Moscow Launches New Propaganda Campaign Against NATO Use of Denmark’s Bornholm

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 14 – Over the past three years as relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated, Russian commentators have focused their attention on islands in the Baltic Sea and North Atlantic as possible targets for Russian attack if the countries to which they belong adopt a stronger defense strategy there.

            All these islands – from the Aaland Islands, Bornholm and Gotland in the Baltic to the Faroes and Svalbard in the North Atlantic – have strategic locations and most have complicated geopolitical arrangements either real or claimed (jamestown.org/program/moscow-focusing-on-gotland-and-other-baltic-sea-islands-as-potential-targets/).

            Until now, Denmark’s Bornholm has attracted the least Russian attention largely because Moscow’s position is that Denmark, a NATO country, can station troops there but no forces from any other NATO country and especially not from the United States must do so because of what the Kremlin claims has been an understanding since the end of World War II.

            But now, in a sign that Moscow may have decided to raise the stakes on Bornholm, ladimir Barbin, the Russian ambassador in Copenhagen, has expanded this claim by saying that “even in the period of the Cold war, Bornholm preserved the status of a territory free from military activity” by all states (ria.ru/20250714/daniya-2028930355.html).

            Barbin’s remarks have been immediately given extensive coverage in the Russian media, an indication that these represent the policy of the Kremlin today and that Moscow is going to launch a barrage of criticism against Denmark and NATO for their use of the island, even though even Moscow acknowledges that Bornholm is Danish territory.

 

Russian Region Fights Corruption by Promising to Fully Compensate Police There for Total Amount of All Bribes They Turn Down

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 15 – Russia has a long history of a lack of success in fighting corruption, but now it has come up with a new idea: Aleksandr Rechitsky, head of the interior ministry office in Rostov, says his institution will fully compensate police there for the amount of bribes they turn down.

            If a Rostov policeman is offered a bribe of 1000 rubles, the interior ministry official says, the authorities will pay him 1,000 rubles out of state coffers for turning it down (tass.ru/obschestvo/24521283 and themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/15/rostov-police-to-be-reimbursed-for-refusing-bribes-in-anti-corruption-effort-a89828).

            The state will be out the money but the country won’t suffer as it would if the bribes were accepted in the first place, officials in Rostov say; and they argue that this new approach to fighting corruption already shows signs of being successful, however outrageous it may seem to outsiders.

Moscow’s Program for Repatriation has Collapsed – Fewer are Returning and Many who Do Aren’t Russians

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 14 – Vladimir Putin’s program set up in 2006 to repatriate what he calls compatriots has collapsed with the total number of people using it falling from 108,600 in 2019 to only 31,700 last year. Moreover, an increasing share of those using it may be Russian speakers but aren’t the ethnic Russians the Kremlin leader hoped to attract.

            That is the message of new research conducted by Versiya journalist Dmity Igonin who says that both the falloff in the numbers and the fact that a large share of those coming now are Russian-speaking non-Russians is raising ever more questions about this effort (versia.ru/potok-pereselencev-v-rossiyu-po-programme-vozvrashheniya-sootechestvennikov-snizhaetsya).

            The decline in numbers reflects the drying up of the available pools, he says; but the shift in the ethnic composition of those returning is the product of Moscow’s focus on language rather than identity. In the early years of the program, more than 80 percent of those returning were Slavs, but by 2022, their share had fallen to only 17 percent.

            Thus a program advertised as one that would help solve Russia’s demographic and especially ethno-demographic problems is now doing neither, bringing ever fewer people back and those who do come being ever less ethnically Russian or even Slavic but consisting of Central Asians and Caucasians who know Russian.

            That isn’t what Russians what, especially as the Russian-speaking non-Russians in almost all cases speak other languages as well and frequently function as non-Russian diasporas when they arrive in the Russian Federation, compounding according to Russian officials the social and even criminal problems the country faces. 

Since 2022, Moscow has Stopped Publishing Far More than Just Demographic and Diplomatic Data

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 14 – The Kremlin’s decision to stop publishing key demographic data and information about its foreign policy tactics have attracted a great deal of attention (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/kremlin-classifies-information-not-only.html); but since 2022, the Russian government has restricted many other kinds of information as well.

            Rina Nikolayeva of the Important Stories portal provides a comprehensive listing of these restrictions, something that makes it clear just how far the Putin regime has moved in this direction over the last three years (istories.media/stories/2025/07/14/chto-v-chernom-yashchike-glavnie-dannie-o-rossii-kotorie-vlasti-skrili-s-2022-goda/).

            In addition to demographic and diplomatic data, she writes, Moscow has stopped or seriously cutback the release of previously available data on migration and crime, government budgets, and the ownership of property. In each case, Nikolayeva describes the ways that researchers have adopted in their efforts to work around these restrictions.

            But she concludes her report with a quotation Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, now in emigration, to highlight just how serious this closing off of information is. “The restriction of data is an attack on the social sciences, on civil society, and on the possibility of studying what is happening in the country and controlling decisions the powers make.”

            “All autocracies, of which Russia is one, act in the same way,” she continues. “They monopolize power, attempt to control the public sphere and distort data,” all so as to put out the version of reality they want people to believe in and ensure that they will remain in power and with ever fewer restrictions on their activities.

Russia’s New Military-Related ‘Middle Class’ has Stopped Growing and Its Members are Beginning to Be Affected by Inflationary Pressures, Moscow Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Moscow’s new military related “middle class” consisting of those who have benefited from bonuses and the growth of Russia’s defense industry has stopped growing – it now numbers six to eight million people – and its members are beginning to suffer as others are from rising inflation, Fyodor Vyrin says.

            Drawing on the concept first proposed by Sber analyst Mikhail Matovnikov in 2023 (rbc.ru/economics/23/05/2024/664efda29a79479b0f5130c3?ysclid=lx4h3p1zck13294551), the DataInsight economist says that those benefited from military spending no longer feel protected from inflation (t.me/FVinsights/164 and newizv.ru/news/2025-07-11/vmesto-kartoshki-hleb-vmesto-myasa-varenaya-kolbasa-kak-inflyatsiya-menyaet-potreblenie-437409).

            Because men who accepted bonuses to fight in Ukraine or both men and women who went to work in defense industries saw their incomes after 2022 rise so rapidly, they did not share the despair many other Russians have because rising prices have put goods and services beyond their reach.

            But now with these benefits ebbing or disappearing altogether, members of the new middle class who have been among Putin’s most loyal supporters as far as the war in Ukraine is concerned have reason to think again about where the Kremlin leader is leading the country, a shift that could change this pattern.

            Indeed, the possibility that that will occur could spark dissent against Putin among some members of the political class because they will be well aware that the anger about rising prices up to now confined among the poorest strata of Russians is now spreading to those they have long considered their political base.

 

Russia’s New Ideology Must Create ‘an Ethnic Russian Yakut, an Ethnic Russian Tatar, and an Ethnic Russian Buryat,’ Karaganov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Sergey Karaganov says that Russia can’t exist without an idea that unifies its peoples because if it loses that, it will fall apart and that the unifying idea must arise from the ethnic Russian core that will promote the development of “an Ethnic Russian Yakut, an Ethnic Russian Tatar and an Ethnic Russian Buryat.”

            In a new 46-page essay (iwmes.hse.ru/mirror/pubs/share/1064657083.pdf), he somewhat softens this hardline Russian nationalist position by saying that ordinary people must be free to define themselves as they wish but that those who rule over them must accept that principle as the basis for action.

            Karaganov argues that this ideology is based on three fundamental ideas: “multi-national unity under the spiritual leadership of the ethnic Russian people, reliance on tradition, including the heritage of Byzantium and ‘the fantastic cultural openness’ of the Mongol Empire, and ‘the force of the spirit, the force of ideas and the force of arms’ as its main constituents.”

            This hyper-nationalist and hyper-statist program is already sparking discussion with many questioning how policies guided by such principles can be implemented without sparking resistance both from peoples within the borders of the Russian Federation and from other powers beyond those (apn.ru/index.php?newsid=48067).

            Those discussions are certain to continue, but Karaganov’s argument this time as so often in the past undoubtedly both reflects where the Kremlin elite already is close to and where it is heading, making both his essay and the responses it will generate in support as well as in opposition critical for the understanding of Russia today. 

Fertility Rates in Central Asian Countries Declining but All Remain Well Above Replacement Levels

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Fertility rates in all five Central Asian countries are falling but remain well above replacement levels, a UN study says. As a result and despite significant outmigration, all face problems of coping with growing populations. The country most affected in this way is Tajikistan.

            According to a new UN study, the fertility rate in Kazakhstan is 3.0, that in Kyrgyzstan, 2.9, that in Tajikistan, 3.3, that in Turkmenistan, 2.6, and that in Uzbekistan, 2.7. All are thus above the 2.2 children per woman per lifetime that keeps the population at its current level (asiaplustj.info/ru/news/tajikistan/society/20250711/visokaya-rozhdaemost-kak-vizov-naselenie-tadzhikistana-prodolzhaet-rasti-nesmotrya-na-visokii-uroven-migratsii-oon).

            Tajikistan, which has the highest fertility rate in the region and one of the highest in the world, faces particular challenges, the UN study continues. More than 30 percent of its population are children younger than 15, something that requires the construction of more schools and housing now and the provision of more jobs in the future.

            Even with significant outmigration – and Tajikistan has one of the highest rates of such departures – the population continues to surge, putting pressure on the government to come up with such investments or face the risk of a social explosion triggered not by Islam but by population pressures alone.

Central Asian Migrants Radicalizing Russia’s Own Muslims, Russian Nationalist Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 13 – Roman Antonovsky, a Russian nationalist commentator, says that Central Asian migrants coming to the Russian Federation are not only bringing in radical Islamist views but infecting indigenous Russian Muslims with them (rusvesna.su/news/1752434329), thus offering yet another argument to those who want to expel the immigrants.

            For more than a decade, Russian commentators and experts have argued about this possibility, with some suggesting that the Central Asians bring radical Islam with them and others arguing that they are radicalized by the xenophobia they face and their concentration in ghettoes in major Russian cities.

            These observers have also disagreed on two other issues. Some insist that the migrants are having a major impact on indigenous Muslim nations, while others say the impact of such people is minimal. And some say the return of the migrants to their homelands will spark Islamist revolutions there, while others deny that possibility.

            (On these debates, see https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/10/gastarbeiters-in-russia-contributing-to.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/11/isis-seen-spreading-into-russia-via-new.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/dushanbe-prepares-for-massive-return.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/any-large-scale-return-of-kyrgyz.html.)

Russians Now Marrying Almost Three Years Later than They Did Only Four Years Ago, Registration Office Figures Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 13 – Russians are now marrying for the first time almost three years later than they did only four years ago, data provided by the Russian government’s registration office shows, a pattern that means they are likely to have fewer children or none at all and that adds to the demographic difficulties that country is now facing.

            In 2021, the average age women first married was 30.7 and the average age men did was 32.8. Now those figures have risen to 33.2 and 35.3 respectively, registration office figures show (https://zags.nalog.gov.ru/analytics/marriage, rosbalt.ru/news/2025-07-13/v-rossii-postareli-molodozheny-5434979 and rbc.ru/society/13/07/2025/687382499a794745a0ff7a83).

            These increases reflect the impact of both the covid pandemic and Putin’s war in Ukraine as well as broader social trends, including a declining number of marriages generally. Last year, for example, there were only 44,000 marriages contracted in the Russian Federation, 7.2 percent fewer than the year before.

            But while childbirths outside of marriage are somewhat more common than they were, the decline in the number of marriages and the increase in the average age of first marriages almost certainly means that the number of children born in the Russian Federation will continue to decline, almost regardless of what policies the Kremlin introduces. 

Marauders in Russian Uniforms Running Amok in Belgorod Oblast Where Many Villages Don’t Have Police and Prosecutors haven’t Opened Cases Against Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Men wearing Russian army uniforms are running amok in parts of Belgorod Oblast, a Russian region that neighbors Ukraine. Residents believe that these are Russian soldiers, but officials and the military say that these marauders and looters are criminals who have been able to get uniforms in an attempt to hide what they are doing.

            However that may be, the Veter portal says, in many villages, there are no police at all; and in no place in the oblast have charges been brought against any of them, a pattern that reflects the growing weakness of Russian government agencies there (veter.info/posts/xcuFvrrirHbc reproduced at novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/07/11/kto-voruet-domovoi,  kommersant.ru/doc/6029717 and go31.ru/news/obshchestvo/glavnoe-voennoe-sledstvennoe-upravlenie-ne-vedyet-dela-o-marodyerstve-v-belgorodskoy-oblasti/).

              For a broader discussion of the decay of the Russian military and Russian authority in Russian areas adjoining Ukraine, see https://jamestown.org/program/moscow-losing-out-to-criminals-in-russian-regions-along-ukrainian-border/.  

 

Movements of Indigenous Peoples in Russian Federation Expand Cooperation

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – The leaders of the movements of the indigenous peoples in the Russian Federation have met to expand cooperation among them both to limit the possibility that Moscow will play them off against one another and to allow them to negotiate as a group with Russian opposition groups.

            At the end of last week, representatives of these groups most now in emigration held a conference in Berlin on “Indigenous Vision: Centering Our Voices, Resilience and Knowledge” (themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/11/conference-seeks-solidarity-among-indigenous-peoples-of-russia-ukraine-and-central-asia-a89789).

            Three of the leaders, Buryat activist and Indigenous Peoples of Russia leader Viktoriya Maladayeva, Buryat opposition and co-founder of the Nomads Indigenous Collective Seseg Jigitova, and Sakha activist Vilyuya Choinova outlined the purposes of the meeting at a press conference.

            Choinova said that one of the chief goals of the meeting and indeed of indigenous activism now is to “create a platform for Indigenous voices so we can start a dialogue on equal terms with the Russian opposition,” a group that was not represented at the Berlin meeting and that remains divided as far as its identity is concerned.

            Maladyaeva said that the Russian intelligentsia and the current Russian opposition has suffered from an identity crisis “for many centuries. They don’t know who they are” in that regard. The situation of the indigenous populations is different: “we know who we are [and] we know what we want.”

            And Jigitova specified what most of the indigenous believe: “the hyper-centralized, Moscow-centric system is incompatible with decolonization, as it creates projects where indigenous people are invited” to participate but marginalized and not put at the center of what is going on.

            All three stressed that their cooperation is at “the dialogue stage,” one designed to “find ways to build solidarity and amplify their voices” rather than laying down any “shared vision for the future” given that “every region” in the Russian Federation is “different and [has[ different issues.”

            What they do hope for is that their group will gain “institutional representation in institutions like the United Nations and the Council of Europe” because that would give them added weight in talks with both the Russian state and the Russian opposition.

Putin’s War in Ukraine Far from Only Reason Russia’s Prison Population is Declining and Penal Institutions are Closing, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – It is widely believed that the number of those incarcerated for crimes in Russia has fallen because inmates have been given the opportunity to fight in Putin’s war in Ukraine and that their departure is why almost 90 penal institutions have been closed since February 2022.

            That is part of the explanation, Important Stories journalist Alina Danilina says; but it is only part of it. Other reasons include a growing shortage of guards who may very well have gone to war as a better alternative to their jobs and the sentencing of those convicted not to prison (istories.media/stories/2025/07/08/v-rossii-za-35-goda-zakrili-pochti-90-kolonii-i-sizo-eto-iz-za-voini/).

            She acknowledges that fulling proving her argument is impossible because Moscow has stopped publishing reliable data on the number of convicts and the shortages of guards, although there have been enough statements by officials and analyses by experts to show that the war itself is not the only cause.

            In support of her own argument, Danilina points out that slightly more Russian penal institutions were closed in the three and a half years before Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine than in the three and a half since and that the challenge of trying to hire more guards has become ever more lively.

            She also points out that the system is not becoming more humane and that the shortage of guards almost certainly means that in many cases, Russian prisoners who remain behind bars or in the camps are being treated even worse than they were before 2022 given that the remaining guards are more likely to use force than when there was a larger number of them. 

Dissident Orthodox Priest in Kazakhstan Moves to Create Alternative to Moscow Church There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – Father Iakov Vorontsov, defrocked by the Moscow Patriarchate and subject to criminal charges for his call to create an autocephalous Orthodox church in Kazakhstan subordinate to any larger patriarchate except Moscow, has now resumed his campaign following the dismissal of those charges.

            Vorontsov attracted public attention first for his efforts in 2023 to create a rival Orthodox church in Kazakhstan and then for the criminal charges the Kazakhstan authorities brought against him. (For his earlier efforts, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/seeking-autocephaly-church-dissident-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/some-orthodox-in-kazakhstan-seek.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/07/orthodox-leaders-in-kazakhstan-now-say.html; and for the case against him which arose from a Facebook post in which he called the Russian authorities fascist, see https://orda.kz/ugolovnoe-delo-protiv-svjaschennika-s-iakova-voroncova-snjali-obvinenija-401445/.).

            Since the case was dismissed in May, Vorontsov has resumed his efforts to create an alternative Orthodox church in Kazakhstan. He now insists he isn’t trying to replace one Orthodox church with another but to give believers in that country a choice (orda.kz/byvshij-svjaschennik-rpc-hochet-otkryt-novuju-pravoslavnuju-cerkov-v-kazahstane-404122/).

            He says that many Orthodox Christians are unhappy with the Moscow Patriarchate’s position on Putin’s war in Ukraine and are now worshipping in the Uniate congregations there. But the establishment of a new Orthodox church in that country, possibly subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople will give them more options.

            The Moscow Patriarchate for its part is unlikely to see Vorontsov’s new position as acceptable. Instead, the ROC MP is certain to view what the dissident priest is now doing as another effort to break the Orthodox Christians away from the Moscow Patriarchate and thus to weaken Russia.

            That the Kazakhstan authorities have dismissed the case against him and that he is resuming his activities suggests, however, that Vorontsov enjoys some support within the Kazakhstan government and is likely to become even more active than he was before government charges were brought against him. 

Russia’s Only Aircraft Carrier Under Repair Since 2017 May Finally Be Scrapped

Paul Goble

Staunton, July 11 – The Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only aircraft carrier that suffered many embarrassments while at sea and has been under repair since 2017 may now be scrapped, Izvestiya says, a development that if true is likely to spark renewed debate in Moscow on whether Russia needs or can afford a replacement.

            For the Izvestiya report and a discussion of its implications, see iz.ru/1918884/2025-07-11/remont-i-modernizatciia-kreisera-admiral-kuznetcov-priostanovleny and thebarentsobserver.com/security/repairs-on-russias-admiral-kuznetsov-halted-decommissioning-possible/433308; for the sad history of this ship both on the seas and in drydock, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/for-sixth-time-completion-of-repairs-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/projected-return-of-ill-fated-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-kuznetsov-almost-died-in-2018-when.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/fsb-raids-shipyards-where-russias-only.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/01/kremlin-claims-to-contrary-russias-only.html.

            According to the Russian government newspaper, all work on the Admiral Kuznetsov has been suspended; and a decision whether to renew that at some point in the future or scrap the ship will be made soon by the Navy and the United Shipbuilding Corporation “in the near future.”

            Many Russian analysts have suggested in the past that the ship will be scrapped especially as costs of repairing it rise at a time of budgetary stringency brought on by Putin’s war in Ukraine. And some Moscow commentators have sought to make a virtue out of this necessity by arguing the age of aircraft carriers is over and that Russia shouldn’t waste money on them.

            But others argue that aircraft carriers still have a place and that Russia can afford one or more in the future even if it can’t afford to refit the Admiral Kuznetsov. That suggests that a debate will now open that took place in 2021 but was closed down by the beginning of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/debate-about-possible-construction-of.html).

Since Putin Came to Power, 32 Governors have Been Charged with Crimes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – Becoming the head of a federal subject in the Russian Federation is a high-risk step. As Kommersant reports, since 2000, 32 governors have been charged with crimes, 21 while still in office, and 19 were brought to trial. The rest had their cases dismissed, often because of the statute of limitations (kommersant.ru/doc/7659367).

            The Horizontal Russia portal has now analyzed these cases in detail and highlighted that Moscow has brought charges both against those who are most loyal to it and those who are not (semnasem.org/articles/2025/07/10/bystro-zhestko-i-bez-lishnih-santimentov-kak-ustroeno-presledovanie-gubernatorov-i-drugih-upravlencev-v-rossii).

            Such moves against governors, the portal suggests are designed to reenforce the popular view that those involved in politics are bribetakers or otherwise corrupt, a stereotype which “reduces the motivation to take part in elections” and even to follow what is going on in the political system below the level of the president.

            Moscow divides regional heads “into two categories,” Horizontal Russia says, those who are loyal to the central authorities and those who oppose or have offended them. The Kremlin treats them differently: charging the former only when the crimes can’t be ignored but feeling free to bring charges for lesser crimes in the case of the latter.

            “Since his first term,” the portal continues, “Vladimir Putin has sought to limit the influence of mayors and governors because he understands that … they can be independent of the Kremlin even if they show complete support for the federal authorities.” Moscow has the same view of business leaders in the regions.

            To limit its problems with such people, the Kremlin has eliminated genuine elections for governors and created a governors’ school to weed out those who might become problematic. But criminal charges remain the last line of defense, one the Kremlin is quite prepared to use. And governors understand this implicitly.

            To ensure that they do, the Horizontal Russia portal says, Moscow will continue to bring criminal charges against governors on a regular basis, no matter how loyal such people may appear to be.

Domestic Policy Failures Not Just Foreign Influence Behind Many of Russia’s Nationality Problems, Duma Deputy Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – The new draft Russian government nationality policy document specifies that the main threats to ethnic peace in the Russian Federation are the result of attempts by hostile foreign powers to influence the situation there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/new-draft-nationality-strategy-focuses.html).

            But Duma deputy Nikolay Doluda says “in fact, there are also internation shortcomings such as social-economic problems, insufficient amounts of information, and the lack of leaders of public opinon which are having no less a negative impact on the situation” (business-gazeta.ru/article/677077).

            The ethnic Ukrainian who earlier served as a Cossack ataman but has been a member of the Russian Duma since 2021 made that remark in the course of a session of the Russian parliament’s nationalities committee devoted to a discussion of the new nationality policy document.

            While most of the participants in this discussion lined up behind the government draft, others dissented in ways like Doluda and argued that Moscow needs to take positive steps to attract non-Russians to its side, including the construction of new mosques for Muslims in major cities.  

            These divisions in fact represent a step forward in that they highlight the fundamental differences within the Russian political class about what to do with the “nationality question.” And they may be a harbinger of real debates in the future about domestic policy as a whole and not just discussions on the margins.

Moscow Now Feels It can Again Make Changes in Russian Regions without Risk to Itself, Kynyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – During covid pandemic and in the run-up to the presidential elections, the Kremlin slowed making changes in the leadership of Russian regions fearing that any such moves during a period of potential turbulence was dangerous. But now, Aleksandr Kynyev says, it believes such limiting factors are behind it and that it is free to make more changes.

            As a result, the HSE political scientist says the Kremlin is likely to increase still further the percentage of outsiders in charge of regions – that figure now stands at 60 percent – and will further destroy anything worthy of the name of a regional elite (semnasem.org/articles/2024/08/07/kto-upravlyaet-regionami-kynev).

            Last year, Kynyev published a study of how the leadership of political and business institutions in predominantly ethnic Russian regions has changed over the last 30 years (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/no-ethnic-russian-region-has-elite.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/putin-has-gelded-regional-elites-but.html).

            He repeats the arguments he made then that there are no elites in the regions of the kind that existed in the 1990s and that no predominantly ethnically Russian oblast or kray is currently capable of pursuing independence. Those who think otherwise are basing their arguments on a situation that existed in the 1990s but no longer does.

            There are no real regional political elites because those the Kremlin has installed no longer identify with or care about the future of their areas of responsibility because they won’t be living there in the future, Kynyev continues; and something similar has happened to leaders of businesses in the regions: they increasingly head branches of federal companies.

            “If there is turbulence in Moscow, then the rules of the game could change … and its control over the regions would weaken,” he says. If that happens, then regional challenges could emerge. But “until that control weakens, there won’t be any such ‘fermentation.’ This system is stable … and it can exist for a very long time.”

Falling Caspian Water Levels Cuts into Russian Shipping, Forcing Moscow Again to Focus on Rail Routes West and East of that Sea

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – Because of political turmoil in the South Caucasus and limited tracks in Central Asia, Moscow two years ago focused on the sea lanes of the Caspian to fulfill its plans for a north-south transit corridor (jamestown.org/program/moscow-shifting-focus-to-sea-lanes-rather-than-railways-for-north-south-corridor/).

            But the rapid decline of water levels on that sea, the silting up of its three harbors on the Caspian and the retreat of the coastline from them, Moscow has been compelled to focus again on railways west and east of that sea (fondsk.ru/news/2025/07/09/uskorennoe-rasshirenie-areala-koridora-sever-yug-novye-gorizonty.html).

            In the last year alone, the cargo Russia had been shipping via the Caspian has fallen 40 percent, an amount so large that even the political problems Moscow faces in the south Caucasus and the difficulties it has will rail networks in Central Asia pale in comparison as factors in Russian calculations.

            This shift is likely to involve three major shifts in Russian plans: First, it is likely to reduce support for the development of Astrakhan as a port, something that will also have consequences on the ability of Moscow to move ships from its Caspian Flotilla from there to the Sea of Azov where it has been using them in Putin’s war against Ukraine.

            Second, it is likely to open the way for other littoral states to expand their trade and military activity given that their ships are smaller and have less draft allowing them to operate where the larger and heavier Russian ships increasingly cannot as the Caspian continues to silt up and water levels fall.

            And third, it will cause Moscow to become more involved with the South Caucasus states and seek political arrangements with them, as hard as that may be, and to work with China to expand rail networks in Central Asia so as to be able to meet the ambitious goals of Putin’s north-south route.

Kremlin Classifies Information Not Only about Demography but Also about Russian Foreign Policy

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – Moscow’s decision not to publish demographic data has attracted enormous attention (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/to-hide-russias-demographic-decline.html), but its almost simultaneous decision to do the same thing about foreign policy (publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202506240053) has not.     

            That is especially unfortunate given that much of the demographic data Rosstat will now stop publishing can be garnered, albeit with difficulty elsewhere, and because the classification of information on Russian foreign policy will allow Moscow to charge ever more people with breaking the law if they publish it (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=686E006E85A6E).

            On June 24, eight days before Rosstat’s decision was announced, Vladimir Putin signed a decree throwing the cloak of secrecy over all information about the tactics of Moscow’s foreign policy. It is sweeping in its scope and will likely soon become the basis for new charges against journalists and scholars.

            Among the kind of information now declared secret are “reports about issues of foreign policy, foreign economic activity, foreign trade, scientific-technical links which reveal the strategy and tactics of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation,” a ban that can be used to suppress any discussion of mobilization for Putin’s war or his diplomatic activity generally.

Serious Crime in North Caucasus Rises to Highest Level since 2010

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – “Serious” and “especially serious” crimes, which include corruption, treason and violence, have risen in the North Caucasus to the highest levels since 2010, the Russian interior ministry says (fedstat.ru/indicator/36223), the result of both guns flowing into the region and the deteriorating security situation there.

            Slightly more than a third of the 13.093 crimes registered in the region in the first half of 2025 were in Stavropol Kray (5200). Figures for the other federal subjects there are as follows: 3100 in Dagestan, 1600 in North Ossetia, 1300 in Kabardino-Balkaria, 908 in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, 515 in Ingushetia and 490 in Chechnya (fedstat.ru/indicator/36223 and kavkazr.com/a/na-severnom-kavkaze-zaregistrirovali-rekordnoe-za-poslednie-14-let-chislo-tyazhkih-prestupleniy/33469601.html).

            The greatest increase over the last year came in Adygeya, a reflection of its low initial numbers. It was followed on this metric by Kalmykia, Chechnya and Karachayevo-Cherkessia. The comparable figure for the Russian Federation as a whole was up by 25 percent in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. 

Moscow Finally Planning to Open Drug Rehabilitation Centers for Veterans Returning from Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – After Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, it quickly became obvious that a significant share of Russian soldiers were using illegal drugs (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/putins-war-in-ukraine-leading-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/illegal-drug-use-increasing-problem.html).

            Estimates suggest that 10 to 15 percent of all Russian troops sent to Ukraine have taken such drugs and many have become dependent, especially as the Russian military hasn’t addressed the problem seriously (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/moscow-providing-little-help-to-russian.html).

            Indeed, according to one survey of drug use in the Russian military in Ukraine, commanders there who have discovered men using drugs have often dealt with this plague simply by sending the men involved to the frontlines where they are most likely to be killed (verstka.media/kak-rossiyskie-soldaty-upotrebliayut-narkotiki-na-voyne).

            Now, however, with ever more veterans returning home, some of whom have drug habits, the Russian government is discussing plans to open a few drug rehabilitation centers lest drug addiction lead to crime and other problems (sila-rf.ru/2025/07/09/v-rossii-otkryvayut-reabilitatsionnye-tsentry-dlya-zavisimyh-bojtsov-svo/).

            When such centers will be opened and how many of them there will be has not yet been decided, but if only 10 percent of the 100,000 veterans who have returned so far  have drug problems, the need is great even though Moscow has dragged its feet on helping veterans with PTSD and related problems (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/moscows-failure-to-treat-secondary.html).

            Consequently, the returning veterans are likely to boost the numbers of Russians using illegal drugs and the crime, deaths, and demographic consequences the widespread use of drugs will be responsible for (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/70000-russians-suffered-deaths-of.html).               

Moscow Outlet Dismisses Kazakh Genocide as ‘a Myth’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – In December 1992, the Kazakhstan government declared on the basis of a study prepared by a commission of historians and ethnologists that the mass murder of Kazakhs in the late 1920s and 1930s during their forcible sedentarization and collectivization was so massive as to constitute an act of genocide.          

“The size of these tragedies” in which an even larger share of Kazakhstan’s population died that did in the terror famine in Ukraine “fully justifies designating it as a manifestation of a policy of genocide”  (camonitor.kz/33451-massovyy-golod-1930-h-v-kazahstane-asharshylyk-eto-genocid.html

In the decades since, Kazakhs have devoted significant time to the study and popularization of this issue, seeing it as central to their national history; and Moscow has denounced this as an invented issue and insisted that Soviet policies of sedentarization and collectivization were not animated by ethnic animus and therefore weren’t genocides.

For background on these Kazakh actions and Moscow’s responses, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/05/another-soviet-genocide-kazakhstan-1932.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/11/stalin-used-terror-famine-to-russify.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/05/debate-on-mass-deaths-in-kazakhstan.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/08/mass-murder-of-kazakhs-occurred-under.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/06/sedentarization-compounded-crime-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/terror-famine-happened-in-kazakhstan.html.

Now with relations between Moscow and Astana deteriorating and many in the Russian capital fearful that Kazakhstan may follow Ukraine in exiting from the Russian sphere of influence, Moscow writers are attacking the very idea of a terror famine in Kazakhstan as “a myth” much in the same way they have done about Ukraine’s Holodomor.

The latest and in some ways the most outrageous of these Russian attacks on historical truth appears in the latest issue of the Moscow propaganda outlet, Asia-Today, which dismisses all the research Kazakhs have pure invention by Russophobes who want to sow ethnic discord and weaken ties between Russia and Kazakhstan (asia-today.news/08072025/6413/).

After denouncing all the research on the subject as a fabrication, the Russian outlet says it has definitive proof that there was no genocide in Kazakhstan. Had there been, Asia-Today says, Kazakhs would never have fought as heroically as they did for the Soviet Union and against Hitler as they did.

If that is the best that Moscow can come up with on this subject, it has, as it should, lost the battle; and ever more Kazakhs are going to recognize that Moscow’s moves against their ancestors in the 1920s and 1930s were acts of ethnic genocide intended to crush the Kazakh nation and allow more ethnic Russians to move into their territory. 

KPRF Rehabilitates Stalin and Becomes Even More an Adjunct to Putin Regime

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 6 – At its latest party congress, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) denounced Khrushchev for his attacks on Stalin and rehabilitated the longtime Soviet dictator and at the same time moved into an ever closer alliance with the Kremlin.

            The first of these actions, not surprisingly, has attracted greater attention; but the second may prove to be even more fateful because it will create a situation in the Russian Federation that is analogous to the relations between parties in East Germany during the Cold War, one in which one party dominated but all others were slavishly loyal to it.

            Putin has been moving in that direction for some time, but the appearance of Sergey Kiriyenko, first deputy head of the Presidential Administration at the KPRF meeting, and the reception he received suggests that the leadership of the KPRF is fully prepared to accept that role (ng.ru/politics/2025-07-06/1_9287_kprf.html).

            To the extent that is true, the KPRF is no longer an opposition party as it is usually described but an adjunct of the Kremlin and its ruling United Russia Party. Not all the members of the KPRF are likely to be happy with this – there have already been splits – and more divisions are likely to emerge as the consequences of this relationship becomes more obvious.

Climate Change Affecting Different Parts of Russia Very Differently, Academy of Sciences-Higher School of Economics Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – Climatologists typically discuss the impact of global warming country by country, but the Russian Federation is so large and environmentally diverse that scholars at the Academy of Sciences and at the Higher School of Economics have now come up with a rating that details just how differently different regions are being affected.

            They rated the country’s more than 80 federal subjects according to how much the situation is changing and is projected to change over the next 30 years according to “heat, drought or water stress, wildfires, extreme precipitation and permafrost degradation” (newizv.ru/news/2025-07-04/spasaysya-kto-mozhet-kakie-regiony-rf-postradayut-ot-izmeneniya-klimata-silnee-vsego-437348).

            The purpose of this rating was to call attention to those places where the authorities must take action now in order to prepare for the worst. While all federal subjects are or will be affected by one or more of them, nine of the federal subjects either now or soon will be affected by all five.

            These nine are Amur Oblast, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Leningrad Oblast, Moscow Oblast, TransBaikal Kray, Krasnodar Kray, Khabarovsk Kray, Bashkortostan and the Komi Republic. In those places, officials must take action in five directions at once lest disaster ensue, the scholars who conducted the study say. 

Over the Last Six Years, Putin Visited Russia’s Federal Subjects More than Twice as Often as He has Gone Abroad, ‘Vedomosti’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – Between 2019 and June 2025, Vedomosti reports, Vladimir Putin made 54 trips abroad and 120 to the various federal subjects of the Russian Federation, with the former declining over that period because of Moscow’s increasing isolation and the risk of Putin’s arrest and the latter increasing as the Kremlin leader seeks to show himself active.

            During the same period, the newspaper says, foreign leaders came to Russia to meet him 351 times – including Belarus’ Alyaksandr Lukashenka who came 29 times; and Putin engaged in “no fewer than 858 telephone calls” with such leaders so as to maintain contacts with them (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2025/07/05/1121907-zarubezhnie-kontakti-vladimira-putina).

            Putin visited only 52 of Russia’s federal subjects, with his most frequent sites being St. Petersburg and Primorsky Kray where internal forums are held and also to Ukraine’s Crimea which Putin illegally annexed to the Russian Federation a decade ago. He did not visit large swaths of the country, however.

Share of Russians who Regularly Tell Anecdotes has Risen 50 Percent Since Putin Came to Power with Most of that Rise Coming in the Last Several Years, Levada Center Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – Because sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, Russians regularly used anecdotes in Soviet times to allow them to comment on what was taking place in their world; but in the 1990s, when being explicit was less of a problem, they told fewer than in the past. But in the most recent years of Putin’s rule, they are heading back to the Soviet pattern.

            According to surveys by the independent Levada polling agency, the share of Russians who say they regularly tell anecdotes or repeat lines from popular films or movies was 12 percent in 2000, fell to  eight to ten percent in the mid-teens, but now has risen to 22 percent (levada.ru/2025/07/08/ispolzovanie-slenga-i-krylatyh-fraz-anekdotov-i-maternyh-vyrazhenij/).

             Nearly half both in 2000 and now say they sometimes tell such stories with those who live in big cities and have more education are more likely to tell them than are those who live in rural areas and have less schooling, patterns also typical of the Soviet past, according to researchers.

            Aleksandr Arkhipova, a Moscow anthropologist, has pointed out that political anecdotes about Putin and his regime are becoming more numerous because they fill exactly the same role that stories about Stalin and his system did in Soviet times: they allow Russians to express their feelings with less risk of getting into trouble (mbk.media/sences/anekdot-krivoe-zerkalo-epoxi/).

 

Authoritarianism is like a Virus which Doesn’t Raise Temperatures but Rather Lowers Immunity, Nevzlin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – Surveying the spread of authoritarianism around the world, Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian commentator living in Israel, points to a fundamental fact of this development: Authoritarianism, he says, is like a virus which doesn’t raise the temperatures of those it infects but rather lowers their immunity to other things.

            That makes it especially dangerous because it isn’t like a rain that will eventually dry up on its own  but rather like a mold that will remain and allow other negative phenomena like corruption and xenophobia to grow and flourish unless people face up to it and fight it (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=686B8270A0B4D).                      

            Indeed, looking at the rise of authoritarianism both in Russia and in well-off Western countries, Nevzlin points out an unwelcome truth about why authoritarianism has made these advances and what may be an even more unwelcome truth about how it can be fought and   defeated.

            Today’s authoritarianism did not come “suddenly” to any of the countries, he points out. It arrived when the population “turns away” from politics. But there is ultimately good news: it is not eternal however much its leaders say but will go away, when the people return “to ourselves, to the truth and to action” against those who would strip everyone of their rights and freedoms.

Russian Repression Prompts Finno-Ugric Movement to Declare a US City Its Cultural Capital for 2026

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – The international Finno-Ugric movement for the first time ever has declared a city in the United States long associated with Finland to be its cultural capital for 2026, the result of increasing Moscow repression on Finno-Ugric nations within current Russian borders and the impossibility of holding such a celebration there.

            In making the announcement, Oliver Loode, the head of the Estonia-based URALIC Center, says that his group, which has been naming such a city each year since 2012, decided to reach out further than in the past because of Russian oppression (idelreal.org/a/v-sovremennoy-rossii-finno-ugorskie-narody-ne-imeyut-buduschego-oliver-loode-o-tom-pochemu-gorod-v-ssha-stal-novoy-finno-ugorskoy-stolitsey-/33463363.html).

            The city he and his colleagues have chosen is Hancock, Michigan, long viewed as the Finnish cultural center in North America, something Loode says will hold it in good stead as a center for focus of the entire Finno-Ugric world at a time when Moscow has created a situation where “the Finno-Ugric peoples do not have a future” – or “even much of a present.”

            In giving a US city this honor, Loode says, the Finno-Ugric peoples will gain new allies in diaspora communities further away, something that will in part compensate for Russia’s closing off of the Finno-Ugrics and the inability of the three Finno-Ugric independent countries – Estonia, Finland, and Hungary – to maintain close contact with their co-ethnics there.

Self-Censorship and Denunciations Explain Why Some would Like to Return to Soviet-Style Censorship, Shulika Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – Unlike in Soviet times when writers and other cultural figures knew more or less what the rules were because of censorship, their successors now operate in a situation where the authorities responding to activists act repressively but often unpredictably, leading to even harsher self-censorship and uncertainty, Kirill Shulika says.

            Not surprisingly, some, like Mikhail Shvydkoy would like to go back to a system where the rules were clearer, where those imposing the rules were limited to a specific group of officials, and where anyone prepared to work within those rules could function more or less comfortably, the Russian commentator says (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-07-07/kirill-shulika-vozvraschenie-sovetskoy-kultury-5430513).

            But as understandable as that desire to go back to the past, he continues, there is no chance that the Putin regime can do so. On the one hand, there has been an explosion in the number of cultural products that would have to be censored; and on the other, there is no overarching ideology guiding what is acceptable and what is not.

            Unless the Kremlin is prepared to address those two problems by reducing cultural production and establishing an official ideology, there is little chance for a return to what view as a more predictable and thus more comfortable past. Instead, those who want to write or otherwise take part in cultural life are going to face an unpredictable and uncomfortable future. 

Moscow Will Learn that Releasing the Genie of Aggressive Nationalism is Easy but Putting It Back in the Bottle is Hard, Memorial Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – The Putin regime has found it convenient and useful ,to release the genie of aggressive Russian nationalism, Olga Abramenko says; but it will find it far more difficult to put it back in the bottle lest it grow to such an extent that it leads to the kind of social explosion that will threaten the state.

            The expert at the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center says that her observations on this point are prompted by the chain reaction of events that have followed the brutal detention of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg (svoboda.org/a/dzhinn-natsionalizma-oljga-abramenko-o-posledstviyah-ksenofobii/33465926.html).

            These detentions which left several people dead and seriously wounded enjoyed the support of the population, Abramenko suggests, an indication of the high level of xenophobia in Russian society as a whole. But they quickly led to a response from Azerbaijan that was anything but useful for the Kremlin.

            To limit the damage it has inflicted on itself, Moscow will have to try to put the genie of aggressive Russian nationalism back in the bottle or it will face even more problems abroad and at home, a lesson that the current regime’s predecessors learned the hard way – and that the Putin regime appears set to learn the same way again.

            Tragically, this learning process is going to be slow given that the regime’s point man on nationality policy, Igor Barinov of the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs has declared that “what is good for Russians is good for everyone,” a slogan taken from Vladimir Zhirionovsky and a dangerous misconception.

            What is needed, Abramenko says, is a recognition and proclamation of something else: “if things are bad for minorities, then things will be bad for all,” including for a regime that now appears to think differently.

‘Arctic Exceptionalism,’ Born in the Gorbachev Era, Comes to an End

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 4 – Since Gorbachev’s times, both Moscow and the West have accepted the idea of “Arctic exceptionalism,” the notion that the far north must be demilitarized and explored and economically developed only in a coordinated way. But now support for that idea is coming to an end in both places, Nail Farkhatdinov says.                  

            This led to the development of institutions like the Arctic Council, The Moscow Times writer says; but now both Moscow and the West in response are acting in ways that violate both the letter of the agreements that led to their rise and more important to the spirit of such “exceptionalism” (moscowtimes.ru/2025/07/04/temnaya-arkticheskaya-politika-a168007).

            That has led to the militarization of the region, the destruction of its fragile environment through untrammeled economic development, and threats to the survival of the numerically small peoples there, Farkhatdinov says. It has also raised the possibility that similar arrangements about the Antarctic will collapse along with other forms of cooperation.

            Lying behind all of this, the writer continues, is the replacement of Arctic exceptionalism with what might be called “the dark Arctic,” an arrangement in which decisions are taken without transparency or unilaterally by one side or the other, often by its security forces and agencies rather than diplomats.

            In the case of Russia, the lead organization of the Dark Arctic is the Naval Collegium under the hardline leadership of Nikolay Patrushev, a former director of the FSB and the former secretary of the Russian Security Council, who since last year has taken steps to end Arctic exceptionalism and allow for Russian expansion of all kinds there.

            In doing so, Farkhatdinov says, Patrushev has built on a trend that some investigators say began “at a minimum” about 15 years ago and shows no signs of easing up anytime soon.

Shariat Patrol, Active for Six Years in Kabardino-Balkaria, Charged with Extremism

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 -- Russian prosecutors have brought to trial on charges of extremism ten residents of a village in Kabardino-Balkaria for the activities over the course of six years as members of a Shariat patrol which sought to impose its standards of behavior on the population there.

               According to prosecutors, this Shariat Patrol between March 2017 and November 2023 put psychological pressure and even beat with sticks 16 local residents to force them to behave according to Islamic norms as understood by the patrol (kavkazr.com/a/borjba-za-nravstvennostj-ili-ekstremizm-v-naljchike-sudyat-shariatskiy-patrulj-/33463773.html).

            Three aspects of this situation are worth noting: this patrol functioned for so long, charges against it were brought only recently, and it is only the tip of the iceberg of something that has received remarkably little attention given Moscow’s obsessions with Islam and the media’s readiness to attack such manifestations of Islamic growth.

            As Aleksandr Cherkasov, a human rights activist with the Memorial organization points out, Russia has “a quite long history” of such groups, one going back at least to the end of Soviet times when Kazakh Muslims in Moscow organized themselves into such patrols in the Russian capital.

            According to the Memorial expert, such “vigilante”  groups – and he includes the notorious Russian Community as well – arise whenever there is a legal vacuum, something that exists when the civic authorities either cannot or do not enforce the laws. Others rush to fill in, often in ways that violate the legal code.

            The authorities have a complex relationship with such groups, sometimes defending them as in the case of the Russian Community and sometimes attacking them with repressive force as in the case of Shariat Patrols. But the real message the existence of such groups send is of the decline in the capacity or willingness of the state to defend its own laws.

Common Assumptions about Evolution of Soviet Cultural Policy Fundamentally Misleading, Incomplete and Wrong, Mitrokhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 4 – Neither of the two most widespread views about the relationship between culture and the state during Soviet times is correct, Nikolay Mitrokhin says, as can be seen if you consider what actually happened during the 74 years of the USSR regarding cultural affairs.

            The first holds that there was a more or less constant conflict between international an dcultural modernization and conservative and repression modernization, the Russian scholar at Bremen University says, while the second holds that the Soviet state was first tolerant of culture, then established monolithic control, and then suffered the decay of that control (t.me/NMitrokhinPublicTalk/5228  reposted at  echofm.online/opinions/teoriya-sovetskoj-kultury).

            Each captures something of what was taking place, the scholar says; but both distort the historical record and should be recognized as incomplete and false. For example, “under Stalin, there was jazz while under the liberal Khrushchev it was repressed” and then under Brezhnev it spread everywhere but the authorities generally ignored it.

            What was true of jazz was also true of other aspects of culture and its relationship with the state; and that must be factored in to give a full picture of this complicated and hardly unilinear and monolithic arrangement, Mitrokhon suggests.