Almost Half of Russia’s Regions Now Paying Bonuses to School-Age Girls who Give Birth Despite Public Opposition and Expert Predictions Such Aid won’t Boost Birthrate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 14 – Because Putin has said that women who have their first child earliest will have more children later in life, a proposition experts dispute, 37 regions are now paying enormous bonuses of up to 345,000 rubles (4,000 US dollars) to school-age girls who give register and give birth to a child.

            On this rapidly expanding program, see svoboda.org/a/stavropolje-lidiruet-v-strane-po-chislu-vyplachennyh-posobiy-za-rannyuyu-beremennostj/33853818.html and nemoskva.net/2026/09/14/posobiya-dlya-beremennyh-shkolnicz-vveli-v-37-regionah-rossii/.

            But not only Russian demographers are casting doubt on the premises of this program, arguing that such bonuses will change only when women give birth and not how often they do so, but many Russian citizens are opposed to it because they see it violating moral norms and harming the health of these women and their children (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/moscows-promotion-of-abortion-bans-and.html).

            That this program has taken off in this way highlights both the power of a Putin suggestion to get the regions and republics to fall in line and the failure of other programs to boost the birthrate. Because of that, Moscow and those it controls seem now prepared to try even this risky strategy which in all likelihood will fail.

Having Provoked Anti-Russian Attitudes in Central Asia with Tough New Migration Policies, Moscow must Get Ready to Evacuate ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Russians from There, Aksyonov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 14 – Many Russians welcome Moscow’s tough new policies on migration but fail to note that these are producing anti-Russian attitudes in Central Asia where there are still many ethnic Russians and from which Moscow must be ready to evacuate Russians because local governments can’t protect them, Sergey Aksyonov says.

            The Svobodnaya Pressa commentator says it is understandable that some Central Asians will be angry at Russians for how Moscow is now treating them and that such anger can lead to “a wave of Russophobia” in their countries which the Russians living there now can only escape from by fleeing back to Moscow (svpressa.ru/society/article/532061/).

            The two countries in Central Asia which have sent the most migrant workers and thus are most likely to create a situation for ethnic Russians in them who may decide that they have no choice but to flee are Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the first with one million and the second with 1.3 million workers in Russia and with 30,000 and 600,000 Russians at home.

            “It is naïve,” Aksyonov says, to think that the authorities in either country can protect ethnic Russians living there from popular retribution. After all, he continues, “you can’t put a police officer next to every ‘Muscovite.’” Consequently, large numbers of Russians now in Central Asia are likely to want to leave as Moscow puts more pressure on immigrants.

            Because this is the case, he continues, “Moscow needs to prepare in case of need to urgently help compatriots in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. And not just attempt to calm passions  by saying we must live together as it tried in the Donbass but be ready for the evacuation of tens or even hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians” back to Russia.

Church Procession in St. Petersburg Mirrors One in Moscow and Attracts Few Extreme Nationalists, SOVA Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – The St. Petersburg church procession on Sept. 12 was about the same size – 90,000 as against 100,000 – and attracted just as few extreme Russian nationalists – less than one percent in the northern capital compared to about two percent in both cases, according to the SOVA Center which tracks extremism.

            For data on the extremists in the procession in the northern capital, see sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2026/09/d54533/; for a discussion of the march in Moscow, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/09/representatives-of-extreme-russian.html.

            On the one hand, what used to be considered extremism has in many cases gone mainstream in Russia and so those in “extremist” groups march with others rather than separately; but on the other, it is incorrect to describe the latest processions as a recrudescence of the Russian marches of earlier times. 

FSB Fighting Losing Battle against Illegal Armorers who Convert Weapons flowing into Russia from Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 14 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, guns from that conflict have been flooding into the Russian Federation where they are adapted by underground armorers for use by private individuals, criminal organizations and at least potentially anti-Moscow underground organizations.

            Over the last four years, the FSB has repeatedly reported that it has identified and closed down the armorers involved in this process and closed them down. For those claims and their frequent repetition, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/05/guns-flooding-into-north-caucasus-from.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/fsb-raids-underground-armament-firms-in.html and the sources cited therein.

            This week, the FSB made a similar announcement, declaring that it, together with the interior ministry and the Russian Guard, had arrested more than a hundred people involved in this illegal arms trade in 43 regions of Russia, among which the North Caucasus was singled out as a major focus (vfokuse.mail.ru/articles/69641897-fsb-soobshila-o-raskrytii-chernyh-oruzhejnikov-bolee-chem-v-40-regionah/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/426613).

            The fact that this announcement is so similar to earlier announcements by the FSB shows that the Russian siloviki are currently fighting a losing battle on this front and that both more guns are flowing from the front into Russia and that more people are now involved in this illicit process than earlier, yet another way Putin’s war in Ukraine is coming home to Russians.

              Russian experts say there may now be more than 30 million guns in private hands, many of them illegal, and that even in Moscow there may be as many as 250,000 residents who have almost 700,000 guns in their possession (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/more-than-quarter-million-muscovites.html).

              Most of these figures involve guns that are registered, but not all – and the means there is almost certainly going to be an upsurge in violent crime and even violent underground political activity, something that means siloviki who go after such people may discover that they face newly armed opponents.

Aral Sea Basin Now a CO2 Emitter which Threatens to Increase Global Warming rather than a C02 Sink which Restrained that Trend, Kazakh Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – The impact of the death of the Aral Sea on surrounding areas is well-documented and much of the discussion about what to do now is between those who want to find more water to flow into the seabed, a difficult task indeed, and those who want to plant trees on the former seabed to prevent the spread of dust and dangerous elements.

            Those favoring a focus on planting trees to hold the soil in place have had the upper hand not only because such steps can be taken by the government that controls the specific littoral of the former sea but also because planting trees is much easier than changing water use patterns on the rivers which had filled the sea in the past.

            But new research on the death of the Aral suggests that the consequences of its death are larger and more international than any had thought earlier and that it could even be the case that international payments to fight global warming could lead to the restoration of the sea by providing money for dealing with the feeder rivers.

            What this research shows, Kazakhstan investigators say, is that as long as the sea was in existence,  vegetation on its bed help enormous among of carbon dioxide; but now that the sea has died, all of that CO2 is being released, increasing global warming and harming more than just those around the sea (vlast.kz/obsshestvo/70851-vysohsee-dno-aralskogo-mora-stanovitsa-istocnikom-ugleroda-cto-s-etim-delat.html).

            According to European research cited by the Kazakh experts, international payments to support carbon sinks and reverse the release of more carbon dioxide could amount to as much as 15.8 billion euros (18 billion US dollars). That could be sufficient to take the steps needed to change water use patterns on the feeder rivers and allow the Aral Sea to make a comeback.

            This is almost certainly an overly optimistic view; but the fact that it is being offered may change the debate over the Aral and other threatened bodies of water, shifting the balance away from those who see the death of these bodies of water as irreversible to those who now can show just how dangerous to how many countries failure to take steps in that direction would be.

Inflation in Russia Hitting Poor Far Harder than Those Better Off as Prices for Basic Foodstuffs Increasing Nearly Twice as Fast as Overall Inflation, Rosstat Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – Moscow more or less regularly releases information on inflation rates in the Russian Federation but only occasionally provide data on categories of goods that hit different income groups differently. Now, it has done so and these show that inflation is hitting the poor far harder as those with higher incomes.

            Specifically, the new Rosstat data show that prices for the basic foods of the simplest of diets have been increasing at a rate nearly twice as high as those affecting other foods and consumer items purchased by better off Russians (nsn.fm/economy/rost-tsen-na-bazovye-produkty-pitaniya-v-rossii-operedil-inflyatsiu).

            Sadly, that is a pattern in many countries; but in Russia it means that just before the Duma elections, Russians have been given confirmation that in the first seven months of 2026, poorer Russians saw the cost of foods they rely on rise by more than eight percent while overall inflation as reported by Rosstat went up by only 4.75 percent.

            For some foods, the jump in prices reached more than 36 percent, with the largest increases concentrated in those on which the impoverished rely.

Veterans of Putin’s War Ever More Frequently Attacked or Even Killed on Their Return Home and They Want New Law to Protect Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – In yet another indication that the veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine are not viewed as heroes by all Russians, a small but increasing number of them are being attacked or even killed on their return home, Svobodnaya Pressa reports; and other veterans are demanding that laws be adopted to protect them.

            The portal lists cases from across the Russian Federation and says that Russian politicians and Duma deputies are committed to adding to the criminal code language that would increase the punishment of perpetrators if their victims are veterans of the war in Ukraine at the fall session of the Russian parliament (svpressa.ru/society/article/531444/).

            Some of the attacks appear to reflect the belief of many Russians that the veterans have a lot of money and thus can be robbed. Others are likely the product of personal dislike. But some of them appear to be acts of brutality directed at the veterans as a class, an attitude that is exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin wants to see.

            On the one hand, if Russians see veterans attacked, it will be harder to get new volunteers to fight; and on the other, if veterans feel that they will always have the law at their backs, they may be prepared to violate the law for their own purposes, something many Russians have already expressed fears about. 

            Consequently, what might appear to be a marginal problem has the potential to grow into a major one, not just because the number of such crimes is increasing but because of what many Russians will conclude this trend means.   

Bashkir Advocate of Federalism Putin Personally Ordered the Arrest of Released from Prison after Serving More than Seven Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – Ayrat Dilmukhametov, a Bashkir activist and advocate of the establishment of genuine federalism for Russia, whose third jail sentence began with a direct order from Vladimir Putin, has been released from a Russian prison in Krasnoyarsk after serving 7.5 years behind bars (https://t.me/aspecty/47511).

            A passionate advocate federalism for Russia, Dilmukhametov attracted the attention of Vladimir Putin who appears to have recognized that his arguments would attract support from both non-Russians and Russians were a greater threat than any nationalism  was behind the Bashkir’s imprisonment (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/kremlin-gave-direct-order-for.html).

            For background on his ideas, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/08/only-real-federalism-can-save-russia.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/imprisoned-for-advocating-federalism-in.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/02/imprisoned-bashkir-activist-says.html.

Russia’s Hybrid War against the West has Been Ongoing for 200 Years, Lea and Borukh Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 11 – In a new article on “The Origins of Russian Fascism,” Aaron Lea and Baruch Taskin trace the ways that extreme right members of the first Russian emigration and early Soviet practices played an important role in Hitler’s Nazism and how both the ideas and the actions of the latter returned to Russia and reenforced governing patterns there.

            That history, the two Israeli analysts say, shows “Putinism is not an exception to Russian history but its norm” and that what the current Kremlin leader is doing reflects the longstanding Russian belief in existence of a threat requiring an authoritarian leader, a repressive state at home, and aggression abroad, a belief it sent to Germany a century ago (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6AA3F9BB0CB91&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

            What is on view in Moscow now is not some innovation on Putin’s part or of a conspiracy.  Conspiracies, after all, “don’t live for centuries,” Lea and Taskin say. Instead, “it is a structural continuity,” with the same diagnosis and prescription passing from one generation to the next, changing the packaging but preserving the contents.”

            And that explains, the two argue, why “the Kremlin isn’t just exporting ideology: it is funding the European far right, turning ‘the liberal order’ into a target for coordinated attacks via think tanks and bot farms,” the latest Russian industry “created to paralyze the will of the West” and something the Nazis did as well, following earlier versions of this Russian model.

            In this latest Russian campaign, they write, “the main export product is not money or content: it is an idea: the liberal order as a conspiracy, national sovereignty is a sacred value and a strong leader as the only answer to chaos” – exactly the ideas Russian emigres brought to Germany in the 1920s and that continue in Russia today.

            In short, Lea and Taskin, once again, Russia’s “hybrid war with the world is in full swing,” just as has been the case for 200 years. And Europe, which has seen all this before but has forgotten the lessons of that reality, “is just beginning to label it state terrorism,” thinking that this is something new rather than the well-forgotten old it in fact is. 

Udmurt Scholar who Committed Suicide 7 Years Ago to Protest Murder of His Native Language Remembered by Others Moscow is Oppressing

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Seven years ago, Albert Razin, a 79-year-old Udmurt scholar, burned himself to death in front of government offices in his republic because he said that “if tomorrow my language is going to disappear, then I am prepared to die today” to protest against that future and to urge others to find ways to protest against it as well.

            Since then, Razin’s influence has only grown; and this year, representatives of may nations in Russia not only in the Middle Volga where Razin’s Udmurtia is located but across that country are remembering his tragic but heroic act as a call for action against Kremlin policies (facebook.com/groups/former.russia/permalink/2304109040369367).

            They are acting, as one Tatar now living in Germany put it, out of the conviction that “a people is alive as long as its language, memory, and people prepared to defend its national dignity are still alive.” What Razin did was an extreme act of protest, but others, these activists say, can and must do more to ensure their languages and peoples survive.

            Not surprisingly, most of these commemorations have been taking place among those non-Russians who have been forced to emigrate. But as the time from  his death has lengthened, Razin’s influence has only grown. For discussion of Razin’s death and  his influence in Udmurtia and more generally, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-last-udmurt.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/09/udmurt-scholar-gave-his-life-not-for.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/09/udmurts-remember-self-immolation-of.html.

Moscow’s Policies Disproportionately Hurting Women in Indigenous Communities, Four Human Rights Organizations Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Four human rights organizations have submitted a report on the impact of Russian policies on women in the indigenous peoples of the Russian north and far east for consideration by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its October meeting next month.

            The four – the International Committee of the Indigenous Peoples of Russia, the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center, the Institute of Ecology and Anthropology and the North Women organization – say Moscow’s policies are disproportionately hurting women in these communities (indigenous-russia.com/archives/50079).

            The report says that since the last UN report on Russia’s indigenous peoples in 2021, their situation and especially that of women among hem has been “dramatically” worsened, with persecution of activists, weakening of indigenous institutions, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and the government’s decision not to publish necessary data.

            Nine of the 17 northern activists arrested last December were women. Many remain behind bars while others have been forced to flee abroad, the report says.  The mobilization of men for the war has imposed increasing burdens on women in these communities that the Russian government has done little or nothing to help.

            Business activity in the north has increased and with ever less attention to its impact on the population. Because women are now forced to bear an even heavier burden given the departure of men for the Russian army, they and their children are increasingly suffering.

            The report calls on the UN body to ask ten questions of the Russian authorities in the hopes that such queries will force Moscow to change course and address the specific problems women in its indigenous peoples increasingly face. But such hopes are likely misplaced: Russia did nothing after the UN body raised some of these points earlier.

Middle Corridor Carrying Four Times More Container Cargo toward the West than towards the East, Klevtsov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – During the first eight months of this year, 80 percent of container cargo moved westward from China and Central Asia and only about 20 percent of the total moved in the other direction, an imbalance transport companies are trying to reduce because of costs, Igor Klevtsov says.

            The Kazakhstan transportation analyst points out that “For transport operators, the issue comes down to finances. Once containers reach Europe, they need to be used again or repositioned. If there is cargo for the return journey, the equipment generates revenue in both directions. Without it, operators can face the cost of moving empty equipment” (timesca.com/middle-corridor-freight-eastbound-cargo/).

            “The 80 percent to 20 percent split,” Klevtsov admits, does not show with any precision “how many containers are actually making the return journey [from Asia] without cargo; but the railway companies themselves are now acknowledging the shortage of eastbound cargo” and trying to attract more going from Europe to Asia.

            Beijing not surprisingly “continues to push for more westbound traffic,” showing little concern about boosting cargo flows in the other direction. But that is unsustainable over the longer term because the costs of returning empty containers eastward are growing.

            Shipping firms based in Central Asia and Europe are seeking to boost cargo flows in the opposite direction; but as of now, they are facing an uphill battle not only because China continues to promote western flows and because European companies are not exploiting the eastward direction to the extent many had hoped.

Declining Water Level of Caspian Forcing Ships to Change Their Routes and Preventing Larger Vessels from Using Many Ports, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – A meeting of specialists on the Caspian Sea during Baku Climate Action Week said that the declining water level of the Caspian is already on course to have all the effects that the death of the Aral Sea had on the surrounding countries in Central Asia.

            But among its most immediate and serious consequences already have been two, the experts said. On the one hand, because water levels are declining, ships are having to change their routes on it to avoid running aground. And on the other, many ports aren’t able to process larger vessels (casp-geo.ru/iz-za-obmeleniya-kaspijskogo-morya-peresmatrivayutsya-podhody-k-navigatsionnoj-bezopasnosti/ ).

            For the time being, the first of these problems is being handled by distributing constantly updated maps of the depth of the sea in various places and directing captains to change their routes to avoid places where the sea, never that deep, has become too shallow for safety.

            But the second is more difficult. Dredging can only go so far in solving this problem because if too much of the sea floor is removed around piers, they will collapse. Consequently the only short term option is to significantly lengthen the piers into deeper water, something that is both increasingly expensive and increasingly difficult.

            That means that many ports will be temporarily or in some cases even permanently off limits to larger ships and that the littoral countries will have to consider creating entirely new ports, possibly on created islands far from the existing coast lines, an extremely costly but perhaps only reasonable option.

Anti-Semitism No Longer at Center of Russian Nationalism, Verkhovsky Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, Sept. 11 – Anti-Semitism, long a feature of Russian nationalism, has not disappeared; but it has become less central to that segment of Russian politics, largely displaced by hatred of foreigners, on the one hand, and moves against nationalist groups by the state which have made those remaining more cautious, on the other, Aleksandr Verkhovsky says.

At the end of Soviet times, the longtime SOVA expert on extremism says, “it was almost impossible to find a Russian nationalist who was not anti-Semitic.” Indeed, it was so central to most of them that it wasn’t given much attention as many assumed “there was no point in talking about the obvious” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/09/11/antisemitizm-ot-rassveta-do-zakata).

In the first half of the 1990s, as the Levada Center documented, “mass anti-Semitism grew;” and nationalists took advantage of that. “But since the middle of that decade, openly anti-Semitic sentiment in the population became less widespread and intense,” and nationalists no longer saw it as something that helped them.

According to Verkhovskky, “this was probably the case because the population adapted to the changes” brought on by the end of the Soviet system; and “no anti-Semitic agitation, which was ten massive and completely unpunished could reverse this trend.” But after 1993, Russian nationalists no longer expected to win over a majority.

By the early 2000s, earlier Russian nationalist organizations had weakened and were displaced by Nazi skinheads, who remained overwhelmingly anti-Semitic but focused instead “not on the Jews but on peoples from the Caucasus and then on migrants from Central Asia.”

            Since 2007, as SOVA Center data show, “the proportion of Jews among victims of hate crimes has always been below five percent,” Verkhovsky continues. “There have been almost no murders of Jews,” but there have been more acts of vandalism against Jewish institutions, both still horrific and more than the share of the Jewish population.

            He says that “since 2014, the movement of Russian nationalists has been plunged into a deep crisis caused by differences towards the events in Ukraine and began to degrade quickly” as a distinc force. “But it did not disappear, and its anti-Semitism did not disappear within it.” However, anti-Semitism was less prominent among Russian nationalists.

            “A new catalyst for anti-Semitic sentiment was represented by the outbreak of the war in Gaza after October 2023,” Verkhovsky says, but not so much because of the conflict itself but rather because of “the change in Soviet government policy” toward the state of Israel.

“For the first time in the post-Soviet decades, Russian policy in the region has ceased to be neutral,” the SOVA analyst says. “The Kremlin unequivocally condemned the operations in Gaza and later supported Iran. This was accompanied by a sharp increase in anti-Israeli rhetoric, which was carefully controlled lest that provoke” popular anti-Semitism.

            Russian nationalists loyal to the Kremlin like the Russian Community generally avoided anti-Semitic messaging in their propaganda; but those who saw themselves as opposed to the Russian leadership were more inclined to cross the line from opposition to Israeli actions to a broader anti-Semitism.

            The latter,  however, were subject to repression by the Putin regime and no longer set the weather for Russian nationalism. That could change if anti-Semitism becomes more influential on a cultural level in the increasingly Russian Orthodox-dominated portion of Russian nationalism, Verkhovsky concludes.

Russian Only Language in Russia Not at Risk of Dying Out, Academy of Sciences Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Vladimir Putin and Russian propagandists constantly say that Moscow is doing everything necessary so that the minority languages of the Russian Federation can not only survive but flourish, a claim that the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences has just demolished.

            In a new report, the institute says that of the 155 languages of the Russian Federation, only Russian (and its version for the deaf which it counts as a distinct language) is not at risk of dying out (echofm.online/news/institut-yazykoznaniya-ran-ischeznovenie-ne-grozit-tolko-dvum-yazykam-rossii-russkomu-i-russkomu-zhestovomu).

            Two of these languages Aleutian and Itelmen are down to a single speaker, the institute reports, and another eight currently have fewer than 10 speakers. That means that 15 or nearly 10 percent of Russia’s minority languages are already “on the verge of extinction” and another 39 are classed as seriously vulnerable.

            What the government is doing as of now, the institute warns, is insufficient to prevent this catastrophe and says that “in an ideal situation, every language in the country requires all that is currently being done for the Russian language,” a requirement that the Putin regime shows neither the readiness or willingness to do.

            In addition to the importance of this exposure of a Kremlin lie that the situation with its languages is not deteriorating but getting better, this new Academy of Sciences report will undoubtedly further energize non-Russian national movements to seek a radical change in their situation possibly by exiting from Moscow’s control.

New Rosneft Oil Field in Far North Destroying Vast Areas of Vulnerable Tundra and Harming Indigenous Peoples who Live There

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – A Rosneft project to develop oil fields in the far north of the Taymyr Peninsula is already inflicting “unprecedented” harm on thousands of square kilometers of tundra already at risk because of global warming and further threatening the lives of both animals and the indigenous peoples, according to satellite photographer and a Barents Observer analysis.

            As the project is only in its initial stages, the likelihood it will wreak havoc on an enormous swath of Russia’s north and its peoples is great, something especially tragic because outside experts say Moscow’s claims about is future production are greatly exaggerated (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/novyj-grandioznyj-neftanoj-proekt-putina-ostavlaet-arktiku-v-ruinah/457637).

            And that makes the celebration of what is as yet far from a realized achievement by Rosneft’s Igor Sechin and Russian President Vladimir Putin not only offensive but an indication that neither favors protecting the environment or the population living around places where oil is extracted and transported or is concerned with the truth.

            For a detailed discussion of these problems, see the report by Arctida, an environmental defense organization, available at arctida.io/en/projects/oil-pipeline-on-thin-ice and the discussion of that report at  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/07/more-than-half-of-russias-250000-km-oil.html.

Twenty Years On, Kondopoga Clashes Still Cast a Shadow across Russia and Former Soviet Space

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept.8 – Twenty years ago, at the end of Augusta and the beginning of September 2006, ethnic clashes between local Russians and Chechen refugees broke out in the Karelian city of Kondopoga leaving at least two dead and creating in the minds of many Russians a picture of what could happen in any place in Russia at any time.

            That event, perhaps even more than the FSB-staged attacks on Russian apartment houses in 1999, created a groundswell of opposition to ethnic minorities and especially toward those viewed as migrant workers regardless of whether they came from abroad or not and an even more powerful growth in support for tough, even authoritarian measures against them.

            Indeed, in Russia and several of the other former Soviet republics, Kondopoga even two decades on remains less an historical event than a word that which is used about all kinds of ethnic conflicts not only by journalists and politicians but by ordinary people who fear they could easily become victims of similar outbursts.

            On that continuing influence of the Kondopoga events, see a commentary this week at veter.info/posts/dFu50tvutJbD.  For some examples of how Kondopoga has become a symbol, see windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2007/06/window-on-eurasia-spectre-of-kondopoga.html, windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/01/window-on-eurasia-kondopoga-like.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/02/window-on-eurasia-tatar-activists.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/02/window-on-eurasia-ethnic-clashes.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/08/kondopoga-like-violence-breaking-out-in.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/kondopoga-like-violence-breaks-out-in.html.

Russian Health Ministry Abolishes Positions for 14 Medical Fields while Creating Places for a Few New Ones

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – The Russian health ministry has dropped from its standard listing of professionals hospitals must have the positions of specialists on diabetics, ophthalmologists, child psychiatrists, and sexologists, as well as ten others while adding a few new ones, including nutritionists and gerontologists.  

            Those in the specialties the ministry has eliminated will not be let go immediately. Instead, they will be allowed to continue until their contracts run out. After that, the hospitals will be required to offer them new positions in which they will be compelled to work in another specialty as well (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/09/bez-podrostkovogo-psikhiatra-diabetologa-i-seksologa).

            “The main question,” Alfiya Mustafina of Novaya Gazeta says, is how these arrangements will affect medical care, with a more immediate one as to whether it is simply an economy move or an effort to cover up the fact that Russia now has a shortage of more than 23,000 doctors.

            Just  how large this shortage currently is, she says, is in fact unknown, given that the health ministry has not released any updated data since 2024. If doctors with one specialty are now forced to work at two, that may allow the ministry to put out figures suggesting that Moscow has adequately addressed the shortage in medical personnel.

            But however that may be, the doctors involved are going to be increasingly overworked; and their patients aren’t going to be able to get the care they need, especially in fields where the demand is great or where medical advances are taking place so rapidly that doctors trying to keep in two or more fields will fall behind. 

New Two-Volume Work Catalogues State of More than 5500 Armenian Heritage Sites in Karabakh

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 10 – Since Azerbaijan recovered Karabakh and ended the existence of the Armenian Artsakh government in 2023, there have been complaints about vandalism of Armenian sites in that territory. But now, Yerevan scholars have released a two-volume 1088-page guide to 5658 such sites, including information on their current state.

            The study, entitled Monuments of Material Culture of the Republic of Artsakh, which was financed by a US-based Armenian foundation and carried out by three leading experts on the region, is available online and for downloading in both Armenian and English (artsakhculturalheritage.org/#download).

            Its authors say that their work is intended not only to provide a reliable guide to these Armenian heritage objects but also to appeal to the international community to work with Azerbaijan and Armenia to ensure that they survive rather than be damaged or lost forever (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/426496).

            While the authors say that their listing of Armenian heritage sites in Karabakh is far from complete, this listing is far and away the most comprehensive ever compiled and is likely to be the basis for assessing how well Baku lives up to its commitment to honor Armenian sites and for determining how the international community will assess its actions there.

             Because of the attention this work is likely to get, it may inspire Azerbaijani researchers to compile similar catalogues of what happened to Azerbaijani heritage sites in areas Armenian forces occupied in recent years and even lead those involved in other inter-ethnic clashes on the territory of the former Soviet Union to do the same.  

Officials in Sakha Erect Memorial to Two Soldiers who Died in Ukraine in Place of One Devoted to Poles and Lithuanians Deported There in 19th Century

Paul Goble

              Staunton, Sept. 9 – Officials in the Sakha capital of Yakutsk have erected a monument to two Russian soldiers who died fighting in Putin’s war in Ukraine in place of one that had been there since the 1990s memorializing Poles and Lithuanians who had been deported there in the 19^th century.

              This is the latest Russian government action to erase any memories of tsarist and Soviet deportations of whole nationalities and to use the war in Ukraine as the occasion and means to do that (echofm.online/news/v-yakutske-na-meste-memoriala-ssylnym-polyakam-i-litovczam-otkryli-pamyatnik-uchastnikam-vtorzheniya-v-ukrainu).

              In the last six months alone, Russain officials have organized an exhibit on “Ten Centuries of Polish Russophobia” at Katyn, the site of the mass shooting of Polish prisoners of war, dismantled a monument to Poles and Lithuanians in Irkutsk, and denied those who sough to erect monuments to Latvians and Lithuanians repressed by Stalin.

‘Russia Community’ Sees Itself as Political Force in the Future, SOVA Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – The Russian nationalist Russian Community currently positions itself as a non-political force interested only in supporting order and Russian traditional values; but its leaders have been playing a more political role in the run up to the Duma elections and anticipate becoming an even more active political force in the future.

            That is the judgment of longtime SOVA analyst Aleksandr Verkhovsky who analyzes Russian extremist groups and other observers with whom journalist Ivan Zhilin spoke in the course of preparing an article entitled “Violence and Power” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/09/09/nasilie-i-vlast).

            Verkhovsky and the others say that the Russian Community was a marginal group until Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine  and was happy to have this organization on his side to maintain order at home and to ensure that Russians would live according to what he defines as their traditional values.

            Their role as enforcers, sometimes independently and sometimes as allies of the government’s force structures, grew; but in the last months, it has increased exponentially with Russian Community activists involving themselves in the election process  by attacking and pushing out of races opponents of the Kremlin.

            That has led to some splits in the group, but it means that many in the Russian Community see themselves as having an ever-larger political role once the time is right. When there is any weakening of the Kremlin, they may thus prove as much a threat to the Russain leadership as its ally, the SOVA analyst suggests. 

Moscow’s Policies on Numerically Small Peoples Out of Date and Must be Fundamentally Changed, Russia’s Justice Minister Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko says that Moscow’s approach to the numerically small peoples of the North and Far East is “outdated” and must be changed because many of its provisions were adopted in the 1990s on the basis of recommendations from Western advisors.

            Speaking at a session on relations between these peoples and the indigenous nationalities at the Eastern Economic Forum, Chuichenko gave no details about the precise policy changes he wants to see, although his concern about relations between these peoples and business is likely one area (indigenous-russia.com/archives/50023).

            But the fact that he made such a statement and blamed current problems on the fact that in the 1990s Russian officials listened to Western experts in coming up with legal arrangements for the numerically small peoples suggests that Moscow’s approach to them may soon be subject to a wholesale rewrite.

            One indication that this process has begun is a report that Putin has told the government to come up with arrangements that will allow the benefits that numerically small peoples receive continue even if the numbers of one or more of them rise to above the current upper threshold of 50,000 ( nazaccent.ru/content/45912-vladimir-putin-garantiroval-gospodderzhku-korennym-narodam-svyshe-50-tysyach-chelovek/).

            Not only has Russia been much criticized both because it is almost the only country in the world which sets an upper limit in the numbers of peoples who can be counted on as numerically small indigenous peoples but it now faces a crisis in that one of the nations on its list of 47, the Nenets, will soon exceed 50,000 (indigenous-russia.com/archives/50018).

            Were the Nenets to lose those benefits, many of them might become furious; and because they live in a major oil and gas producing area, any such anger could complicate Moscow’s development of those major export earning raw materials, a development Putin certainly wants to avoid.

            The Russian president has directed that a new rule that would allow the Nenets and in future other indigenous peoples who might exceed the 50,000 number to continue to get benefits is to be prepared by December 1.  But there is another ahead if Moscow makes a move in that direction.

            If the new rule specifies that such regulations apply only to those nationalities already on the list of 47, that will raise questions among others who are just above the 50,000 level already or yet others who may see their numbers fall below that threshold in the future. In either case, there is likely to be anger and activism in response.

Moscow Should be Worried about Discontent of Ethnic Russians and Not Just Discontent of Non-Russians, Molchanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – An “abnormal” situation has arisen in Russia where the assertion that “Russia is the country of Russians” is considered almost extremist and any moves to address the concerns of ethnic Russians is viewed as something “almost extremist” and a threat to the survival of the country, Igor Molchanov says.

            Those who feel that way say that nothing can be done to change the Soviet-imposed divisions within the country lest that lead non-Russians to seek the disintegration of the country, the Svobodnaya pressa columnist says. But Moscow should be worried instead about discontent among ethnic Russians (svpressa.ru/society/article/530979/).

            In reaction to such attitudes and their impact on Moscow’s thinking, many Russians now are reflecting bitterly that “the Russian is the owner of the hotel and has keys to all the doors, but he has no room of his own” and wondering whether that will ever change so that they too will have their place in the sun.

            It is in fact “amazing,” Molchanov continues, that while “the resentment and discontent of peoples on the periphery and the numerically small nations are feared, the discontent of ethnic Russians is not.” 

            “The fact that there are 150 indigenous peoples living on the territory of the Russian Federation doesn’t trump the fact that the Russian people constitute an absolute majority of the country’s population,” with 71.7 percent of it declaring themselves to be ethnic Russians in the 2021 census.

            (Moscow routinely cites a figure of over 80 percent and most Westerners follow it and say the same, but that figure reflects official assignment of nationality to the large share of the Russian population that did not give any nationality mostly to the Russians even though these people did not identify as such.)

            The 71.7 percent of the population the Russians now form is less than it was, but it is still numerically dominant over all others and vastly more than any of the individual nationalities: The Tatars, the second largest nation, for example, Molchanov continues, amount to only 3.8 percent.

            That ethnic Russian preponderance must be recognized, he continues; and “there should thus be a fundamentally different approach to the resolution of the national question,” one that doesn’t depersonalize ethnic Russians but rather recognizes “without any reservations, the Russians as the state-forming people.”

            The ethnic Russians “must defend their right to their own existence, Molchanov argues, although he quickly adds that “no one is talking about the infringement of the rights of other indigenous peoples.” But everyone must recognize that the Russian people is the only one capable of keeping the country together and the state in place.

Representatives of Extreme Russian Nationalist Groups Formed Only Two Percent of Participants in Moscow Procession, SOVA Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 8 – Many outlets have suggested that the Moscow Procession on Sept. 6 which was led by Patriarch Kirill and attracted some 100,000 people who marched behind the newly discovered relics of Dmitry Donskoy was an outpouring of extreme Russian nationalism (e.g., doxa.team/news/2026-09-07-moscow-krestny-hod-ultrapravye).

            But the authoritative SOVA human rights monitoring group says that only about two percent of that total consisted of representatives of extreme nationalist groups such as the Russian Community, the Northern Man, and Forty of Forties and that most of them did not participate as groups but as individuals (sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2026/09/d54483/).

            That doesn’t mean that the other participants were not animated by Russian nationalist thematics – Patriarch Kirill certainly was – but it does mean that their nationalism at least as expressed on this occasion was far more the tradition kind focused on the history of the country and deferential to the state rather than promoting a narrow “Russia for the Russians” agenda.

            Such Moscow processions have a long history. The first “all-Moscow” one took place in 1525. They were an annual event in tsarist times but suppressed by the Soviets, but they were revived in 2025 when officials said that 40,000 people took part (nazaccent.ru/content/45911-v-obshemoskovskom-krestnom-hode-prinyali-uchastie-100-tysyach-chelovek/).

Russians Not Telling Jokes about Putin Not Only Because They Fear Repression but Also Because They Care More about Other Russians than about Him, Arkhipova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 5 – In Soviet times, Russians came up with anecdotes about their leaders; but now, there are few such stories. The reason for this change is two-fold, Aleksandra Arkhipova says. On the one hand, people fear repression; and on the other, they are now focused on other Russians rather than the leader alone.

            The Russian anthropologist who now lives in Paris says the lack of anecdotes is thus part of the adaptive strategies Russians have adopted to cope with the new era and the evolution of Russian society which has more information about more things than did its predecessors (svoboda.org/a/gena-rabstva-ne-suschestvuet/33846353.html).

            In the course of a wide-ranging interview with Radio Liberty, Arkhipova makes three other particularly noteworthy observations:

First, she says that she “does not really believe in a specifically Russian model of behavior or in some specific ‘slavery gene’ about which people began to speak a lot in 2022.” The Russian state “is able to do terrible things with people,” but it is far from alone in that. And like other peoples, Russians adapt to the way the state acts.

Second, she observes that Russians grow up with the view that they must keep as much distance as possible from the state, although some use it as a social elevator and thus look on it more positively. Since Putin came to power, Russians have participated in new loyalty rituals, but that doesn’t mean the view that they should keep their distance from the state has changed.

And third, she points to the fact that today, urban legends are spreading in Russia as a way for people there to cope with the cognitive dissonance generated by the sharp contrast between what the Russian authorities are saying about the weakness of Ukraine and what Russians can see with their own eyes when it comes to drone attacks and returning dead.

Since 2000, Murmansk Regional Government has Moved from Protecting Ethnic Minorities to Promoting ‘Friendship of the Peoples’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – Earlier this summer, the Murmansk regional government changed the name of the Murmansk Regional Center of Indigenous Peoples of the North and Interethnic Cooperation into the Murmansk Regional House of Friendship of the Peoples, completing a shift begun 20 years ago from a structure defending minorities to one promoting ethnic harmony.

            In the 1990s, Saami activist Andrey Danilov says, numerically small peoples like his own created their own structures and the regional government set up institutions to work with them. Over time, however, Murmansk gelded the independent structures and changed the focus of government ones (indigenous-russia.com/archives/50014).

            In a 2500-word article, he details how each of these processes occurred, most step-by-step rather than all at once, and argues that this process of eliminating structures whose primary goal was the defense of the minorities or the organization at least of consultation with them has been replaced by something else.

            No one can be against promoting “friendship of the peoples,” of course, he suggests; but that is not the same thing at all as protecting the rights of ethnic minorities and giving them a voice in how the state will mediate between them, business interests and the state.

            While Danilov limits his story to what has happened in Murmansk and to the Saami in particular, his description of what has happened there is a harbinger of similar trends elsewhere in the Russian Federation and recalls the last decades of Soviet period when officials used “friendship of the peoples” to cover their exploitation and suppression.

Regional Governments Freeze Salaries of Government Workers to Pay Volunteers to Fight in Putin’s War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – Government employees including teachers, medical workers and researchers have seen their salaries frozen because the governments of federal subjects need the money to pay the enormous bonuses to those who volunteer to fight in Ukraine.

            So far, this new budgetary approach has hit distant regions like Sakha and Sakhalin, but it is likely to spread (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/09/07/v-rossiiskih-regionah-nachali-zamorazhivat-indeksatsiyu-zarplat-byudzhetnikam-iz-za-viplat-uchastnikam-svo-a205407).

            What makes this important is not that regional governments are having to juggle their budgets to pay for what the Kremlin wants them to spend on manning Putin’s “special military operation” but rather that it threatens to create a whole new class of Russians who may now oppose the war because it is hitting the so close to home.

Kremlin Outlets Outraged Armenian Leader Spoke in Armenian rather than Russian at Shanghai Cooperation Organization Meeting

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 7 – After Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan used Armenian in addressing to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting at the end of August, pro-Kremlin commentators in Moscow were outraged and suggested his move recalled what the Baltic countries and Ukrainian leaders had done earlier.

            The most extreme of these said that what had happened in those countries began “precisely when their elites began demonstratively ‘forgetting’ Russia as the language of inter-internet communication” and using their own national languages instead (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/9/1/696892/ ).

            And they pointed out that all the other leaders of the former Soviet republics at the SCO meeting, including those of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan had used Russian, which they argued was entirely appropriate at such times to ensure better communication.

            Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was also distressed but somewhat more measured in his words. He acknowledged that what Pashinyan had done was “a signal to assert Armenia’s sovereignty” but added that “frankly, we didn’t understand why that couldn’t be stated in Russian” (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/9/7/697541/).

            What is striking is that both Russian commentators and the Kremlin spokesman seemed more upset by this use of the national language of Armenia than they did by the declaration Pashinyan made only a few days before the SCO meeting that Yerevan no longer considers Russia to be a strategic partner.

            This is not the first time Moscow has been angry about the language used by heads of former Soviet republics. In 2024, Russians were very upset when Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomar Tokayev, used Chinese in Beijing but responded to Russians in Kazakh (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/kazakhstan-presidents-use-of-chinese-in.html).

Putin’s Assumptions about Western Weakness Pushing Russia toward Strategic Defeat, Gallyamov Says, Just as Happened to USSR at Its End

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 6 – Like the leaders of the Soviet Union in its last decades, Putin believes that the West is weak and will collapse if Russia simply makes a little more effort, a conviction that is giving Russia now certain tactical victories but is setting the stage for his country’s strategic defeat, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            The former Putin speechwriter and now prominent Putin critic argues that Russia has the resources to achieve some tactical victories. Indeed, examples of Western weakness can “unleash Putin’s hands tactically;” but the real resources of the West mean that pursuit of a strategic victory would lead to Russia’s defeat (vot-tak.tv/95251668/putin-zhdet-krakha-zapada).

            Any decision to engage in a strategic escalation, Gallyamov says, such as a new mobilization, the use of nuclear weapons, or pursuing the destruction of NATO in the short term would mean that Russia’s resources would decline faster than those of the West in whose weakness he is now counting.

            Putin’s approach in recent years, one based on waiting for his opponents to “run out of time” has meant both that “he hasn’t noticed how this ends for himself” or that he is in a position to recognize that “this is what happened to the Soviet Union” in the years leading up to its defeat and demise.

            In the last decade of the Soviet period, Gallyamov reminds, “Moscow has many foreign policy successes: the victory of North Vietnam over America … the fall of the pro-Beijing Khmer Route in Cambodia, the success of the MPLA in Angola and the expansion of a Soviet military presence” in many parts of Africa.

            The Soviet leadership also gained by the geopolitical shifts of Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Iran, Palestine and the GDR, he continues. Given all these trends, the Soviet leadership was certain that if it just pushed a little harder and for a little longer, the USSR would triumph because its Western opponents were retreating.

But then the situation developed in ways that Putin has failed to remember, Gallyamov says. These triumphs, genuine but tactical, rapidly became “expensive for the country. To finance this geopolitical glory, money was needed and money wasn’t there anymore.” To support them, Moscow turned to economic reforms and then the USSR collapsed.

The lesson from this is clear, the commentator says, “going from success to success, you can actually come to the edge of the abyss; and then, without noticing it, take another step forward toward collapse.”

Kumyk could Again Become Lingua Franca of North Caucasus, Alpaut Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 6 – Kumyk, a Turkic language that was the lingua franca of the eastern North Caucasus before the Russian conquest, could become that again, first in Dagestan, the most multi-lingual republic of the Russian Federation, and then again in neighboring republics where there are now many Kumyk speakers, Ramazan Alpaut says.

            An ethnic Kumyk himself who worked at RFE/RL and now lives in the United States, Alpaut says that this trend is especially striking in Dagestan where, in contrast to other parts of the Caucasus, many members of ethnic groups feely admit that it is dying or already has done so (facebook.com/czechKum/posts/pfbid02iD29J7XZQTTJ3u7zTFkhxGXa36tpFvmGLr4Dwm5kqq3cbEc5UQrPiKB6D9ZjoNvdl).

            In these discussions, he continues, even people who are not Kumyk themselves suggest that it could serves “as a potential alternative to Russian for interethnic communication.” At present, there are more than 500,000 Kumyk speakers in the North Caucasus, far more than the total in Dagestan alone.

            Alpaut suggests there are five reasons why such suggestions are not pie in the sky. First, there is the historical precedent. Before the Russian conquest, Kumyk played that role and even continued to do so in imperial and Soviet times, despite Moscow’s efforts to restrict its use first beyond the Kumyk community and then within that nation itself.

            Second, he says, “Kumyk is relatively easy to learn: it lacks many of the phonetic complexities of other languages of the mount peoples” as “there is no grammatical gender, no prepositions or prefixes, and word formation follows almost formulaic patterns thanks to the law of vowel harmony.”

            Third, it occupies “a rather central position among Turkic languages,” having elements both of Turkish itself and the Turkic languages of Azerbaijan and the Central Asian countries.  Fourth, Those who know Kumyk are those able to communicate easily with other members of the Turkic world.

            Fourth, “census data show that Kumyk has displayed a remarkable resilience” and even growth. “If current trends continue, the Kumyk-speaking population could become Dagestan’s largest linguistic community by the next census, except for Russian speakers, of course,” Alpaut concedes.

            And fifth, the Kumyks themselves lack “the political or demographic resources” to impose their language on other. Those who choose to use it do so because of its advantages, a very different situation than in the case of Russian which is imposed by Moscow and the Russian authorities locally.

            Most discussions of linguistic change in the Russian Federation focus on shifts from non-Russian languages to Russian; but Alpaut’s words about the increasing role of Kumyk for other peoples are a reminder that other and potentially dramatic shifts of this kind are taking place as well with smaller non-Russian nations shifting to languages of larger non-Russian ones.   

Putin Advisor Says Ukrainians on Course to Disappear as a Nation by End of This Century

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 6 – Anton Kobyakov, an advisor to Vladimir Putin, says that Ukraine has passed “the point of no return” as far as demography is concerned and will “die out” by the end of this century unless something changes dramatically, adding that in his view, “only Russia can save that country.”

            Kobaykov’s view, aired at the Eastern Economic Forum and one likely shared by the Russian president reflects demographic data that some Ukrainian scholars are now discussing (fondsk.ru/news/2026/09/06/ukraincy-mogut-vymeret-kak-dinozavry-dazhe-esli-voennyy-konflikt-prekratitsya).

            These experts have focused on the fact that the number of children entering first year of school has fallen dramatically, a trend Kyiv explains by the decline in birthrates as a result of the war and the move of many Ukrainian families abroad to escape the violence of the Russian invasion.

            Those reasons may explain much of the reason for the decline. Ukrainian economist Oleksiy Kushch says that the number of children entering first classes this year is 45 percent lower than was the case in the 2013/2014 school year and that the country’s overall fertility rate has fallen from 1.51 to 0.9 children per woman per lifetime.

            That figure is below the overall Russian Federation fertility rate of 1.3 and even below that of the rate in major Russian cities, which now stands at 1.0. And it is far below the replacement level that requires women of childbearing age to have approximately 2.2 children.

            But the Ukrainian figures set the stage for the appearance of progressively smaller cohorts of Ukrainian women of prime childbearing age who are also on course to have ever fewer children.  According to some Russian commentators, that would mean there would only be two to three million Ukrainians left by the end of this century.

            Such longterm demographic projections are notoriously inaccurate given that changes can and do take place over time. But these are especially worrisome not only because they highlight a major challenge Kyiv will have to face but also because they likely underscore decision making in the Kremlin about Ukraine. 

Putin Supports Plan to Man Air Defense in Regions with Those ‘Absolutely Unsuitable’ for Military Service

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 5 – At a meeting with five United Russia Duma candidates, Putin said he supports their proposal to man air defense facilities in the regions with men who because of physical or mental problems have been classified as “absolutely unsuitable” for service in the Russian army.

            Men in what is known as category “D” are not drafted and are not accepted for service even if they volunteer, but many of them want to serve their country, Putin was told; and the Russian president said he supports the idea (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/09/05/putin-odobril-ideiu-privlech-k-protivovozdushnoi-oborone-v-regionakh-dobrovoltsev-s-kategoriei-godnosti-d-absoliutno-ne-goden-k-sluzhbe-news).

            Putin’s backing reflects both his search for manpower to fill the rapidly thinning ranks of his invasion force in Ukraine and his desire to show the Russian people that he will do everything he can to limit or even end the impact of Ukrainian drone attacks on targets in the Russian Federation.

            But if the president’s approval leads to the actual use of such men, some of them may be sufficiently disabled that they won’t be able to perform as required – or potentially that this will prove the thin edge of the wedge and some of them may be sent to fight in Ukraine once they have become soldiers for air defense.