Paul Goble
Staunton, July 3 – Russia’s Equality Project, using official statistics, has concluded that Moscow last year sent financial aid to Chechnya on a per capita basis 95,000 rubles (950 US dollars) twice as much as the central government is sending to other citizens of the Russian Federation (48,500 rubles or 485 US dollars).
As a result, Moscow is funding 92 percent of Chechen republic government expenses, part of the Kremlin’s bargain with the Kadyrov regime which the former provides the money and the latter keeps Chechnya passified. But that statistic has the potential to blow up in Moscow’s face (t.me/ravenstvomedia/451 and moscowtimes.ru/2025/07/03/obschaya-zavisimost-chechni-ot-rossiiskogo-byudzheta-previshaet-92-a167843).
That is because what Russians saw in 1991 was one of the reasons that they were not unhappy to see the non-Russian union republics depart, believing that these republics were burdens on the Russians rather than benefits. It is not unlikely that at least some Russians today will have reached that same decision about the non-Russian autonomies.
That is all the more likely because the Equality Project also found that the places where Moscow – that is Russia – was providing far higher shares of federal subject budgets were in almost every case non-Russian at a time when the central Russian government was providing far less money to non-Russian areas.
To the extent that this pattern becomes widely known in predominantly ethnic Russian areas, many Russians may decide that the non-Russian autonomies are costing them more than they are worth and push either for cutbacks in aid to them, something that would heighten nationalist tensions, or even look with favor on their exit from Russian control and assistance.
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