Lenin Making a Comeback in Russia Today Despite Putin’s Hostility Toward Bolshevik Leader

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 26 – A survey conducted by the Svobodnya pressa news service concludes that Lenin has never been as viewed as positively by Russians as he is now, despite Putin’s criticism of the Bolshevik leader for setting up the USSR in a way that allowed it to disintegrate in 1991, the new service’s Sergey Aksyonov says.  

    At least part of the reason for this, the journalist says, is to be found in the Ukrainian attacks on Lenin’s statues, a case in which for Russians the enemy of my enemy is my friend. (For the survey, see svpressa.ru/reports/sptv/461106/; for Aksyonov’s analysis, see svpressa.ru/politic/article/461666/).

    But over the past decade, Aksyonov says, Russians have adopted a more positive attitude toward Lenin as they have taken a more positive view of the Soviet past and now consider Lenin to be the founder not only of a great power in the Soviet Union but also of a new great power in China.

    Putin’s war in Ukraine has reenforced positive attitudes among Russians not only toward the Soviet past, large swaths of which have been presented in an upbeat way by the Kremlin and its propagandists, but toward Lenin as the founder of that past and thus someone many Russians now look back to in a positive way.

    Present-day enthusiasts of Lenin have hardly read any of the Bolshevik’s works or even learned much about his specific policies. Instead, they see him as the founder of a great power who deserves to be remembered in a positive light alongside of Stalin rather than eclipsed by his successor, the commentator continues.

    Today, 67 percent of Russians, another survey, this one by the Levada Center found, have a positive view of Lenin, while only 17 percent have a negative one; and young people are even more positive than their elders, in part because of the Bolshevik leader’s attacks on the wealthy (levada.ru/2024/04/16/predstavleniya-o-lichnosti-vladimira-lenina-i-ego-roli-v-istorii-strany/).

    And while Aksyonov doesn’t mention it, this revival of support for Lenin may be the unintended result of Putin’s own promotion of a single stream of Russian history in which all leaders who achieved some greatness are re-entering the national pantheon even if the current Kremlin leader wouldn’t in fact include them.

Moscow Not Only Behind Increase in Forest Fires in Russia But is Using Them to Justify More Repression, Kuznetsov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 25 – It has been well documented that Putin and his expanded war in Ukraine are responsible for the radical increase in the number of forest fires and their attendant destruction across the Russian Federation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/putins-war-leading-directly-to-more.html).

    Now, it has been shown by Pavel Kuznetsov, an independent Russian journalist who now lives in Germany, that the Kremlin leader is using these fires and the lack of equipment and personnel to fight them as justification for imposing more restrictions on the lives of Russians (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/04/25/a-koliuchei-provolokoi-poselki-obnosit-ne-planiruiut).

    Because he has gutted the foreign service and left large swaths of the country at risk of destructive fires so as to have money for his war in Ukraine, Putin’s officials are imposing new restrictions on where Russians can live and travel because of the fires that they and their boss have created.

    As one expert in fire prevention in the Trans-Baikal told Kuznetsov, given the situation the regime has created, it simply does not have any other way to fight fires than by means of administrative measures, however inefficient and ineffective such approaches to the problem in fact are.

Russian Democrats Must Take the Lead in Creating Arrangements for Nations Too Small for Independence or Even a Federal State, Pivovarov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr 27 – Numerically small and dispersed nations, of which the Russian Federation currently has almost 50, are too small for independence to be a viable option and likely even too small to have their own states within a revamped federal system, opposition politician Andrey Pivovarov says.

    But if Russia is to be a democracy in which all nations have equal rights, he says, it is important that they have a mechanism to allow them to control more of their own lives and that if Russian liberals take the lead in promoting one, they will gain new allies (moscowtimes.ru/2025/04/27/kak-zaschitit-malie-narodi-rossii-i-sdelat-ih-soyuznikami-a162180).

    Pivovarov suggests that the way in which American states and Canada have created councils for corporate representation of indigenous peoples in the offices of governors could be a model for such arrangements. These councils allow the indigenous people to have greater control over resources and more say over their own affairs.

    The Russian democratic opposition has been much criticized for its failure to support non-Russian aspirations, and Pivovarov’s proposal is a rare example of an attempt by them to bridge the gap by suggesting such an arrangement for the smallest nationalities. But his idea is certain to face opposition.

    On the one hand, many of the smallest nationalities believe that they have every right to seek and secure state independence (e.g., facebook.com/groups/agonist.press/permalink/1613652279293262); and they are certain to dismiss Pivovarov’s proposal out of hand.

    And on the other, both they are representatives of larger nations like the Tatars, Bashkirs, Tuvins and Kalmyks are certain to view this proposal as reflecting a negative view among Russian democrats about all non-Russians, one that in their minds reduces their nations to the status of “wild” indigenous populations rather than as people with inalienable rights.

    But despite that, any discussion of how to handle the complexity of the population of the Russian Federation in the future if and when genuine federalism is established can only be welcomed because these are serious issues and they need to be discussed calmly rather than emotionally as has typically been the case.

Kremlin’s Take-Over of RAIPON has Left Group a Hollow Shell of What It Once Was, ICIPR Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 28 – On April 25, the Kremlin organized a meeting in honor of the 35th anniversary of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East (RAIPON), but the International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia has denounced that as “a state-orchestrated show” by which Moscow hopes to hide what it has destroyed.

    Below is the text of that declaration which concisely describes what has happened over the last three plus decades to RAIPON, something both people inside the current borders of the Russian Federation and those beyond who must deal with that entity need to know (icipr.international/archives/1188
ICIPR Statement оn the 35th Anniversary of RAIPON

35 Years of RAIPON: A State-Orchestrated Show

On April 25, 2025, the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East (RAIPON) — once a leading organization representing the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation — celebrated its 35th anniversary and held the Tenth Congress of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East. Once a strong voice advocating for the self-determination, land rights, and cultural development of Indigenous Peoples, RAIPON has now become a symbolic gathering devoid of real dialogue, reflecting the profound dismantling of Indigenous rights protection in Russia.

A Controlled Ritual: Celebration of What?

The official Congress lasted only 2.5 hours — a stark contrast to earlier meetings, where leaders and delegates engaged in genuine, multi-day discussions on rights, challenges, and the future of their peoples. Gone are the days of lively debates, resolutions, and shared vision. Today, there are no discussions of pressing issues, no consultations with delegates, no debates — only a ceremonial approval of Alexander Novyukhov, pre-selected by the Russian government as President to sustain the illusion of democratic processes. His appointment merely replaces one government-endorsed figure with another, offering no meaningful change for Indigenous Peoples. What should have been a moment of reflection and strategic planning for the next four years turned into a staged performance.

A Legal Void: Rights Rolled Back

The contrast with the past is striking. In the 1990s, RAIPON played a leading role in shaping and advocating for three landmark federal laws that protected the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Russia. These laws marked a period of genuine engagement between Indigenous communities and the government. Today, these laws are not only ignored but also systematically undermined — existing protections have been weakened, and enforcement mechanisms dismantled. Moreover, in the last two decades, not a single new law has been adopted to advance Indigenous rights, despite profound changes in Russia’s economy, environment, and social landscape. The legal framework for Indigenous Peoples remains frozen in time.

The upcoming “Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples for 2026–2035” threatens to further erode fundamental rights by eliminating key provisions regarding land rights, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and self-governance, reducing Indigenous rights to vague promises of cultural support and folklore preservation.

A Mask on the Global Stage

Paradoxically, while space for independent Indigenous voices shrinks within Russia, RAIPON increasingly serves as an instrument of state propaganda abroad, portraying an image of commitment to Indigenous rights. The organization actively participates in international forums and UN platforms — more to promote Russia’s geopolitical interests than to genuinely advocate for Indigenous Peoples at home. This dual role enables Russia to whitewash domestic repression and erodes trust in global Indigenous networks.

Born of Resistance, Now Scripted by the State

The transformation of RAIPON reflects the broader dismantling of Indigenous rights and self-governance in Russia. With the collapse of legal protections, the suppression of independent Indigenous organizations, and the full state takeover of Indigenous institutions, the Russian government has turned Indigenous rights advocacy into a facade. RAIPON, once a key defender of Indigenous self-determination, lands, and territories, has become a “pseudo-NGO” — a tool of state control used to legitimize repression and maintain a facade of respectability on the international stage.

The international community and Indigenous Peoples worldwide must recognize this transformation for what it is — and reject any equating of RAIPON’s institutional presence with genuine Indigenous representation. The rights of Indigenous Peoples cannot be defended by those appointed to suppress them.
The 35th anniversary of RAIPON was meant to honor decades of struggle and resilience — instead, it highlights the hollow shell of an organization that once stood as a true defender of Indigenous rights, but now only casts a shadow of its former self.

Russians 'from the Provinces' Need to Speak ‘Moscow Russian’ to Succeed in the Capital, Linguists Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 24 – Russia is an enormous country, and people in various regions speak a variety of dialects. Muscovites are used to hearing people speak these variations; but those who move the capital and don’t overcome them and speak standard Moscow Russian often face difficulties in ascending career ladders in the capital.

    The Moscow dialect only became standard Russian in the nineteenth century, linguists say; and in most situations, Muscovites don’t discriminate against those who speak other Russian dialects (newizv.ru/news/2025-04-24/effekt-frosi-burlakovoy-kak-regionalnyy-govor-vliyaet-na-karieru-i-samoprezentatsiyu-436668).

    But those who want to rise professionally especially in media-heavy professions or state institutions need to speak Moscow Russian or they will be looked down and viewed as less competent than those who can speak the way Muscovites do, Russian linguists say. And they suggest there are many easy ways for Russians from outside Moscow to learn to do so.

    One of the best is to contact actors in Moscow theaters, many of whom came from outside the capital and had to learn Moscow Russian and are more than happy often for very little money to pass on their skills. But what is critical is that non-Muscovites must not act as if they expect to be discriminated against. If they do, they are more likely to be.

    And the linguists add that there is at least one situation in which those who speak regional dialects do better in Moscow: when there are disasters involving people from the same region, those who know the dialect of that region are instantly accepted and viewed as best able to handle navigating their problems and dealing with Moscow speakers.

New University Course on Russian Statehood Confirming Students' View that Russian State is All about 'Crude Force,' Studies Suggest

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 25 – The Russian government had hoped hat the new course on Russian statehood that it introduced in 2023 would not only ensure that those who took it would be more knowledgeable but also more loyal, but any such hope has not been realized, according to three new scholarly studies reviewed by Nakanune commentator Yevgeny Chernyshov.

    The first of these by Andrey Andryushkov and other Moscow specialists on youth culture found that almost half of students in IT fields do not see themselves linked to Russia. and more than 70 percent do not think they can have any impact on the adoption of new laws or the taking of political decisions (vovr.elpub.ru/jour/article/view/5235/2403 cited by Chernyshov at nakanune.ru/articles/123431/).

    Such attitudes certainly highlight the need for a course on Russian statehood, the Nakanune commentator says; but other studies show that things have not worked out as Moscow had hoped. Andrey Andreyev, a specialist on the history of education, says that the course hasn’t done what it needs to do (vovr.elpub.ru/jour/article/view/5373).

    Instead of giving students a comprehensive picture of Russian history, Andreyev says, it is so constructed that it has promoted the notion that Russian statehood is all about “crude force,” the way in which those in power control the situation rather than statehood being something of which the people and its intellectual leaders are a part.

    And a third study, in which the Institute of Humanitarian Technology and Social Engineering examined publications about the new course in 2023-2024 confirmed that, suggesting that the course as currently constructed was in fact alienating students from the state more than integrating them, exactly the opposite of what the powers that be had hoped for (vovr.elpub.ru/jour/article/view/5372/2430).

    These three studies in a journal devoted to Russian higher education of course are a plea for the rewriting of the course on Russian statehood; but they are also and perhaps even more a protest against the messages that the Kremlin is sending to the population, especially since it claims to want to send ones exactly opposite those. 

Rise of Ethnic Bullying in Russian Schools Reflects Broader Social Trends, Discussions of Russian Experts Suggest

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 24 – Russian schools have long been the sites of ethnic bullying in which pupils of one nationality attack others (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/07/increasing-social-inequality-leading-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/nearly-third-of-pupils-in-russian.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/08/anti-war-parents-seek-to-protect-their.html).

    But until this year, such attacks were treated as isolated incidents; and Russian officials at all levels denied that there was a problem. But now that has changed, the reflection less of a new openness by officialdom than by the growth of the problem to the point where it can no longer be ignored.

    The Russian government as announced the launch of a major effort to combat ethnic bullying (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/moscow-launches-major-effort-to-combat.html) although discussions by experts suggest that government programs have had much of an effect (nazaccent.ru/content/43854-kak-ostanovit-etnicheskuyu-travlyu-v-shkole/).

    Still worse, these expert discussions indicate that Russian specialists on education have no better handle on this problem than do those in other countries and that what the schools can do is overwhelmed by what is going on outside their walls and as a result of the messages of mass culture, including television and films.

    That means that the increase in ethnic bullying in Russian schools that lies behind the shift in Russian officialdom’s treatment of it is one of the best indications that ethnic tensions are growing and are spreading from schools to the military and other public institutions in the Russia of Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin Must Be De-Linked from State Power if Nations of Russia are to Have a Future, Rozalskaya Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 25 – Since the middle of the 19th century, the Kremlin has emerged as a result of conscious Russian state policy as “the symbol of the permanence of Russian state power” and now forms a central position in the ideological world of Vladimir Putin, according to Nadezhda Rozalskaya.

    The Russian specialist on material and visual culture traces its development as that symbol from the end of the reign of Nicholas I to Putin today and argues that the Kremlin is so iconic and powerful that its link with a particular view of state power must be broken if the nations of the Russian Federation are to develop (posle.media/article/kreml-identichnosti).

    In a detailed 4,000-word article for Posle Media, Rozalskaya says that the image of the Kremlin as cultivated since the 1940s has been intended by the country’s rulers, tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet “to fuse the concept of Russian state power and the country’s cultural identity,” an action that has restricted the evolution of both.

    In historical terms, this image is relatively new as it originated not when Moscow was founded or the Russian state built but only in the middle of the 19th century, she continues, but since that time, “the state authorities have skillfully adapted it to serve their interests by transforming it into an important symbol of their power.”

    Among the many examples she gives, three are especially noteworthy: the destruction of buildings around the Kremlin to set it apart, the painting of its walls first white and then red to symbolize its ties to power, and the changing fortunes of churches and crosses within the confines of the Kremlin itself.

    This culminated in 1997 when the image of the Kremlin was put on the first page of the Russian passport, thus establishing it as “the visual symbol of the new Russia,” one in which “the various periods of its history” were linked and when victories succeeded defeats because power was consolidated in its precincts.

    Breaking the link between this image of the Kremlin and state power, Rozalskaya says, “is essential for the rethinking and liberation of national identities,” including first of all those of the now-dominant Russian nation.” Otherwise, that will remain truncated and won’t be able to develop.

Non-Russians will Protest if Moscow Adopts Law Declaring Russian Their Native Language, Sakha Leaders Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 21 – Ivan Shamayev, head of the Sakha Congress, says that “no matter how much I love the Russian language,” he can’t “consider it to be his native one” and that if the Duma passes a law saying that he must recognize Russian as being that, there will be protests in Sakha and in other non-Russian areas.

    He is far from the only one making such a declaration. Even senior regional officials are doing the same: Aleksandr Zhirkov, the Sakha Republic’s deputy prime minister, has said the same on numerous occasions (t.me/s/Govorit_NeMoskva/43968 reposted at indigenous-russia.com/archives/43404).

    Moscow officials, including most prominently Putin advisor Elena Yampolskaya, have demanded that the new law specify that Russian is the native language of all the peoples of the Russian Federation; and the current draft of the legislation contains a provision which does precisely that.

    The situation is about to come to a head. A revised draft law is to be presented for the Duma’s consideration by May 1. If there are no changes, then it is likely that the warnings from the two Sakha leaders will soon come true and that there will be clashes between non-Russian activists and officials, on the one hand, and Muscovite and Russian ones, on the other.

Insurrection of Russian Deserters Held in Krasnodar Highlights Large and Growing Problem for Moscow, Rights Activists Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 23 – Leaked Russian defense ministry documents say that more than 50,000 Russian soldiers had deserted during Putin’s war in Ukraine by the end of 2024, a figure several orders of magnitude larger than before that conflict and one that activists say represents about 10 percent of all Russian troops in Ukraine.

    Calling attention to this development was the rising of approximately 100 Russian soldiers being held in a military facility in Krasnodar Kray on suspicion of desertion. Seven managed to escape but four of those were quickly recaptured (kavkazr.com/a/vzbesivshayasya-myasorubka-bunt-voennyh-v-krasnodarskoy-komendature/33392553.html).

    But because the numbers taking part in the rising were so large, activists interested in the fate of Russian soldiers, including those arrested for desertion or going AWOL, have paid more attention to the problem with their reports showing that the Russian military doesn’t know what to do with the growing numbers of those who seek to leave its ranks.

    Many of those have been kept in the Krasnodar facility in horrific conditions for more than six months; and Ivan Chuvilayev of Get Lost, an organization which helps Russian deserters, says that these conditions and the recent rebellion aren’t “an isolated incident but part of a larger systemic problem,” although most such protests rarely get much attention.

    The Russian military doesn’t admit this problem and so “in formal legal terms,” facilities to hold deserters don’t exist, he continues; and as a result, they exist outside of any legal norms with all the horrors that such a placement opens the way to. Those in term are given the choice of returning to the frontlines or remaining in these camps indefinitely.

Death Spiral of Russia’s Coal Industry Brought Forward a Decade by Kremlin Miscalculations and Putin’s War in Ukraine, Economist Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 24 – The role that strikes by coal miners played in the collapse of the Soviet Union is one of the most important but largely unrecognized factors in the collapse of that country (newleftreview.org/issues/i181/articles/theodore-friedgut-lewis-siegelbaum-perestroika-from-below-the-soviet-miners-strike-and-its-aftermath.pdf ).

    Consequently, the fate of Russian coal mines has long played a much larger part of the thinking of post-Soviet Russian leaders than many in the West are inclined to think. But now a Russian economist is warning that the death spiral of that industry is not only close but has been brought forward by perhaps a decade by Kremlin miscalculations and Putin’s war in Ukraine.

    Tatyana Lanushina, an independent expert on energy issues, draws that conclusion on the basis of a close analysis of what has been happening to Russia’s coal industry over the last several decades and what has taken place in particular during the last three years (theins.ru/ekonomika/280751).
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    She says that more than half of all Russian coal companies were unprofitable last year, the result of Moscow’s failure to recognize changes in the world’s energy industry, a failure exacerbated by the Kremlin’s push to get funds from existing sources to finance its war in Ukraine.

    Had the Kremlin begun to shift away from goal to renewable energy, she suggests, it would be in a far better position, an argument others have made as well (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-well-executed-closure-of-russias.html). But because it failed to do that, the branch faces collapse and massive strikes are possible.

    Such strikes, her analysis suggests, could shake the government and the country in ways equally profound to those which helped to undermine the Soviet government and led to the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.

Russia has Its Own Form of Gerrymandering with Moscow Redrawing Electoral Districts to Weaken Urban Voters Inclined to Support Opposition, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 23 – Moscow has now drawn new electoral districts for the 2026 Duma vote, a process that is required by law to take place every ten years to ensure that these districts remain roughly equal in size. But in fact, experts with whom Horizontal Russia spoke say, the lines have been drawn to weaken urban voters who are less likely to support the party of power.

    Each electoral district has approximately 500,000 residents, but there are a variety of ways that officials can draw the lines to achieve that. One step they have taken this time more than in the past is to combine portions of urban centers with larger rural ones to boost the chances United Russia will win (semnasem.org/articles/2025/04/23/rossijskaya-vlast-25-let-ubivala-izbiratelnyj-process-pochemu-ona-vse-eshe-boitsya-vyborov).

    This has happened, Russian political scientist Dmitry Loboyko says, because the Kremlin knows that rural voters are reliably in the corner of the party of power while urban ones are more likely to vote for opposition parties and reduce the chances that the elections will turn out as the Putin regime wants.

    To be sure, Loboyko and other experts say, this redrawing of electoral district boundaries is only one of the many ways the Kremlin manipulates elections and ensures that its candidates win. Using spoilers and outright falsification are likely more important. But Russian gerrymandering matters and should be factored into any analysis of what is going on.  

Russia Least Religious in Practice among Predominantly Orthodox Christian Countries Despite Relatively High Levels of Declared Orthodox Identity, Surveys Show

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 23 – In terms of practice and respect for the church, Russia is the least religious among all predominantly Orthodox Christian countries, the World Values Survey finds, despite Kremlin efforts it as the leader of the Orthodox world. Instead, its people treat Orthodox as a norm to be acknowledged but not necessarily follow, just as they did Soviet values earlier.

    That conclusion – see worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp as discussed at re-russia.net/analytics/0283/ -- is supported by Russian polling which shows young Russians far more irreligious and even hostile to the ROC MP than their elders, people born in Soviet times and who view Orthodoxy like they viewed Soviet ideological positions.

    Compared to other predominantly Orthodox countries, these surveys show that far more Russians are atheist, far fewer attend church or church rules, see religiosity as important for themselves or as a quality they seek in their children.   In short, Putin has made Russia a country of “declarative” Orthodox but not a religious one.

Another Sign – This Time in Altai Republic – Moscow May be About to Restart Regional Amalgamation

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 24 – The clearest indications that Putin plans to restart his regional amalgamation effort have come in the Russian north, where new moves to unify the Nenets AD with Arkahngelsk Oblast are underway (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/kremlin-to-unite-nenets-ad-with.html).

    But now there is another, this time in the Altai Republic, a small federal subject – it covers 92,000 square kilometers, and has a population of 210,000, just over half of which are ethnic Russians while 37 percent are members of the composite Altai nationality – which borders China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

    There, the federal subject head, Andrey Turchak, is pressing for changes in the Russian constitution which he says will bring it into line with all-Russian rules but which some Altai fear opens the door to changes including the dropping of its defense of the republic’s territorial integrity (mariuver.com/2025/04/24/v-rossii-gotovjatsja-k-likvidacii-nacionalnyh-regionov/).

    Such changes have already happened elsewhere, and Altai residents fear the same thing may be about to happen to their republic. Such fears have been triggered by Turchak’s failure to publish a complete list of the changes he wants and that could lead to the amalgamation of the republic with neighboring Altai Kray, whose population is 95 percent ethnic Russian.

    Such a combination would be consistent with what Putin has done in the past, although his efforts at combining smaller non-Russian regions with larger and predominantly ethnic Russian ones have been slowed by protests and by both the impact of the covid pandemic and of his military campaign in Ukraine.  

    The Altai Republic seldom gets much attention, but it has the potential for protests and thus causing the Kremlin problems if it pushes for its amalgamation with the Altai Kray. (On that possibility, see https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-mountainous-altai-where-russians.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/not-everyone-from-altai-republic.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/moscow-alarmed-by-talk-in-kazakhstan.html.)

Russian State Authority is ‘Sacred’ and the Duty of Russians is to Obey, Kremlin Aide Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 18 – A senior Kremlin aide has now openly declared what it is obvious Putin believes. According to Aleksandr Kharichev, Russian state authority is “sacred” and the duty of Russians is to obey up to and including the sacrifice of their lives in order to support its existence.

    Kharichev, head of the Presidential Administration team responsible for monitoring social trends but someone who has written frequently about ideological questions in support of Kremlin candidates in election, makes this declaration in a special policy essay for the government’s Civil Enlightenment Bulletin.

    His words have been picked up by various Moscow outlets where they have been described as the basis for the development of a full-blown Putinist ideology and even as “a blueprint for the construction of Putinism” (meduza.io/feature/2025/04/18/sotrudnik-ap-aleksandr-harichev-napisal-statyu-kotoraya-vyglyadit-kak-instruktsiya-dlya-stroitelya-putinizma).

    On the one hand, Kharichev’s words are no surprise. They represent a pastiche of arguments drawn from Putin himself and writers like Lev Gumilyev and only make explicit what these have implied. But on the other, his saying them now suggests that the Kremlin has decided that it is time to create an explicit ideological foundation for Putin’s system.

    In his essay, Kharichev “pits rationalism against faith, legal formalism against truth, and individualism against the family” to argue that “Russians should rely on faith, truth and family values rather than rationality, law, and individual rights, values that set Russia at odds with the West, a Meduza commentator says.

    “Living by these principles,” this commentator says, “Russia finds itself threatened by ‘the transhumanist and post-humanist ideologies’ that Western countries seek to impose on it,” with the aim of “sowing divisions and fracturing society.” Only by promoting traditional values and duty-bound patriotism can those efforts be countered.

Sixty Percent of Population Points in Siberia Lack Year-Round Road or Rail Connections, Russian Federation Council Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 22 – Sixty percent of the population points in Siberia do not have year-round road or rail connections, a situation that means “about four million people,” only 300,000 of which are in the High North are “entirely dependent on airplanes” to connect with others, according to the Russian Federation Council’s Council on Issues of Development of Siberia.

    Many may not be surprised by the figure for the High North where the lack of roads and the destruction of transport networks because of the melting of permafrost is legendary, but most observers will be shocked that Moscow is acknowledging such a high figure for Siberia as a whole because it highlights the reality that even where roads could be built they haven’t been.

    Instead of addressing this problem or even talking about the costs of building new roads, Moscow officials are talking about huge transport corridors to attract China when the Russian government does not have the funds needed to build and maintain even a minimal road or rail network, Dmitry Verkhoturov, a Siberian analyst says (sibmix.com/?doc=16320).

    No project should be proposed for either building a domestic road network or new corridors without a clear calculation of its costs to the budget, he stresses, because it is clear that roads will be constructed where there is money and won’t be where there isn’t any in the government budget. --

    In his article for the Siberian Economy portal, Verkhoturov doesn’t stress another reality that his words point to: nearly one Russian in 30 now lives in a place where he or she can go to another place only by air – and that at a time when the government is closing regional and local airports and cutting air service within the country.

    On that trend, see nakanune.ru/articles/123419/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/sanctions-have-undermined-russias.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/sanctions-have-undermined-russias.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/12/russia-now-has-fewer-civilian-airports.html.

Environmental Protests have Come to Moscow and are Being Exploited by Radical Communists and Foreign Enemies, Political Analyst Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 21 – In 2022, Nikolay Patrushev, then and now one of Putin’s closest aides, said that radicals and foreigners would seek to destabilize Russia by exploiting the natural tendency of people to react negatively to any economic development that threatens the economy (tass.ru/politika/15916147), Aleksey Mukhin says.

    Then, that seemed a warning about a distant possibility, the head of the Moscow Center for Political Information; but in the intervening period, environmental activism has grown – and what is most worrisome is that it has become to Moscow and its suburbs where economic development is taking place rapidly (ng.ru/vision/2025-04-21/100_154321042025.html).

    And so Patrushev’s warning is ever more timely, a trend Putin has acted on with his creation of a new foundation intended to prevent activists from becoming politicized and used by others (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/environmental-activism-often-seedbed-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/fearing-environmental-protests-are.html).

    In an article for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Mukhin notes that environmental protests have taken place across Russia but that the situation in Moscow is especially “fertile” for the rise of such actions and especially their use by opposition political groups and worse the foreign enemies of Russia.

    The reason greater Moscow is such a seedbed, he suggests, is because it is so rapidly growing economically, a trend that “inevitably” involved changes in the landscape and “may in an entirely natural way provoke a negative reaction.” That isn’t a problem as long as it doesn’t go beyond the immediate issue.

    “But as soon as this reaction does go beyond a local discussion and begins to attract the attention of political actors, the situation changes; and the scenario unfold quickly and according to the familiar patterns” Patrushev warned about and that Putin has taken steps to prevent taking place.

    At present, this is happening in two regions of Moscow oblast, the village of Danilovo in the Domedovsk district and the settlement of Lesnaya in the Pushkin district. There development has sparked environmental protests, and in both outsiders, in this case, KPRF radicals, have moved in to use these actions to advance the party’s call for a lifting of restrictions on protests.

    Unfortunately and a cause for worry, these activists have not limited their moves to that. Instead, they have used purported statements by veterans of the fighting in Ukraine against the developments which sparked the environmental protests in the first place, raising the risk that Ukrainian intelligence may also be involved or could be.

    There should be “no doubt,” Mukhin concludes, that Ukrainian intelligence operatives “who spend a great deal of effort to recruit Russians and provoke them into committing arson and other terrorist acts, simply dream of capturing [environmental] protest ad even more of taking control of their organizations.”

    “If that were to happen,” the Moscow political scientist warns, “the size of the threat could become much more dangerous.”

Numerically Small Peoples of North and Far East Seek Not Independence but Transformation of Russian Federation, Orcas Island Declaration Says

Paul Goble
    
    Staunton, Apr. 18 – Because of the small size and settlement patterns of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East do not seek the creation of independent states on the territory of the present-day Russian Federation but rather the transformation of that country into a democratic and law-based state, a conference of leading activists has declared.

    At the same time, the representatives of movements of the indigenous peoples from this enormous region met on Orcas Island in the US state of Washington pledged to recognize the right of other nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation to seek independent status (indigenous-russia.com/archives/43432, indigenous-
russia.com/archives/43455 and indigenous-russia.com/archives/43483).

    The location was symbolic: Orcas Island is part of the traditional land of the Lummi native American people; and the organizers and participants of the meeting way that like that community, they want to work with democratic organizations and follow the efforts to improve the lives of native peoples through reconciliation and other measures.

    The participants adopted the Orcas Declaration which signatories said had been “inspired by the reconciliation experiences of Canada, the United States Australia and Norway” and was intended to guide their common work forward. Specifically, the signatories
 
•    Condemned past and present colonial policies, assimilation and repression against the indigenous
•    Emphasized the need to achieve historical justice;
•    Called for working together with democratic forces for a common future based on equality and rights;
•    Announced the creation of a permanent platform for dialogue; and
•    Set as its first tasks “the monitoring of violations and pursuit of legal support, the development of legislative projects concerning the rights of indigenous peoples … and the development of research and educational projects.”

    Among the signatories were Dmitry Berezhkov, an Itelmen who edits the Russia of Indigenous Peoples portal, Dmtry Valuyev, president of Russian America for Democracy in Russia, Maria Vyushkova, a researcher at the Batani organization, Aleksandra Garmazhapova of the Free Buryatia Foundation, Vladislav Inozemtsev, co-founder of the European Center for Analysis and Strategies, and Pavel Sulyandziga, an Udygey with the Batani Foundation.

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.