Altai Republic Opponents of Kremlin’s Abolishing of District Governments have Lost that Battle but have Become a Political Force, Kuznetsov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – All summer activists from rural areas of the Altai Republic opposed to the Kremlin’s decision to abolish local district governments have staged demonstrations and gone to court to try to block it. They have failed, but their actions have “enlivened local political life” and made the Altai a symbol of resistance to Moscow, Pavel Kuznetsov says.

            After carefully surveying what the opponents of the Kremlin decision did and how they have now lost in all venues where they hoped to derail it, the Russian journalist now living in Germany says that the protests should not be dismissed as irrelevant as they have given people in the Altai real political experience (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/08/25/zaregistrirovali-chtoby-on-ne-budorazhil-vsiu-respubliku).

            Perhaps the most important outcome, Kuznetsov says, is that a new class of popular leaders have emerged, people without direct connection to the increasingly gelded KPRF which has opposed the republic head in the past. Among them the three most important are lawyer Dmitry Todoshev, activist Aruna Arna, and protest organizer Vasily Kudirmekov. 

            Todoshev, who led the failed effort to get the republic supreme court to delay the implementation of the reform, gained popular recognition and support when he exited the court, declared that it was “too early to surrender,” and urged local district officials whose positions are to be abolished to remain at their posts.

            If Todoshev is a genuinely new figure, Aruna Arna is not but she has assumed a new and broader role. More than a decade ago, she became active as a defender of localities in the Altai, for which she was convicted of spreading “unreliable” information via her telegram channel. Now, she has stepped up her actions and declared the republic head illegitimate.

            The third new leader, Vasily Kudirmekov, is “a much more serious figure” than the other two, Kuznetsov argues. He created and heads the Kurultay of the Altai People and has long been an active defender of the Altai language.  When the KPRF was more genuinely an opposition party, he worked with them; but now he is using the Kurultay as his base.

            He was behind the largest opposition demonstration in the Altai which attracted some 4,000 people; and the incumbent regime is currently worried about his activities, especially given that there will be elections to the republic parliament next month – and despite official pressure, such opponents of the regime may do better than expected, Kuznetsov suggests.