable he suggests indicate that a significant portion of Russian officials around Putin and quite possibly Putin himself believe as he does and think that the time has come to push ahead rather than wait for developments as many have argued in the past.  

Russia Doesn’t Have a Shortage of People: It has a Shortage of Skilled Positions and People Trained for Them, Krupnov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 4 – Russia does not have a shortage of people as most of the discussions of migration and the need to boost the birthrate assume but rather a shortage of jobs that require high levels of skill and sufficient personnel with the training to fill them, according to Moscow demographer Yury Krupnov.
    In short, the senior scholar at the Moscow Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development says, Russia like much of the Soviet economy before it has a Third World kind of economy in which many are employed in make work jobs because they lack skills and thus can’t earn the money needed to a middle class life (svpressa.ru/society/article/445006/).
    Only about a third of Russia’s 75 million jobs require high levels of skill and get the pay that such jobs bring. Two-thirds are jobs that are basically unskilled and could easily be done away with, Krupnov says. For example, the millions of unskilled who guard the displays or elevators in department stores.
    Moreover, the demographer continues, “compared to Soviet times, the number of officials per 1,000 people has doubled,” a number that isn’t justified by the skills or training such people have and that holds the economy down and leads the occupants of these positions to assume they need more immigrants and babies to justify their positions.
    According to Krupnov, Russia’s “shortage of personnel is not the result of a lack of people but rather of the lack of promising areas of employment,” where those who occupy these jobs are highly skilled and well paid and thus in a position to live “decently” rather than scraping by.
    Moreover, he continues, “to put it simply, we do not have a shortage of personnel but a shortage of jobs which in the terminology of the International Labor Organization provide decent work.” Russia has too few such jobs and thus remains mired in a Third World kind of economy. Moving to a modern one is what the country should be focusing on.
Of course, Russia needs an adequate migration policy and an adequate demographic policy; but talk about getting more people alone which is what the discussions about these two have been reduced to prevents Moscow from addressing the problem of creating real jobs and training people to fill them.

Bashkirs Burn Flag of Pre-1917 Russian Empire under which Some Russian Troops have Been Fighting in Ukraine

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 4 – A scandal has broken out in Bashkortostan where a group of Bashkirs has burned the flag of the Russian Empire after young people in emulation of veterans of the Ukrainian war returned and declared that they and other Russian troops were fighting under that banner there.
    Details about this are still fragmentary and the republic authorities have not yet reacted although the group of Russians who flew the flag have apologized and said they would use a banner incorporating both the Russian flag and the Bashkortostan flag in the future (echofm.online/stories/v-bashkortostane-ne-utihayut-strasti-vokrug-flaga-rossijskoj-imperii).
    It is likely that the Russians involved were members of or associated with the Russian Community, a Russian nationalist group that has frequently used symbols from imperial Russia and has not been shy about displaying them and helping authorities suppress non-Russian groups (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/extremist-russian-community-now-active.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/another-black-hundreds-group-revived-in.html and jamestown.org/program/russian-community-extremists-becoming-the-black-hundreds-of-today/).
    But the readiness of Bashkirs, currently being subject to the largest trial of protesters in the contemporary Russian Federation, to respond by burning the Russian imperial flag reflects both growing tensions in that republic and the way in which even the appearance of symbols of Russian imperialism can trigger clashes.  

Moscow’s Plans for North-South Transit Corridor Face Five Serious Problems, Russian Analysts Say

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 4 – Twenty-five years ago, with great hopes, Russia, India and Iran signed with great fanfare an agreement to open a north-south intermodal transportation corridor between Russia in the north and the Indian Ocean in the south. But progress has been slow and is unlikely to accelerate anytime soon, Russian analysts say on this anniversary.
    They point to five key problems, some of which can be solved by changes in the international environment and the lifting of sanctions against Russia and Iran but many of which will take many years to overcome even if such a change opens the way for more international investment in the project (casp-geo.ru/mtk-sever-yug-chetvert-veka-borby-za-marshrut-i-vzglyad-v-budushhee/).
    These five problems include:
•    Sanctions and the geopolitical tensions that have produced them,
•    Unresolved differences among the three signatories on routes and development,
•    The lack of infrastructure or its lack of correspondence among the trade systems of the countries involved,
•    The absence of a single tariff policy and of the harmonization of procedures at borders, and
•    Growing concerns about the environmental impact of the development of this transit route.
All these need to be kept in mind in assessing Russian and Iranian claims about progress on one of Putin’s favorite projects.  

Pay Advantage of Russian Men over Russian Women has Increased since Putin’s War in Ukraine Began, ‘Vyorstka’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 4 – In almost all spheres, Russian men have been paid more than Russian women for the same work; but after this gender imbalance had narrowed in recent decades, it has risen again since the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, the Vyorstka news agency reports on the basis of Russian government statistics.
    It analysis of Rosstat figures shows that this is not just an artefact of the Russian government’s bonuses to men who join the military but also to changes in the Russian economy and to the aggressive masculinity of the Putin regime that places more value on the work of men than on that of women (verstka.media/razryv-mezhdu-zarplatami-muzhchin-i-zhenshhin-na-rukovodyashhih-dolzhnostyah-v-rossii-dostig-491-eto-rekord-s-2005-goda).
    Among the many example Vyorstka gives, the following is particularly striking in that regard: Russian women occupying managerial and leadership positions now make only 45 percent of what men in those positions do. In 2021, women received 47 percent of what men were paid.
    Vyorstka doesn’t speculate about the broader implications of this trend, but it may help to explain why Russian women are less supportive of both Putin and Putin’s war.  

Under Putin, Talk about the Past ‘New Opium for the People,’ Pakhalyuk Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 4 – Moscow’s use of the past is transforming history into “a new opium for the people, called upon to ease the pain of changes and to create the sense that ‘the new normal’ is not that new, Konstantin Pakhalyuk says. To encourage that sense and prevent Russians from asking questions, the Kremlin offers a history that is tautological, boring and lacking in ideas.
    The historian, who is now listed by the Russian government as “a foreign agent,” says from the Kremlin’s point of view, these characteristics are an advantage in that they encourage people not to focus too much on the specifics of the past but rather to accept without much reflection the official version (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/01/04/pobedim-otlakiruiut).
    Pakhalyuk says there are three core principles in the construction of such a history: First, the government hopes to continue to play on the cult of victory; second, it wants to promote imperial and Russian ethno-national values; and third it seeks to link the ideas of victory and sacrifice and to promote the idea that only the state can protect Russians from injustice.
    To that end, Kremlin propagandists have stepped up talk about “the genocide of the Soviet people” so as to convince Russians that throughout history, the Russians themselves have been “the chief victims, something that means that there cannot be any moral doubts” about what they have done or are doing.
    All these principles help define how Moscow treats the current war in Ukraine, a conflict which “has not so much acquired its own face as become part of existing commemorative traditions.” That should surprise no one because for the Kremlin “history is the language of the powers that be and not of the people.”

Moscow’s Moves Against Immigrants Violate Russian Constitution and Open the War to Apartheid, El Murid Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – The Russian government’s latest moves against immigrants violate the 1993 Constitution, destroy a common legal space in the country, and thus open the way to apartheid in which citizens will be divided into different groups that will be treated differently as a result, according to Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid.
    “When the constitution was adopted,” he writes, “it was assumed that it would apply throughout the entire territory of Russia down to its last square centimeter and not applied only to some list of approved groups located there” (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/22692 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6777BE2888BE2).
    According to El Murid, it was never intended that such norms “would work for some but not at all for others. But in fact, today, there is no longer any legal space in Russia; there are simply certain norms designed to legitimize violence and the rejection of basic legal principles,” which increasingly lead to the violation of the constitution.
    Many may not be alarmed by this apartheid system because it doesn’t appear to apply to them, the commentator continues. But with the adoption of this new principle, it soon may be and thus they will find themselves in as Pastor Niemoeller moment in which there will be no one left to defend them.  

Putin Demanding of Ukraine Now What Stalin Demanded of Baltic Countries Before Annexing Them Completely, ‘Continuation Follows’ Portal Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – Moscow is doing something now that it has done before, the Continuation Follows portal says. The Putin regime is demanding from Ukraine almost exactly what Stalin demanded from the Baltic countries in 1939 and 1940 before moving to annex them completely.
    Like Stalin with the Baltic countries 85 years ago, Putin is demanding that Ukraine adopt a friendly attitude toward Russia, that it not enter into any military-political blocs that Moscow opposes, and that it accept the presence on Ukrainian territory of a limited contingent of Russian forces (prosleduet.media/details/occupation-of-the-baltic-countries/).
    One of the reasons few want to talk about such parallels is that less than a year after Stalin made these demands and the isolated Baltic governments felt compelled to accept them, the Soviet dictator moved to annex the three leading to an occupation that lasted until the Soviet Union collapsed a half century later.
    Four years ago, Putin published in the National Interest an article about how World War II began and openly stated that the Baltic countries were absorbed into the USSR not by force but “on the basis of a treaty agreed to by the elected leaders,” an action he insisted “corresponded to international law at that time” (nationalinterest.org/print/feature/vladimir-putin-real-lessons-75th-anniversary-world-war-ii-162982).
    What is tragic is that Putin is following Stalin’s playbook step by step, and the Western democracies instead of recognizing this as the opening round of a new world war are pushing Ukraine to come to an agreement with the instigator. At least in 1940, the US and some Western countries adopted a non-recognition policy.
    One can only wonder whether they would be willing to do the same if Putin takes even more steps along the path Stalin trod. The likely answer is anything but encouraging.   

Eight of Ten Top Rated Higher Educational Institutions in Russia are in Moscow

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – Eight of the top ten rated higher educational institutions in the Russian Federation are in Moscow, according to the latest biennial RAEKH survey, yet another indication of the extreme centralization of the Russian Federation as far as the training of new elites are concerned.
    Moscow State University far outdistances all the others, and only two are beyond the ring road – St. Petersburg State University which ranks third and Yekaterinburg’s Urals Federal University which ranks eighth (newizv.ru/news/2025-01-02/nazvany-luchshie-vuzy-rossii-kakie-universitety-stali-kuznitsey-elity-434515).
    And even below the top ten, the extreme centralism of the Russian system is obvious: Of the 74 higher schools mentioned in the survey, 31 were in Moscow, and 13 more in St. Petersburg. Only 31 institutions listed were in other federal subjects of the Russian Federation, and they were found in just 20 of these, less than a quarter of all such territories.
    This pattern will continue to re-enforce the Moscow-centric nature of Russian elites well into the future and mean that then as often in the past any challenges to the centrist nature of the Russian states will emerge in Moscow or at most there and in St. Petersburg rather than in universities in the regions and republics.

Moscow’s High Interest Rates and Anti-Migrant Moves Slowing Growth in Trade with China Dramatically, Usov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – Bilateral trade between Russia and China grew only 2.1 percent during the first 11 months of 2024, down from an increase of 26.7 percent during the corresponding period in 2023, a decline that reflects Moscow’s use of high interest rates to fight inflation and its anti-immigrant stance, according to Pavel Usov.
    The Belarusian economist in Warsaw says other factors, including sanctions, played a role but that high interest rates have Russia less attractive to investors than China itself where rates are far lower and Russian attacks on migrants have made it less attractive for Chinese to work (eastrussia.ru/material/do-kitaya-daleko-i-blizko-perspektivy-i-riski-biznes-partnerstva/).
    Usov’s report highlights the interconnected nature of Moscow’s policies and the way in which its pursuit of some is putting its relationship with China at risk, at least in the coming year or two. It helps explain why the Kremlin has defended migrants in recent weeks and opposed further interest rate increases. But for domestic reasons, it can’t afford to do either for long.  
    And that combination leaves Putin in an increasingly difficult position, one in which his pursuit of one set of economic and political goals will undercut his ability to achieve others.

Moscow Losing Another Battle in Alphabet Wars – This Time in Mongolia

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – The Mongolian education ministry has ordered that from now on all official documents in that country will use the national script alongside the Cyrillic alphabet, a change that will further distance Ulan Bator from Moscow and promote closer ties between Mongolia and Mongolian-language speakers in Russia and China.
    The ministry took this step in conformity with the provisions of a 2015 alphabet reform law that had already led to the introduction of the traditional national script in the country’s schools and educational institutions (tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/22813283,  asiarussia.ru/news/44241/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/01/ulan-bator-makes-study-of-old-mongolian.html).
    And its move represents yet another slap in the face to Vladimir Putin who has made the maintenance of the Cyrillic alphabet in countries that were once part of the Soviet empire, as well as making it easier for Mongols, Buryats, and Uyghurs living in Mongolia, the Russian Federation and China to interact with one another.
    The classical Mongol vertical writing system was created by Chingiz Khan and was used by Mongols, Buryats and Kalmyks both in Mongolia and the USSR until 1930s. At that time, the Soviet authorities replaced that alphabet first with one based on Latin script and then with one based on Cyrillic.
    The Old Mongolia script as it came to be called remained and remains to this day the second state script in the Chinese Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia; and Beijing’s willingness to support it may be one of the reasons why Russian commentators are not expressing outrage about this latest loss in the alphabet wars.
    But now that Mongolia has made this change, demands for a return to traditional alphabets in Buryatia, Kalmykia and Mongols living in the Russian Federation are likely to increase as some are already doing (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/11/buryats-increasingly-studying-ancient.html).
    And that in turn will spark more concerns in Moscow about the possible revival of pan-Mongolism among them, a trend that has increasingly agitated experts and officials in the Russian capital over the last several years (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-again-fighting-pan-mongolism.html).

Putin Orders Educational Ministry to Drop Key Reference to ‘Native’ Languages

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 2 – In yet another move against non-Russians in the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin has ordered his educational ministry to change the name of the curriculum module about language from “native language and/or state language” to “language of the people of the Russian Federation and/or state language of the republic of the Russian Federation.”
    This may seem on first glance a small thing, but it is likely to cast an enormous shadow on the future (kremlin.ru/acts/assignments/orders/76077 and nazaccent.ru/content/43353-vladimir-putin-poruchil-sozdat-edinuyu-linejku-uchebnikov-po-russkomu-i-drugim-yazykam-narodov-rossii/).
    This dropping the reference to “native” detaches languages from the ethnic communities which speak them and makes it easier for Moscow to insist that these languages are not theirs from time immemorial but those of the republic in which they are spoken, reducing still further the possibilities of those who don’t have a republic or live within its borders.
    The fact that Putin made this announcement at a time when the Russian Federation is in the midst of its mid-winter holiday suggests that the Kremlin is aware of how unhappy many non-Russians will be about this change and decided to take this step at time when most residents of that country are focused on celebrations rather than government actions.

Putin’s Invasion has Led to ‘Almost Complete Disappearance’ of Differences between Eastern and Western Ukraine about West and Russia, Kyiv Sociologist Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 1 – “The only positive consequence of the war is the near-complete disappearance of regional differences [of opinion] in Ukraine,” Volodymyr Paniotto says. “In  2021, there was strong regional differentiation on most issues, now these differences have practically disappeared.
    But in place of these much commented upon regional differences, the director of Kyiv’s International Institute of Sociology says, now grounds for social stratification have emerged, including most prominently differences among those who are refugees in Europe, those who didn’t move, and those in the occupied territories” (meduza.io/feature/2025/01/01/kak-tretiy-god-voyny-izmenil-ukrainu-i-chto-zhdet-stranu-v-2025-m).
    In addition, Paniotto made the following additional comments on changes in Ukrainian society over the last year:
•    Fewer Ukrainians have died in each year since Putin’s expanded invasion began in 2022 than did from the coronavirus pandemic in 2021.
•    Two-thirds of the six million Ukrainians who have moved abroad won’t return to Ukraine even if there is peace, but many of them will retain their Ukrainian passports.
•    Ukrainians continue to use the Russian language but they have dramatically increased their opposition to instruction in Russian in their country’s schools. In 2019, only eight percent favored ending instruction in Russian; by the end of 2023, that share had risen to 52 percent.
•    Ukrainians have been ready to negotiate an end to the war since it began. As of last fall, a third of them said they would be prepared to give up some territories, but there is no talk about recognizing these territories in the course of negotiations as part of Russia.

Putin’s ‘Consensual Democracy’ Quite Adequate for ‘Totally Passive’ Society, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 31 – Vladimir Putin was chosen to be Yeltsin’s successor because he shared the disappointment Russian elites had in both democracy and the idea of the rule of law and recognized that he and they could rule the country without the direct participation of the population that commitment to those ideas would require, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.
    At the end of 1999, the Russian commentator continues, “the masters of the country” installed Putin and introduced in place of electoral democracy a “consensual” form (moscowtimes.ru/2024/12/31/soglasitelnaya-demokratiya-ili-glubokoe-ponimanie-rossiiskogo-obschestva-a151736).
    According to Inozemtsev, “consensual democracy is most likely a unique Russian invention, a modernization of the Soviet system in the spirit of the 21st century. In it, a narrow circle of the ruling nomenklatura makes a personnel choice” and then this choice is “confirmed during a national or regional plebiscite.”
    Putting this new system in place took “almost two decades,” the commentator continues; but it moved the country “from the imitation of democratic processes within the framework of a single political course toward an increasingly open rejection of all those who disagree with a policy of terror against ‘enemies of the people,’” just as the Soviet system did.
    But consensual democracy differs from its predecessor in two important ways. On the one hand, it did not involve a complete denial of basic freedoms and rights; and on the other, it “remains a democracy since elections are not eliminated or reduced to voting for a single candidate as was the case in communist times.”
    What matters most, Inozemtsev argues is that consensual democracy is “a form of political regime which is adequate to an absolutely passive society, one fully weighted down by its own problems and not wishing to interfere in political processes.” Russians haven’t acted and won’t act as Belarusians and Ukrainians have to the results of such elections.
    “Of course,” the commentator acknowledges, “such a system is unstable and transient; but it is unstable and transient in exactly the same way that the Soviet system was: it can quickly fall apart but only if the impulse in that direction is given by its creators and beneficiaries” rather than by the population or in any other situation.”
    That justifies the following conclusion, Inozemtsev says. “Those who a quarter of a century ago thought about how to keep a not yet fully privatized country under their stable control found the optimal solution, one based on a fairly deep understanding of the Russian people and how much indifference those in power can count on.”
    This understanding of those who installed Putin was “significantly deeper than that of all the representatives of the Russian opposition … who hoped that the people would rise to their defense.” In fact, as the longevity of the Putin regime shows, “Russian society was and remains only ‘an appendage to power,” something that the responses of Russians to Putin’s war confirms.  

By Calling for a State Register of Languages, Putin Sets the Stage for New Moves against Non-Russian Nations

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 1 – More than any of his Russian or Soviet predecessors, Vladimir Putin clearly believes that the language someone speaks defines his nationality and thus his moves against non-Russian languages both among indigenous peoples and against immigrants is part of a larger campaign against these nations as such.
    He has now taken the next step in this process by ordering the Russian government to compile a state register of the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation by May 1, 2025 (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2025/01/01/1084699-putin-poruchil-sozdat-gosreestr-yazikov-narodov-rossii).
    As there does not appear to be any place in Putin’s mind for people who speak one language but identify as members of another nation, he is likely to use this new register to insist that members of non-Russian groups are in fact Russians in an increasingly ethnic and not just political sense.
    Not only does this approach ignore the reality that there are many people who for one reason or another identify as members of a nation even though they do not speak its titular language and thus to further downgrade the importance of such identities and boost that of languages.
    Given Putin’s Russianizing and Russifying policies, this represents a new and broader attack on non-Russians and sets the stage for both a radical simplification of Russian census data and even of the administrative-territorial map of the Russian Federation in that Putin is likely to use this as the basis for new move against the continued existence of the non-Russian republics.

By 2025, Soviet Leaders Said USSR would have a Base on the Moon, a Bridge to Alaska, and Thousands of Robotic Factories

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 1 – Before their country disintegrated, Soviet leaders routinely predicted a miraculous future for it. Most of those prognostications have been forgotten as has the regime that made them, but what Moscow told its people it would achieve by the middle of the third decade of the 21st century remains important.
    On the one hand, the Soviet leadership’s predictions that it would have by then a base on the moon, a bridge to Alaska and robots operating factories show that Moscow before 1991 was focused on the future not on the past, a very different approach than Putin’s Russia today (mk.ru/politics/2025/01/01/gosudarstvennyy-internet-baza-na-lune-most-na-alyasku-chto-planiroval-sssr-k-2025-godu.html).
    And on the other, such predictions which in almost no case ever came close to being fulfilled help to explain the cynicism of Russians about what Putin and his team predict. They have a long history of being promised the moon, literally, without the Kremlin being able to deliver.

Moscow Boasts about Bridges to China and North Korea but Fails to Build Roads Leading to Them or Train Enough Logistics Experts

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 30 – The week doesn’t go by that one or another Moscow media outlet boasts about highway and rail bridges Russia is opening between itself, on the one hand, and China and North Korea, on the other. But Russian experts concede that these bridges aren’t being used as much as they could be because of the absence of road and rail networks leading to them.
    On the Russian side of these two borders, Moscow has failed to build sufficient highways or rail lines to handle the traffic that the Russian government hopes for and boasts of. As a result, it is now struggling to catch up; but it is unclear whether any crash program will achieve a breakthrough soon (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-12-30--mosty-druzhby-rossijanam-stanovitsja-vse-legche-ezdit-v-kitaj-i-kndr-77713).
    But even if Moscow does manage to build more highways and rail lines leading up to these border crossings, it faces another problem which likely means they won’t be as effective at linking these countries together as the Kremlin hopes. At present, it can’t fill 20 percent of number of logistics specialists it needs to make such networks operational.
    These two factors – the lack of adequate infrastructure and the shortage of a sufficient number of specialists – have combined, Russian experts say, to create the kind of bottleneck that will severely limit the value of the much-ballyhooed bridges that Moscow and its neighbors are building.

Russians Outside of Moscow Identify Very Different Stories as Important than Do Muscovites

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 31 – Not surprisingly, in any large country, people in one part of it identify as the most important stories a very different list than do people in other parts. In Russia, this divide is less among the regions than it is between the regions and Moscow, whose residents and rulers set the weather as far as most people are concerned.
    That makes a list of stories the readers of the NeMoskva portal selected as the most important for them particularly significant because it shows that many beyond the ring road have a very different image of what has been going on over the last twelve months than do people in the capital and those who rely on them (nemoskva.net/2024/12/31/oglyanemsya-na-2024-j/).
    It is not based on anything like a representative sample: readers of the portal wrote in with their choices. But it is a useful correction to the end-of-year lists that are now filling up the Russian and Western media about what Russians consider important. Most of them reflect what Muscovites may but not what other Russians do.
The list as reported and described by NeMoskva includes:
•    Turning point of the year: invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces into the Kursk region
•    Line of the year: farewell to Alexei Navalny in Moscow
•    Protest of the year: street protests in Baymak, Bashkortostan   
•    Aggravation of the year: terrorist attacks in Moscow and Dagestan and conflicts on ethnic grounds in different regions of Russia
•    Disasters of the year: floods and forest fires across the country
•    Solidarity of the year: “Day of Unity of Ingushetia”  
•    Breakthroughs of the year: pipes and dams are breaking all over the country
•    Disasters of the year: the crash of a plane flying to Chechnya and tankers in the Kerch Strait
•    Spit of the year: closure of a center for children with disabilities in Kemerovo Novokuznetsk
•    Resignations of the year: fall of governors in the regions
•    Flashbacks of the year: the return of cards in Kaliningrad and the remains of a murdered journalist in St. Petersburg
•    Attempt of the year: installation and demolition of pillars in memory of those repressed in Tomsk
•    Clash of the year: the dismissal of a teacher from Khabarovsk for dancing in heels - and speeches in his defense
•    Surprise of the year: acquittal of a Buryat human rights activist
•    Trip of the year: Siberian circumnavigation

Arnold Rüütel, ‘a Washington for Estonia,’ Dead at Age of 96

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 1 – Yesterday, at the age of 96, Arnold Rüütel passed away, He served as a senior official in the Estonian SSR during the occupation and later, in a variety of roles, including president of the Estonian Republic, played a key role in helping his country recover its rightful place in the world as part of the West.
    In reporting his death, Postimees noted that he had “not a few supporters and ill-wishers,” with many in both camps focusing only on one aspect of his public activities and ignoring the others (rus.postimees.ee/8161935/bolshaya-galereya-umer-eks-prezident-arnold-ryuytel-tyazheloves-i-dolgozhitel-estonskoy-politiki).
    Many Estonians, especially in the emigration, could never forgive him for statements issued in his name attacking them and defending the Soviet Union; while many others, never forgave him for his role in ending the occupation of Estonia and leading his country into NATO and the European Union.
    That divide has prevented many from seeing him as a man in full.  But that is changing and I believe will continue to change.  Almost a decade ago, I was asked to write a comment about his life for a book Peeter Ernits put together (Viimane Rüütel (Tallinn, 2017). I entitled my submission “A Washington for Estonia.”
    In it, I pointed out that it typically takes three kinds of people to make a successful national revolution, the philosophers who explain why it is necessary, the firebrands who lead the people to make it possible, and the members of the ancien regime who recognize the justice of the pursuit of revolutionary goals and make their institutionalization possible.
    Not surprisingly, in the US and almost all other cases, the philosophers and the firebrands get the better press at least initially. Their stories are more unambiguous and easier to tell, and they dominate the initial histories of the revolution. But over time, it becomes obvious that it is often officials who rose in the old regime but changed sides who are the more important.
    Arnold Rüütel was neither a philosopher nor a firebrand and so he has often been more criticized and less appreciated that those who were one or the other or even in some cases both. But with time, his role as a bridge who made the passage from the old to the new possible is being recognized. I believe that trend will continue.
    For more than 30 years, I have been proud to count myself his admirer and friend. I will miss him; and I believe that as time passes, ever more people will come to recognize just how enormous his contribution was however contradictory it has sometimes been presented..