Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 30 – Turkmenistan, known for its constitutional commitment to neutrality, is still neutral but the meaning of that status has changed as Ashgabat has become increasingly active internationally, according to Vitaly Volkov, perhaps Moscow’s leading commentator on that little known country.
Ever more countries are interested in developing ties with Turkmenistan, he says; but few of them, including Russia and the United States, are in a position to move Ashgabat as far as they would like. They each can get some of what they want on specific projects but not a wholesale alliance of any kind (stanradar.com/news/full/56683-tak-li-nejtralen-nejtralnyj-turkmenistan-intervju-s-vitaliem-volkovym.html).
The reason for that, Volkov continues, is the interrelationship between the way in which Turkmenistan is ruled and the foreign policies it adopts. Much of the political landscape of Turkmenistan is divided among family members of the ruler and so any dramatic move across the board is thus extremely risky for the current constellation of power.
The current president would like to change that, but so far, the Russian observer says, he has not been able to do much in that regard. Unless that happens, Ashgabat may become even more active internationally but it isn’t likely to move into one camp or the other but remain neutral, albeit neutral in ways very different from what it was earlier.
For a discussion of what the current Turkmenistan ruler is doing in the security area and how this by itself is leading to a changed understanding of neutrality in Ashgabat, see jamestown.org/program/turkmenistan-expanding-military-to-support-its-increased-international-activity/.
Friday, January 31, 2025
Turkmenistan Still Neutral but Meaning of that Status is Evolving, Volkov Says
‘Diversity within Russian Opposition Ends with Gender and Doesn’t Include LGBTQ People or Ethnic Minorities, Maladayeva Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – “Most Western donors have a very Moscow-centric view of Russia,” and “diversity within the Russian opposition” extends only to gender and does not include either LGBTQ people or ethnic minorities, according to Viktoriya Maladayeva, a Buryat activist who has now formed a group, the Indigenous of Russia,” to unite minorities and change these views.
The activist who formed but then left the Free Buryatia Foundation when the group failed to back Buryats and now lives in exile says she “created Indigenous of Russia with a mission to unite Russia’s Indigenous peoples, raise awareness about their struggles and advocate and promote their rights” (themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/28/activist-viktoria-maladaeva-uplifts-russias-indigenous-peoples-with-power-of-unity-a87762).
Those involved in this effort, Maladayeva continues, not only want to protect and advance their rights but also to know our “true history” and control “our own historic lands.” But at present, we “know so little about each other” that “one of our goals is to increase mutual understanding and learn about each other’s problems and dreams.”
Last year, the group prepared a documentary about the international struggle of Queer indigenous people (themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/27/documentary-explores-the-intersectional-struggle-of-queer-indigenous-people-in-russia-a86124); and it is now preparing a second about residential schools Moscow used to Russify the indigenous peoples of the North.
The group – whose activities are chronicled at instagram.com/indigenousofrussia/ -- would like to do more but at the present time lacks the resources to do so, Maladayeva concludes.
Only Three Groups in Russia Benefiting from War and Both They and Amounts of Money Involved Smaller than Most Imagine, Researcher Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – Only three groups have benefited from Putin’s war in Ukraine – soldiers and their families, workers in the military-industrial complex and business owners – but these groups are smaller and the amounts of money they’re receiving less than is commonly assumed, a researcher speaking on condition of anonymity says.
As a result, the war has done little to change Russia from one of the most unequal countries in the developed world; and once it ends, he says, the situation may even get worse in that regard, forcing the government to change its approach or increase repression still further (meduza.io/en/feature/2025/01/28/the-end-of-the-war-will-herald-far-more-challenges-for-the-regime-than-the-war-itself).
Some of Russia’s wealthiest people have indeed “gotten a lot richer” because they were able to divide “productive assets that were effectively abandoned by Western companies;” and that in turn allowed Putin to win their continued support. But presumably if the war ends, so too will that possibility.
Among Russia’s more numerous and much poorer strata, even those who are benefiting are spending in ways that have only a small multiplier effect. And if peace comes, that will disappear. As a result, income inequality will become worse, and social discontent will emerge in Russia.
As a result, the observer concludes, Russia “might actually become more repressive – have to become more repressive – if the war ends or if the war continues, just as a way of keeping a handle on things,” hardly the outcome most other observers and activists are now talking about.
Fewer than Four Percent of All Newborns in Russia in 2023 were Children of Foreigners, ‘To Be Precise’ Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – Many Russians fear that their nation will be displaced not only by the influx of migrant workers but by births among that group and thus support harsh measures to block more migrants from coming and the children of migrants from remaining in the Russian Federation.
But their fears are not supported by statistics, demographer Aby Shukyurov writes in a report for the To Be Precise portal. In fact, while the number of children of parents at least one of which was a foreigner in fact doubled between 2019 and 2023 to 50,000, that number represented less than four percent of all newborns in Russia (tochno.st/materials/v-2023-godu-inostranki-rodili-v-rossii-50-tysiac-detei-eto-pocti-v-dva-raza-bolse-cem-v-2019-m-no-menee-4-ot-vsex-novorozdennyx).
While there are problems with these data sets, the demographer says, noting that the citizenship or nationality of fathers is often not listed, the facts are that more than 80 percent of the children born in the Russian Federation in the most recent year for which statistics are available were the offspring of two citizens of that country.
Consequently, the frequently expressed alarm about the supposed threat of “the replacement” of ethnic Russians by migrants and their children is completely unjustified both for the country as a whole and even for particular cities where the number of immigrants and their offspring are more numerous.
Today’s ‘Russian Community’ Differs from Tsarist Era’s Black Hundreds Only by Its Lack of Stress on Anti-Semitism, Anti-Fascist Activist Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – “The only thing that distinguishes [today’s Russian Community] from the Black Hundreds is the absence of anti-Semitism or at least the lack of emphasis on it,” according to a Russian Anti-Fascist activist speaking on condition of anonymity. “The place of Jews is taken by migrants from Muslim countries,” and the Russian Community supports Israel.
The two groups, although separated by more than a century, share a common “anti-communism, commitment to Orthodoxy, and radical loyalty to the state and to Putin personally,” and embers often say that the most important thing is that there not be any revolution” in Russia, he continues (posle.media/ih-obedinyaet-tyaga-k-nasiliyu/).
That is just one of the points the activist makes in a wide-ranging discussion of the state of far right groups in Russia over the last several years. He argues that the key distinction between street-gang neo-Nazis and the Russian Community is generational” and that the two often work together.
The street-gang neo-Nazis, he says, are mostly teenagers while the Russian Community is made up primarily of people over 30. But both are committed to sparking a race war between ethnic Russians and others, and so the finer points of ideology are less important to both than this common goal.
(For background on the Russian Community, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/russian-community-organization-and-its.html, 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.)
‘Men in North Caucasus have a Few More Rights than Women But No One is Free,’ Rights Activist Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – That women in the traditional societies of the North Caucasus are subject to repression by men, their families, and society as a whole is universally acknowledged, but Saida Sirazhudinova points out something that is often ignored: while men in that region have a few more rights than women do, “no one is free.”
Men are often told whom to marry, what careers they can pursue, and where they can live, the rights activist says; and in some respects, this situation is getting worse. In Soviet times, marrying someone of a different nationality was encouraged. Now, families and society pressure men against doing so (okno.group/ультраджигитовая-маскулинность-сво/).
Because women in the North Caucasus are treated so much worse than men there, she and other specialists say, the repression North Caucasian men feel is often ignored. But it is very real given the power of family and society pressure on the fundamental choices that men like women should have the right to make on their own.
These experts make two other points which are important but again often ignored. On the one hand, older women who often dominate families are among those working hardest to oppress both men and women; and on the other, Islam often helps to liberate both men and women because it allows for inter-ethnic marriage and a broader choice of careers.
That is not to say that the intensification of Islam in the region over the last two decades has been positive in every respect, these experts says; but it is to note that Islam can help break down some of the traditional values and practices at the root of the mistreatment of both women and men in the North Caucasus.
Kostroma Renames Hospital for Inventor of Soviet-Era Punitive Psychiatry’s Concept of ‘Sluggish Schizophrenia’
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – The oblast psychiatric hospital has been renamed for Andrey Snezhnevsky, the founder of Soviet-style punitive psychiatry and the inventor of the notorious term, ‘sluggish schizophrenia,’ that was never accepted by psychiatrists in other countries but was used by Moscow against dissidents in the last decades of Soviet power.
Snezhnevsky began his career in Kostroma but in 1938 he moved to Moscow where he established the Soviet school of psychiatry. He eventually served as head of the Institute of Psychiatry of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (t.me/akalitin/905 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6797350C8DCEF).
This horrific move is entirely appropriate at a time when Putin is expanding the use of punitive psychiatry across Russia and is doing so in particular outside of Moscow to avoid attracting Western attention. (On that, see jamestown.org/program/putin-expands-use-of-soviet-style-punitive-psychiatry-across-russia/ as translated into Russian at region.expert/psychiatry/).
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Almost Five Million Russian Aged 14 to 35 Now Don’t Study or Work, Youth Agency Head Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 28 – According to the most recent statistics, for 2023, 4.7 million Russians between the ages of 14 and 35 neither study nor work, Grigory Gurov, the head of the Russian Agency for Young People. That means that every eight young person in the country “doesn’t see his or her place in society and has dropped out.”
Officials refer to such people as the NET Generation, that is, people “not in employment, education or training, Yevgeny Chernyshov of the Nakanune news agency says, adding that experts say that such people have no interest in work or study but are only concerned with having a good time (nakanune.ru/articles/123085/).
What is worrisome, the journalist continues, is that the share of young people who aren’t integrated into society more closely is much higher than their share in the population as a whole, 13 percent as compared to nine percent; and the situation may be getting worse: of the 1.6 million school graduates, only 0.7 percent have found or chosen to find work.
This phenomenon of non-working and non-studying young people is relatively new, Gurov says; and while the government has programs to combat it, there is a real danger that if young Russians don’t go to work by age 30, they will remain a generation of Oblomovs their entire lives.
What makes these figures especially critical now is that were these young people to go to work, the need for immigrant labor would be far less and the ability of the government to raise an army far easier than is now the case. But the fact that the government is now focused on this suggests there will soon be new moves to integrate young Russians in the work force.
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Russian Courts Seek to Reduce Ability of Juries to Find Anyone Innocent
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 25 – Russian judges find fewer than one percent of the defendants before them innocent, while juries now find roughly a quarter of those whose cases they hear not guilty. That pattern has alarmed the Russian authorities who have adopted a variety of strategies to reduce the chances that juries will return so many not guilty verdicts.
The most common and the one that has been used the longest is to restrict the number of criminal cases held before juries with officials arguing that they can’t find enough Russians to serve on juries or to appeal jury decisions to higher courts where they are often overridden, Yekaterian Trifonova says (ng.ru/politics/2025-01-26/1_9178_jury.html).
But such methods have proved insufficient to reduce the number of not guilty findings by juries, the Nezavismaya Gazeta politics reporter says; and so the authorities have now adopted other tactics, including having judges deny defense lawyers the opportunity to present alternative versions of the case before the jury.
Such methods seldom get the coverage that the more blatant forms of intervention do, but they are an increasingly part of the toolbox the authorities draw on to prevent juries from finding people innocent and thus calling into question just how many more Russians are being railroaded into guilty findings.
Trifonova’s article is important because she calls attention to something that few reporters Russian or international often include in their reporting about Russian jurisprudence and a reminder that Putin’s efforts to use the simulacra of law are being undertaken here as elsewhere to subvert law and justice.
Prilepin Equates Enemies of Soviet Power with Enemies of Russia, Deepening Divisions among Russian Nationalists who Support Putin’s War in Ukraine
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 24 – In the Putin era, there has always been a deep division between Russian nationalists who support the Soviet past and those who view the Soviet system as an enemy of the Russian nation almost as dangerous as “the Anglo-Saxons.” But now this division has deepened and likely made the two sides irreconcilable.
Zakhar Prilepin, a Russian nationalist writer who views the Soviet Union favorably, has equated those Russian nationalists who don’t as “enemies of Russia” and published a list of them, even though many of the latter are prominent supporters of Putin’s war in Ukraine (dzen.ru/a/Z5M-TkKySTiC_A-3). svoboda.org/a/rasstreljnyy-spisok-natsionalisty-protiv-zahara-prilepina/33289542.html).
His attack has outraged many who have voiced their views (svoboda.org/a/rasstreljnyy-spisok-natsionalisty-protiv-zahara-prilepina/33289542.html). But more important than that, it has divided the most vocal supporters of Putin’s war, something that the Kremlin leader will find it far more difficult to overcome.
Indeed, by allowing the attack, Putin has weakened his own position as those who agree with Russian nationalists who don’t like the Soviet past are likely to find it far easier to speak out against Prilepin who appears to be articulating the Kremlin leader’s position on this point and perhaps ultimately on others as well.
Kazan Officials Want to Set Up a Republic Personals Service so Tatars can Find Tatar Partners and have More Children
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan 26 – In Gorbachev’s times, personals columns begam to flourish in Soviet youth newspapers; and one of the signs that the friendship of the peoples he and other Moscow leaders talked so much about was coming to the end was the appearance of posts in which individuals said they were looking for partners from particular nationalities.
Usually, those making such requests indicated that they wanted to meet someone of the same nationality as themselves, although not always. There were some striking cases in which Russians and others said they wanted to meet Jews or Germans, perhaps because they believed that if they married members of those groups, they could escape the USSR.
Since the demise of the Soviet Union, personals columns have continued to appear but with less obvious political messages. However, that may be changing. Officials in Tatarstan want to establish a republic “acquaintance agency” so that Tatars can meet Tatars, marry and have more children (nemoskva.net/2025/01/27/v-tatarstane-chinovniki-hotyat-sozdat-respublikanskoe-agentstvo-znakomstv/).
This builds on earlier efforts in which Tatarstan officials have sought to boost marriage rates among Tatars by matching them at polling stations or at skating rinks (t.me/Govorit_NeMoskva/23714 and t.me/Govorit_NeMoskva/39394) so as to boost the marriage and fertility rates of Tatars as Moscow is demanding.
But while such programs at least for the time being enjoy Moscow’s support to the extent they increase the number of marriages and children, they may have the effect as their predecessors in the 1980s did of intensifying ethno-national identities, exactly the opposite outcome to the one the Kremlin favors.
Tens of Thousands of Russian Wounded Waiting for Prosthetic Devices
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 24 – Putin’s war in Ukraine has left at least 100,000 Russian soldiers invalids, of whom a minimum of half have undergone amputations and need prosthetic devices. But the Russian economy is incapable of providing them on a timely basis and tens of thousands of Russian soldiers wounded in battle must wait months to be fitted with them.
That is just one of the damning findings Vyorstka journalists Ivan Zhadayev and Olesya Gerasimenko offer in their investigation into the state of prosthetics in the Moscow hospital responsible for treating the most seriously wounded with artificial limbs (verstka.media/reportazh_iz_tsentra_gde_proteziruyut_voyennykh_vernuvshikhsya_s_fronta_bez_ruk_i_nog).
Russian government statistics do no break out those who need prosthetics as a result of the war from all those requiring them. But the two journalists report that demand for prosthetics grew “no more than seven percent annually” between 2013 and 2022, it jumped by 42 percent in 2023, the first full year of the war.
And the Russian government which celebrates those who fight, are heavily injured or die for it in Ukraine hasn’t kept up. Those needing prosthetics have to wait months if not years for such devices, something that is leading to ever more bitterness among the veterans and likely among their relatives as well.
One wounded veteran waiting for prosthetics went to war in 2022 when as he says “patriots” did rather than those who have been paid up to a million rubles (10,000 US dollars). He is still waiting. And while some of his fellows are still super patriotic, others are increasingly critical of Putin and the war.
The Kremlin leader likes to talk about “unexploded bombs” which can threaten Russia. But he seems oblivious that by failing these men after having led them into this unjustified and criminal war, he is planting one under Russian society and indeed under himself.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Moscow Authorities Forced to Proceed Cautiously against Batal-Haji Sufi Order Because of Its Strength, Observer Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 24 – Ingushetia’s Batal-Haji Sufi order is too large and too well-connected for Moscow to proceed against its members in the way it has done with other Islamic groups the Putin regime views as supportive of or otherwise connected to terrorist acts such as the killing of senior officials, Islam Kartoyev says.
When the FSB wants to come down hard on other Islamic groups, the blogger who himself was once a member of the Batal-Haji order says, it typically arranges to kill them rather than bring them to trial (kavkazr.com/a/novye-glavnye-terroristy-bratstvo-batalhadzhintsev-iz-ingushetii-i-ubiystvo-generala-kirillova/33287519.html).
But when the Batal-Haji order is involved, even the FSB has to proceed with caution because the order is too large, too rich and too well-connected even for Putin’s secret police to do otherwise, an indication of just how tenuous and weak Moscow’s rule in Ingushetia and even neighboring republics has become.
According to Kartoyev, the membership of the order is between 15,000 and 20,000, and each of these is required to hand over to the leadership 10 percent of all income. “Among the members of the sect,” he continues, “are major businessmen, heads of industrial enterprises and so on.”
That gives the leadership of the Batal-Haji enormous financial power, and it uses that to buy off police and security officials and to ensure that its members are treated well by the authorities, something few other social groups are in a position to do, Kartoyev reports on the basis of his personal experience.
And that is effective in staying the hand of the authorities even when the victim of the crime is a highly placed official. The powers that be may still go after those involved but it won’t kill them and will likely treat them better in confinement than would be the case with those not members of such a group.
One reason the authorities do so, Kartoyev continues, is that they know that even if they jail a significant number of Batal-Haji members, an even larger number of the followers of this Sufi order will remain free and ready to act on the orders of their leaders against the police or the FSB.
That is a manifestation of real power, the kind that has led others to suggest that in Ingushetia at least, this Sufi order is now “a state within a state” and not some marginal group the Putin regime can do with whatever it likes (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/batal-haji-sufi-order-in-ingushetia-new.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/moscow-attacks-ingushetias-batal-haji.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/kadyrov-raising-military-unit-based-on.html).
Broken Windows Theory Explains What is Going On in Russian Cities, ‘PolitSovet’ Suggests
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 24 – There are three kinds of social problems in Russia; those that are typical of all industrialized and urbanized societies, those that are unique to Russia, and those that are common to industrialized and urbanized societies but have a different set of consequences in Russia.
The third kind is the most interesting but its existence is often ignored. Yekaterinburg’s PolitSovet portal provides a useful counterweight to that in a discussion of the failure of police to do anything about people who park their cars illegally on sidewalks in the central portion of that Siberian city (politsovet.ru/83177-teoriya-razbityh-okon-v-centre-ekaterinburga.html).
Drawing on James Q. Wilson’s theory of broken windows which holds that small violations of public order lead to a general worsening of the criminological situation, the portal’s authors say that drivers in Yekaterinburg are providing a potential confirmation of that theory’s conclusion.
“Some time ago,” they write, “drivers for some reason decided that they could park on sidewalks. At first, only a few did so; and then when it became clear that no one would stop them or punish them, the sidewalks in the central part of the city were finally transformed into parking lots.”
Initially, some drivers who knew what they were doing was wrong hid their license plates, but very soon, they stopped doing so once it became obvious that the chances of their being punished were close to nil, a decision that was hastened because these cars were in the elite districts of the city and not in poorer areas.
“What conclusions should residents observing this picture draw?” PolitSovet asks rhetorically. “First, that no one is looking after order in the center of town. Second, that pedestrians in Yekaterinburg are second class citizens compared to drivers. And third – if ‘the best people of the city’ are openly violating the rules, then why shouldn’t everyone else?”
If Wilson’s broken windows theory is correct, the writers say, “then after a time, the absence of order regarding parking should lead t a general decline in order in the center of the city. We will observe to see whether this rule is confirmed,” they promise.
Kremlin Launches Program to Transform Political Strategists into ‘Social Architects’
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 24 – The Presidential Administration has announced a competition to get political strategists, increasing unneeded because of the declining number of competitive elections, to serve as social architects who can design special programs for particular socio-economic groups (социальныеархитекторы.рф/).
Some 3,000, driven either by economic necessity or a desire for preferment, have applied, and an initial group of five will be chosen and provided with special training (meduza.io/feature/2025/01/24/chem-zanyat-polittehnologov-v-strane-gde-pochti-ne-prohodyat-vybory-v-kremle-nashli-otvet-sotsialnymi-proektami-v-regionah).
According to Meduza, the Kremlin views this program as both a means to retain the loyalty of these people and a way of compiling an accurate list of them if things should develop so that competitive elections will emerge and political technologists will be needed to advise and guide campaigns.
But some observers fear that this effort will fall short both because of the very different skills needed for social architects and because of the reluctance of regional officials to spend large amounts of money on such people from Moscow. Thus, there may be a show of activity but very little in the way of a mass campaign.
Nonetheless, this is an intriguing example of the Kremlin’s recognition that its own policies have rendered some people no longer needed and that it must take steps to find them employment lest those left without their former work crystallize into groups supporting or even forming a new opposition.
Monday, January 27, 2025
By Acquiring Greenland, US would Become ‘Arctic Player Equal in Size to Russia’ and Trigger Conflict with Moscow, Yevstafyev Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 24 – US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US should acquire Greenland from Denmark would dramatically change the balance of power in the Arctic and set the stage for new conflicts between Washington and Moscow, according to Dmitry Yevstafyev, a Moscow defense analyst and commentator.
“Today,” he says, “America is not a player in the Arctic” and is included as an Arctic country only because its state of Alaska border that sea. But, he continues, “America’s Arctic infrastructure is quite poor compared even to Canada,” something that would have to change if the US annexed Greenland (ura.news/news/1052880245).
And in that event and also because of American interest in developing the natural resources of Greenland, Yevstafyev adds, “America thus becomes the primary competitor in the struggle for the Arctic,” a new situation which makes direct conflicts between the two countries more likely.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Unlike Stalin, Putin will Leave Behind Not a Strong State but Only ‘Ruins,’ Shelin Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 22 – In a new book, Amusing Russia. 228 Answers, Sergey Shelin argues that Vladimir Putin is concerned only with himself and his own survival and as a result is not so much building a new political system as destroying its existing institutions. He will thus leave behind him not a strong state as Stalin did but only “ruins.”
The murder of Muamar Qaddafi shocked Putin and led him to conclude that the West was after him and that he must do everything possible to save himself regardless of the consequences for Russia or for the international system, the Russian commentator says (severreal.org/a/posle-putina-ostanutsya-razvaliny-228-otvetov-na-vse-voprosy-o-rossii/33283990.html).
That fear, Shelin continues, has put Putin on a very different trajectory than Stalin followed despite the frequent comparisons with the late Soviet dictator that are often made. “Stalin,” he writes, “adapted the state system of the USSR to himself and then worked to protect it.”
“Putin in contrast hats the state institutions of the Russian Federation” as constraints and has “managed to destroy them all.” That has consequences for the future: “After Stalin, a totalitarian dictatorship remained; after Putin, only ruins will be left” with the need to rebuild almost everything.
According to Shelin, “Stalin viewed the USSR as his ceation, but Putin looks at the Russian Federation as an instrument for his hobbies. All his feelings and interests are focused on himself. All his feelings and interests are focused on himself. That is why his state adventurism knows no bounds: he is not responsible to anyone for anything not even in his imagination.”
Putin’s exclusive focus on himself is not unique to Russian leaders, but it is an extreme form of that disease and one that shows what can happen when institutions designed to limit such people instead are destroyed by them and then have to be rebuilt from the ground up, Shelin’s book suggests.
Northern Fleet Newspaper Blames Mothers and Wives or Large Russian Losses in Ukraine
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 22 – Na Strazhe Zapolyarya, the newspaper of Russia’s Northern Fleet, says that the wives and mothers of Russian servicemen talk too freely about where there husbands and sons are fighting, information Russia’s enemies collect and then use to target and kill them.
Consequently, the paper says, these Russian women bear part of the responsibility for the deaths of their loved ones (vk.com/rednsz?w=wall-93188324_291429 reported at thebarentsobserver.com/news/mothers-and-wives-must-take-part-of-blame-for-big-losses-military-newspaper-argues/423635).
"You, my dear mothers and wives, provide the exact whereabouts of the warriors and thus take part in the killing, not only of your own men, but also other soldiers,” the paper says. “You provide the positions of the training fields, whereupon Himars are fired. You provide not only directions, but also villages and streets, whereupon drones fly."
And the military paper calls “for the punishment in court of the ones that provide information about Russian servicemen to the Ukrainian side."
Holidays are Deadly for Russians, ‘To Be Precise’ Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 23 – Every year on average, 17,000 more Russians die on holidays, especially New Year’s and birthdays, than do on all other days, according to an investigation by To Be Precise journalists Alena Manuzina and Anastasiya Larina. Excessive alcohol consumption is the primary but far from the only cause.
Others have called the New Years-Christmas holiday week “the most fatal” one of the year, while experts have described it as “ten days of horrors” when Russians encounter “the most terrible enemy – themselves” (tochno.st/materials/kazdyi-god-10-tysiac-rossiian-umiraiut-ot-prazdnikov-eto-izbytocnaia-smertnost-obieiasniaem-otkuda-ona-beretsia).
And commentators have done so for Russia because the impact of holidays on death rates is far higher there than in other countries. Manuzina and Larina point out that the upsurge of deaths on holidays in Russia is four times as large as in the United States and multiples of other countries as well.
Every year, they write, 14 percent more Russians die over the January holidays than do at any other similar interval of time the rest of the year. And the more prominent the holiday is, the more the upsurge in deaths. Russians don’t celebrate the Day of Russia and the Day of National Unity and deaths don’t go up around those holidays.
The primary cause of this is alcohol consumption, the two investigators say; and increased alcohol consumption leads to more murders, 80 percent of which in Russia are committed when the perpetrator is drunk, and suicides when alcohol consumption increases the likelihood that unhappiness will turn into despair.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Ukraine at Risk of ‘Somalization’ if West Suddenly Ends Aid to Force Talks, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 22 – Russian analysts are beginning to focus on what may happen as the West pushes both Russia and Ukraine to reach a settlement on the war, with some expressing alarm that the process itself could produce consequences that few are focusing on and that no one should want.
One Russian analyst who has focused on these possibilities is Iosif Diskin, an economist at the HSE, who says that if the West suddenly cut off assistance to Kyiv to force it to reach an agreement, that could lead to “the Somalization” of Ukraine and “trigger a new phase” in the conflict (mk.ru/politics/2025/01/22/nazvan-trigger-kotoryy-zapustit-novuyu-fazu-ukrainskogo-krizisa.html).
Without Western assistance, Kyiv would lose much of the leverage it has over various places and institutions across Ukraine, Diskin suggests, and that could lead to warlordism and the spread of uncontrolled violence not only within its borders but across them into other countries, exactly the opposite of what those pushing for talks and an agreement presumably want.
Friday, January 24, 2025
Putin’s Orders about Shipbuilding Aren’t Being Carried Out, Patrushev Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 22 – In what sounds like the justification for a purge if things don’t change soon, Nikolay Pastrushev, the presidential assistant who heads the Maritime Collegium, says that Putin’s order aren’t be carried out in the shipbuilding branch aren’t being carried out and the sector’s systemic problems aren’t being resolved.
He made his remarks at a meeting of educational institutions and shipbuilding industry enterprises in St. Petersburg and his words may be little more than a manifestation of Patrushev’s frustration and tendency to express his opinions in the most dramatic way possible (eadaily.com/ru/news/2025/01/23/patrushev-porucheniya-prezidenta-ne-ispolnyayutsya-sistemnye-problemy-ne-reshayutsya).
But given Patrushev’s position as one of Putin’s closest confidants and the all-too-obvious problems of Russia’s shipbuilding sector which is under increasing sanctions, his words may point to a purge there that could rapidly broaden into a broader attack on officials across the board. Indeed, it is possible that that is exactly what Putin wants people to conclude.
In Chukotka, Moscow Replaces Independent Whaling Group with Puppet One in Name of National Security but Destroying Way of Life of Indigenous Peoples
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 22 – Putin’s increasing repression is so widespread that it is typically described in broadbrush terms, something that has the effect of hidings its insidious nature and the very specific negative consequences it has not just for well-known dissidents but entirely unknown groups of people.
That makes a report by Cherta journalists Lana Pulayeva and Anastasiya Martynov about how the Russian state first destroyed an NGO that sought to help the native peoples of Chukotka restore whale hunting 20 years ago and then put in its place a totally government-controlled entity that did the state’s business rather than the people’s (cherta.media/story/kitoboi/).
Local officials working with the FSB took this step, the journalists say, on the pretext of defending national security: the independent NGO had received a grant from the University of Alaska and thus became in the eyes of the Russian powers that be “a foreign agent” that had to be driven out of existence.
The group the state authorities put in its place was made up not of peoples directly affected by the whaling industry but by officials who could be counted on to do what Moscow wanted. In this case, it worked to promote the dispatch of indigenous peoples to fight in Ukraine rather than help those peoples maintain their ancient economic practices and survive.
Palayeva and Martynova describe how this occurred, with the state using a step by step approach recalling the famous story about how the frog was cooked after the water in which it was placed was gradually warmed to the boiling point. That is what is happening to the people of Chukotka who are now disappearing faster, people say, than the Arctic species they have hunted.
Secularist and Democratic Ichkerian Army Taking Shape in Ukraine
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 20 – When the people of Chechnya began their struggle for independence at the end of Soviet times, their leaders were committed to a vision of a secular and democratic country. When the West didn’t back them, some of them turned to Islamist radicals further alienating many. But now, the Chechens are changing again.
In Russian-occupied Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov has installed a kind of pseudo-Islamic state that imposes many of the dicta of the Muslim faith as state policy. But despite the assumptions of many that Chechens are Islamist, assumptions Moscow has encouraged, a new generation is arising that is fighting for the original ideals of democracy and secularism.
This remarkable and transformative idea has received little attention, but Akhmed Zakayev, head of the exile Chechen Republic Ichkeria government, explains how it is happening and why (kavkazr.com/a/v-ukraine-my-stali-organizovannoy-strukturoy-ahmed-zakaev-o-svobodnoy-chechne-i-rezhime-kadyrova/33282063.html).
He points out that in contrast to the first generation which fled Chechnya after the Russian advance and often fell under the influence of Islamist groups in the Middle East, the new generation of Chechens living in Europe, some 400,000 in all, have been shaped by Western institutions and values.
They have gone to Western universities and absorbed Western values, and some of them have now formed five battalions of a Chechen force to alongside Ukrainians against Russian aggression. This force, which has come into existence in Ukraine, is the foundation of forces which will restore the original ideals of the Chechen movement.
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
With Assad’s Ouster, Moscow Set to Lose Important Church Ally in Orthodox World
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 18 – Assad’s ouster not only is likely to cost Russia its military bases in Syria but also to drive from office the leader of the Antioch Patriarchate who had distinguished himself both by his pro-Assad positions and his support for the Moscow Patriarchate regarding Ukrainian autocephaly and Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Now with Assad and his Russian supporters gone, Syria’s Antioch Change Movement has called for the resignation of Patriarch John X who in its view had “sullied himself” by collaborating with Assad and Putin” (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/01/18/antiokhiia-posle-asada).
The Movement is likely to be successful given that John X has many enemies in Syria given that he and Assad changed church rules so that he could be elected in the first place, he failed to investigate the murders of senior churchmen, and he slavishly followed Damascus and Moscow in his policies.
John’s removal will affect the 500,000 Christians in Syria, but more than that, it will echo across the Orthodox world, not only because there are roughly three million more Antioch Christians in other countries but because the Antioch Patriarchate ranks third among the ancient Orthodox patriarchates, behind only Constantinople and Alexandria.
Up to now, the Antioch Patriarchate has been the Moscow Patriarchate’s most reliable ally in Moscow’s dispute with Constantinople. Now, the Russian church won’t be able to count on a similarly close ally in the future – and that likely means the ROC MP will be more isolated in the Orthodox world than at any time since the death of Stalin.
That in turn will mean that the ROC MP will have less to offer the Kremlin and that it will feel compelled to follow ever more closely Putin’s nationalist and imperialist line.
‘Russia isn’t the USSR, Ukraine isn’t Finland, and Putin isn’t Stalin’ – Shelin on Why Old Models of Conflict Resolution Won’t Work for Ukraine
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 17 – In talk about what kind of a deal Russia and the West might make about Ukraine, many are looking back to Finland and other conflicts where settlements were reached between Moscow and the West in Soviet times. But that is a mistake, Sergey Shelin argues.
The situation is too dissimilar because “the Russian Federation is not the USSR, Ukraine is not Finland, and Putin is not Stalin,” according to the Russian commentator. The latter difference is especially important because of Putin, the Ukrainian conflict is existential (moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/17/starie-primeri-ne-podoidut-rf-ne-sssr-ukraina-ne-finlyandiya-a-putin-ne-stalin-a152557).
“In my opinion,” Shelin says after reviewing each of the clashes from the past, “no one should count on the implementation in 2025 of any of the settlement schemes from the past and constantly being discussed. The talks being organized by Trum apparently are destined to involve the banal surrender of Ukraine, reach a dead end, or go off in some unconventional direction.”
Indeed, he continues, “nothing for example prevents Trump from personally guaranteeing Putin’s personal security and promising that he will not allow anyone to touch him. Maybe this is the key to all the problems. But Putin likely proceeds from the fact that Trump as president is not eternal while he, Putin, is.”
“But there are many ways to play on personal obsessions,” Shelin concludes, “and some of them may work.”
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 17 – In talk about what kind of a deal Russia and the West might make about Ukraine, many are looking back to Finland and other conflicts where settlements were reached between Moscow and the West in Soviet times. But that is a mistake, Sergey Shelin argues.
The situation is too dissimilar because “the Russian Federation is not the USSR, Ukraine is not Finland, and Putin is not Stalin,” according to the Russian commentator. The latter difference is especially important because of Putin, the Ukrainian conflict is existential (moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/17/starie-primeri-ne-podoidut-rf-ne-sssr-ukraina-ne-finlyandiya-a-putin-ne-stalin-a152557).
“In my opinion,” Shelin says after reviewing each of the clashes from the past, “no one should count on the implementation in 2025 of any of the settlement schemes from the past and constantly being discussed. The talks being organized by Trum apparently are destined to involve the banal surrender of Ukraine, reach a dead end, or go off in some unconventional direction.”
Indeed, he continues, “nothing for example prevents Trump from personally guaranteeing Putin’s personal security and promising that he will not allow anyone to touch him. Maybe this is the key to all the problems. But Putin likely proceeds from the fact that Trump as president is not eternal while he, Putin, is.”
“But there are many ways to play on personal obsessions,” Shelin concludes, “and some of them may work.”
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Moscow Patriarch Believes His Church Can Regain Following It Lost in 2022 Only By Becoming More Pro-War, Dubrovsky Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 17 – When Putin began his expanded war against Ukraine, Dmitry Dubrovsky says, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate lost many of its parishioners because “even pro-war, pro-Putin ones did not expect the fierce pro-war rhetoric the church offered.”
Such attitudes and the flight from the Moscow church they have produced has created a behind the scenes conflict within the church, the Russian sociologist who now teachers at Charles University in Prague says, and there is “real tension growing within the church” (svoboda.org/a/rusofobiya-po-putinski/33278107.html).
What is striking and perhaps somewhat unexpected is how the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill has decided to respond. He appears to believe that “the only way out of this … is to rally around Putin even more closely,” despite the fact that this may drive more believers away and leave his hierarchy ever more a tightly controlled appendage of the Russian state.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Islamist Extremism, Veterans Returning from Ukraine Threaten to Increase Crime in Russia, Moscow Criminologists Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 15 – In addition to the problems arising from a shortage of police, Moscow criminologists point to two major “risks” of an upsurge in crime in 2025 with “the greater problem being from the growth of religious extremism” but also the return to their home areas of Russian veterans who unlike in past wars have kept together while fighting.
Profile journalist Igor Trifomov explores both of these risk, emphasizing that the violence of Islamist groups in Dagestan against Christians and Jews was what many criminologists believe is the opening round of such attacks (profile.ru/society/operativnyj-dissonans-v-kakih-sferah-mozhno-ozhidat-rosta-prestupnosti-v-rossii-1648894/).
Indeed, he cites local experts as saying that while outside observes may not consider that episode “so significant, the professionals are convinced that this is only the beginning” given the rise in Islamist training in Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan and the increasing hostility of Muslims to Christians and Jews more generally.
But Trofimov says that veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine are another source of worry among criminologists. On the one hand, many of them are coming back with more weapons than was trues after Afghanistan and Chechnya; and on the other, not only are some of them previously released criminals but they have served together and returned together.
Because of that, he says, many of these individuals feel themselves beyond the reach of the authorities because they have now formed organized criminal groups that draw both on their experiences in Ukraine and their earlier experiences in such groups before going to fight in Putin’s war.
Rosstat Changes Way It Calculates Inflation to Hide Price Increases
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 15 – There are a variety of ways a government can hide inflation: It can stop releasing data, it can lie, and it can change the way its statistical arm calculates inflation, dropping from the list on which price rises are calculated those items which have increased the most and including others that have increased less.
Rosstat has adopted all these tactics, but it has found that the first two are often counter-productive: If the government doesn’t release data, independent analysts do and sometimes offer figures even higher than reality; and if it lies, critics are often able to call attention to that, undercutting faith both in those figures and in government statements as a whole.
Consequently, Rosstat has increasing changed the mix of items it includes in coming up with inflation statistics, dropping items like airplane tickets, analgesics, alcohol, and multi-vitamins, the prices of which have gone up the most and inserting their place things like filling teeth, whose prices haven’t (ehorussia.com/new/node/32090).
This statistical sleight of hand works better because at least the data are consistent within the tables offered and so many people will be inclined to believe what the authorities are saying – despite the fact that they can see around them that prices for many goods are going up far more rapidly than Rosstat is now saying.
Buddhist Community in Russia and Its Leadership Sharply Divided about War in Ukraine
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 15 – Since Vladimir Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s Buddhists, most of whom live in Buryatia, Tuva and Kalmykia, have been as divided as other Russians about that war, with some protesting and others going to fight (https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/russias-buddhists-as-deeply-divided-on.html).
But more than other faiths in the Russian Federation, this division about the war has affected the leadership of the Buddhist communities because they are not part of a single hierarchy and because Moscow is concerned about a faith which the Kremlin views as having its real leadership abroad, something that makes divisions inside Russia more politically sensitive.
As a result, Moscow has continued to support the leader of the Buryat Buddhist community who is pro-war but has forced the leader of the Kalmyk one to resign and flee abroad, although some say that the latter’s comments about China may be equally important (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/kremlins-dismissal-of-kalmyk-religious.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/kalmyk-buddhist-leaders-ouster-as-much.html).
But Moscow’s continued financing of the Buryat Buddhist leadership and the fact that the Kalmyk organization largely finances itself and has opened an office in Moscow where it can work with some in the Russian government mean that the conflict is far from over (themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/13/full-support-or-quiet-resistance-ukraine-war-splits-russias-buddhists-a87585).
The authoritarianism of the Buryat leader and his closeness to Putin have had the effect of alienating many Buddhists including in his native republic, and the greater independence and greater consistency with anti-war attitudes common among Buddhists has attracted some of the Buryats as well as many beyond Kalmykia.
The situation may soon reach a boiling point, with some in Moscow believing that even Buryat Buddhists are working too closely with the Mongols (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-again-fighting-pan-mongolism.html) and others suggesting that another Buddhist republic will be the first to declare independence (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/06/tyva-will-be-first-republic-in-russia.html).
Obviously, the Kremlin has other more pressing issues to deal with than divides within a faith followed by only about one percent of the population of the Russian Federation and now knows that if it supports an authoritarian leader too strongly it may end by driving still more people away from itself.
Friday, January 17, 2025
‘Russian Community’ Claims One Million Followers and Now has Branches in Former Soviet Republics
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – The Russian Community, a Black Hundreds-style Russian nationalist group which attacks immigrants and other minorities while working hand in glove with Russian propagandists and force structures to prevent dissent now claims more than one million followers and has opened branches in Armenia and Kazakhstan.
That increasing reach makes it a force to be reckoned with not only inside the Russian Federation but abroad and means that its leaders are working hard to present themselves as the obedient servants of the Kremlin in all things lest their growing power spark reprisals against the group (prosleduet.media/details/russian-obchshina/).
(For background on the group, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/russian-community-organization-and-its.html 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/.)
West Must Take Five Steps Now to Encourage Members of Russian Elite to Break with Putin and Flee Abroad, Lea and Taskin Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – Between 1953 and 1990, more than 1200 members of the Soviet elite fled abroad, individual actions that Western governments supported because they calculated that this would weaken the communist regime in Moscow, Aaron Lea and Borukh Taskin say. But under Putin, almost no members of the elite have fled.
While most of the reasons for that are to be found inside Russia and the special relationship its elites have with the regime, at least some reflect a change in attitude in Western countries which no longer encourage such cases of flight even though that would weaken Putin and thus serve their interests (themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/14/why-arent-russias-elites-fleeing-putin-a87612).
The two international experts on Russian elites suggest that Western countries should take five steps now in order to lead more members of the elites in Russia to conclude that they would be welcome in the West and could continue their careers there while waiting for regime change in Moscow. Those five steps include:
• First of all, “the West must construct policies that support the freedom of Russians to seek sanctuary in the West rather than continuing to exist in criminal Russia.” That will require political will as “the world changes too quickly to wait for the bureaucracy.
• Second, they suggest, “mechanisms should be created to integrate Russian elites who have left for the West into the daily agenda of the coalition countries,” including ensuring that they will be able to keep part of any capital they bring out with them.
• Third, “a large number of NGOs, charitable foundations, think tanks, mass media and high-tech startups where Russian emigres can find employment as board members, sponsors, supervisory board members, consultants, etc., should be created.”
• Fourth, “we should consider involving carefully selected high-class managers and investors from Russia in the formation of at least investments, crypto-asset circulation and fiat cross-border payments betwwoeldgeeen the countries they have chosen to live in.”
• And fifth, “a NATO-monitored integration service should be created for the departed sisloviki and others with sensitive knowledge.”
“We believe there is a significant potential for splitting Putin's elites, creating conditions for their flight from Russia and integration into Western civilization and subsequent return to a future democratic Russia. This window of opportunity will not always exist and the mechanisms supporting such a split must be discussed at the highest levels and created now,” Lea and Taskin say..
Moreover, they argue in conclusion, “if this is not done immediately, Russia’s elites, driven behind the new Iron Curtain on both sides, will continue to support Putin's power from within. Proposals aimed at dividing and fragmenting the Russian establishment … will not have the desired effect.”
All Chechens Fighting on Side of Ukraine Want Independence for Their Republic, Grozny Political Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – All Chechens now fighting for Ukraine want independence for their own republic, regardless of their differences over what kind of a republic that will be, according to a Grozny political analyst speaking on condition of anonymity (kavkazr.com/a/chechnya-posle-voyny-rossii-s-ukrainoy-kto-boretsya-za-nezavisimostj/33269533.html).
“I think,” he continues, “that already now they are forming plans at the ideological, political and informational level as well as studying and analyzing the experience of Ukrainian social and political movements under conditions of war” given the likelihood that they will have to fight other pro-Moscow Chechens in the future.
According to the political analyst, “it is difficult to say when they will be able to achieve their goals or even if they will in the foreseeable future be able to realize them in their homeland. But their efforts undoubtedly will be useful,” especially if the Putin regime collapses as quickly as did the Asad regime in Syria.
He and other Chechens say that they flocked to Ukraine’s side not only because they wanted to fight Russia but because Kyiv in October 2022 declared Ichkeria to be “a temporarily occupied” land, a step very close to de facto recognition of a state that the Putin regime suppressed two decades ago (kavkazr.com/a/verhovnaya-rada-priznala-nezavisimostj-ichkerii/32089610.html).
Despite What Kremlin Wants People to Believe, Millions of Russians Oppose the Ruling Minority in Moscow, Podrabinek Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – Because Russia has no elections, honest sociology or a free press and because of government repression which keeps many from acting on their feelings, no on knows precisely how many Russians are opposed to Putin’s autocracy, Aleksandr Podrabinek, a former Soviet dissident and now rights activist in Moscow says.
But anyone who walks the streets of a Russian city and looks beyond the propaganda posters can see that there are millions who oppose the regime which has guns and power but represents only a tiny minority, he continues (svoboda.org/a/obraz-gibloy-rossii-aleksandr-podrabinek-o-tvortsah-illyuziy/33263349.html).
Presenting the opposition as a tiny minority of marginal figures is a time-tested method of Russian rulers who know that the best way to keep people from acting on their feelings is to atomize society and convince people that no one shares the views that they have, Podrabinek says.
Worse by atomizing society for that purpose, the Putin regime like its predecessors has convinced Russian émigré opponents of the regime that they know the situation inside Russia better than do those who actually live there and that there is little or no chance for Russia to become a free and democratic country.
By arguing that position, the émigré opposition in effect serves those it says it is fighting, something, Podrabinek says, will become ever more obvious when the Putin regime is overthrown and the archives of its security services are opened.
Kremlin Foolishly and Unnecessarily Creating Grounds for Separatism in Russia, El Murid Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – The Putin regime is busily fighting the manifestations of separatism like the display of regional flags even as it foolishly and unnecessarily creates the grounds for separatism by its own policies, according to Anatoly Nesmiyan, who blogs under the screen name El Murid.
“Separatism arises as an extreme reaction to the actions of a government which oppresses its regions, deprives them of the chance for independent development, and sucks the resources out of them -- that is, when it acts as a metropolis to colonies,” El Murid argues (t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/22918 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=678760380E05F).
In almost every country, there are some people in the regions who call for separatism, he continues; “but in a normal country, they are always marginal and do not have any serious support so there is no particular point in banning them because the absence of such support means that they are no threat.”
However, “if ‘the central government’ creates the conditions for separatism, then it will arise regardless of prohibitions” about its superficial manifestations. Indeed, “at some point, it and no other position “will become the defining idea” and that state as an integral whole will come to an end.
Under Putin, El Murid suggests, “the Russian government has lost the ability to govern. Moscow can still control through prohibitions, terror and repression, but it can no longer manage. Control achieved by these means will work for a time; but as soon as it weakens, the situation will change quickly and dramatically.”
Russia should be “a natural federation, a natural union of regions,” the commentator argues; and “attempts to create a centralized administration on its territory” have made sense only when Russia was growing territorially or when it was undergoing a radical shift from one kind of socio-economic-political order to another.
The Kremlin may imagine that it is doing both, but its military expansion is costing it more than it can afford to pay and it has no development project for the country’s transformation. Hence, its hyper-centralization is an increasingly dangerous mistake in a country that should be by its diverse nature a federation.
Russia’s problems, despite what the Kremlin seems to think, are not with the flag of the Urals Republic which it has now banned but with Moscow policies that are forcing ever more people in the regions to think about separatism if genuine federalism remains an impossible goal under the current ruler, El Murid says.
And he reminds his readers of something most of them have forgotten: “Today’s Russia arose precisely because of the actions of separatists led by Yeltsin who was behind the declaration of Russian sovereignty. That day is now a national holiday” not only of Russia but of the power of separatism if the center misuses its powers.
Aleksandr Shchipkov – Soviet-Era Dissident who is Now Chief Ideologist of the ROC MP
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – Few Russian Orthodox figures have undergone as great an evolution as Aleksandr Shchipkov who in Soviet times attacked both the Moscow church and the Soviet state and worked as a correspondent for Britain’s Keston College but now serves as a propagandist for the hardest of hard liners among the ROC MP and its allies in the government.
Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1957, Shchipkov grew up in a liberal Orthodox family and was a follower of Father Dudko. He has said that at that time, his slogan was “Christianity, freedom and anti-communism” but now he celebrates the Soviet system as consistent with Orthodoxy (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/01/14/kresty-i-lampasy).
Moreover, he serves not only as an advisor to the patriarch but to leading Russian officials but also as a spokesman for the church. In both capacities, he goes far beyond even the official line: he insists Russia has had an ideology for a decade despite constitutional bans and that Europe as a whole and not just Ukraine has become a bastion of re-Nazification.
Because of Shchipkov’s background as a dissident, some in the West are inclined to see him as a bridge to the Orthodox leadership in Russia today; but that is almost certainly a mistake. He is now more Orthodox than the Patriarch and likely will remain so given that his positions are close to what the Kremlin really thinks but has not yet been ready to articulate publicly.
The article in Novaya Gazeta tracks his evolution which seems to reflect less something driven by intellectual reflection than about seizing the main chance for career advancement and a willingness to use the kind of repressive measures against his opponents that some in the Russian church as yet have been less willing to engage in.
Almost certainly, Shchipkov’s views, as presented at websites he controls -- religare.ru and shchipkov.ru – serve as an indication of the direction the thinking of the Kremlin and the Patriarchate in the years of mature Putinism not only is proceeding now but is likely to go in the future.
Ukraine and Moldova Too May Soon Cease to Exist along with Other States that Mistreat Russians , Patrushev Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – Nikolay Patrushev, the former secretary of the Russian Security Council who now is a Putin assistant and confidant, says that Ukraine may cease to exist already this year, that Moldova may do the same shortly thereafter and that other states which mistreat ethnic Russians may ultimately share the same fate.
In a brief interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Russian hardliner suggests that these countries have no one to blame but themselves and says that their policies rather than Russian pressure and in the case of Ukraine direct attacks are responsible for the destruction of “once flourishing” cities (kp.ru/daily/27651/5036217/).
The fate of Ukraine and possibly the others should be discussed in talks “between Russia and the US without the participation of other countries of the West,” Patrushev continues. The reason is simple: Neither London nor Brussels has the right to speak for Europe because many European countries now agree with Moscow rather than with Washington.
But in any such talks, he says, Moscow is not going to make any territorial concessions. The only thing these conversations will be about is getting the West and Ukraine to accept the rules of the game that Vladimir Putin has repeatedly outlined, rules that will “de-Nazify” Ukraine and keep it out of Western alliances.
Patrushev is not the only Kremlin advisor who has the ear of Putin, but he is among the most influential and his hardline position likely gives the Kremlin leader confident that those around him are quite prepared to do whatever is necessary to achieve their ends and reject any American or Western efforts to deprive Moscow of a victory.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Kremlin’s Pro-Natalist Policies Pushing Up Fertility Rates among Central Asian Immigrants, Making Officials Look Good but Likely Increasing Non-Russian Share of Population
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – The Kremlin’s pro-natalist policies are backfiring at least in one respect, observers say: Officials are giving special benefits to already large families from Central Asia because they are more likely to have additional children than are indigenous ethnic Russians who have fewer and don’t qualify for these arrangements.
As a result, local and regional officials can point to increases in the number and size of large families, something the Kremlin now evaluates their performance on; but this is achieved by boosting births among non-Russians rather than among ethnic Russians, increasing the relative size of the first community relative to the second (nakanune.ru/articles/123035/).
Some ethnic Russians, already concerned about the declining share of the population of the Russian Federation their nation represents, are alarmed; but so far, they have had little luck in getting officials to modify pro-natalist policies and the evaluation of their success to that the benefits flow first to the ethnic Russians and not to Central Asians.
And Russian anger on this point is likely to grow as members of the titular nationality see that the number of Central Asian children in their schools is rising faster than that of ethnic Russians – and that this is taking place as a result of policies put in place by a government that claims to be doing what it can to make Russia more Russian.
With Advance in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, Moscow has Gained Control of Lithium Deposit Larger than All Such Reserves in US
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – With its military advance in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, the Russian Federation has increased its reserves of lithium, sometimes referred to as “the new oil,” by more than 14 times and now has more lithium under its control than does the United States, Elena Rychkova of the Nakanune news agency reports.
Prior to this advance, Moscow controlled only about one million tons of lithium reserves, mostly around Murmansk, but having seized the land around Shevchenko in Donetsk Oblast, it has an estimated 14.8 million tons, about two million tons that the known reserves in the US (nakanune.ru/articles/123027/).
Russian experts say that Moscow will not begin exploiting this for a year or two and will need to expand its control around Shevchenko in order to ensure that it fully controls the deposit. Given the importance of lithium in electronics and China’s relatively small reserves, Beijing is likely to want to be involved as well.
Warsaw May Restrict Repatriation of Poles from Russia Out of Fear that Among Them are Spies
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – The Polish government is now confronted with a situation many other countries are and that Moscow may be counting on to restrict emigration of people with ethnic ties to other countries: Warsaw, fearful that among ethnic Poles from Russia seeking repatriation there may be spies, is considering ending the repatriation program it has had in place.
Maciej Duszczyk, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, says that Warsaw may take that step because it can’t allow a situation to arise in which an individual from Russia with Polish links may be “part of the Russian KGB” (kresy.pl/wydarzenia/rodacy-ze-wschodu-moga-stracic-prawo-do-repatriacji-wiceminister-tlumaczy-to-wzgledami-bezpieczenstwa/).
His words, even if Warsaw doesn’t act on them, call attention to a problem many countries have with co-ethnics from Russia: Moscow has used them to place spies in other countries and used suspicions about them to force some among these diasporas to cooperate with Soviet and now Russian intelligence services.
And because that is the case, Moscow may be just as pleased that this possibility is being discussed in the Polish capital given that it is likely to be picked up elsewhere in Europe, the Middle East and the United States where there are sizeable diasporas that Moscow has used and will be able to use even more often if suspicions about them increase.
Duma Defense Committee Member Wants Russia to have Military Base in Svalbard and Control of Portions of Greenland
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 13 – Andrey Gurulyev, a United Russia member of the Duma’s defense committee and former Russian general in Ukraine and Syria, has called for Moscow to establish a military base on Svalbard (Spitzbergen) and to seize portions of Greenland to prevent the US from using either against Moscow.
He made those remarks on the Moscow TV talk show, “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov,” and he is far from being judicious: Gurulyev earlier called for nuking part of Europe. In reporting his latest outburst, The Barents Observer described him as “a halfwit lawmaker” (thebarentsobserver.com/news/halfwit-lawmaker-says-russia-should-establish-bases-on-svalbard/423172).
But Gurulyov’s words should not be entirely ignored as they reflect a prominent trend among the most nationalist elements of the ruling party of the Russian Federation and suggest that if Putin were to move in either of the directions the deputy has now proposed, the Kremlin leader would enjoy significant support at home.
Putin’s Invasion Led Ukrainians to Make Dramatic Shift from Russian to Ukrainian on Social Media
Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 12 – It is widely recognized that many Ukrainians shifted from using Russian to using Ukrainian but new data on this development in social media underscores just how radical and rapid this shift was, with users overwhelmingly shifting from Russian to Ukrainian.
Assembled by Ukraine’s Content Analysis Center Consulting Company and posted on Riddle (detector.media/doc/images/news/archive/2021/218701/mova-sotsmerezh-2023_povna.pdf and ridl.io/ru/russkij-yazyk-na-postsovetskom-prostranstve/), the numbers are so striking that they require no comment:
Percentage of Users of Social Media Using Ukrainian and Russian 2020 - 2023