By Including Ingushetia in New Grozny Bishopric, Moscow Patriarchate Weakens Dagestan and Ingushetia and Helps Chechnya’s Kadyrov

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 20 – Moscow Patriarch Kirill has significantly increased the number of bishoprics but typically either because of population changes or more often because he wants to insert his own men in these positions so as to control both the management of the ROC MP now and the election of his successor eventually.
    But now the Russian prelate has made a move that puts him and his church in the middle of politics in three predominantly Muslim republics of the North Caucasus and represents a serious tilt against Ingushetia and Dagestan and in favor of Chechnya whose leader, Ramzan Kadyrov aspires to expand his republic and power.
    What Kirill has done through the Holy Synod which because of his earlier expansion of bishoprics he completely controls is to take the small number of Orthodox parishes in Dagestan and Ingushetia, where there is only one, away from the Makhachkala bishopric, and give them to a new bishopric based in Grozny, the Chechen capital.
    These technical changes and the new names that will appear on the church map are described at fortanga.org/2025/03/v-ingushetii-i-chechne-osnovali-novuyu-pravoslavnuyu-eparhiyu/, rg.ru/2025/03/20/reg-skfo/v-russkoj-pravoslavnoj-cerkvi-sozdana-novaia-groznenskaia-eparhiia.html and vedomosti.ru/strana/north_caucasian/news/2025/03/20/1099227-uchrezhdena-groznenskaya-eparhiya.
    Those changes matter to the church itself, but far more important is the political message all this sends: Moscow both secular and now religious is backing Kadyrov and the Chechens against Ingushetia and Dagestan, something that will infuriate the latter and embolden the former, neither of which will contribute to stability in the North Caucasus. 

Despite Current Defeat, Russian Liberals have a Future if They Seek a Parliamentary System in which Regions are the Most Important Actors, Sorkin Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 16 – Repressed by the Putin regime at home and no longer with allies in the West that they had earlier, Russian liberalism is suffering an existential crisis, with many of its leading lights now in emigration suffering from a deep pessimism about the future, Moscow Times columnist Yefim Sorkin says in a new book.
    In a 256-page volume entitled After the Exodus published in Russian in Germany, he argues there are compelling reasons for this pessimism but that what has happened in both Russia and the West in recent decades may give Russian liberals a chance to recover, albeit one for which there are no guarantees (moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/16/opit-porazheniya-liberalizma-v-rossii-a158074).
    Unlike many Russian liberals, Sorkin suggests that many of the reasons for the defeat of liberalism lie not in some external force but in the liberals themselves.  “In their quest to ‘catch up with the West,’ Russian reformers saw democratic institutions as tools for more effective governance” rather than as means to protect people a recovered state.
    Those who consider themselves Russian liberals failed to understand that, failed to take into account the attitudes of the Russian people, and failed to recognize that they themselves would have to do the heavy lifting, assuming instead that the West would create a democratic Russia and hand it to its liberal allies.
    Now, however, it is clear that “the West no longer views such Russian Westernizers as allies in the struggle to involve Russia in the Western world.” Putin’s war in Ukraine and changes in the West itself have put paid to that. Indeed, Russian liberals “can no longer point to the West as an ideal of development.”
    But precisely because they have been thrown back on themselves, Russian liberals may be able to create a future Russia that is far better than the one they know now by operating on themselves and seeking to promote “a state constructed on the representation of the regions on the basis of parliamentarianism.”
    That is far from the vision of a beautiful Russia of the future that many Russian liberals still hold fast to, but it is far more likely to prove achievable and even more sustainable than their notions given that such an arrangement would put in place arrangements that would make the emergence of a new Putinism at some point in the future more difficult.

Putin’s War Leading Directly to More Fires in Ukraine and Indirectly to More in Russia, Lanshina Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 17 – Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine is leading directly to more fires in Ukraine as the exchange of fire sets forests ablaze and prevents these conflagrations from being extinguished and indirectly to more in Russia itself because the Kremlin leader has cut back the country’s fire-fighting capability in order to fund his aggression, Tatyana Lanshina says.
    The independent Russian environmental activist says that global warming has increased the risks of fires in many countries; but while most of them have increased funding for firefighting, Russia has done just the reverse. As a result, this year is likely to set a new record as far as forest fires are concerned (theins.ru/obshestvo/279556).
    The problems Russia is facing have been growing with each year of Putin’s aggression, something his government has tried to obscure by suggesting that the Ukrainians are setting these fires, a claim for which there is no evidence (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/putins-optimization-program-means.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/regional-officials-reported-to-be.html).
    Much less attention has been given to forest fires in Ukraine for which Moscow, not Kyiv bears responsibility, given that its forces fire into forests and prevent Ukrainian fire fighters from putting the flames out (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/russian-armys-actions-in-ukraine.html).
    Lanshina’s article in The Insider represents a rare and extremely valuable attempt to bring together what is known about forest fires in both country and to document that in Ukraine as in Russia, it is Moscow’s actions rather than those of any other actor or development that is to blame for this growing tragedy.

Since Putin Began His Expanded War in Ukraine, Torture in Russia has Become More Widespread and Vicious, Rights Activist Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 16 – Since February 2022 when Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine, the use of torture by militiamen and jailors has increased at least 2.5 times and taken on ever more horrific forms, according to a Russian rights activist speaking on condition of anonymity lest he be subject to official attack.
    Russian officials have denied that this is happening and have usually refused to open investigations into allegations of such abuse, he says. But when they have, those guilty have escaped punishment by volunteering to serve in Ukraine (okno.group/vsya-spina-ves-zhivot-v-ozhogah-ot-shokera-za-gody-voyny-pytat-v-rossii-stali-bolshe-i-zhestche/).
    That means such people are more likely to commit crimes against humanity in Ukraine and, on their return to Russia where at least some have or will take up their old jobs, torture more Russians as well, a danger that will increase Russian fears about what any drawdown in that conflict will mean for them. 

Vologda Governor Makes His Region a Test Case for Radical Conservative Ideas

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 15 – Georgy Filimonov, the governor of Vologda Oblast, wants his region to be the testing ground for radical conservative ideas such as banning abortions, significantly limiting the sale of alcohol, and preventing immigrants from working in key areas of the economy there.

    He has attracted attention as perhaps the most “outrageous” governor in the Russian Federation not only for his promotion of such ideas but also for the frequency with which his proposals have been shot down either by business interests in his region or by Moscow (nakanune.ru/articles/123265/).
    The attention Filimonov has received highlights three aspects of Russian political life that are all too often ignored. First, the existence of a federal system with more than 80 subjects not only allows those governors who want to take the risk to push new ideas but almost compels them to take radical stands if they want to be heard at all.
    Second, both the attention the Vologda governor has received and the ways in which he has been shot down for his ideas highlights why the existence even of this limited federalism is useful to the Kremlin: the Putin regime can see what works and what doesn’t without putting itself at risk.
    And third, by both his successes and his failures, Filimonov is participating in real politics, putting out ideas that some may accept while others may reject, in ways that may change the direction of the country on key issues, even if much of what he proposes is dismissed by the authorities.
    Labelling him “outrageous” as many outlets do obscures all this and keeps analysts from paying attention to governors who may adopt similar strategies to advance their own ideas and careers and the ideas and careers of their patrons in Moscow.

Number of Compatriots Returning to Russia Falls to Lowest Level in 14 Years

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 15 – The number of compatriots returning to Russia fell to 31,700 in 2024, less than half of the figure in 2022 and the lowest level in the last 14 years, Kommersant reports. Officials say that the decline reflects both the situation and new rules requiring those claiming that status to speak Russian more or less fluently.

    Most were from Kazakhstan or Tajikistan, but 1800 were from countries Moscow classifies as “unfriendly” including Germany, Moldova and Latvia (kommersant.ru/doc/7566175 and novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/03/13/kommersant-v-2024-godu-po-programme-pereseleniia-sootechestvennikov-v-rossiiu-pereekhalo-rekordno-malenkoe-kolichestvo-liudei-news).

    While the paper did not say so, the introduction of more restrictive Russian language knowledge requirements will effectively keep non-Russians like the Circassians from returning to places within the current borders of the Russian Federation where Circassian is spoken as an official language – Adygeya, KBR and KChR.

Despite Law against Regional Parties, Komi’s Communists are Acting Like One, Showing Vitality of Forces They would Represent, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 15 – Before Vladimir Putin pushed through a law in 2001 banning regional parties, such organizations existed across the Russian Federation. But in the years since, even the possibility of their reemergence has generally been thought of as inconceivable, Vadim Shtepa says.

    Politicians in the federal subjects had to run either as members of all-Russian parties or independently, the editor of the Tallinn-based portal Region.Expert says; and only the case of Sergey Furgal in Krasnoyarsk seemed to be an exception to the ability of regional politicians to act on their own. 

    But Furgal has been ousted from office and imprisoned, and there have been no exactly analogous cases. However, the situation of the KPRF organization in the Komi Republic shows how a variant of regional parties might in fact return (moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/15/paradoks-kommunistov-komi-a158149 reposted at region.expert/paradoks-kommunistov-komi/).

    The story begins in 2014 when ecologist Oleg Mikhaylov, 27 and the head of the KPRF fraction in the Komi Republic parliament, took the lead in organizing the environmental protests at Shiyes, where the Kremlin planned to send Moscow trash to be buried in that northern republic.    

Mikhaylov denounced Moscow’s plans as “a colonial policy,” and his fraction organized protests from across the political system, putting him and itself at odds with the KPRF leaders in Moscow and with the Kremlin. But he became so popular that the KPRF was forced to nominate him as a candidate for the Duma – a position he then won in 2021. 

  When Mikhaylov was elected to the Duma, he was replaced as head of the KPRF fraction in the Komi Republic assembly by Viktor Vorobyov, 32, a lawyer and rights activist who wasn’t a member of the KPRF. He denounced the closure of Memorial and Putin’s war in Ukraine and backed more rights for the federal subjects and a new Scandinavian-style republic flag.

    For his outspokenness, Voroboyov was labeled a foreign agent by Moscow and then forced to resign from the Komi legislature after the Duma passed a law saying that no one identified as a foreign agent could serve.  He was then replaced by Nikolay Udoratin, 33, who had been part of the Shiyes protests and was equal in his radicalism to his predecessors

    In short, Shtepa suggests, what has happened with the KPRF fraction in Komi is the emergence of a kind of regionalist party without the name; and he suggests that such developments are possible elsewhere and would be a far better protection against a new round of neo-imperialism after Putin than the plans for Moscow Russian oppositionists now propose.

Trump Will Get Everything He Wants but Have to Pay in Rubles, Russians Now Joke

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 18 – Russian opposition leader in emigration Garry Kasparov has posted on social media a joke he says Russians are now telling about Donald Trump, and independent anthropologist Aleksandra Arkhipova says it revives a Soviet trope and reflects the feelings of many in Russia that the US president is acting in Putin’s interests.  

    In Kasparov’s telling, the joke goes as follows:

Trump, in the afterlife, is given permission to return to Earth for one hour. He walks into a bar in New York and asks the bartender how things are going in America. The amazed bartender replies:
-- Wow, sir, thanks to you, we now have a fantastic empire! Greenland, Panama and Canada are all ours!
-- Great! - Trump rejoices. - What about Europe?
-- Oh, Europe couldn't resist either! — says the bartender.
-- How wonderful, — sighs Trump. — Well, I have to go back. How much do I owe you?
The bartender replies:
-- A ruble fifty.

    As Arkhipova explains, this is an updated version of Soviet jokes such as one in which US President Jimmy Carter couldn’t tell Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev what an American super computer predicted for the future of Moscow because he couldn’t read Chinese or when Radio Armenia reported that in 2035, US media would report about collective farmers in Oklahoma (t.me/anthro_fun/3356 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/den-kogda-sovetskie-anekdoty-stali-vnov-populyarny).

    “This is how joke plots evolve,” she continues. “They surface when people feel that such succinct and witty stories are a great commentary on what is happening and not just about any situaitn but about an absurd one. The feeling that Trump is acting in Putin’s interests is so strong for some people that a joke becomes a great way to express these feelings.”

    As a result, jokes from the past “rise from the ashes as if they were new.”

Estonian Ethnologist who Studied Finno-Ugrics of RSFSR without Being Allowed to Visit Them Recalled, Criticized and Celebrated

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 17 – The third issue of the Estonian magazine Keel ja Kirjandus (“Language and Literature”) features a review by Art Leete of the late Ivar Paulson’s book Hinged, vaimud ja jumalud (“Souls, Spirits and Gods”) about the religious systems of the Finno-Ugric and other northern peoples.

    The book reviewed is remarkable testament to the work of an Estonian scholar who lived most of his life in Sweden but who was never allowed by Moscow to visit the places where the objects of his studies lived (keeljakirjandus.ee/ee/archives/38137 and mariuver.com/2025/03/18/ivar-paulson-hinged-vaimud-ja-jumalad/#more-81022).

    Leete both criticizes and celebrates Paulson’s achievement; but while the subject of the Swedish-Estonian scholar is one for a relatively narrow group of specialists, the situation he found himself in with his pursuit of that subject is becoming ever more common once again as Putin blocks Western scholars from visiting the objects of their study.

    During the Cold War, much of the best work done on the USSR in the West was carried out by investigators who never visited the Soviet Union either because they couldn’t or because in some cases they chose not to. Now this particular curtain is coming down again and evaluating the scholarship produced by those who can’t or won’t go to Russia is becoming more common.

    Researchers and those who rely on them need to be ready, and exposure to a careful review of the work of Paulson who produced masterworks about people he never met is a good place to familiarize oneself with both what can be done – and what can’t – by those the Kremlin blocks from engaging in more direct scholarship.

Lennart Meri’s ‘Silverwhite’ which Put Estonia in the Center of His Nation’s Mental Map Finally to Appear in English

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar.  17 – When I first visited Estonia, it was still under Soviet occupation; and the maps on the walls of Estonian officials showed Estonia at the extreme left edge of maps that put Russia at the center. When I returned to Estonia shortly after independence was recovered, there were new maps: Estonia was at the extreme right with Europe at the center.
    The idea that this numerically and geographically small nation was at the margins of history is one that many other such peoples have. But one man and one book more than anything else changed that sense of Estonia being at the margins of the map and of world geography and history: Lennart Meri and his Silver White which will appear in English in May.  
    Meri, an Estonian filmmaker and travel writer who served as his country’s foreign minister and president and whom I am proud to call my fried, published Silverwhite in 1976 which was later translated into Russian. It tells the story of the role of Estonians in trade between Scandinavia and the Middle East centuries ago.
    It has now been translated into English (with an introduction by Edward Lucas) and will be released in May. For background on that and to pre-order, see news.err.ee/1609547350/lennart-meri-s-silverwhite-to-be-published-in-english-in-2025 and hurstpublishers.com/book/silverwhite/).
    This event is leading Estonians to comment on how transformative Meri’s book has been. One commentator described it as “life-changing” (mariuver.com/2025/03/17/kak-kniga-pomogajet-ponjat-finnougorskij-mir/ and kultuur.err.ee/1609610162/minu-elu-muutnud-raamat-edith-sepp-ja-hobevalge).
    As someone who struggled through the Estonian original with a dictionary and read the Russian one more easily but with some doubts about how it rendered Meri’s ideas, I await this translation with bated breath and urge all those who have an interest in Estonia, Finno-Ugric peoples, and the role of mental maps to order a copy.
    In my opinion, which of course is in no way definitive, Silverwhite in its importance and power compares with the far better and much banned book Az i Ya by Kazakh writer Olzhas Suleymenov. On the influence of that remarkable volume and of Suleymenov more generally, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/olzhas-suleymenov-publishes-his-memoirs.html.

Population Decline Threatens Not Only Russia's Economic Development but Its Social Stability, Demographers Surveyed by 'Nakanune' News Agency Say

Paul Goble

Staunton, Mar. 17 - The Kremlin is concerned about the impact of the declining population of the Russian Federation on the economy and on the ability of society to produce enough young men to serve as soldiers, but it should also be worried about the impact of this on the country's stability, demographers and psychologists tell the Nakanune news agency.

That is because they say the decision of young people to have or not have children is the product not only of economic conditions but also assessments of the future, and many Russians now put off having children or don't have them at all because they have no confidence in where things will be in the future (nakanune.ru/articles/123203/).

Those assessments when they are negative have a negative impact on the attitudes of the population about a wide variety of issues and can lead to social instability and even challenges to the existing order. Consequently, addressing these concerns must involve not just improving the economy but improving how Russians view their society and its future.

The government is not doing much now to change such attitudes largely because it doesn't see this linkage, a psychologist with whom the news agency spoke suggests. But unless it understands this connection and works to address it, Russia will have not just economic problems but issues with social stability.

More than Half of Muscovites Back Matviyenko's Call to Block Those from Russia's Regions from Attending the Capital's Universities

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- Federation Council head Valentina Matviyenko says that Russia should block students from federal subejcts from studying in the universities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kazan because these students so often fail or get degrees in subjects they want but that the country doesn't need. 

    According to one survey, a majority of Muscovites agree with her; but while in some in the regions are happy to keep their best students at home, many are outraged with some even now suggesting that Muscovite clearly see themselves as already being a separate country (nemoskva.net/2025/03/13/poka-odni-regiony-hotyat-chto-to-zapretit-drugie-ne-proch-na-etom-zarabotat/ and rosbalt.ru/news/2025-03-13/ilya-graschenkov-a-mozhet-u-rossiyan-na-periferii-voobsche-otobrat-pasporta-5345178).

    Matviyenko's outrageous suggestion reflects a broader pattern in which some regions are adopting restrictions on abortions or alchol sales while others are not, leading to the rise of abortion and alcohol tourism while transforming Russia into a crazy quilt of regulations (jamestown.org/program/abortion-tourism-on-the-rise-in-russia-as-regions-adopt-different-policies/ and t.me/kostromama/1187). 

    Mostly such developments are the subject of mirth or the occasion for anger, but more seriously, they highlight the ways in which the various federal subjects of the Russian Federation are pulling in separate directions despite all the efforts Putin has made to centralize power and homogenize the country.

    And that trend recalls what happened in the early 1990s when regions, often finding it impossible to get the things they needed from other regions, imposed controls on the expot of their own goods to other parts of the Russian Federation, a practice that contributed to fears at the time that this would lead to a "parade of sovereignties" within that country.

    That something analogous should be happenig now after almost 25 years of Putin's rule is striking. To be sure, the center is far stronger and the regions far weaker tan they were. But the fissiparousness of the earlier period is once again echoing through the Russian Federation, however effective Putin's moves against federalism have been. 

Rise and Fall of Batal-Haji Sufi Order Highlights Unwritten Rules of Putn's Russia, 'NeMoskva' and 'Fortanga' Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- The rise and fall of the powerful Batal-Haji Sufi order in the North Caucasus highlights the unwritten rules which govern Moscow's way of dealing with social forces it does not entirely control, according to the independent NeMoskva and Fortanga news agencies.

    They cite an anonymous expert who says that "the government can close its eyes to arms and drug trafficking, the stealing of cars and even murders if these do not touch the immediate interests of the force structures" ( nemoskva.net/2025/03/12/ot-vliyatelnogo-klana-do-spiska-terroristov/and fortanga.org/2025/03/ot-vliyatelnogo-klana-do-spiska-terroristov-istoriya-vzleta-i-padeniya-odnogo-iz-samyh-moshhnyh-klanov-severnogo-kavkaza-zakrytoj-sufijskoj-obshhiny-batalhadzhinczev/).

    But that if any group crosses the line and "attacks representatives of the powers that be," as Moscow claims the Batal-Haji order has, he continues, then the Russian authorities and its agents in teh republics can be counted on to "unleash a harsh campaign against [such organizations] for which there is no defense."

    What this shows, the expert speaking anonymously says, is that "the Russian authorities are systemically weakening the influential clans in the Caucasus in order not to allow the appearance of alternative centers of power and that even the most powerful of these will lose status if they violate the unwritten rules." 

    First and foremost among these unwritten rules, the expert concludes, is that "the siloviki maintain a monopoly on the use of force: anyone wo challenges the system will inevitably become its victim because such an attack will be equated by those in power as an attack on the state itself."

    In the final decades of the USSR, some scholars in the West argued that underground Sufi orders would play a key role in the overthrow of the Soviet system and the formation of post-Soviet regime, This new report on the fate of the Batal-Haji order unintentionally shows how right they were, how much regimes there now fear them, and how they are seeking to limit them as they can't eliminate them from the scene.

Fearing Environmental Protests are a Political Threat, Putin Creates New and Well-Funded Agency to Counter Them

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- Many of the national movements in the former Soviet Union began as environmental protests, and Vladimir Putin clearly fears that something similar  could happen again given the power of such protests in Shiyes and Bashkortostan to mobilize people against the policies of his regime.

    Already in 2022, the Kremlin leader created a small and poorly funded group, Compass, to try to isolate Russian environmentalists from international organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. But that group has not had much success, and Putin has been casting about for an alternative. 

    In February 2024, he announced tat he wanted to form a more effective Russian environmental movement (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73585), and now he has announced one, different in scale, operation and import tan anything he has tried before in this sector, an obvious reflection of his concerns (kedr.media/stories/obuzdat-protestnye-soobshhestva/)).

    Putin has created the Foundation of Ecological and Natural Resource Projects, an agency dominated by Kremlin officials and businessmen -- there is not a single ecologist or activist among them -- and one that will give out grants to give the impression that Moscow cares about ecology but that in fact shows its tilt toward business and exploitation of the natural environment.

    The Kremlin leader says that the government will give the new foundation a billion rubles (10 million US dollars) a year each  now and in the coming two years despite all the budgetary stringency brought on by his war in Ukraine. That is 50 times more each year than Compass was given and will allow the foundation to buy off at least some in the environmental movement.

    Putin clearly hopes that such "carrots" along with "the sticks" of his repressive moves will be sufficient to prevent environmental activism in Russia from continuing to grow and become a political challenge, according to Kedr.Media, a portal which tracks environmental issues. But it suggests that it is unlikely to succeed given how close to home environmental concerns are.   

Russia's Martial Arts Clubs Now Radicalizing Muslims, Mironov Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- At the end of Soviet times and in the beginning of post-Soviet ones, martial arts clubs played a key role in the formation of right-wing Russian nationalist gangs. Now, Sergey Mironov, head of the Just Russia-For Truth Party, says they are places where Muslims are being radicalized.  

    He says tat there are on the order of 500 such places in Moscow alone and that across Russia as a whole there are now "thousands" of such martial arts clubs doing just that ( ria.ru/20250312/mironov-2004440786.html and nazaccent.ru/content/43664-v-gosdume-prizvali-proverit-mma-kluby-na-predmet-podgotovki-radikalnyh-islamistov/). 

    Local officials in contrast often view these clubs in a positive way, Mironov says, because they are viewed as places which help to integrate Muslim migrants into the Russian milieu. But in fact, he insists, they are dangerous and must be investigated by prosecutors to protect Russia from being confronted by an Islamist revolt.

Russians Buying 2.5 Times as Many Anti-Depressants Now as They Did Before Putin Launched His Expanded War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- New data show that Russians are buying 2.5 times as many anti-depressants now than they did before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine and, because of inflation and the impact of sanctions, are spending 3.4 times as much for them as they did in 2021. Moreover, both figures continue to be on the rise.

    In reporting the study by the DSM Group, Vedomosti notes that Russians since 2022 have turned to mental health experts more often and received prescriptions for such medications ( t.me/vedomosti/58459 and nemoskva.net/2025/03/12/posle-nachala-vojny-rossiyane-stali-pokupat-v-25-raza-bolshe-antidepressantov/).

    The paper also cited the findings of a study by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives which concluded that ten percent of Russia's population, some 15 million people, were depressed at the end of 2023. 

Excess Deaths in Russia Up by Almost Eight Percent Last Year over Expectations, in Part Reflecting Combat Losses, 'To Be Precise' Portal Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- The Russian government has reported that mortality rates in Russia rose 3.3 percent from 2023 to 2024, with deaths rising from 1.76 million to 1.82 million (fedstat.ru/indicator/33556), but the To Be Precise portal suggests that a better measure of the trend is between deaths expected on the basis of the stable 2013-2019 period and 2024.

    If that comparison is made, the portal says, Russia suffered 130,000 more deaths in 2024 than demographic models had projected, an increase of 7.8 percent from 2023. Many of these "excess" deaths may be combat losses in Putin's war in Ukraine, although the available data are insufficient to confirm that (t.me/tochno_st/448). 

    Death data arrayed by age and gender have not yet been released, but data for regions have. They show that five federal subjects last year had "excess mortality, 30 percent of more above projections -- Tyva, the Altai, the Nenets AD, the Yamalo-Nenets AD, and Ingushetia. Deaths in North Ossetia, Leningrad Oblast, Kaluga Oblast Moscow and Adygeya were below expectations.

Gaynutdin Says Russia's Justice Ministry has Declared Him 'Chief Mufti of Russia' But That Doesn't Mean What It Might Seem

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- Ravil Gaynutdin, head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Russia says that the Russian justice ministry has sent him a document declaring him to be "the chief mufti of Russia," a status that he has long sought and that this declaration doesn't mean he is now the Muslim counterpart of the Orthodox patriarch. 

    Since Gorbachev's time and especially after 1991, the number of muftiates in the Russian Federation has exploded. There were four in Soviet times, but today there are more than 80 in various regions of the country. Above them are four "super" MSDs to which most but far from all of the others are subordinate.

    Gaynutdin heads one of these four, the MSD of Russia; but there are three others, including most significantly the Central MSD under Talgat Tajuddin, the last surviving Soviet-era mufti and someone who has long aspired to become the Muslim counterpart to the Orthodox patriarchate.

    Last month, in pursuit of that goal, Tajuddin met with Vladimir Putin where the two discussed the need for such an official and such unity within Russian Islam (business-gazeta.ru/article/664743). But Tajuddin has the odious reputation as "the drunken mufti" because of his public drinking and is less able to compete for any preferment because he is based in Ufa rather than in Moscow where Gaynutdin has his headquarters.

    In claiming that the justice ministry has called him "the chief mufti of Russia," Gaynutdin clearly intends to advance his claim to being that in fact, although it is unlikely that the ministry in fact intended that and it is certain that not all other muftis will accept them as such (https://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/665874).

     The ministry likely meant that Gaynutdin could describe himself in that way in the course of his numerous diplomatic activities abroad rather than that he is now in charge of all Muslm sin Russia. Many Muslims, including people like Tajuddin, would not accept that, and Gaynutdin himself has admitted as much.     

    The fact that Putin met with Tajuddin so recently strongly suggests that at least for the time being, however much the Kremlin talks about the desirability of unity within the Russian umma, it isn't going to press for that lest it provoke a divisive explosion. A d it may even mean that the Putin regime prefers to have a divided Russian umma rather than a united one. 

Russian Regions Closer to Front Support Putin's War in Ukraine More than Do Those Farther Away, Survey Shows

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- Officials and populations in federal subjects closer tot he front line of Putin's war in Ukraine are more active in supporting Russian efforts there than are those farther away, according to a new survey of public activities in regions across the country that has been conducted by the Moscow Center for Political Information.  

        That survey which examined what officials are doing rather than what residents are actually thinking is available at  polit-info.ru/analytics/reports/125.htm and is discussed in detail at nemoskva.net/2025/03/10/chem-blizhe-k-frontu-tem-silnee-podderzhka-svo/ and kommersant.ru/doc/7563610.

    This pattern is in many ways no surprise. Regions closer to the front are more affected by refugee flows and troop movements than are regions father away, and their leaders ave a vested interest in mobilizing their populations to support these efforts lest problems arise and hte political futures of htese leaders be put at risk.

    But the findings of this survey are important because they show that the Russian Federation is hardly a unified space as far as reaction to the war is concerned and that much of this variation reflects not just combat losses but the actions of regional and republic leaders.

 

Moscow Doesn't See Any Prospects for Siberia and is Shifting Money to Far North, Verkhoturov Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- In order to fund Putin's war in Ukraine, Moscow has cut funds to most federal subjects of the Russian Federation, but it has not cut them eqally. Instead, it has shifted funds from some regions to others, giving new hope to the beneficiaries and prompting despair among those from whom funds have been taken.  

    The clearest and most dramatic example of this, Siberian commentator Dmitry Verkhoturov says, involves Russian regions east of the Urals where Moscow has redistributed funding from Siberia proper where most of the region's people live to the Far North where most of the natural resources and the Northern Sea Route are located. 

    According to the analyst who once called for Siberian independence and then attacked modest efforts to gain autonomy for that region (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/02/if-no-one-wants-siberian-independence.html), Moscow at present now "doesn't see any prospects" for Siberian development, a conclusion that if true will mean that ever more people from that increasingly depressed region will leave and ever more of those remaining will be radicalized (sibmix.com/?doc=14934).

    And that in turn may mean both the re-emergence of a more powerful Siberian regionalist movement and greater Chinese penetration of Siberia, whose people may come to view Moscow as a greater threat to their well-being than Beijing is and thus will constitute a new challenge to the Kremlin's control of an enormous swath of territory between the Urals and Lake Baikal

For Trump, NATO is about Business Not Security and Kremlin Need Not Pay Attention to Alliance's Article Five Guarantee, Russian Commentators Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- The Russian commentariat is currently spending more time discussing Donald Trump and the United States than it is talking about Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. Doing so is certainly safer and in many respects easier given the constant flow of statements from the American president.

    Among this flow, two comments this week certainly are worthy of more attention than they have yet received because they likely reflect opinions among the upper reaches of hte Kremlin elite, given that they come from writers close to the Putin regime and thus are likely to inform what Vladimir Putin may do in the coming weeks and months.  

    The first comes from Valentin Katasonov, an economist who graduated from the foreign ministry's MGIMO and who now is a frequent commentator on foreign policy, most closely associated with the Russian nationalist Strategic Culture Foundation (business-gazeta.ru/article/665852).

    In a lengthy comment for Kazan's Business-Gazeta portal about the current state of the world, he says bluntly that as far as US President Donald Trump is concerned, NATO is about business rather than security and that if one can give him what he thinks of as an economic advantage, he will ignore the security implications of what he does.

    The second is from Dmitry Rodionov, a Russian naitonalist commentator whose articles defending Putin and attacking the West appear most frequently on the Svobodnaya Pressa portal. He says that with Trump in office, Russia need not pay any attention to NATO's Article Five which specifies than an attack on any alliance member is an attack on all (svpressa.ru/politic/article/455101/).

      If in fact those in the Kremlin accept these arguments, that provides compelling evidence that Putin, however many problems he may face, is likely to become more rather than less aggressive than he has been and will seek to exploit the new American position to further undermine NATO and possibly even attack some of its members. 

Russia Remains Far More Dangerous than China, and West Should Work with Beijing Against It, Inozemtsev Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- For at least two decades, many in the West have argued that China is a greater threat to the West than Russia and worried about Beijing possibly annexing Taiwan, Vladislav Inozemtsev says; but during that same period, Russia has attacked both Georgia and Ukraine and done far more to undermine the international order than China has.

    Consequently, the US and Europe should be seeking not to "'detach' Russia from China" but "rather to 'isolate Russia with China's help' and working together with Beijing to force Russia to peace" in Ukraine and elsewhere and thus to "recreate a bipolar world" with the US and China as its centers (ridl.io/ru/geopoliticheskij-razvorot-pochemu-rossiya-opasnee-kitaya/).

    In such a world, Washington and Beijing would be "capable of maintaining order by influencing their satellites and junior partners" and thus prevent a major conflict between themselves in much the same way the US and the USSR did successfully during the Cold War, Inozemtsev argues. 

    Indeed, he suggests, they would likely be able to do so even more successfully given that "China is not an ideological proselytizer bent on transforming the world, has a market economy, and is tied to the West by far stronger economic relations than the Soviet Union ever was," all things that would give the West greater influence. 

    In his article, the Russian analyst provides the economic bases for his argument, including both that Russia is far weaker than China and that Chinese and Western globalism are far more complementary than was true of the West and the USSR, an fact that means their competition need not be zero sum.

    Inozemtsev acknowledges that "such a pivot may seem unrealistic: but suggests that "it is far more advantageous to the west than 'appeasing ' Russia and undermining the world order by openly acknowledging that altering international  border by force as Moscow continue to try to do is something that the world can and will accept.

 

Extreme Right Russian Community Militants Now Patrolling Murmansk Streets in Alliance with Local Government

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- The Russian Community, an extreme right Russian nationalist organization with close parallels to the Black Hundreds movement at the end of tsarist times, is now patrolling the streets of Murmansk, presenting itself as "a parallel structure" to local government for managing the situation there.

    Founded in 2020 by radical right members of the Russian Orthodox Church and business community, the Russian Community now has branches across the Russian Federation and is actively involved in crowd control and other police functions. (For backgrounds on this group and its ideas, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/todays-russian-community-differs-from.html  and the sources cited therein.) 

    The Russian Community has acted most often outside of Moscow and has attracted less attention than it deserves given the threat it poses to what remains of the rule of law in Putin's system. That makes a report by The Barents Observer especially important (thebarentsobserver.com/news/militant-nationalists-in-uniform-are-patrolling-the-streets-of-murmansk/426263).

    Since the start of this year, Russian Community militants have been serving as adjuncts to the police there both at major public gatherings and in the arrest of those the Putin regime deems its enemies and taking ever greater public pride in what the Community is doing.

    One reason why the Russian Community has risen so quickly is Russia's dramatically increasing shortage of police (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/russia-scrambling-to-cope-with-mounting.html). But another is the Putin's regime desire to have groups like this to do its dirty work so that it can intimidate more people while avoiding any direct responsibility.

    The Barents Observer points to both the actions the group has carried out in Murmansk since the start of this year and the pride the Russian Community has taken in doing so as worrisome indicatoins of the latest evolution of the Putin regime given that these developments recall both the Black Hundreds in the final years of tsarism and the bully boys during the rise of Nazism in Germany. 

Those Ready to Accept Russia's Occupation of Crimea as Legitimate Signing Death Warrant for Crimean Tatars, Chubarov Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- Eleven years ago this month, Putin militarily occupied and then annexed Crimea and revived the Stalinist policy of Russianizatin gthe peninsula by sending in more Russians and especially Russian forces and working to destroy the Crimean Tatars as a distinct nationality, Refat Chubarov says

    Now, in the rush to find an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, some in the West are ready to recognize Moscow's occupation and treatment of Crimea as legitimate, the head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis says, and thereby are consciously or unconsciously signing the death warrant for his nation. 

    They will thus be assisting in the continuation of hte occupation of Crimea by Russia and helping Putin and his minions to achieve what even Stalin and his successors weren't able to do: "the final destruction of the Crimean Tatar people" (idelreal.org/a/rossiya-opredelila-krymskih-tatar-kak-obekt-kotoryy-podlezhit-vytesneniyu-refat-chubarov-o-vospriyatii-anneksii-krymskimi-tatarami/33338241.html).

    Chubarov says that he hopes and prays for a future in when Russian forces will have withdrawn from Crimea and allowed his people to return to a normal life. At that point, the approximately one million Russians who have been inserted by Moscow will have to leave because "they know that they have been settled on stolen land."

    Once that is achieved, then Crimea will be able to have "a normal democratic life in correspondence with Ukrainian laws" and will act according to international norms. "Ukraine will be a member of the EU and no one will e ver be able to restrict in any way the rights of indigenous peoples" like the Crimean Tatars.

    Because so many in the West are convinced that a ceasefire will be possible only if the West recognizes as legitimate Russian rule in Crimea, something Putin says is not subject to negotiation, few in the West now talk about he Crimean Tatars -- even though they would be among the chief victims if Putin gets his way.

    Chubarov's words aobut what will happen if hte international system does not require Russia to withdraw to its 1991 borders are a reminder of just what those prepared to give in to Putin on this issue are doing by their silent acquiescence and how they are thereby becoming acessories to the Kremlin leader's crimes. 

Comprehensive Bibliography of Online Guides to Tatar Books Published

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 11 -- The Milliard.Tatar portal has just published a comprehensive online guide to online indexes of books in Tatar and by Tatar literary and scholarly figures in both Tatar and Russian, an essential tool for those studying both Tatarstan and the non-Russian nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation more generally.

    The 1500-word index, which includes both brief descriptions of hte subjects each contains and URLs where they can be visited online, can be found at milliard.tatar/news/tatarskaya-kniga-v-cifre-gid-po-elektronnym-bibliotekam-7084. One hopes that it will not only be widely used but become a model for other nations in the region.

    The compilers themselves express the hope that their publication will encourage more Tatar publishing outlets to issue their books in electronic form, something they sugget is essentialy to the survival and flourishing of Tatar national culture now and in the future.

Caspian Sea's Declining Water Levels Threaten Both Russia's North-South Project and China's One Belt-One Road Plan, Experts Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- Declining water levels in the Caspian are reducing the amount of cargo ships on that body of water can carry and threatening Kazakhstan's participation in both Russia's North-South corridor and hina's One Belt-One Road project, both of which rely on shipping there, according to experts in the region.

    The water level of the Caspian has been falling in recent decades and has already had an impac ton Moscow's ability to moves ships of the Caspitan flotilla via the Volga-Dona Canal to take part in Putin's war in Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/water-level-of-caspian-sea-falling-at.html).

    But while the debate continues about whether the decline will continue or be  reversed (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/russian-experts-concede-caspian-water.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/putin-worried-about-falling-water.html), new data suggest that it is already having a broader and deleterious impact on trade routes. 

    Experts from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are reporting that declining water levels on the Caspian have reduced the amount of cargo ships using that body of water can carry by 20 percent or more and restricting the capacity or even forcing the closure of some of their ports (casp-geo.ru/snizhenie-urovnya-kaspiya-negativno-vliyaet-na-paromnye-perevozki/).

    And thee developments have led Natalya Butyrina, a Kaspiisky Vestnik commentator, to conclude that Kazakhstan, which has been hit the hardest by the decline in Caspitan water levels -- portions of its coastline have receded more than 50 km in recent times -- may have to pull out of both Russia's and China's corridor projects.

    In that event, both Moscow and Beijing would have to turn to the region's railways and highway networks, neither of which currently carry the amount of cargo each hopes for and both of which would require years and perhaps decades to expand to the point where they could.

     Consequently, if the water level of the Caspian doe continue to fall -- and that appears to be the most likely course of events (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/russian-experts-concede-caspian-water.html)) -- these two major projects will be in trouble, restricted not by the actions of other countries but by the drying up of a sea few had ever thought possible until very recently.

Combat Deaths among Numerically Small Peoples Even Larger than Reported Because Many have Russian Names, Berezhkov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- That the numerically small indigenous peoples of the Russian North and Far East have been hit harder in percentage terms than have the ethnic Russians is now acknowledged by almost all observers, but even they are understating the numbers of these losses and thus the impact of the deaths, according to Dmitry Berezhkov.

    The editor of the Indigenous Russia portal says that the number of deaths among these nations is being seriously understated because in the case of many of these peoples, their members have been given Russian last names and thus are typically counted as Russians even though they are not (indigenous-russia.com/archives/41925).

    And that in turn means, Berezhkov says, that the war's impact on these peoples is far greater than even their sympathizers think and is accelerating "the collapse of languages, traditons, and self-sufficient economies already under thereat from industrialization and environmental destruction" that have been carried out by the Russian authorities. 

    "With every life lost, vital knowledge disappears," he continues; and "without young men to cntinuae traditional practices, entire ways of life vanish." This means that "Russia's war in Ukraine is also a war against the survival of its indigenous peoples, as these communities disappear, so too deos the memory of who they were, how they lived, and what they might have become."

Moscow Begins Crackdown on Telegram Channels Beyond the Ring Road

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 9 -- Telegram channels, which have been relatively independent outlets at a time when other kinds of media have been subject to increasingly tight government control, are now under attack; and the Kremlin has launched this campaign as it so often has done in other cases by moving firt beyond the ring road with the all too obvious intention of expanding to the center later. 

    The harbinger of this effort was a decision taken last fall by the Lenin District Court in Smolensk Oblast to ban the Zygar telegram channel for its criticism of the war in Ukraine (leninsky--sml.sudrf.ru/modules.php?name=sud_delo&srv_num=1&name_op=case&case_id=187630306&case_uid=c9ca22a3-2112-46e5-8618-e811533da0eb&delo_id=41).

    The Russian government agency which maintains the list of banned groups ha snot yet added the Zygar channel (verstka.media/mikhail_zygar_da_zygar_zapret_news), but Moscow clearly intends to treat it as banned and that has sparked concern that all independent telegram channels are now at risk (t.me/kolezev/16059 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/v-rossii-sudya-po-vsemu-vpervye-czelikom-zapreshhen-telegram-kanal). 

    Such fears have intensified this week given that Russian officials have banned and blocked telegram channels in the North Caucasus, a move that has sparked protests from Chechen officials as being irrational and unnecessary (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/03/08/vlasti-dagestana-priznali-blokirovku-telegram-v-regione-news, novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/03/08/vlasti-dagestana-priznali-blokirovku-telegram-v-regione-news and themoscowtimes.com/2025/03/10/chechen-official-decries-prejudiced-telegram-ban-in-north-caucasus-regions-a88303.)

Moscow Must Reverse Recent Declines in Spending on Arctic Exploration, Kazanin Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 --  Over the last several years, likely a euphemism for "since Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine," Moscow has cut back in its exploration of the Arctic despite Russia's need for oil, gas and other minerals from the sea's floor and its strategic plans to project Russian power there, according to Aleksey Kazanin.

    In a Nezavisimaya gazeta article,  the general director of the Marine Arctic Geopolitical Exploration Expedition says that a proposed plan to reverse this trend is now before the Russian government and must be approved rather than allowing anyone to believe that everything can be put off until the next generation (ng.ru/vision/2025-03-07/100_1255070325.html).

    There are three reasons, Kazanin says, why this program of restored financing must be approved. First, Russia needs the oil and gas that can now be recovered from the Arctic because of recent improvements in technology. Second, it needs to take such steps to support the development of the critical Northern Sea Route.

    And third -- and this may be the most important signal his article sends -- Moscow eeds to "strengthen the evidence behind the Russian Federation's submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of hte Continental Shelf in the Arctic Ocean. (For background on that effort, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/un-clcs-accepts-russias-documentation.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/us-expands-arctic-shelf-claims-likely.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/newly-elevated-naval-collegium-to.html.)

     That issue is likely to come to the forefront because, despite the warming of US-Russian relations generally under President Trump, the current US president has made clear that he has expansive plans for the Arctic, plans that put both him and the US on a collision course with Moscow which has even more expansive ones.

Central Asian Migrant Workers Leaving and Moscow Must Compensate by Attracking Workers from Elsewhere, Russian Officials and Experts Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- The number of migrant workers in Russia is declining; but for the time being, this category will remain dominated by people from Central Asia and the Caucasus, Russian experts and officials say. But both also suggest that such a pattern need not continue and that Russia should seek to attract workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

    In a new report, the Russian Central Bank says that Moscow should be able to replace the Central Asians and South Caucasians who are leaving with workers from elsewhere especially because many of the countries in the global south want to send workers abroad to earn money for their homelands (nakanune.ru/articles/123251/). 

    Consequently, these officials and experts say, Moscow doesn't need so much to recruit these people as to make them aware of the opportunities in Russia and ensure that they don't face obstacles to coming and working in the Russian economy. In the next five years, they add, these new migrants can increase their current share by as much as 20 percent.

    That is because most of those in the global south who want to migrate have the same skill sets that the Russian economy needs. And attracting them will help Moscow expand its influence in these countries, something the Russian government can only welcome, experts say.

     But there is at least one major problem: most of the potential migrants from the global south don't know Russian; and the failure of migrants from former Soviet republics where many know at least some of the state language of the Russian Federation has become a major source of tension in recent years. 

    It isn't clear how or even if Moscow intends to address the language issue with respect to the new immigrants it wants to attract; but if it doesn't do so quickly and effectively, then it is likely that the hostility many Russians now feel towards Central Asians and Caucasians will be transferred to those from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

    And such hostility may mean that even if the new immigrants do come for a time, they too just like the current immigrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus now   will soon leave and discourage any of their co-nationals from coming to Russia.

Foreigners Did Not Adopt a Single Russian Child Last Year for the First Time Since Putin Came to Power

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- For the first time since Putin came to power, foreigners were not able to adopt a single Russian child , according to statistics from the Russian Ministry of Enlightenent, the result of Moscow's efforts to restrict such adoptions by closing adoption agencies and introducing new limits and thus help maintain the Russian population (edu.gov.ru/activity/statistics/guardianship).

     This ends a 30-year-long period following the collapse of the Soviet Union during which foreigners adopted more than 100,000 Russian children (forbes.ru/forbeslife/525008-s-1993-goda-inostrancy-usynovili-bolee-100-000-detej-sirot-iz-rossii). But Russian parents did not pick up the slack and continued to adopt fewer children than they did earlier.

    With each passing year, the Important Stories portal reports, Russians have adoped a smaller percentage of orphans. Last year, of every 100 children in childcare facilities, only 76 were adopted, the lowest level in the last 17 years (istories.media/stories/2025/03/07/2024-god-stal-pervim-kogda-inostrantsi-ne-usinovili-ni-odnogo-rebenka-iz-rossii/).

     Still more troubling, those who did adopt were more ready to return such children back to childcare institutions. In 2014-2014, Russians returned to orphanages nine of every 100 they had earlier adopted, but in 2024, that figure almost doubled to 16, as economic conditions and prospects have worsened.

    And still worse for the young Russians confined in that country's often notorious children's homes is that the data base listing those who want to adopt has fallen by a third from a decade ago to 40,000 (istories.media/investigations/2020/06/01/po-zakonu-podletsov/).

Post-Fascism, a New Totalitarian Ideology, Now Spreading 'Especially in Russia and the US,' Pastukhov Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- Neither Putin nor Trump is a fascist in the classical sense, and neither in fact are neo-fascists, Vladimir Pastukhov says. Moreover, the regimes that Putin has established and that Trump is working to create cannot be called by either of those terms. Instead, both the ideology of the two is better labeled post-fascist.

    Their new totalitarian ideologies, the London-based Russian analyst says, "do not directly follow from nor are they directly connected with the fascist ideas of the last century.  But they are related to them. Their chief distinguishing feature is their undisguised hostility to democracy and readiness to throw out the entire legacy of liberalism" (t.me/v_pastukhov/1423 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/rozhdenie-postfashizma).

    In this, they "differ from numerous right-wing conservative movements, even those ost radical of these," Pastukhov continues. "They do'nt fit into modern democracy, they want to destroy it and replace it with a new (old) political system based on leaderism and the simulation of corporate governance."

    Another distinguishing feature of post-fascism, he says, is is "duality." These systems "don't look like fascist ones." Instead, they combine "right-wing populism with a touch of leftism" and their leaders show "a complete ideological omnivorousness," ready to take on the appearance of being all things to all people.

    But at the same time, internally, they do have an ideology that is quite similar to those of fascist states. And that makes comparisons between them and fascist regimes inevitable. However, in both Russia and the US, these ideologies are not made "official," a choice that allows their leaders to move about more easily than their predecessors.

    Those at the top of thee systems clearly seek to avoid declaraing an ideology, "even tough the institutions of power and the circle of leaders around themare liberally stuffed with 'agends of influence' who do subscribe to this ideology." In that respect, he says, these systems resemble the way the Masonic lodges acted in the 19th century but without any formal structures.

    Another way to look at this, Pastukhov says, is "to imagine that Hindenburg did not cede power to Hitler but merely became more sympathetic to the ideas of National Socialism and had become an ideological puppet in the hands of the Nazi Party while continually at least formally to rule Germany."

    The London-based Russian analyst says that in his opinion, "both Putin and Trump are advanced Hindenburgs, leaders who shine with reflected ideological light."
 

Kremlin Tells Russian Media to Stop Talking about 'Anglo-Saxons'

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 -- Since the start of Putin's expanded war in Ukraine, Russian government media have routinely referred to Kyiv's primary backers as "the Anglo-Saxons," a term meant to underscore that Britain and the US were to blame for resistance to Moscow and to separate them from the Europeans.

    But now that the US has changed its position and the Europeans have become more prominent in supporting Kyiv, the Kremlin has ordered Russian media to stop using that term. Instead, they re to attack the Europeans, including the English, who are standing more firm against Moscow in Ukraine than is the US (moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/07/propagande-skomandovali-hvatit-gossmi-perestali-nazivat-amerikantsev-anglosaksami-a157361).

    Moscow's purpose, of course, remains the same: to demonize and divide the West; but with the reordering of the international chessboard, the notion that Moscow has been fighting the Anglo-Saxon countries in the first instance now longer works, at least as far as Kremlin propagandists are concerned.

Chechen Bloggers who Oppose Kadyrov Gain in Popularity

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 6 -- Ramzan Kadyrov's effort to fully control the information space in his republic has failed because nearly 100 percent of Chechens now have Internet access and increasingly are turning to opposition bloggers who use social media in general and telegram channels in particular to bring news and information to the Chechen people.

    The most prominent of these are Tumso Abdurakhmanov, Islam Blokiyev, and Khasan Khalitov, who have been harassed and forced to flee abroad but who continue to reach significant shares of the 1.5 million people who remain in Kadyrov's Chechnya (kavkazr.com/a/vakuum-obektivnoy-informatsii-pochemu-oppozitsionnye-blogery-populyarny-v-chechne/33335427.html). 

    Abdurakhmanov who now lives in Sweden has more than 500,000 YouTube subscribers and 35,000 regular telegram channel readers. Blokhiyev has over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and more than 13.000 telegram channel followers. And Khalitov has 13,000 telegram channel readers.

    In addition, there are two opposition Chechen movements which use the Internet to reach the people, NIYSO and 1ADAT, which have large numbers of followers as well. According to the Kavkazr report, all have gained audience as Putin's war in Ukraine has proceeded, forcing Kadyrov to work ever harder to try to control the media space in Chechnya. 

Kyrgyz-Tajik Border Accord Not Universally Popular in Kyrgyz Political Elite

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 --  At the end of February, Bishkek and Dushanbe announced the conclusion of an agreement about the disputed border between them. The accord was based don a 50-50 exchange of territories in disputed areas and the establishemnt of several neutral and demilitarized areas along their state borders.

    The governments of the two countries are firmly behind the agreement which they say will remove the threat of further violence, but there are signs that the accord is not universally popular and that disputes about the border may continue to create problems for both of these Central Asian countries.  

    On March 5, Sultanbay Ayzhigitov, a Kyrgyz deputy, denounced the accord even though other members of the national parliament had voted for it. He said it was "unequal" and was giving Tajikistan villagers where the ancestors of today's Kyrgyz had lived. The parliament's speaker denounced him, and his party expelled him from its ranks, an action that will cost him his mandate because he was elected by party list (ru.kabar.kg/news/spornye-territorii-na-granice-byli-resheny-5050-spiker/ and vesti.kg/politika/item/136487-lishitsya-li-deputatskogo-mandata-sultanbaj-ajzhigitov.html).

    Ayzhigitov's criticism shows both how difficult solving border disputes invariably is and remains a clear sign that current celebrations about the border accord are almost certainly premature.  

Yabloko Deputies in St. Petersburg Assembly Protest Plans to Set Up CCTV to Track Residents by Ethnicity

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar 5 -- The Yabloko fraction in the St. Petersburg legislative assembly has sent a letter to the vice governor of that federal district denouncing plans to set up a CCTV system in the northern capital that will identify and track people there according to their ethnicity. The letter says that such a move would violate the Russian constitution.     

    This action described at spb.yabloko.ru/2025/03/04/peterburgskoe-yablokoschitaet-antikonstitucionnoj-sistemu-raspoznavaniya-etnicheskoj-prinadlezhnosti/ and nazaccent.ru/content/43631-v-peterburge-prizvali-ne-ustanavlivat-kamery-dlya-opredeleniya-etnicheskoj-prinadlezhnosti/.  For background on the CCTV plan, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/02/another-move-toward-new-totalitarianism.html. 

    Officials called for such a system in order to help the authorities track members of ethnic communities they believe may form criminal groups. The idea of doing so has been roundly criticized by human rights activists. The Yabloko letter however is the first expression of opposition by elected representatives. 

Russian Interior Ministry Maintaining Data Base of All Opposed to Putin's War, Tatarstan Supreme Court Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Human rights experts have long assumed that the Russian force structures have been keeping particularly close track of Russians who do or say anything against Putin's expanded war in Ukriane. But because such a list would violate Russian law, Moscow officials have not mentioned its existence.

    Now, however, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan has pointed out that someone charged with a crime there is on such a list of anti-war Russians, thereby providing official confirmation of the existence of this kind of data base (idelreal.org/a/kormovaya-baza-v-tatarstane-siloviki-priznali-suschestvovanie-kartoteki-s-dose-na-antivoennyh-rossiyan/33329785.html).

    Lawyers in Tatarstan say that the list, which apparently includes not only those who take part in protests against the war but also those involved in other acts of protest against the Putin regime help the interior ministry identify those it can charge whenever it needs to boost its arrest statistics and standing with the Kremlin. 

Dagestan Judge Says Officials Falsifying Elections in Almost Every Possible Way

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Voting rights activists have long reported that Russian officials have regularly falsified elections in the North Caucasus to allow the region's leaders to report that Vladimir Putin and his allies have won 95 percent or more of the vote. But these reports have often been dismissed as anecdotal or because the activists supposedly have their own agendas.

    Now, in what is an almost unprecedented development, a judge in Dagestan has declared from the bench that officials in a local district there have engaged in all the kinds of falsifications that activists have  pointed to and his words have been reported in the local court record.

    Although Judge Musin's findings concern only one district in only one election, they deserve to be noted and remembered because Moscow or the regional government take them down because they are so damning.  Here is what he said:

"Some voters voted at several polling stations. There were cases of voting by citizens not registered in the Kaka-Shurinsky village council district. The number of ballots found in hte ballot boxes exceeded the number of ballots issued to voters. The procedure for tabulating the voting results was violated, including when drawing up the protocols on the voting results at all polling stations."

    Musin's statement can be found at karabudahkentskiy--dag.sudrf.ru/modules.php?name=sud_delo&srv_num=1&name_op=doc&number=138809890&delo_id=41&new=0&text_number=1; it has been reproduced at golosinfo.org/articles/153449 and echofm.online/stories/rossijskij-sud-priznal-chto-v-rossii-sistematicheski-falsificziruyut-vybory-no-poka-lish-na-primere-odnogo-dagestanskogo-sela..

    Following his declaration, the judge cancelled the election and ordred a new one in which different candidates took part. 

Moscow Using 'Technical Breakdown' rather than Formal Blocking of Internet to Isolate Non-Russian Republics and Restive Russian Regions, Experts Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Increasingly, instead of formally blocking the Internet in non-Russian republics and more restive Russian regions, Moscow is orchestrating 'technical breakdowns," an arrangement even better from Moscow's point of view because it allows the center to escape criticism and prevents people from using VPNs.

     It is able to do so because in these federal subjects, there are relatively few internet providers, they are branches of all-Russian companies, and thus, the Internet there is "more vulnerable to centralized control" via this mechanism, Kseniya Yermoshina, a sociologist says (verstka.media/pobochnyi-effekt-czenzury-sboi-runeta-proishodyat-vse-chashhe-pochemu-oni-opasnee-blokirovk).

    In essence, she an d other Russian experts on this field say, using "technical breakdowns" rather than blocking is "the continuation of the colonization" of the country in the virtual world.

    Leonid Yudashev, another expert, agrees and adds that "it is not so convenient to conduct such experiments in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  There are more providers in those cities, their equipment is newer, and local IT specialists can easily determine what has happened, tell others, and work around orchestrated "breakdowns."

    Moreover, taking such actions in the capitals or other major cities risks adverse reaction from Russian businesses or even officials whose activities may be affected. That is far less of a problem in areas far beyond the ring road, Denis Yagodin, a third Russian expert says. 

Current Global Conflict Less between Nations than within Them, El Murid Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- "The current global conflict does not lie along national borders,"  Anatoly Nesmiyan who logs under the screen name El Murid says. "In fact, it is a clash of two diametrically opposed projects of the future," between those who want to reduce the power of individual states and those who want to make some some states stronger and more imperialistic.

    Both of these ideas are a response to problems with the existing global order, the blogger says; but neither  "promises anything good for the world. Instead, they reflect "the emerging and uncontrollable complexity of the world" no one has been able to deal with (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-03-04/anatoliy-nesmiyan-mir-razdelitsya-nadvoe-5337799).

    In important respects, he suggests, this debate is like the one that took place in the Soviet Union in the 1920s between the supporters of world revolution and the backers of socialism in one country;  and it also resembles that one that took place in the USSR at its end when the rulers of that country "proved unable to manage the complex social object they had created."

    Essentially, El Murid continues, this situation is true in ever more countries because "the highly developed world has lost control over people who remain in earlier and more archaic phases of development. The elites are divided over what to do but are in fact choosing among contrasting pasts rather than articulating and selling something new.

    "Nation states are instruments in this struggle," he says; but they are not its source. And so it is a mistake "to miss the essential nature of this ongoing conflict," because the existing governments are having choose sides in what is a larger and more significant contradiction.  

     

Some but Not All of 700,000 Russians who've Fought in Ukraine Will Display Aggression on Returning Home, St. Petersburg Psychiatrist Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Approximately 700,000 Russians have fought in Putin's war in Ukraine (rbc.ru/politics/14/06/2024/666c77789a79475d712a5c27), almost 100,000 more than fought in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 (hro.org/editions/karta/nr24-25/victim.htm). And the way the Afgantsy behaved on returning home is speaking fears about how the Ukraintsy will. 

    Andrey Kamenyushkin, a St. Petersburg clinical psychiatrist, says that there are compelling reasons for such fears; but he suggests that they should not be over blown because many veteran returning now or in the future won't behave aggressively either because they do not suffer from PTSD or because they will  receive treatment (paperpaper.ru/posle-okonchaniya-vojny-v-peterburg-ver/).

    That does not mean, he argues, in the course of an interview on the Bumaga portal that there won't be serious problems: the numbers involved are so large and increasing that even if only a small percentage engage in violence, that will threaten the social order. But more is being done to help them, and so the threat may not prove to be as serious as it was with the Afgantsy.

    In the course of his interview, Kamenyushkin makes five major points:

First, only 16 to 20 percent of the veterans of the current war in Ukraine suffer from PTSD.

Second, PTSD does not always lead to violence against others.

Third, more is being done to help these people although there are many problems with such services and veterans do slip through the cracks.

Fourth, many military people don't get the treatment they need because they consider psychiatric help a manifestation of weakness.

And fifth, veterans suffering from PTSD are a danger in their first instance to themselves either because they will turn to drug and alcohol or because they will commit suicide.

Duma Speaker Changes Course Because He Senses Federal Subjects will Soon Gain More Power to Act Independently, Salin Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 3 --Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian Duma and one of the country's most politically aware leaders, has recently become more supportive of the federal subjects because he senses that they soon will acquire additional power to act independently and he wants them on his side rather than having them as opponents, according to Pavel Salin.

    The political researcher at Moscow's Finance University says that Volodin's decision to back the regions and republics with regard to the reform of local administration is a clear sign of a broader shift that may soon affect his position on other issues as well (club-rf.ru/interview/538).

    Obviously, Salin continues, this is not a harbinger of a return to anything like the political arrangements of the 1990s. Instead, it reflects his judgment that the powers that be are going to "try to give the system more flexibility," something that will allow the regions to act more like they did in the first decade and a half of this century.

    According to the analyst, Volodin senses this and is acting as he often has to "be a little ahead of events" so that any change he makes in his own approach will "look natural and not forced." That explains his recent moves to reach out to the regions and republics rather than being about any concern over the next round of Duma elections.

    Volodin isn't acting as anyone's agent in this, Salin says. Instead, he is testing teh waters and seeking to build up his own power base But his role in the Duma is critical and on many issues, including  local government and animal control, the Kremlin may be prepared to go along rather than pick a political fight that wouldn't give it much.

    And to the extent that this trend continues, the regions, on the one hand, and Volodin, on the other, may choose to test the limits on other, larger issues, something that could change just how those limits are evolving.  

Russia Scrambling to Cope with Mounting Shortage of Policemen

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 3 pp Russia is a police state with an unusual problem: it doesn't have enough policemen to man the front lines. As a result, it is using police from foreign countries, relying on ethnic militias, employing CCTV to track people, and shifting police from one region of the country to another to fill gaps. 

    Russian policemen have been leaving the service to get higher pay by fighting in Ukraine or joining private security companies, with units in many parts of the country short of staff by as much as a third. And now the problem has become so critical, given rising crime rates, that it has attracted the attention of Vladimir Putin.

    The interior ministry began sounding the alarm on this point at the end of last year (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/russia-facing-increasingly-serious.html), and now Putin has added his voice to complaints but without any suggestion that he will spend more money on the country's police force or has any long-term plans (vkrizis.info/vlast/nekomplekt-vnutrennih-del/).

    Among the steps the Russian government has taken to dry to deal with this problem without spending more money, something very difficult at a time of budgetary stringency brought on by Putin's war in Ukraine, are the following:

-- Bringing in police from Central Asian countries (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/to-cope-with-enormous-shortage-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/to-cope-with-enormous-shortage-of.html);

-- Shifting police from one region to another as needed, including from those dominated by one ethnic group to those dominated by another (fortanga.org/2025/03/otryad-policzii-iz-udmurtii-polgoda-budet-rabotat-na-dorogah-ingushetii/);

-- Relying on non-Russian ethnic units as well as on the notorious Black Hundreds-type Russian nationalist Russian Community to perform basic policing functions and engage in crowd control (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/spread-of-immigrant-militia-units-in.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/another-black-hundreds-group-revived-in.html);

-- Turning to the Russian army and other security forces to perform basic police functions (vkrizis.info/vlast/nekomplekt-vnutrennih-del/); and

-- Increasingly relying on electronic means such as CCTV to monitor what Russians are doing at lower cost (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/02/another-move-toward-new-totalitarianism.html). 

New Russian Law Allows Developers to Build Far Closer to Monuments than Ever Before

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar.3 -- Until this month, Russia law had imposed serious restrictions on the construction of new buildings near anything that the government had declared a monument. Preservationists, ordinary Russians and tourists were pleased but developers were angry. Now, the developers have won a major but possibly temporary victory.

    Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has signed a decree eliminating as of March one what are known as "preservation zones" around tens of thousands of monuments across the Russian Federation (newizv.ru/news/2025-03-02/zhk-s-vidom-na-pamyatnik-pravitelstvo-ubralo-ohrannye-zony-vokrug-ob-ektov-kultury-436100).

    That means that developers will be able to build new structures far closer to these monuments than ever before. Preservationists are outraged wn will certainly contest such construction in court, but Moscow by this action has shown that it is likely to back the developers most of the time, however committed to "traditional values" it routinely declares itself to be.

'Thirty Years of Democracy in the World Have Been Lost,' Alexiyevich Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 3 -- In Vilnius to collect materials for her new book, Waiting for the Barbarians,  a title that echoes C.P. Cavafy's classic poem, Belrusian Nobelist Svetlana Alexiyevich says that "thirty years of democracy in the world have been lost" and that Belarus, which is on the brink of a civil war, is in worse shape that it was in Stalin's time.

    "We Belarusians are now in perhaps the most difficult moment of our history," she says. "What is happening here  is more terrible than what happened under Stalin We have a humanitarian catastrophe ... after hte euphoria of freedom, fascism began to creep in" (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20250303-светлана-алексиевич-тридцать-лет-демократии-в-мире-потеряны-у-людей-во-власти-нет-гуманитарного-диапазона).

    Until this decade, Alexiyevich continnues, "We thought that democracy was some kind of institution tha twould create a new life and a new person by itself. And it seemed that we could simply live and rejoice as it was in all of Europe, and not think that democracy needed to be defended. That didn't occur to anyone. We all made a mistake."

    As a result, "we did not do any of the work that could have prevented the right wing from so confidently marching across the world; and it seems to me that we will not be able to fight back with success anytime soon. For now, we are in shock and despair" but "to win out, we must understand what is what-- and that takes time."

    "I think," she says, "that these 30 years of democracy were lost" because "we turned out to be infantile. That was true in Belarus but not only there. In many countries, the democratic person turned out to be someone who naively believes in goodness and hopes that the world is arranged for good."

    "But the world isn't like that," Alexiyevich argues. "You can resist what it is really like only by developing humanity in yourself. I don't know any other way. But doing that will take time. I see young people here, and they may have time. But to what extent we their elders do, I don't know."

    And she concludes: "The horror of civil war now hangs over us. I am very afraid of that, and I think everyone is afraid -- both here and elsewhere. But in Belarus, Lukashenka is driving us into a corner, into a trap, and leaving no other option open. I think we are thus in for trials; and we must be prepared for them."

Putin Can Name Outsiders as Heads of Federal Subjects but in 'Almost a Quarter' of Them, He Never Has, Russian Specialist Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 3 -- Vladimir Putin has sufficient power to appoint the heads of all the federal subjects of the Russian Federation, Vitaly Ivanov, a specialist on federalism in Russia, says. But despite that, in "almost a quarter" of them, he has never named an outsider but instead has always turned to local people in making such appointments.

    For a list of the 21 federal subjcts into which Putin has not yet inserted an outsider as head, see club-rf.ru/news/63888;  for Ivanov's explanation of why thee bu tnot others have avoided that fate, see his remarks on that subject contained in an interview at club-rf.ru/detail/7609.

    The Russian historian who has written a two-volume history on gubernatorial arrangements in Russia says that it is important to define precisely what one means by outsider. Someone with no connections to a region is clearly one, but there are some who may have been born in a region or served there early in their careers but who have never worked near the top who are as well.

    According to Ivanov, there is no rule as far as the appointment of outsiders is concerned. Non-Russian regions are now just as likely to have one as are predominantly ethnic Russian regions and krays. The only real exception among the latter is St. Petersburg, whose local elite is so large and well-known to Putin that the Kremlin leader feels no need to go outside for its governor.

    In Ivanov's view, "there are only two regions" elsewhere where the appointment of an outsider is "unlikely -- Tatarstan and Chechnya. But that is because of events which took place in the 1990s, including not signing the federation treaty and in Chechnya's case fighting a war with Moscow. These continue to cast a shadow on Moscow's approach to Kazan and Grozny.

     Most people in most places don't like outsiders, he continues; but the reality is some outsiders seek to boost the regions they are assigned to more than locals, either to curry favor with the Kremlin or to win friends locally. Consequently, the impact of the presence or absence of outsiders is less clear-cut than many imagine. 

Russian Convicts Moscow Forcing to Fight in Ukraine Often Put in Front Lines and are First to Die There, ‘Regional Dimension’ Reports

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 3 – In the first year of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow had little trouble getting convicts to volunteer to fight in Ukraine in exchange for a pardon; but more recently, fewer convicts have been prepared to volunteer and so Russian jailors have been exerting ever more administrative pressures.
    One reason this is so is that word has filtered back that when convicts who have agreed to serve in Ukraine arrive there, they are often immediately put in the front lines where many if not all of them are killed. Those in prison don’t see escape from prison only to face near certain death as a good option.
    The reason that Russian commanders use such troops in this way is clear as well. These are not the obedient soldiers officers want, and they are only too glad to use them as cannon fodder, especially as they know Russian officials probably aren’t displeased by such losses given how angry Russians are becoming about crimes committed by ex-cons who do manage to return.     
    This pattern is not one that Kremlin media are interested in reporting, but the Regional Dimension portal has documented it, a task made easier because the relatives of former convicts who have been killed have banded together in order to protest what is going on (regaspect.info/2025/03/03/bez-prava-na-zhizn/).

Warming of Ocean, Not Just of Atmosphere, Behind Loss of Glaciation in Article Littoral, Norwegian Scholars Conclude

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 3 – In a finding with enormous implications for Arctic littoral states, including the Russian Federation, a group of Norwegian researchers have concluded that the warming of the oceans and not just of the atmosphere is behind the declining size of glaciers emptying into the Arctic.
    The study (Foss, Ø., Maton, J., Moholdt, G. et al. Ocean warming drives immediate mass loss from calving glaciers in the high Arctic. Nature Communications 15, 10460 (2024)) focused on the situation in the Svalbard archipelago and his reported and reviewed at thebarentsobserver.com/news/surprising-discovery-about-svalbards-largest-glacier/425753.
    It suggests that the impact of Atlantification, the warming of the Arctic as the result of the influx of warmer waters from the North Atlantic, may have an eve more rapid impact on glaciers and adjoining land areas than anyone had hitherto suggested (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/atlantification-of-arctic-ocean.html).  
    That will have enormous consequences for many countries, including the Russian Federation, there first in Novaya Zemlya and Franz Joseph Land but then across the entire northern coast of that country where this component of global warming will need to be taken into consideration in all projections of global warming there.