Putin’s War Threatens the Survival of Russian Federation Even if a Settlement is Reached

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 23 -- Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, as it enters its fourth year, increasingly threatens the survival of the Russian Federation and will do so even if some kind of cessation of hostilities is arranged. It has alienated the educated Russian elites in the major cities who do not want the kind of country Putin is seeking to create; and it has infuriated non-Russians who see themselves being used as cannon fodder while their basic needs are being ignored and their status as citizens is being undermined by Kremlin-promoted xenophobia. These trends, which have been intensified by Western sanctions that have affected how Russians now live and by Kyiv’s reaching out to and providing support for will not end if the fighting eases or stops. Instead, they will be exacerbated by three other developments that Putin will find it difficult if not impossible to change: expectations among all groups in the population that things will change, something he doesn’t want to allow; the return of a massive number of angry and well-armed veterans of that conflict whom it will be almost impossible to reintegrate and who give every sign of becoming the Freikorps of a new revolutionary upsurge; and the inclusion under Moscow rule of more Ukrainians, who will add to the growing share of non-Russians in the population, pushing it up to double or more what it was only a few years ago and making Putin’s promotion of a Russian world there even more counterproductive.   

    Putin’s expanded war has hit educated Russian elites in the major cities hard. Many of these people have left and others have become so alienated that they no longer feel as committed to their country as they did. That represents a double hit on the stability of the Russian Federation. On the one hand, these are precisely the people the country needs to grow and prosper; and on the other hand, their departure and alienation means that the Kremlin no longer has them in its corner and must resort to coercion, as it has, to keep them declaring their loyalty regardless of what they feel. That in turn means that their connection to Russia has been reduced to a thin threat that can easily snap if something else happens especially given that the Russia they want is precisely the kind of Russia Putin won’t create. That occurred in 1991, and there is every reason to think that similar shocks are ahead, given what else is going on.

    Putin’s war has also infuriated poorer Russians who know that they are disproportionately being asked to fight and die without any real benefit and even more non-Russians who know they are being used as cannon fodder so the Kremlin won’t have to further alienate urban Russians. And as the war has continued, Putin and his regime have increasingly played up xenophobia among Russians, forgetting the first rule of managing a multinational state: such a state won’t survive if it tries to rely on only the titular nation. It has to include others, and pointedly alienating them as now ensures that the non-Russians and many in the poorer Russian regions as well will exit when they can, something that is likely to occur during a transition or disaster.

    These trends would have occurred given the way in which Putin has conducted his war even if no one outside had done anything. But the West has imposed sanctions that have had a negative effect on most Russians, and Ukraine has reached out and provided support for the non-Russians, hosting their leaders forced into exile and proclaiming their right to seek an independent existence. Neither of those things – or at least neither of the consequences of these steps having been taken up to now – are going to stop if and when the guns fall silent.  And that highlights something many have failed to recognize: Putin won’t end the war because of these domestic problems he faces because he and those around him know that they will only intensify and metastasize if and when the conflict eases or ends.

    Three of the changes that a settlement will bring are especially important. First, there will be widespread expectations among all groups of the population that the sacrifices they have been asked to make will be ended and that they will be given rewards for what support they have offered or been compelled to offer. Putin has no interest and little capacity to make such changes, and he is unlikely to be able to manage the disappointment well, making a new war and new repression more likely. But that approach will only make things worse in time. Second, the return of a large number of angry, expectant and well-armed veterans will lead not only to increases in crime and instability but to the rise of a new Russian version of the Freikorps that rocked Germany to its foundation in the wake of the end of World War I and ultimately ushered in the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Putin even now is trying to integrate them into his system. But it is unlikely he will succeed. And third, if as now seems likely Putin is given more territory and thus more Ukrainians to rule as part of a settlement, what will be created is in many ways the worst nightmare of all.

    The Soviet Union fell apart when the share of non-Russians in its population rose to 50 percent of the total. Initially, the Russian Federation was roughly 80 percent ethnic Russian. Now, it is less than 70 percent. If a significant portion of Ukraine becomes part of the Russian Federation, then the percentage of ethnic Russians will fall again to below 60 percent and possibly to 55 percent or even lower. In that event, Putin will have restored not the Soviet Union but the conditions that led to the disintegration of the USSR. And for that reason as well as for the others enumerated above, the prospect that Putin’s state will disintegrate as well in the coming months or years is very great indeed. 

CIS Today ‘an Anachronism that Must Be Reformed, Disappear, or have Russia as Its Only Member,’ Dikusar Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Initially, many analysts suggested that the CIS was either a space for the peaceful divorce of the former Soviet republic or a carcass around which a new imperial state would form. Now, more than 30 years later, Konstantin Dikusar says, it has become “an anachronism that must be reformed, disappear or have Russia as its only member.”

    The Moscow commentator says that Russia has only itself to blame for the fact that one after another the original CIS members have either left or are thinking about leaving because Moscow, having said all will be equal, has in Soviet fashion made itself “the elder brother” once again (politexpert.org/material.php?id=6800E14178F56).

    Instead of allowing countries like Moldova and Armenia to combine membership in the CIS with membership in other international groupings, he continues, Moscow insists that they can’t be members of the CIS if they join others – and so over time, both these countries and all the other former Soviet republics save Russia will leave.  

    “The problems with the CIS come not only from the history of the establishment of this organization at the time of the disintegration of the USSR, but also from that element of domineering which Russia has in the CIS.” If initially it was the last perestroika project, now it is being used by Moscow in exactly the same way the August 1991 putschists wanted to act.

    Indeed, according to Dikusar, what Putin “did in Georgia and Chechnya and is now doing in Ukraine is precisely the policy that the putschists conceived in relation to the states that at that time were seizing their independence from under the treads of Russian tanks.” But the CIS can’t take place without a new perestroika in Russia.

    Otherwise, it will simply ceases to exist or have Russia as its only member.

New Technologies Helping Russian Authorities to Solve More and Ever Older Cold Cases, Officials Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Russian media has been filling up with reports about the police and investigative services solving more and more cold cases, bringing to justice people who committed crimes 20, 30 or even 40 years ago, the result of the spread of facial recognition technology, other technical innovations, and new structures in the interior ministry.

    In the past, officials say, many who committed crimes assumed they could hide out for decades and that after a certain time, the authorities would stop trying to solve the crimes. But now that has changed, and no matter how old a crime is, the authorities continue to look (versia.ru/pochemu-u-pravooxranitelnyx-organov-ne-ostalos-besslednyx-prestuplenij).

    The three biggest innovations that have led to this development have been the spread of facial recognition cameras to ever more Russian cities and even villages, the use of dogs and technology to track people, and the formation in militia offices of special divisions devoted to solving crimes of long ago.

    This trend gives new meaning to the idea that “nothing will be forgotten” and that no one will escape punishment despite their ability to hide out for years or decades. What is interesting is just how much credit the interior ministry seems to be getting for this approach in Putin’s Russia.

RF Regions’ Promoting Teenage Pregnancies Pushing Them Up among Central Asian Migrants but Not among Ethnic Russians, ‘Yury Dolgoruky’ Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Moscow’s decision to urge the governments of Russia’s federal subjects to boost pregnancies among Russian schoolchildren is backfiring, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says. The program is boosting births among Central Asian immigrant girls but not among ethnic Russian natives.

    As a result, and contrary to Russian law and interests, the telegram channel says, Moscow and the regional governments which are following its orders – about half of all the regional and republic governments have – are increasing the burden on Russian taxpayers without addressing Russia’s real demographic needs (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-17/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-kto-rozhaet-v-rossii-v-14-15-let-5371946).

    That is because this program, under the terms of which the regional governments pay up to 150,000 rubles (1600 US dollars) to any young woman who gets pregnant, is enormously expensive but is helping boost the number of immigrants but not the number of ethnic Russians.

    For a discussion of this ill-advised and incredibly poorly designed program which Moscow called for but may now be backing away from giving criticism and even anger like that of this telegram channel, see jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.
Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Moscow’s decision to urge the governments of Russia’s federal subjects to boost pregnancies among Russian schoolchildren is backfiring, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says. The program is boosting births among Central Asian immigrant girls but not among ethnic Russian natives.

    As a result, and contrary to Russian law and interests, the telegram channel says, Moscow and the regional governments which are following its orders – about half of all the regional and republic governments have – are increasing the burden on Russian taxpayers without addressing Russia’s real demographic needs (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-17/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-kto-rozhaet-v-rossii-v-14-15-let-5371946).

    That is because this program, under the terms of which the regional governments pay up to 150,000 rubles (1600 US dollars) to any young woman who gets pregnant, is enormously expensive but is helping boost the number of immigrants but not the number of ethnic Russians.

    For a discussion of this ill-advised and incredibly poorly designed program which Moscow called for but may now be backing away from giving criticism and even anger like that of this telegram channel, see jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.

School Problems in Areas Far from Major Cities in Central Asia Undermining Unity of Titular Nations and Threatening Survival of Minorities

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – The low quality of schools in rural areas far from Central Asia’s largest cities is leaving young people in rural areas isolated and increasingly far behind their counterparts in urban areas and threatening the survival of the smaller ethnic minorities of these countries as well.

    And according to two new articles on the Bugun news portal, the only possibility that these trends will be reversed will occur if there is a massive increase in spending on education and cooperation among regional governments, international organizations, and local communities (bugin.info/detail/tsifry-trevogi-obrazovate/ru and bugin.info/detail/iazyki-na-grani-kak-molod/ru).

    Across the region, these articles report, members of the titular nationalities living in distant rural areas are being provided with significantly lower quality education; and that in turn is contributing to poverty, early marriages, emigration and other social problems far greater than in the cities where better schools are available.

    This is such a large problem that even the expansion of internet education and the creation of mobile schools will do little unless there is a major increase in spending on education, something the government of this region currently don’t have the funds for and that international donors haven’t yet made a major investment.

    But as serious as the problems are for members of the titular nationalities in the Central Asian countries, those facing the members of small ethnic groups like the Pamiri nationalities in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are far worse and more immediate. Not only are they falling behind because of poor quality schools, but the survival of their languages and nations is at risk.

    In many cases, what is being done for them is being carried out by foreign universities and even individual emigres, some of whom engage in crowd-funding to provide textbooks to groups like the Shughni and Yagnob who, international bodies predict, may not survive until 2100 if more is not done. 

Slavery in Russia Far More Widespread than Moscow Admits or Many Acknowledge, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – No one knows precisely how many people are working as slaves in the Russian Federation. International human rights activists offer numbers ranging from 7,000 to two million. Moscow says there have been only 53 cases of slavery over the last 15 years; but in fact, it has brought to justice 17 times that number but hid this crime behind other charges.

    Modern forms of slavery are extremely diverse, and there are at least four different paragraphs of the Russian legal code under which people might be charged, Anastasiya Larina of the To Be Precise portal says (tochno.st/materials/za-15-let-v-rossii-zaregistrirovali-53-dela-ob-ispolzovanii-rabskogo-truda-my-nasli-v-17-raz-bolse-takix-slucaev-v-prigovorax-po-drugim-statiam).

    Over the last 15 years, some 880 Russian residents have been charged with slavery under these other paragraphs of the criminal code, 17 times more than the Russian government admits when it uses only the primary paragraph banning slavery. But even that larger figure ignores the amount of slavery, many cases of which the powers ignore or even are complicit in.

    The real number of Russian residents who are victims of slavery or slavery-like exploitation certainly numbers in the thousands, Larina continues; and she cites the conclusion of the Global Slavery Index which in 2021 said there were 1.8 million victims in Russia – or 13 for every 1000 residents (cdn.walkfree.org/content/uploads/2023/05/17114737/Global-Slavery-Index-2023.pdf).

Central Asian Countries Signal Their Re-Orientation by Foreign Languages They Promote

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 16 – When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the countries of Central Asia like the other former Soviet republics chose to promote the study of languages other than Russian for their rising generations to study. Many assumed they would all move in more or less the same direction, but they haven’t, Rafiz Abazov says

    The political scientist who now teaches at Columbia University says that each of the five countries in Central Asia has gone in a different direction. Kyrgyzstan has promoted English and Chinese, Uzbekistan, Japanese; Turkmenistan, Turkish; Tajikistan, Russian; and Kazakhstan, both English and Russian (orda.kz/pochemu-v-uzbekistane-uchat-japonskij-a-v-kyrgyzstane-kitajskij-rafis-abazov-o-jazykovoj-politike-ca-400563/).

    Abazov suggests that this focus says more about the direction each of these countries is heading in the long term than do the frequent declarations of their political leaders.

Kazakhstan and Karelia -- Two Cases of ‘Stalinist Nation Building’ that Still Resonate Today

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Putin regime is not the only group in the former Soviet space looking to the Soviet past. Many non-Russians inside the current borders of the Russian Federation and many in the now independent non-Russian countries surrounding it are doing so as well, less in their cases as models than as warnings about what might happen again.

    This week, there have been two important articles in this regard, one about how Kazakhstan became Kazakhstan but with very different borders (spik.kz/2215-sezd-kotoryj-nachalsja-kak-kirgizskij-a-zakonchilsja-kak-kazahskij.html) and a second about how Moscow created and then disbanded the Karelo-Finnish SSR (apn-spb.ru/publications/article39076.htm).

    The details in each will be fascinating to experts, but the messages they send will reach a far larger audience by reminding all concerned not only that in Soviet times, Moscow frequently changed the borders of Soviet republics but even was prepared to create and abolish them as needed for foreign policy purposes.

    The Kazakhstan case is the less well-known but possibly the more important. In 1925, as a result of pressure from Moscow and pressure from Kazakh nationalists, the Kazakh republic, then within the RSFSR, was renamed the Kazakh ASSR, having been the Kyrgyz ASSR the previous five years.

    The republic changed its capital from the predominantly ethnic Russian Orenburg first to the predominantly Kazakh Ak-Mechet and then to Alma-Ata. The reason for this was to make Kazakhs feel more in control of the situation by accepting their historical name in place of a Russian given one and also to end any confusion with the Kyrgyz republic.

    But perhaps even more important in terms of what may happen in the future, the Kazakh ASSR (which became a union republic a decade later) was dramatically expanded and included Karakalpakistan, which is now a restive autonomy within Uzbekistan – a reminder of how often that land has shifted between Kazakhs and Uzbeks.

     The history of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, which was created in 1940 at a time when Stalin hoped to extend the borders of the USSR to include Finland which had been part of the Russian Empire and then disbanded in 1956 when Khrushchev decided to disband it as part of his effort to smooth relations with Helsinki and the West is better known.

    But at the end of the new article about it, its author poses a question with broad implications. He asks: “What would have happened had [the Karelo-Finnish SSR] not been liquidated? That would have meant that it would automatically have gained independence in 1991.”

    “Separatism would have developed there; and then the Murmansk region would have become an enclave, cut off from Russia, like Kaliningrad.” Given that possibility, some are today inclined to say “thank you” to Khrushchev, arguing that “he may have given Crime to Ukraine but he did restore Karelia to Russia.”

Kremlin to Unite Nenets AD with Arkhangelsk Oblast But Only After Carefully Preparing Ground, ‘Nezygar. Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Nezygar telegram channel, one of the best connected in Moscow, says that two of its sources say the Kremlin has already taken the decision to amalgamate the Nenets Autonomous District with Arkhangelsk Oblast but to do so only after it carefully prepares the ground for that.

    According to these sources, Arkhangelsk is “quite positive” about such a move because the amalgamation will give it an advantage over Murmansk Oblast in Arctic development (t.me/s/russicaRU?q=Решено+не+торопиться+и+максимально+тщательно+подготовить+процесс https://indigenous-russia.com/archives/43267).

    But in the Nenets AD, these sources say, “’the overwhelming majority of the residents’ and almost the entire local elites do not want to lose their independent status.” Among the opponents was Yury Bezdudny, who gave up his governorship rather than agree to carry out unification.

    The Kremlin reportedly is considering two possible scenarios: the creation of a matryoshka arrangement like the one in Tyumen, in which the Nenets AD would formally remain a federal subject but in fact become part of Arkhangelsk Oblast or simply to deprive the Nenets AD of any such status.

    The new governor Irina Gekht has been charged with transforming the Nenets AD elites so that one or the other of these possibilities can be pushed through. If she succeeds in the next year or two, she will then leave and receive a position as governor of a more important federal subject, possibly Chelyabinsk, the telegram channel says.

    In 2020, Putin tried to amalgamate these two federal subjects but faced such strong opposition among the Nenets population that he had to back down, although he and others were able to blame the onset of the covid pandemic rather than admit that they had been defeated by an enraged population and the prospect of losing any referendum on amalgamation.

    On what happened in 2020, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/some-in-arkhangelsk-by-hook-or-crook.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/russian-writer-says-moscow-must-push.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/another-singing-revolution-breaks-out.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/being-nenets-or-nenets-resident-no.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/06/moscows-moves-against-nenets-and-,komi.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/pandemic-has-achieved-what-protests.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/most-in-working-group-that-called-for.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/moscow-now-wants-to-merge-not-just.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/nenets-residents-start-organizing.html, severreal.org/a/30624537.html.

    In the years since, Moscow has not given up on the idea of amalgamation but hasn’t pressed the issue, almost certainly because its attention is focused on the war in Ukraine and because opposition in the Nenets AD has if anything become even greater (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/moscow-may-restart-regional.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/local-resistance-spreads-and.html).

    If the Kremlin does push ahead now or even in a year’s time, the Nenets are likely to protest not only in the streets but in the halls of power in that federal subject. Moscow of course will get its way in the end but only if it is willing to pay a high price not only there but in other non-Russian areas where amalgamation is still a possibility.

Niqab Must be Banned in Russia Because It’s Being Used for Criminal Purposes, Silantyev Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – Roman Silantyev, a specialist on Islam with close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church and reportedly to the FSB, is calling for the Duma to adopt laws banning the niqab, a veil worn by some Muslim women which leaves only their eyes uncovered, because he says it is being used by a variety of people for criminal purposes.

    If anyone covers his body in this way, the advisor to the Russian justice ministry says, he has something to hide and is giving himself the chance to commit crimes and avoid responsibility. Often, he continues, the niqab is used to hid narcotics or to commit thefts  (news.ru/society/religioved-obratilsya-k-spikeru-gosdumy-s-prosboj-zapretit-nikaby-v-rf/).

    In addition, Silantyev says, “in come cases,” the niqab “is the uniform of prostitutes” and perverts and is used “not only by women but by men who commit terrorist acts.” He adds that the law must be written so that no such covering are allowed given that earlier attempts to regulate such dress have failed.

    Three aspects of Silantyev’s declaration are important. First, he is notorious for his attacks on Muslims and so the authorities probably encouraged him to make such a proposal and use such harsh language. Second, the language he used is so nasty that it is a sign that the Kremlin’s attacks on Islam are likely to intensify in the coming months.

    And third, both for that reason and because of Silantyev’s position and ties with the Putin regime, it is almost certain that his proposal will become law when the Duma returns from its break and that regional governments will take action even before that as at least one, Tula Oblast, already has (readovka.news/news/224684).

Updated Nansen Passport System Needed Because Putin Regime’s Approach to Emigres Puts Many in Impossible Situation, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – After the Soviet government stripped Russian emigres of their citizenship in 1921, the League of Nations issued what became known as Nansen Passports, in honor of Norwegian explorer Fridjof Nansen who promoted them. These documents gave these stateless persons status and the ability to get residence permits and seek citizenship.

    Hundreds of thousands of people literally were saved by these documents; and for that reason, the office which issued them ultimately received the Nobel Prize in 1938. Since that time, some countries and international organizations have issued such documents to stateless persons, extending to them many of the rights and protections that the Nansen passports did.

    The Putin regime has behaved differently and in many ways has left those Russians who have moved abroad and do not want to return but rather to acquire live and acquire citizenship in other countries. Most importantly, it has not stripped them of citizenship and left them in the condition of stateless persons.

    Many countries around the world which do not recognize dual citizenship require that an applicant for citizenship in them lack citizenship in another or have given up that citizenship. But the Russian government requires that Russians wishing to do that appear at Russian consulates or embassies, something they are loathe to do.

    Vadim Shtepa, who has lived in Estonia for a decade and edits the Region.Expert portal there, is one of the new emigres who has been caught up in this Catch 22 situation and is calling for a new approach, one that would extend in a modified form some kind of Nansen Passport or at least understanding to the current situation (region.expert/journalists-terrorists/).

    He acknowledges that the situation today is “completely different” than was the case in the 1920s. There has not been any rupture in state authority “because legally the Russian Federation still exists.” Consequently, other states can insist that those with Russian passports must follow its laws, even though that is “completely impossible” given how “wild” they are.

    In Soviet times, Moscow stripped those who left of their citizenship. If the Putin regime did something similar, Shtepa continues, “that would be ideal: I would immediately go to the migration department with my cancelled citizenship [in the Russian Federation] and apply for Estonian citizenship.”

    But Putin’s Russia “doesn’t deprive us of citizenship. On the contrary,” it insists that we are still its citizens and thus subject to its various fines and other punishments. “This is a more cunning and insidious policy,” Shtepa says, one that Western countries must take note of and consider how to counter, possibly with a modified Nansen Passport as a start system.  

Russian Commentators Adopt Updated Tactic of Soviet-Style Attacks on ‘Bourgeois Falsifiers’

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 17 – In Soviet times, Russian writers often attacked what they called “bourgeois falsifiers” of Soviet and Russian history, an approach that allowed them to avoid talking directly about domestic and émigré non-Russian critics of the official line and also at least on occasion introducing into Soviet discussions what Western writers had picked up.

    Having the Soviets apply that term to oneself became a point of pride for many Soviet specialists in the West who saw such attacks as confirmation of their positions and as bringing their ideas to a broader audience. Indeed, the prominent Sovietologist T.H. Rigby entitled the story of his life The Memoirs of a Bourgeois Falsifier (North Melbourne, 2019).

    Now, at a time when Putin is restoring so many other Soviet-era tradition, it is perhaps not surprising that his regime is doing this as well, choosing to attack Western writers rather than take up the sources they use and wittingly or not spreading their ideas to an audience inside the Russian Federation that might otherwise not have had access to them.

    The author of these lines has now been subject to such treatment. On the Don’t Tread on Me telegram channel, he has been denounced as “a well-known dismemberer’ of Russia” for his articles on the Orenburg corridor between the republics of the Middle Volga and Kazakhstan (t.me/dntreadonme/2098 reposted at centrasia.org/newsA.php?st=1744745220#gsc.tab=0).

    While I certainly enjoy collecting this latest epithet, far more important is the way that those employing it use their article to provide not only a detailed discussion of why the Orenburg corridor created by Stalin to block the Middle Volga from having the kind of external border that could have allowed them to pursue independence but also a useful map confirming that.

    The authors of this attack could have chosen to talk about Kazakh and Idel-Ural sources who have discussed the Orenburg corridor or even about Ukrainian interest in it as part of Kyiv’s efforts to weaken Russia. But by attacking me rather than covering them, the Don’t Tread on Me people can present this idea as having emerged from the hothouse of Western thinking.

    But while that may be the primary reason that this telegram channel has done that, there is another that may be far more important if not intentional. This attack on your humbler servant has brought the issue of the Orenburg Corridor to far more people than my writings over the years or even those of Kazakh, Idel-Ural and Ukrainian articles have.

    For background on this Corridor, see jamestown.org/program/the-orenburg-corridor-and-the-future-of-the-middle-volga/, jamestown.org/program/kazakh-nationalists-call-for-astana-to-absorb-orenburg-outraging-moscow/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/kyiv-views-middle-volga-and-north.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/tatars-and-bashkirs-must-recover.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/orenburg-corridor-threatens-russia-more.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/if-tatarstan-had-bordered-foreign.html.)

Moscow Must Forcibly Assimilate Migrants who Want to Remain in Russia Permanently, Ukhov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 16 – Russia stands “at a migration-demographic crossroads,” Ilya Ukhov says, and the future of the country depends on whether it chooses “multi-nationalism” which will lead to increasing problems of “a course of force assimilation so as to block elements alien to our ethno-cultural core.”

    The pro-Kremlin political scientist argues that if Russia were to choose multi-nationalism, that would lead to the formation of a series of closed communities, a loss of tax revenues, and the fragmentation of the country, something very few will support if they recognize that the survival of the country is at stake (vz.ru/opinions/2025/4/16/1326337.html).

    Consequently, Ukhov says, “the only way out can be forced ethno-cultural assimilation with a sharp increase in the level of representation in the public consciousness of Russians and other indigenous peoples of Russia, who have their own national territories only within our borders and in no other places.”

    Ukhov’s position may seem to offer indigenous peoples of Russia “who have their own national territories within our borders and in no other places” an improved status while declaring to all migrants that they must assimilate or agree to serious restrictions including the length of time they can remain in Russia.

    But in fact, Moscow’s behavior in the past suggests that a more hostile attitude toward non-Russian immigrants will be accompanied by more hostile one toward non-Russian indigenes, a pattern that will likely trigger precisely the kind of conflicts that Ukhov says his favored approach will avoid, albeit with the indigenous population rather than the migrants. 

Russian Community is Becoming the ‘Orthodox Popular Front,’ Lunkin Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 15 – Senior clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church have been close to an expressed support for the Russian Community ever since it was founded in 2020, but this week for the first time, the Holy Synod, the highest governing body of the ROC MP, formally took up the question as to whether the Church as a whole should support it.

    Archbishop Savva, the head of the Synod’s missionary department, made a formal presentation “On the Activity of the Russian Community Movement;” and the discussion which followed suggests that Patriarch Kirill and his church welcome the group in general although disagree with some of its actions (ng.ru/ng_religii/2025-04-15/9_593_patriarch.html).

    The ROC MP’s support for the Russian Community will further legitimize that movement and likely help it to increase its interrelationship with the powers that be. (For background, 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.)

    The most important commentary on what the Synod’s discussion of the Russian Community means both for the movement and the Church came from Roman Lunkin, a longtime specialist on religion in general and the ROC MP in particular who is the deputy director of the Moscow Institute of Europe.

    The scholar tells NG-Religii that “the Patriarchate usually tries not to show solidarity with any social movements.” But in this case it has made “an exception,” perhaps made, he suggests, because “in their ideology, the community members are an alternative to neo-paganism with its Slavic energy and corporatism.”

    Moreover, Lunkin continues, “it is important for Patriarch Kirill to show that his words enjoy public support” and that the head of the Moscow church views the Russian Community as “one of the stages in the development of a conservative social movement around the church,” both a sounding board and a popular branch.

    And as a result, “if you look at the goals of the Russian Community, it is in essence an Orthodox people’s front that both protects and resolves everyday problems.” How far this alliance will go remains to be seen, but to the extent that it is now clearly taking shape, it creates a new political force that may present problems both for the Kremlin and for the ROC MP too.

Moscow’s Failure to Build and Repair Roads on which Russia Increasingly Relies Exacerbating Tensions between Center and the Federal Subjects, Grashchenkov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 15 – The Russian government is now funding barely over 50 percent the amount its own program for repair and construction of roads during the rest of this decade, arteries on which the country increasingly relies; and that is seriously exacerbating tensions between the center and the federal subjects, Ilya Grashchenkov says.

    For most of the first 20 years of this century, the Russian government had fully funded its plans for road repair and construction and ensured that the share of roads meeting standards for transport of people and cargo rose, the head of the Moscow Center for Regional Politics rose (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-15/ilya-graschenkov-na-dorogi-ne-hvataet-deneg-5369966).

    But in the last four years and especially since the beginning of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow hasn’t continued to fund even its own targets for repair and construction and now has announced that it will fund only 58 percent of the figures it had set for the years up to 2030.

    And that cutback in financing has come at a time when the transportation ministry is reporting that “up to 65 percent of all cargo and 70 percent of all passengers are now transported by roads of all kinds, Grashchenkov continues. Traffic is likely to increase even as repairs and new roads are reduced in scale, leading to “’degradation’” of Russia’s transport system.

    This combination of roads in poor repair or not extended as planned and increasing traffic is hitting the
regions and republics outside of Moscow especially hard and it is becoming not only “a major social irritant” in them but also an additional source of tension between the governments of the federal subjects and Moscow, he warns in conclusion.

Moscow TV News Can ‘Flip Its Messages Overnight’ Because It Lacks any Ideological Constraints, Shepelin Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 14 – Many inside Russia and out were surprised when with the coming of Donald Trump to the US presidency, Moscow TV news flipped its coverage of America from unrelieved criticism to overwhelmingly positive praise. But they should not have been, Ilya Shepelin says.

    The former host of “Fake News” on TV Rain who currently tracks pro-Kremlin media said such shifts are inevitable because Moscow television news is “just a tool for pushing whatever narrative is needed at a precise moment” (cherta.media/interview/sejchas-zloradstvo-glavnyj-istochnik-dofamina/).

    Those preparing and delivering the news have “no ideological backbone” and thus “nothing to stop them from flipping its message overnight.” All its stories will inevitably be “a reaction to the moment with no regard for what came before or what might come next,” Shepelin continues.

    Playing to the emotions of the audience is central; and “there is no room for nuance. On every occasion, the message has to be either over-the-top negativity designed to stir up hate, or full-blown positivity, which,” the journalist says, “ironically also needs to stir up hate because even ‘good’ news as to feel like bad news for our enemies.”

    He describes how this works in Moscow’s coverage of the war in Ukraine but argues that that approach one based on selectivity, emotion, and a willingness to follow whatever the leader thinks he needs at any time is likely to be a feature of Russian TV news well into the future, something no one trying to understand what is going on must ever forget.

Russians are Creating Their Own Kind of Civil Society by Taking Actions to Get Around Foolish Decisions of the Powers that Be, Yury Dolgoruky Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble
    
    Staunton, Apr. 14 – Fifteen years ago, everyone talked about the desirability of creating a civil society in Russia; but they never defined just what such a society would look like in the Russian case. And then after the protests in 2011-2012, those in power decided no such society was needed; and Russians stopped talking about it, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says.

    But in the years since, Russians have continued to “demonstrate a high degree of adaptiveness and cooperation” of the kind many view as the core of civil society as they take action on their own in response to foolish decisions by those in power, the channel continues (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-14/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-vlasti-sozdayut-problemy-rossiyane-ih-reshayut-5369015).

    When the government tries to impose a ban on alcohol, they “buy vodka under the table;” and when it cuts back on bus routes, they hitchhike, the Yury Dolgoruky channel says. Moreover, the Russian people “collect money for medical treatment, install traffic lights at their own expense, and carry out ‘social gasification’ on their own.”

    But what sets the Russian version of civil society apart from others is that it doesn’t press the state to do things but rather responds to the mistakes of the state by taking action on its own, thereby creating a kind of civil society that few recognize but that may be the most appropriate for a country like Russia, the channel concludes.

    At some point, these self-organizing Russians may decide to pressure the government to deliver; but for the present, most of them seem to think, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel concludes, that those in power create problems and it is up to those who aren’t in that establishment to solve them, typically on their own.  

MGIMO, ‘the Hogwarts of Russia’s Foreign Policy Elite,’ Teaches Its Students to ;Speak Diplomacy’ but ‘Practice Coercion,’ One who Studied There but Left Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 14 – The Moscow State Institute of International Relations, known mst widely as MGIMO, is “the Hogwarts of Russia’s Foreign Policy Elite” where students are taught to “speak diplomacy” but “practice coercion,” according to Inna Bondarenko, who was one of their number but broke from them and now is a researcher in Europe.

    In an essay for The Moscow Times which also is in emigration, she argues that “unlike the West, where diplomats are usually brought up on liberal institutionalism … MGIMO teaches the opposite: offensive realism. Not the nuanced academic kind but its hardened, ossified version where power is truth, might makes right and ‘spheres of influence’ are gospel.”

    The entire article, available in English at themoscowtimes.com/2025/04/14/i-trained-with-russian-diplomats-i-can-tell-you-how-they-work-a88722, is worth close reading not only for what Bondarenko says about MGIMO’s program and the impact it has on its students but also for another reason, one that sadly is too often neglected in the West today.

    She makes the point that those like herself who experienced that kind of training and then were fortunate enough to be able to break with it represent an important set of knowledge for Western diplomats and others who have to deal with MGIMO graduates. Indeed, Bondarenko suggests that learning from them is the best way to defeat the Russians they must deal with.

In Some Parts of Russia, Fewer than Half of Residents Rate Inter-Ethnic Relations as Good, Magomedov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 14 – For years, Moscow has declared that three-quarters or even a greater share of Russian residents rate inter-ethnic relations as good, but Magomedsalam Magomedov, deputy head of the Presidential Administration, says that in some part of the country, fewer than half of the residents share that view.

    He also told a meeting of the leadership of the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs that the percentage of residents who expect the appearance of serious conflicts on an ethnic basis is high overall – 30.7 percent – is higher still in many regions and continues to grow  (fedpress.ru/news/77/policy/3374886).

    The highest levels of such concern are found, Magomedov continued, in Tyva, Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Sevastopol, Kamchatka Kray, Primorsky Kray, and the republic of Sakha and Dagestan, an indication that all is not well with regard to inter-ethnic relations in Russia despite Moscow’s claims to the contrary.

    At least some of these figures come from special polls conducted on order of the Presidential Administration and the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs. Magomedov’s decision to go public with them highlights the Kremlin’s growing concern about this situation and the need to do something about it before things explode.   

Putin Regime has Transformed ‘Foreign Agents’ into Full-Blown ‘Enemies of the People, Record Shows

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 14 – One of the secrets of Vladimir Putin’s success in moving toward the restoration of totalitarianism in Russia is the anecdote about the frog who jumps out of already hot water but will stay in water that gradually warms until it kills him. As Andrey Malgin shows, that is what it has done by transforming “foreign agents” into “enemies of the people.”

    The Russian writer who has lived abroad for the last 16 years notes that when Putin pushed through the law creating the category of “foreign agent” in 2012, the Kremlin leader told everyone that it was no more than the Russian version of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) (moscowtimes.ru/2025/04/14/kak-inostrannie-agenti-prevratilis-vo-vragov-naroda-a160905).

    That law was ostensibly directed only at NGOs receiving funds from abroad rather than at individuals, but six years later, it was extended to individuals, including those who did not receive funding from abroad but only were under some undefined influence from abroad, Malgin continues.  

    The number of organizations and individuals so classified by the Russian authorities remained relatively small. There were only 115 listed at the time of the launching of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022. But since then, the numbers have skyrocketed and the consequences of being classified a foreign agent have worsened.

    Individuals declared to be foreign agents were then prohibited from occupying positions in the government, from teaching, from participating in election campaigns and from organizing any public activities. Those who violated these bans were fined; and those fined twice in one year were subject to being sent to prison or the camps.

    In recent months, the situation has gotten worse: those who don’t turn themselves in for registration are fined as well, and the meaning of being under foreign influence has been expanded to the point that almost anyone can be found to be in that position. And new laws have extended its reach as well to those not under such influence but cooperate with those who are.

    In addition, Malgrin says, the authorities have taken steps to deprive those who are so classified of the ability to make a living either by publishing or by appearing in public. And now, some in the Duma want to confiscate the property of such people, effectively reducing them to a status no different from the enemies of the people in Soviet times. 

Regional Restrictions on Alcohol Sales in Russia Not Leading to Serious Decline in Consumption of Hard Liquor or Surrogates

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 13 – A Duma law allowing Russia’s federal subjects to restrict the sale of alcohol, a step 16 of them have taken, has not led to a serious decline in consumption of hard liquor but rather to a crazy quilt of regulations that in the absence of real reforms allows officials to claim real progress without making any.

    That is the conclusion of experts surveyed by journalist Kiri Delivoriya of the Versiya news agency who say that officials need the tax revenue they get from alcohol sales too much and are quite prepared to look the other way as retailers sell hard liquor under the table (versia.ru/zaprety-na-prodazhi-spirtnogo-grozyat-privesti-k-nelegalnoj-torgovle-i-rostu-korrupcii).

    In many places, officials have opened more licensed stores even as they have restricted the hours alcohol can be sold. The officials need the money both for their own projects and to support local sports teams. But the whole exercise looks like yet another example of pokazuka, an effort designed to make an impression rather than to achieve other more serious goals.  

    Moreover, these officials have done little or nothing to prevent Russians who can’t easily get liquor directly or indirectly from legal suppliers to turn to people who can supply them with samogon, the Russian term for home-made booze, or for surrogates which may be even more dangerous.

    As a result, what data is available shows that Russian continue to consume more hard liquor per capita each year than the WHO says is genetically harmful in addition to growing quantities of wine and beer which push that figure still higher and lead to more illnesses and deaths.

    The experts tell Delivoriya that with Moscow’s support, regional officials are repeating most of the same mistakes that occurred during Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign, getting good numbers to report to the center but failing to take the various steps necessary to wean Russians off from their dependence on vodka and other forms of hard liquor.

Ingush Committee Asks Major IT Companies to Support National Language by Providing Translation Function

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 14 – The Committee on Ingush Independence which does not seek that status but rather to be prepared for it should it come has called on major international IT companies to support the Ingush language by including it within the translation functions, an indication of just how important such functions are to non-Russian nations.

    In its appeal, the committee says “glalglay mott [the Ingush language] is not just a means of communication for the Ingush. It is what connects us without history and ancestors … It is something that we will cease to exist as a people if we do not have” (abn.org.ua/en/liberation-movements/digitalization-as-a-method-of-saving-the-ingush-language/).

    For its efforts to get Ingushetia ready for independence when and if it comes, the Committee has been declared an “undesirable” organization by the Russian government. (For that decision and background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/05/moscow-declares-committee-of-ingush.html.)

    An increasing number of languages of the non-Russian nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation are now included in the translation function of many IT providers. But some are not, and the quality of these services varies widely. This Ingush action is a clear indication many of these peoples understand that being on such lists is critical.

    And for all people of good will everywhere who do not want to see the languages of these peoples and their survival as nations disappear, outcomes threatened by Putin’s broadscale attack on the non-Russians, this should be a call to action to demand that IT providers ensure that all such groups who want translation functions get them.  

Ambulance Services Failing to Get Russians to Hospitals Made More Distant by Putin’s Healthcare ‘Optimization’ Plan

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 13 –Putin’s healthcare “optimization” program has led to the closure of hospitals and medical points across Russia, an outcome that has made it more difficult for those who need care to get the treatment they need. That has been well-documented. But now problems with Russia’s ambulance services are compounding that problem.

    According to activists, experts and some Duma members, many ambulances are no longer arriving within the prescribed 20-minute time in cities or at all in rural areas, despite healthcare ministry claims to the contrary. That has contributed to much suffering and even death (versia.ru/v-minzdrave-zakryvayut-glaza-na-razval-skoroj-pomoshhi-v-regionax).

    The reasons for this include low salaries for medical workers on ambulances, bad roads, and the need to travel ever greater distances because of healthcare optimization. The last factor may be especially important and should be factored in by anyone analyzing what is happening to Russian healthcare as a result of Putin’s effort to find money for war.  
 

Birthrates in North Caucasus have Now Fallen to Below All-Russian Level

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 12 – For decades, birthrates in the Muslim republics of the North Caucasus were far higher than those in ethnic Russian parts of the country, a pattern Moscow relied on to keep the population of the Russian Federation growing but one that many Russians feared was changing its ethnic mix.

    Now, however, something unexpected has happened, the number of births in the Muslim republics of the North Caucasus and also in Buddhist Kalmykia which neighbors them has fallen below the all-Russian average during the first two months of this year (akcent.site/novosti/40264).

    During January and February 2025, births across the region from a year earlier, the result, surveys say, of the fears of people there about the future and about their having sufficient incomes and resources to support a family (stav.aif.ru/society/person/brat-chechnyu-v-primer-zhenshchiny-ne-hotyat-rozhat-dazhe-na-kavkaze).

    The number of births was down by almost five percent in Ingushetia and North Ossetia, by seven percent in Chechnya, and by ten percent in Kalmykia, all figures significantly greater than the three percent decline for Russia as a whole and ones that will have their own echo in the future because there will be fewer North Caucasian women who will be potential mothers.

    Russian nationalists may celebrate this development because it will reduce the growth in the share of Muslims in the population of the country as a whole, but Russian economists and officials will not because it means that they will have to find workers elsewhere and the population of the country as a whole will decline even more rapidly than has been predicted.

Crime Far From Most Serious Threat Russian Veterans of Ukrainian War Represent, Russian Commentator Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 12 – Russian commentators and even officials have been discussing the likelihood that when veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine return home, there will be a dramatic upsurge in violent crime (jamestown.org/program/russia-faces-upsurge-in-crime-as-veterans-return-from-ukraine/).

    But Insider writer Anton Pavlovich argues that history suggests returning veterans may present more serious threats including even to the survival of the social system and political regime that brought them home, possibilities that must be very much on the mind of Kremlin officials even if they aren’t talking about them (theins.ru/history/280009).

    Veterans, he points out, “not infrequently become a significant political force,” most famously in Germany after World War I when they became not only “the lost generation” Remarque and others described “but also in the end contributed to the coming to power of the Nazis led by Hitler.”

    Russia faces the possibility of something similar, he suggests. At the very least, the danger is far greater than what happened after the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The number of Russians who have fought in Ukraine is far larger, and the number who have died or been wounded far greater as well.

    Even the Afghan war, “had a colossal influence on Soviet and Russian society,” Pavlovich continues, with veterans forming an important part of the criminal world in the 1990s and generals like [Aleksandr] Lebed and [Aleksandr] Rutskoy becoming “key figures of Russian politics in their time.”

    Now as the end of the Ukraine war appears to be approaching, veterans have already formed “de facto” a new social group in Russia, “’the SVO participants’ or to use a more familiar term, front-line soldiers whose ideas about their own place in society are unlikely to correspond to the reality” they will be asked to reintegrate into.

    Consequently, “the probability that those coming back from the front will form a lost generation in Russia now is high” and the risk that they may behave as German veterans did after 1918 too great to be dismissed out of hand. Putin wants to integrate them by giving them political jobs, but the reality is this: there aren’t enough such jobs to go around.

    “Since neither state corporations nor the civil service has enough vacancies to employee everyone who fought, the only real way to support them is to provide them with various benefits .. but that will only increase the discord between the veterans and the civilian population,” likely radicalizing both still further.

    But as the experience of Germany in the 1920s shows, Pavlovich says, “the masses themselves give birth to leaders, and both the leader of the Red Front, communist [Ernst] Thälmann and the Nazi leader Adolph Hitler appeared literally out of nowhere.” Something similar could happen in Russia when the troops come home.

Three Buryats Named to Senior Positions in Chukotka, with One Even Changing Her Name Beforehand

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 13 – Three senior Buryat officials have been transferred to even more senior posts in the Chukchi Autonomous District, an enormous land in the extreme far northeast of the Russian Federation but one that has fewer than 50,000 residents and has long been governed by outsiders.

        But those outsiders have typically been ethnic Russians either from Moscow or from Russian regions in Siberia or even west of the Urals. That makes this latest move noteworthy because it suggests the Kremlin may be operating with a new model of rule, one that assigns some larger non-Russian republics an expanded role in ruling their neighbors.

        If that is the case, then it could set a precedent for something Ramzan Kadyrov very much wants, the insertion of Chechen officials loyal to him in positions of responsibility in Ingushetia, Dagestan, and perhaps other North Caucasus republics, a development with potentially far-reaching consequences.

    And that could set the stage for regional amalgamation or the formation of regional unions that might play a far larger role in Russian politics in the future than has been the case since first Boris Yeltsin and then Vladimir Putin suppressed regional moves like the Urals Republic and Siberian Agreement.

    The three Buryats who have been named to senior posts in Chukotka are Aryuna Baykova, who will oversee education in the autonomous district, Irina Maksimova, who has been named acting deputy governor, and Aleksey Togoshiyev, who will head media relations for the governor and government of Chukotka (baikal-daily.ru/news/19/498004/).

    The most senior and most intriguing of these appointments is that of Maksimova, who was known until recently as Buryat journalist Irina Badlayeva before changing her name to Irina Suzdaltseva and now changing it again before going to Chukotka to the more Russianized one (newbur.ru/newsdetail/byvshiy_zhurnalist_buryatii_smenila_familiyu_i_nashla_rabotu_v_pravitelstve_chukotki/).

    Exactly what is going on here is unknown. It may be only that in a federal subject with as few people as Chukotka, it is difficult to find enough administrative cadres and in one so far from Moscow hard to find ethnic Russians willing to move so far away. But naming three people from one other republic more or less simultaneously is unprecedented and needs to be monitored.

Russian and Chinese Aggressiveness an Objective Requirement of Their Rulers and ‘a Kind of Rebirth of Leninist Idea of World Revolution,’ Savvin Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 11 – Dimitry Savvin, the editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian portal, Harbin, says that the aggressiveness of Moscow and Beijing are the product of the objective requirements of their rulers and represent “a kind of rebirth of the Leninist idea of world revolution.”

    According to him, “in the early 1990s, it seemed that totalitarian regimes were becoming a thing of the past” and that “the communist system was either collapsing or undergoing a liberal market transformation.” But “as very sad historical experience has shown,” that was not the case (harbin.lv/prichiny-vneshney-ekspansii-neokommunisticheskikh-i-neosovetskikh-rezhimov).

    What happened then was “not a fall at all” of communism but rather “just another mutation,” Savvin says; and “the neo-communist and neo-Soviet systems have not only survived and stabilized but also beginning their external expansion” to meet the need of their elites to remain in power by destroying those forces abroad that would otherwise defeat and oust them.

    Lenin believed in a world revolution because he recognized that if he did not defeat the forces of liberalism and the free market, he would never be able to construct socialism, a position that those who followed him continued, despite some twists and turns including a belief that socialist countries would win out during an extended period of peaceful competition.

    But it became obvious that an arrangement of unlimited dictatorship with a relatively free market could not last for long; and for a brief time in both Russia and China it appeared that those holding dictatorial power would cede it in order to take advantage of free markets and not be pushed into the dustbin of history.

    In the 1990s, Savvin continues, it looked like that was happening: “The Russian Federation officially rejected Marxist-Leninist ideology and the in the Chinese Peoples Republic was confirmed ‘wild capitalism under a red flag.’” But in both, “the previous ruling stratum and previous apparatus of power was retained.”

    Rulers in both places know,” the conservative writer says, that “the neo-NEP of Bukharin and Deng Xiaoping can’t compete peacefully with liberal democracy and the market system. Sooner of later, the neo-NEP will lose.” Moreover, “isolationism is not an option: it can only delay the catastrophe for a few decades.”

    That confronts the two elites with a choice: “either to accept the obvious and natural, beginning the smooth dismantling of the neo-Soviet and neo-communist system to quietly and peacefully "leave history;" or to continue the struggle with military methods - on a global scale with the goal of destroying liberal democracy and the market economy on the planet as a whole.

    Given that the odds the leaders in Moscow and Beijing will chose to give up power and leave the scene on their on volition is vanishingly small, Savvin continues, what the world is confronted with is almost certainly “a second edition of the concept of a world revolution” carried out by leaders who are prepared to do anything to maintain their power.

    “If the Free World, in the person of its elites and its intelligentsia does not recognize this danger,” Savvin concludes, “then in the course of several decades it may simply cease to exist.”

‘Yes, There was Sex in the USSR’ Focus of New Book-Length Study

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 11 – One of the most famous and widely repeated statement to come out of the USSR was the declaration by Ludmila Ivanova who declared in the course of a Soviet-American telebridge in July 1986 that “we have no sex [in the USSR] and we are strictly opposed to it.”

    That immediately became both the subject of mirth because everyone including presumably Ivanova herself knew that wasn’t true but also evidence in the minds of many Russians and others of just how out of touch with reality the Soviet leadership was at least in words if not, of course, in action.

    Now, Rustam Aleksandr, a Russian scholar at the University of Melbourne, demonstrates just how out of touch the Soviet government was in a new book entitled There was Sex: Intimate Life in the Soviet Union (https://individuum.ru/books/seks-byl-intimnaya-zhizn-sovetskogo-soyuza/; reviewed by Semyon Vladimirov at meduza.io/feature/2025/04/08/seks-byl-novaya-kniga-rustama-aleksandera-ob-intimnoy-zhizni-v-sovetskom-soyuze).

     Aleksandr attracted widespread attention for 2022 study of homosexuality in the USSR, a book entitled The Closeted: The Life of Homosexuals in the Soviet Union, which has now been translated into English (meduza.io/episodes/2023/03/14/govorim-ob-istorii-lgbt-v-sssr-snachala-bolsheviki-dali-soobschestvu-polnuyu-svobodu-a-potom-uvideli-v-nem-shpionov-i-rastliteley-armii-i-flota and books.google.com/books/about/Red_Closet.html).

    According to Vladimirov, Aleksandr’s three most important conclusions are that Soviet society was puritanical except at the beginning and the end, that Soviet law enforcement was less obsessed with sex than were party officials, and that there were a large number of Soviet academics who tried to pull back the veil of secrecy on sex the Kremlin wanted maintained.

    His new book helps to explain why the Putin regime has moved in the directions it has, simultaneously allowing more sexual activity of various kinds than was the case earlier but presenting itself as a defender of traditional values, including hostility to the very kinds of behaviors its members likely favor and participate in.

With Talk of Peace, Russians Massively Signing Up for Military Service Apparently Hoping to Get Big Bonuses and Credit for Volunteering at Less Risk of Having to Fight

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 11 – Since talks about an end to the fighting in Ukraine began earlier this year, Russians are signing up in unprecedented numbers, apparently in the hopes of getting the sign-up bonuses still being offered and credit for doing so without the risk of actually going into battle.

    That conclusion is suggested by two new articles which report that both in the regions and in Moscow, the number of men signing up has gone from a few dozen a day to more than a hundred since talk of peace in Ukraine has become more frequent (verstka.media/v-moskve-rezko-vyroslo-chislo-zhelayushhih-podpisat-kontrakt-s-minoborony and sibreal.org/a/na-fone-peregovorov-o-mire-v-regionah-naraschivayut-kampaniyu-po-naboru-kontraktnikov-/33362214.html).

    As both report, Russian officials are celebrating these increases as evidence of growing patriotism and the impact of the government’s propaganda machine; but in fact, they point to just the reverse, the way in which Russians are asking what’s in it for them and seeking to game the system to their individual benefit.

    There are likely at least a few in the Kremlin who understand that and who recognize that this does not bode well if Putin does not end the fighting in Ukraine soon or tries to launch another war without better justification – and there should be some in Western governments who realize what this means in terms of Putin’s negotiating position.

Conflict between Estonian Government and Moscow Church Intensifies

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 11 – The Estonian parliament has adopted a law that requires that what had been the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate not only change its name and end its financial and administrative ties to the Moscow Patriarchate but sever its canonical ones to that church and subordinate itself to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

    Both the Estonian Orthodox Christian Church as the EOC MP is now known as a result of earlier Tallinn actions and the Moscow Patriarchate are outraged at what they both see as unwarranted and illegal state intervention in the religious life of the church and say they cannot and will not agree (ru/faith/2025-04-10/1_9232_lawabiding.html).

    Once the measure is signed into law, the EOCC will have two months to comply. If it doesn’t, its parishes and religious establishment will lose their status as legal persons in Estonia, cease to be able to own property or maintain bank accounts, and the church will be “liquidated” by the Estonian government.

    That will be the definitive end of what had been the Estonian “compromises” under which there have been two Orthodox churches in Estonia since the 1990s, one subordinate to Moscow and one to Constantinople. Many hope that the  EOCC will fuse with the Constantinople church.

    That is possible, but it is also possible that EOCC parishes and bishoprics will go .underground and become a source of new tensions between Moscow and Estonia, with the Moscow Patriarchate leading demands that the Kremlin do something to protect what the Patriarchate believes is part of “the Russian world.”

    On the complex history of Orthodoxy in recent years, a history whose tensions have been exacerbated by Putin’s war in Ukraine, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/tallinn-set-to-demand-moscow-church-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/tallinn-pushes-hard-to-end-estonian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/estonian-orthodox-church-of-moscow.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/moscow-patriarchs-policies-making.html.

Russians as Old as 60 May Soon Be Counted as ‘Young,’ Possibly Presaging Radical Increase in Retirement Ages

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 10 – Over the last several weeks, senior Russian officials have proposed changing the definition of young people in their country to include people as old as 60, a move that could presage a radical increase in retirement ages, easing Russia’s worker shortage and reducing the amount the government must spend in support of retirees.

    Gennady Onishchenko, vice president of the Russian Academy of Education, favors boosting the upper limit of the young to 40. Healthcare minister Mikhail Murashko wants to boost it to 44; and Veronika Skvortsova, head of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency, seeks to raise it to 60 (nakanune.ru/articles/123373/).

    Their proposals come after the World Health Organization suggested raising the upper limit of the young to 44 and after the Russian government boosted the age from 30 to 35 in 2020 and has been talking about shifting it upwards again to 40 or even higher because people are living longer and are healthier for more years than ever before.  

    While some may dismiss these ideas as ridiculous, some experts are suggesting that the Kremlin is behind them and wants to use an increase in the upper limit of the young as the basis for increasing retirement ages in Russia, thus solving many of its labor shortage problems and reducing the pension burden on the state.

    Among those is Yury Krupnov of the Moscow Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development. He suggests that the Russian government might use such an increase to boost retirement ages to as much as 75 or even more in its pursuit of expanding the workforce and limiting the growth in the number of pensioners.

    Given how angry Russians have been about any increase in pension ages in the past, that possibility is likely to spark for anger, dissent and even open protests if the boost in the upper age limit of the young goes through – and if it becomes obvious that Moscow is doing this not to come into line with the WHO but to make Russians work more years before getting pensions.  

Russia Launches First Super Icebreaker with No Foreign Components

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 11 – Russia has launched the Yakutiya, the fourth super icebreaker in its new class of such ships – the Artika, Ural and Sibir are already underway, the Chukotka and Leningrad are under construction, and the keel of the Stalingrad is to be laid later this year – but the first to be assembled without any foreign-produced components.

    That fact may be of particular importance to Vladimir Putin who has declared that the Northern Sea Route, which requires icebreakers to operate, is equivalent to the Trans-Siberian Railway as far as Russia’s economic and geopolitical future are concerned (thebarentsobserver.com/news/latest-nuclearpowered-icebreaker-steams-north/428022).

    What if any constraints the lack of foreign components will place on the new ship is as yet unknown, despite Russian suggestions that Moscow can do without such systems; but the electronics on a ship like the avionics on an airplane are seldom visible at first but may become the most important in operations.

    But it seems clear that these limitations may be important after all, given Russia’s troubled history of building ships and Putin’s own call this week for opening Arctic shipping to international cooperation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/moscow-facing-growing-problems-with-itshtml and thebarentsobserver.com/news/belligerent-putin-raises-his-bets-in-the-arctic/427497).

Kyiv Views Middle Volga and North Caucasus as Likely to Be First Regions to Become Independent of Moscow

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 11 – Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a senior member of the Verkhovna Rada, says that he and others in Kyiv view the peoples of the Middle Volga and the North Caucasus as the nations most likely to be the first to secure independence from Moscow and thus must be the focus of Ukrainian efforts to speed that process.

    He says that the independence of the peoples now within the borders of the Russian Federation is critical for Ukraine because once Kyiv recovers its land up to the 1991 border, it must have relations with partners committed to independence rather than face a totalitarian state opposed to its existence (ukr.radio/news.html?newsID=107066 reposed and translated at abn.org.ua/en/liberation-movements/ukraine-is-trying-to-prepare-the-elite-of-the-enslaved-nations-of-russia-yurchyshyn/).

    Yurchyshyn says Kyiv has two other tasks in this area: providing Ukrainians with more information about the peoples within the borders of the Russian Federation and convincing Western countries that Russia’s disintegration won’t lead to nuclear war but rather become the very best course to achieving lasting peace.

    That Yurchyshyn should talk about the importance of transforming what is now the Russian Federation, about the significance of improving the understanding of the Ukrainian people about the peoples within the borders of that country, and about the requirement that Kyiv help convince the West that the demise of Russia as a requirement for peace is no surprise.

    But one thing that he did say may come as a surprise: his belief that Tatarstan and the other peoples of the Middle Volga will be among the first to leave the Russian Federation and gain independence given that they are surrounded by what Moscow has proclaimed “Russian” regions and thus do not have direct access to other countries.

    Yurchyshyn’s mention of the Middle Volga region and Tatarstan in particular suggests that Kyiv is increasing its focus on what some have called the Orenburg corridor, the land between Bashkortostan and Idel Ural in the north and Kazakhstan in the south, a narrow strip of land that represents the land bridge that would make independence possible.

    Kyiv has talked about this in the past. That it is returning to this issue now is something worth watching. (For background on this issue, see jamestown.org/program/kazakh-nationalists-call-for-astana-to-absorb-orenburg-outraging-moscow/, jamestown.org/program/the-orenburg-corridor-and-the-future-of-the-middle-volga/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/tatars-and-bashkirs-must-recover.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/ukrainian-interest-in-orenburg-corridor.html.) 

   That the Ukrainian parliamentarian did not mention the Ukrainian regions inside the Russian Federation known as "wedges" does not mean that they are not on Kyiv's radar screen but only that raising that issue in the current environment would allow Moscow to denounce Kyiv as "imperialist." (On these regions, see jamestown.org/program/moscow-worried-about-ukrainian-wedges-in-russia-and-their-growing-support-from-abroad/, jamestown.org/program/kyiv-raises-stakes-by-expanding-appeals-to-ukrainian-wedges-inside-russia/ and jamestown.org/program/the-kuban-a-real-wedge-between-russia-and-ukraine/.)

Embarrassment, Anger, and Pride Prompting Chuvash Activists to Try to Save Their Language

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 10 – Embarrassed that they don’t know their national language when members of other nations know theirs, angry that Russian officials and Russian speakers generally treat them as inferior, and pride in their own nation and its past are combining to prompt ever more Chuvash to take actions to try to save their language.

    Members of the one million-strong Christian Turkic nation of the Middle Volga, two-thirds of whom live in their titular republic and have watched the use of their language decline dramatically over the last decade, are taking a variety of actions to change that last trend, the Regional Aspect portal says (regaspect.info/2025/04/11/vse-my-russkie/).

    In a 4,000-word article which has its title “Are we all Russians?” from the experience of some Chuvash who sing a song entitled “We are all Chuvash” translated by a Russian into “We are all Russians,” their various paths in life to this point and their current efforts are described in detail.

    In Soviet times, Chuvash was not taught in most schools; but from the 1990s to 2017, it was a required subject and 84 percent of all pupils studied it. Now, after Putin’s decision to make the study of non-Russian languages completely voluntary, the share has fallen to less than half, something that puts the future of Chuvash at risk but is also angering many.

    The older generation, especially in the villages, still knows Chuvash, but it has done little to pass it on to their children. And one of the most remarkable aspects of the rebirth of interest in Chuvash is that it has come from and been led by young adults who feel they have been deprived of an important part of who they are.

    Many of those involved are teachers of other languages who have been shocked into what it means that they don’t know their own. One Chuvash student of Esperanto who is now a leading Chuvash activist was challenged by another Esperanto speaker with the question: “Do you know that if you don’t learn Chuvash, in 50 years, your language will be dead?”

    Others have come to linguistic activism through art and music because of their familiarity with the way in which those aspects of life are interconnected with language. A karaoke program is getting more people to learn Chuvash, and Internet courses have sprung up to teach Chuvash to people not only in the republic but far beyond it.

    But perhaps the most striking characteristic of this new language movement is the gender of those leading it. Until a few generations ago, Chuvash culture  was completely patriarchal; but now it has acquired a woman’s face, activists say – and the leaders of this linguistic and cultural revival are almost exclusively female.

Russia Lacks Enough Ethnic Specialists to Address Nationality Issues, Duma Told

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 10 – The Russian Federation currently lacks the number of ethnic specialists needed to address nationality issues, participants in a hearing of the Duma Committee on Nationality Affairs said; and without them, it will be difficult for Moscow to address them successfully.

     Academician Valery Tishkov, former nationalities minister and former director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, said that having enough such experts is critical for solving a large number of domestic and foreign policy tasks (nazaccent.ru/content/43808-v-gosdume-zayavili-o-nehvatke-kadrov-v-sfere-mezhnacionalnyh-otnoshenij-i-etnologii/ and t.me/v_v_ivanov_z/2601).

    Vladimir Ivanov., chairman of the Duma committee said that to address the shortage, an effective system of the preparation of scholarly workers, instructors and specialists in this area must be developed, the outlines of which he suggested had been set by a labor ministry directive already in 2018.

    This year, Ivanov continued, work is continuing on that project with particular attention being given to economic development projects in the Far East and Far North, a focus that means more ethnic specialists must be drawn from the numerically smaller peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East.

    While those participating in this session were expressing positions that reflected their particular interests, the fact that this subject is now being discussed again at the Duma level indicates that the powers that be in Moscow are increasingly concerned about developments affecting ethnic relations that have been arising below the radar screen of the regime.

    The author of these lines, however much he disagrees with Moscow’s policies and the positions some of the scholars at this Duma meeting have taken on various issues, remains proud that in the early 1990s, he oversaw a program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to encourage young Russian ethnographers to remain in the field.

    That program lasted only for two or three years, but it came at a time when many aspirant in Moscow were leaving the field for more lucrative jobs elsewhere. If only a few stayed because of it, I am pleased as I recognize how important it is for countries like Russia to have expertise on ethnic issues. 

Putin’s Russia Now ‘an Empire on Autopilot’ whose Fragmentation Must Be Overcome or whose Disintegration is Inevitable, Siberian Activist Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 10 – Russia today is a country deeply split between a capital “getting rich as an offshore jurisdiction” and the rest which is “getting poor as a forgotten province” and one being run as “an empire on autopilot” rather than the center making any effort to “defragment” things, a Siberian activist says. Unless that changes, Russia’s disintegration is inevitable.

    In an anonymous article for the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal, a writer who describes herself as “a Pomor Siberian Woman” says that the two Russias, one in Moscow and the rest beyond the ring road, now are at “a socio-political divide” with neither seeking to unite with the other (region.expert/autopilot/).

    Moscow is running the country as if on “autopilot,” talking about stability rather than development; and the Russia outside its limits takes payments and orders from the center but tries to go about its own life on its own, she continues. These two “’states’ cooperate ever less often.”

    The Siberian activist points out that pPoor regions are fed by budget injections, military orders and promises of development. But these are not investments – they are rations and a form of pacification. And temporary one at that” as they are not about growth but only “a delay in decay.”

    Indeed, “when economic policy is based on emissions and forced patriotism rather than on increasing productivity and modernization, the result is always the same: degradation. And Russia has already entered it that stage. Only it does not look like a collapse, but like disintegration.”

    As a result, Putin’s much-ballyhooed “power vertical” is “still alive; but it increasingly resembles a steel cable stretched to the limit, one that still holds but dos not integrate,” one that continues to “connect but does not unite.” As for the population outside of Moscow, it doesn’t protest massively but rather seeks to live “in personal isolation” taking and doing what it can.

    The center could move to end this fragmentation and unite the country by promoting development, but that would represent a break with its past practice and seems unlikely. And by remaining on “autopilot,” it is reducing federalism to “a decoration” and making it ever more likely that the regions will ignore the center as best they can.

    As for the regions, they now “live in a regime of colonial dependence: political, financial and linguistic. It is not surprising that it is from there, from the periphery, that timid voices about political subjectivity are increasingly being heard. We are not talking about revolutions yet but rather about the gradual peeling off of one’s own meanings from loyalty to the former whole.”

    One might hope that this system would one day “transform itself from within, democratically and painlessly” were it not for the fact that over the last century, that system has “refuted this assumption with enviable regularity” with Moscow responding to calls for unity “not with dialogue but with mobilization,” like an empire rather than a modern state.

    The real question, the Siberian writer says, is whether this disintegration will be managed or not. Given Moscow’s track record, the likelihood is that it will not; but the regions have an interest in having it managed lest they end up in a situation as bad or even worse than the one they find themselves in today.

Kremlin Helping Lukashenka Repress Belarusians by Including More than 4700 of Them on Russian Wanted List

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 9 – Vladimir Putin has benefitted throughout his time as Russian president by the constant references in Russian and foreign media to Alyaksandr Lukashenka as “the last dictator in Europe,” an epithet which distracts attention from the fact that Putin is far more repressive than the Belarusian dictator.

    But now there is new evidence that Putin is providing his fellow dictator with the kind of assistance that allows Lukashenka to repress his own people and remain in power. The Kremlin leader has put the name of more than 4700 Belarusians on Russia’s wanted list (mediazonaby.com/article/2025/04/09/wanted_again).

    This means that these people will be sought not just by Belarusian siloviki in Belarus but by Russian ones in Russia and that the two force structures will now work hand in glove to repress those who oppose the Belarusian leader, something for which Putin must be held accountable.

    That is an increase of more than 1200 over the last five months alone, Media.Zona reports; and Putin’s willingness shows just how far he is prepared to go to support his fellow dictator given that many of those added to the list have been identified by Belarusian activists and human rights organizers as victims of political persecution.

    Until the very end of 2022, there were never more than a handful added in any one month. Then more than 200 were added in December of that first year of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine; and since then, the number of Belarusians on this list has increased often by 200 or more each month.

    Those who continue to talk about Lukashenka as “the last dictator in Europe” should be disabused by this and recognize that he is one of several, including Vladimir Putin, who are working against democracy and human rights and deserve that description at least as much as Lukashenka.

Kremlin Continue Moves against Telegram Channels in a Deniable Way and Far from Moscow

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 9 – Having decided that telegram channels are more of a threat than a useful ally, the Kremlin has launched a campaign to destroy their audience base by making them harder and potentially more dangerous to access – and continues to do so first and foremost by organizing denial of service outages in regions far from Moscow.

    The Kremlin’s attack on the VChK-OGPU channel was itself surrounded by enough confusion that many were unwilling to place the blame on Putin and his regime for the blockage (meduza.io/news/2025/04/07/telegram-otritsaet-chto-kanal-vchk-ogpu-byl-udalen-administratsiey-messendzhera).

    But as it has moved beyond the attack, it has undermined this news venue, one popular with Russians (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/russians-attracted-to-pro-regime-media.html) by orchestrating outages far from Moscow, first in the North Caucasus and now in Siberia (newizv.ru/news/2025-04-09/vechnoe-soedinenie-rossiyane-soobschili-o-massovom-sboe-v-telegram-436513).

    That allows the Kremlin to escape criticism from media rights organizations, most of which are based in Moscow or now abroad and perhaps more important to avoid generating the kind of protest among Russians who are increasingly concerned about media freedom (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/freedom-of-speech-now-far-more.html).

    Moreover, it is far easier for Moscow to take such moves in the regions because there, a single company. typically based in the capital, controls the

Moscow Increases Repression of Erzya, Seeking to Crush that Nation’s Traditional Ruling Structure and Replace It with One the Center Controls

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 9 – As it has done with other minorities, the Russian government is seeking to suppress the traditional structure of the Erzya nation and replace it with a pocket body fully controlled by Moscow and its agents. That effort, like so many Kremlin ones, is proving counterproductive because it is so blatant and is sparking more Erzya activism.

    The Erzya is one of two nations Moscow has grouped together as Mordvins in a Middle Volga republic named for that creation. The Erzya form approximately a third of this Soviet-established nation, but the Moksha as the other is known are far more dominant than that figure might suggest.

    Not surprisingly the Erzya have been the more active of the two and far more opposed to both the republic government and the Russian one, although it recent times, the Moksha have become more active as well. Moscow has moved against both, but it has become especially active in seeking to suppress the Erzya.

    The latest Russian moves involve bringing to trial two senior Erzya leaders, putting Erzya leaders in exile on a watch list and creating an alternative to the Erzya’s traditional organization and insisting that this new body and not the one which enjoys authority among the Erzya will be recognized (indigenous-russia.com/archives/43152).

    There is no sign that these actions have intimidated the Erzya and at least some that they have sufficiently outraged that Finno-Ugric nation that Moscow is going to come out the loser in this latest move on the extremely complicated chessboard of politics not only in Mordvinia but in the Middle Volga region more general.

    For background on the Erzya and the emergence of their national movement over the last few years, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/erzya-national-movement-most-active-and.html,windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/putin-pursuing-russification-only-as.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/erzyan-national-movement-recognizes.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/erzya-congress-calls-for-pursuing.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/09/russian-repression-forces-finno-ugric.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/08/erzyan-emigre-leader-calls-on-west-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/04/erzya-can-survive-pandemic-but-not.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/03/as-mordvins-approach-majority-status-in.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/ethnic-divisions-among-those-moscow.html.

    For background on the Moksha and their increasingly active national movement, one whose relationship with the Erzya may very well change as a result of Moscow’s moves against the Erzya, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/08/mordvinias-moksha-nation-issues.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/emigre-mokshas-unite-to-fight-against.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/mordovias-erzya-and-moksha-look-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/moksha-emigration-comes-ou t-against-war.html and especially windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/03/as-mordvins-approach-majority-status-in.html.

Freedom of Speech Now Far More Important for Russians than It was at Start of Putin’s Reign – and That’s a Problem for the Kremlin Leader, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 9 – When Putin first came to power and began his assault on the media, many Russians sided with him rather than with outlets like NTV because they placed their hopes in the new president to improve their lives and associated the liberal media with a past that they wanted to escape, Abbas Gallyamov says.

    That pattern defined how many opposition figures still view Russian attitudes about media freedom, the Russian commentator says; but these are no longer appropriate because Russians don’t place their hopes in the aging Kremlin leader but instead see a free media as a means to improve things (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/7589 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67F6AEB633F66).

    And thus, Russians now see Putin’s attacks on the media, including most recently on Telegram channels, as attacks on them, something that is driving down their support for him and even creating a revolutionary situation because many revolutions begin with concerns about the ability of the media to report the truth.

    Over the last decade, the former Putin speechwriter says, the importance of media freedom for Russians has risen in polls seeking information on what things matter most to them even as the significance of material goods have fallen, Gallyamov says, something neither Putin or most of the opposition fully appreciate.

    In a 2017 survey, only 34 percent of Russians said that freedom of speech was among the most important issues for them. But by 2019, it had risen to 58 percent; and by 2021, it reached 61 percent, almost twice the figure of only four years earlier and a clear majority of the Russian population.

    In part as a result, Putin has been losing popularity; and he has decided that he “can’t count on anything other than repression, even though it needs to be understood that today, the actions of the authorities in this regard are at odds with the values of the majority of the citizens. That means in turn that people’s loyalty will continue to fall.”

    According to Gallyamov, “it is precisely these thing which will lead to the formation of a revolutionary situation as it is well known that dissatisfaction with censorship and the demand for freedom of speech have been at the root of many revolutions from the Great French Revolution to the events of the Arab Spring.”

Ever More Russian Companies Behind in Paying Their Workers, Harming Employees and Other Employers

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 7 – A problem that plagued the Russian economy in the 1990s is now returning, with ever more Russian companies behind in paying their workers and thus using the money they retain to avoid having to borrow money at today’s high interest rates, a pattern that is bankrupting competitors who do pay workers on time and thus leading to spread of wage arrears.

    According to Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistical arm, the number of complaints by workers that their employers had not paid them on time rose to 18,400 in 2024, 37.4 percent more than a year earlier. But independent experts say that this rise is not only but the tip of the iceberg but accelerating (rbc.ru/economics/31/03/2025/67e55fbe9a794700fac68ed1)`

    Official figures suggest that approximately 240,000 workers are now owed more than500 million rubles (five million US dollars), a relatively small amount for the economy overall but a tragedy for those not getting paid, a threat of bankruptcy to competitors who do pay, and a worrisome figure given that overcoming wage arrears is something the Putin regime earlier pledged to do. 

    When workers aren’t paid, the companies involved use the money for other things  rather than borrowing to do so; and that means that wage arrears in a few companies affect others who do pay on time, harming their ability to operate and thus making the failure of some to pay wages in a timely fashion a bigger problem than it might seem.

    Labor union officials and independent Russian experts say that the current situation is not yet at the crisis level it was 30 years ago but that it is rapidly increasing to that level in many sectors of the Russian economy and will likely continue to grow as long as the cost to businesses of borrowing money remain high.

Russia’s Regional Leaders have Taken the Potemkin Village Approach to New Heights Under Putin

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 7 – Under tsars and commissars, Russian officials have always tried to put their best foot forward whenever their regions were visited by the country’s leader; but under Vladimir Putin, regional leaders have taken this approach, known for its founder Prince Potemkin, to new heights.

    According to a survey of the most extreme forms of erecting a façade to hide reality and suggest that things are really better than they are, regional officials over the last 25 years have taken a variety of steps that would have brought a blush to Potemkin and other practitioners of this tactic.

    The New Tab portal (thenewtab.io/25-let-pokazuhi/)points to the following cases as being especially egregious:

•    Bringing in substitute residents in place of the real ones so that the latter would not be able to complain about what happened to their village during a flood (Barsukovskaya, 2002);

•    Cleaning the street along which Putin was to pass 15 time and removing all the cars usually parked along it (Kolpino, 2009);

•    Bringing in new equipment to a hospital Putin was to visit and then removing it as soon as he left (Ivanovo, 2010);

•    Painting weeds along a roadway to look like flowers (Nizhny Novgorod, 2012);

•    Painting the asphalt of the road on which Putin was to travel (Vladivostok, 2016);

•    Covered up buildings in poor repair along Putin’s route (Volgograd, 2016);

•    Covered puddles with parquet flooring to obscure how bad the roads were and are (Arkhangelsk, 2017);

•    Shut down factories polluting the skies for a few days before Putin arrived so the skies would be blue (Krasnoyarsk, 2017);

•    Painted only those parts of the buildings Putin could see from his route and covered up posters of opposition figures with commercial ads (Ulyanovsk, 2018);

•    Covered up with banners old buildings that hadn’t been repaired in time (Omsk, 2019); and

•    Mowed the grass when there was snow on the ground and brought in special snow removal equipment the city didn’t ever have to remove drifts (Tsivilsk, 2024).

    The portal didn’t say whether these actions impressed Putin or helped the careers of those who engaged in them.