Northern Sea Route Shows that ‘Shortest Path is Not Necessarily the Most Profitable,’ Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 26 – Moscow invariably suggests that the Northern Sea Route will beat out the Suez Canal as the primary sea path between Asia and Europe; but that argument is deeply flawed because “the shortest path is not necessarily the most profitable one,” Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

            There are many reasons why this is true in the case, the Russian economist says; but before considering them in detail, it is important to remember that Moscow’s claim that the NSR is shorter is itself flawed because it is measured from northern China rather than other Asian ports further south (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/26/sokraschayuschaya-rasstoyaniya-mechta-a204315).

            But the most important is that the speed ships travel on the NSR is very different from that of vessels using more southerly routes. Because of ice, NSR transit often proceeds at two to three knots compared to 19 to 20 elsewhere, a difference which in itself vitiates the advantages of the geographically shorter northern route.

            There are other problems with the Russian assumption about the advantages of the NSR, Inozemtsev says.  Most large container ships require deeper water to sail through than is available in parts of the NSR. A ship drawing 15 meters which many do simply can’t pass through the NSR which in places drops to far less, only nine or ten meters.

            Another problem is that ships using the southern route typically drop off and pick up cargo at ports along the route, but in the case of the NSR, these are few and far between; and so shippers lose that advantage as well, something the enthusiastic Muscovite backers of the NSR ignore

            Beyond that there is the problem of ice. Of the 116,000 merchant ships in the world, Inozemtsev says, only “about 360” of the container ship segment are ice class, that is, built to withstand ice and required by insurers for passage via the NSR. Building more ships is hardly an attractive option when there are other ways to bring goods to market.

            And there is the problem of icebreakers which must accompany even ice capable ships along the NSR. According to Inozemtsev, “Russia’s icebreaker fleet is too small to handle” a flow much great than the one now, which is far belong what Putin called for only a few years ago and which can’t approach the volumes he and others have projected.

            Changing any of these things would be massively expensive, far beyond the means of the Russian state. That means Moscow would have to hope for and then rely on foreign investors, something that would make the NSR anything but the bulwark of Russian greatness and national security Putin hopes for.   

Russians and Ukrainians Increasingly Divided in Their Assessment of Stalin, Levada Center Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Ever more Russians over the last 15 years have had a positive assessment of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, while among Ukrainians, attitudes toward the Soviet dictator have deteriorated sharply from an already low point to an even more negative one since Putin launched his expanded war there in 2022, according to Levada Center surveys.

            Last month, the independent Russian polling agency said, slightly more than half of Russians surveyed said they had a positive attitude toward Stalin, about a quarter were indifferent to him and about a tenth were negative (levada.ru/2026/08/25/otnoshenie-k-figure-stalina-v-iyule-2026-goda/).

            The share of Russians expressing a positive attitude toward Stalin has been increasing since the 1990s and reached its highest level in recent times in 2023. Ukrainian attitudes toward Stalin were never as positive as those of Russians, but since 2022, they have plummeted. Now only three percent of Ukrainians say they view him positively.

            Because of the terror famine Stalin conducted in Ukraine and his repressions of Ukrainians more generally, he has never been popular there; but the new polls show that Putin’s action in Ukraine has deepened the divide between Russians and Ukrainians on this question as well as on so many others.

            And that in turn suggests that if and when Putin’s war there ends, it will be far more difficult for Russians and Ukrainians to view each other in positive ways, especially given how central Putin has made Stalin and his role in World War II in the construction of present-day Russian identity. 

Russian Universities Increasingly Recruiting Students to Serve in Putin’s War and Offering Drone Studies Programs

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Under pressure from the Kremlin to provide more support for Putin’s aggressive foreign policy, ever more Russian universities are pressuring students to sign up for military service in Ukraine now and creating drone studies departments whose graduates will presumably help not only in that conflict but in future ones as well.

            More than 80 percent of Russia’s highest-ranked universities now push students to sign up for military service although in many cases this effort is ostensibly for non-combat positions (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/08/25/47-iz-50-luchshikh-rossiiskikh-vuzov-agitiruiut-studentov-zakliuchit-kontrakt-s-minoborony-vyiasnila-novaia-evropa-news).

            That is an extension of efforts the Putin regime has put in place since 2022 to ensure that it will be able to fill the ever-depleting ranks of Russian forces in Ukraine and thus is no surprise. But the decision to create drone studies programs at 32 of the 50 top higher educational institutions is something new and disturbing.

            While using drones against Ukraine and defending Russians against Ukrainian drone attacks is a politically useful tactic, most of those who might enroll in drone studies programs almost certainly won’t be ready to work in this military sector in Putin’s current aggressive campaign in Ukraine.

            Thus, the decision to create such programs highlights something far more disturbing: the intention of the Kremlin to continue its aggressive foreign policy beyond Ukraine and to use drones to do it, a technique that it had not prepared for earlier but now recognizes is going to be a feature of most future conflicts.

Putin’s ‘Optimization’ Policy and War in Ukraine have Made Doctors and Nurses among the Most ‘Protest Prone’ Groups in Russia, Expert Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, Aug. 25 – Putin’s healthcare optimization policy has reduced the number of hospital beds by 20,000 a year over the last decade even as his war in Ukraine has placed ever greater demands on Russia’s healthcare system and the doctors and nurses who work in it, Sasha Fokina says.

That combination has made these medical workers among the most overburdened and underpaid professionals in that country, the feminist activist and political analyst say, and made them among the most “protest prone” of all groups there (posle.media/article/healthcare-in-wartime-how-womens-labor-is-changing).

These protests typically take the form of petitions, media campaigns and meetings with officials rather than with the more politically risky demonstrations, Fokina says, because other than emigration, Russia’s health workers can’t change jobs easily and thus are trapped by the system.

According to research she cites, in 2025, social and labor conflicts in the healthcafre sector accounted for 62 percent of all such clashes; and in 2026, healthcare is among the top three conflict-prone sectors, even though repressive measures have reduced the number and overall share.

One of the reasons Fokina has focused on this issue is because women dominate the medical professions in Russia, forming 70 percent of all doctors and 95 percent of all nurses, and because they have suffered the most from Putin’s policies which are exactly the reverse of what they should be in wartime.

In order to keep fielding an army, she continues, the Russian government should be providing the medical system with more funding and medical staff with higher salaries; but instead, Putin has cut back both, increasing suffering not only among patients but also among doctors and nurses.

Putin’s ‘Authoritarian Legalism’ has Soviet Not East German Roots, Lea and Taskin Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Many observers argue that Putin’s commitment to authoritarian legalism has its roots in his experience while serving as a KGB officer in East Germany; but in fact, Aaron Lea and Boruch Taskin argue, what Putin is doing now just like what the GDR did earlier arose from Soviet theory and practice under Stalin.

            The current Kremlin leader uses law to cover whatever he wants to do so as to simultaneously “paralyze” Western democratic institutions who forcing them into bureaucratic games and “neutralize” domestic opponents who are thereby stripped of the moral high ground, the Israeli analysts of Russian origin say (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=6A8DC886F3A48).

            Because the GDR pursued the same approach and formalized it, many assume that Putin picked its principles up from his service there, but in fact, his approach, like that of the Stasi, arose of “the Leninist concept that law is not a neutral arbiter over the state but a class instrument of the ruling party.”

            And that principle was elevated to a dominant feature of Soviet reality under Stalin when his prosecutor Andrey Vyshinsky sought not to destroy the power of law but rather to appropriate it for use by the dictatorship itself against the people in whose name that power ruled, the two analysts say.

            To be sure, Lea and Taskin continue, “the Soviet tradition of political processes was public and crude. East German refined it to invisibility: psychological destruction without traces, legal persecution without obvious political motive, and even social death without physical violence.”

            This system worked in the GDR and is working in Russia now because of what they call “the Gulliver effect” because the system works not as a result of “a single massive chain by which the state shackles a person” but rather because it leaves people who wake up to discover that they are “held fast by hundreds of slender threads, each of which in itself is negligible.”

No single rule of this kind creates a totalitarian state on its own -- indeed, many exist in any modern legal system. The difference lies not in the existence of an individual thread, but in how they are combined,” Lea and Taskin say, pointing out when the state so chooses, “hundreds of regulations” work in concert to produce totalitarianism.

That is what has been happening under Putin, and this must be understood now and after he leaves office because then lustration of the kind that was visited upon the former GDR will be a minimum requirement for overcoming the system the current Kremlin leader is using. 

Azerbaijani-Central Asian Relations Acquiring a Military Dimension, Kazakhstan Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Last week, defense officials from Kazakhstan met in Baku with their Azerbaijani counterparts to discuss expanding military cooperation in the coming year, the latest example of the formation of a military-political association of Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan and through them with Turkey, Kazakhstan’s Altyn-Orda portal says.

            Azerbaijan and the countries of the former Soviet Central Asian region “are increasingly building relations not only in trade, logistics and energy but also in the field of defense” and with Azerbaijan as the bridge with Turkey as well, the portal continues (altyn-orda.kz/tyurkskij-oboronnyj-poyas-tsentralnaya-aziya-i-azerbajdzhan-usilivayut-voennoe-sotrudnichestvo/).

            The reason for this is the rapid growth in a new economic space involving these countries involving the middle corridor route between Asia and Europe, a route that “cannot exist in a geopolitical vacuum.” That makes “the coordination” of defense issues “the logical next step.” And “this process is already beginning.

            Azerbaijan has taken the lead in this development; and while in the period since 1991, “the security of Central Asia was built largely around Russia” and Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan remain members of Moscow’s Collective Security Treaty organization. “But in recent years, the geopolitical situation there has changed.”

            According to Altyn-Orda, “Russia’s war against Ukraine has drastically reduced Moscow’s ability  to act as the only guarantor of security in the vast Eurasian space;” and as a result, “the states of Central Asia are pursuing an increasingly independent foreign policy, developing relations” with a variety of countries.

            In this shift, Azerbaijan and Turkey are playing a special role. Azerbaijan “geographically connects Central Asia with Turkey and Europe. It has an army with modern combat experience, actively uses Turkish and military technologies and at the same time closely cooperates with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.”

            And Turkey has the ability to “become the main military-technological partner” of an association of Azerbaijan and the Central Asian countries, given its “production of drones, armored vehicles, ammunition, communication system and military training,” resources that will allow the regio to “reduce its dependence on Russian weapons.”

            This emerging group and its moves toward becoming an alliance of its own “does not necessarily have to be a copy of NATO” and need not be directed against any particular country. But rather it can help the countries be in a position to deal with security problems as a region rather than individually, something that will give them greater independent influence. 

Putin Elite has Three Immediate Reasons for Devoting Ever More Attention to Emigres, Sonin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Putin and his inner circle in recent weeks have been devoting ever more attention to Russians who have left Russia,  attention that at times has risen to a kind of “collective hysteria,” Konstantin Sonin says; and he argues that there are three reasons that the issue of emigres and “relocants” is now so fraught in Moscow.

            First of all, the economist and commentator says, Kremlin propagandists need a new “abstract enemy” now that Ukraine has become a real one with its attacks on Russian cities and infrastructure because it is easier to create propaganda about an abstract enemy than about a real one (echofm.online/opinions/prichiny-isterii).

            Russians abroad at present are no threat to the regime, but memories of the role that emigres played in the past provide just enough fuel for Putin and those around him to believe that such people could threaten those in power once again and to use propaganda tropes like those the tsars and commissars did.

            Second, Sonin argues, there is “’the technical’ perspective,” driven by the fact that “the potential for whipping up hatred against Ukrainians has been exhausted.” Having lost the target it has been concerned about, Putin’s propaganda machines “must always be kept busy with something;” and emigres and those who have moved abroad are a good target in that regard.

            And third, some members of the Putin elite suffer from an intensifying “fear of the future,” even though Sonin argues, this fear which has to do with the isolation of Russia is “largely unfounded” but “fear – even when irrational – is a powerful force” – and so fears that the departure of Russian is a sign that Russia has been cut off from the West are real.

            Consequently, the Kremlin’s current obsession with emigres and those who have relocated abroad is likely to continue and perhaps even intensify given its problems in Ukraine and at home, highlighting along with everything else the paranoia and lack of good judgment currently at the top of the Russian political system.

In at Least a Fifth of Russia’s Federal Subjects, Forcible Mobilization for War in Ukraine Already Taking Place De Facto, Rights Activists Report

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – While Kremlin spokesman continue to claim that suggestions Moscow will launch a mobilization campaign after the Duma elections are Ukrainian propaganda and that Russia doesn’t need any mobilization to man its arm, in at least a fifth of Russia’s federal subjects, a forcible mobilization is already taking place.

            For Kremlin claims that reports about mobilization are Ukrainian propaganda and that Russia doesn’t need any mobilization, see meduza.io/news/2026/08/25/kreml-nazval-informatsionnymi-utkami-soobscheniya-o-novoy-mobilizatsii-v-rossii and ura.news/articles/1053121221.

            For reports by rights activists that officials are using violence and threats to force men to sign up for the military and serve in Ukraine in 17 federal subjects, approximately one-fifth of all of these, actions that look very much like what a mobilization would, see the detailed article at verstka.media/pravozashhitniki-soobshhili-o-nasilstvennyh-zaderzhaniyah-i-prinuzhdenii-k-kontraktu-kak-minimum-v-17-regionah-rossii.

            What these reports almost certainly mean is that Putin plans to run a covert mobilization campaign, handing off the task to regional officials and paid recruiters and then denying that a mobilization effort is taking place and disclaiming any responsibility for what is happening, a pattern he has adopted with regard to other policies already.

            And that in turn means that Putin likely won’t declare a mobilization even after the election largely because he won’t have to: his appointees in the oblasts, krays, and republics of the Russian Federation are already carrying one out in all but name. 

 

Outcome of Kazakhstan Election Shows Where Russia and Other Post-Soviet States are Likely Heading, Grashchenkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – The outcome of the elections to the new single chamber Kazakhstan parliament shows the direction that party building is likely to take in the Russian Federation and other post-Soviet states, according to Ilya Grashchenkov, the director of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy.

            The victory of the pro-government Adilet Party with 71.7 percent of the vote “may look like the emergence of a new super party” but in fact, the way the new party was formed and how it structured the opposition shows something more profound, the commentator says (politrus.com/20260824/ilya-graschenkov-17/).

            The former party of power in Kazakhstan which Nazarbayev assembled did not go into the opposition but instead joined Adilet largely because “the old party brand was too closely connected” with the past, Grashchenkov says. And that is “an important example for United Russia” which may be compelled to do the same thing for the same reason.

            At the same time, he continues, the opposition was divided in a quite meaningful way and the most dangerous form of opposition leadership was excluded so that “there is no one party there that provides a focus for protest for everyone.” Instead, there are two relatively clear directions.”

            On the one hand, there are two parties, Respublika and Ak Zhol which are right wing and entrepreneurial; and on the other there are three, the Ayul Agrarian, the Social Democrats and the Peoples Party who represent demands for social justice and are left of center paternalists. These two wings of the Kazakhstan political spectrum received roughly equal shares in the election.

            But what is “especially significant” not only for Kazakhstan but for Russia and other former Soviet republics, Grashchenkov says, is that there is no analogue to the LDPR of the late Vladimir Zhirinovsky. That is, there is “no party trying to be at one and the same time nationalist, social, protest and fully systemic.”

            According to the commentator, “the LDPR model worked as long as there was a politician capable” of appearing set to oppose the regime within limits. “The Kazakh arrangement now shows a more modern design” with entrepreneurs voting for business parties and left-wing voters for socialist ones.

            Grashchenkov concludes: “Kazakhstan thus offers the voters a design” and those in power with a model “here the new party of power as a result of transit and several small parties representing limited but understandable interests.” Russia and the others may choose to follow such an arrangement. “That’s something to think about.”

Moscow Rapidly Expanding Use of AI Technology to Increase Repression of Non-Russians, Saami Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – At various international conferences, Russian representatives frequently claim that Moscow is using artificial intelligence to protect non-Russians living in the Russian Federation; but that is an outright lie that must be countered, Andrey Danilov says.

            The Saami activist says that in fact Moscow’s use of AI is making it ever easier for Russian officials to search out those whom Moscow has already defined as extremist and then take steps against them, an increasing share of whom are non-Russians (indigenous-russia.com/archives/49776).

            It has just become known, Danilov continues, that researchers at the Southern Urals State University have come up with an AI system that “automatically analyzes texts and searchers for terms like ‘foreign agents,’ ‘extremists,’ ‘undesirable organizations’ and other categories” and comparing these texts with Russian government data bases.

            Consequently, he concludes, what everyone needs to remember and be reminded of is that “artificial intelligence itself does not protect human rights. Instead, it strengthens the system that is making use of it.” When it is in the hands of those who want to expand human rights, AI can have one result; when it is in the hands of those against that, it has a very different one.

More than Their Elders, Younger Russians View Corruption as ‘Normal’ and Even Acceptable and are Less Willing to Cooperate in Struggle against It, Moscow Sociologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – Russians aged 18 to 23, that is those born in the Putin years, are more inclined to view corruption as something entirely “normal” and to accept many forms of it as acceptable than are members of older age groups, according to Yana Ardelyanova of the Moscow Institute of Sociology.

            The Russian scholar says that this is the case if one looks beyond the near universal willingness of people to say that corruption is wrong in principle and recognizes that this is part of a growing lack of trust in the government and social institutions (ng.ru/economics/2026-08-24/1_4_9566_corruption.html).

            Even worse than their willingness to view corruption as somehow part of life now, Ardelyanova says, young people are more willing to take part in corrupt schemes than are their elders because they view many forms of corruption like paying off professors or doctors for preferred treatment as quite normal.

            She says that this represents “a clear decline” among young Russians “regarding the values of service to the state and society” and even “a crisis of trust in state and public institutions, the result among other things of the digital environment in which informal leaers such as bloggers are displacing that of officials.”

            According to the report about the sociologist’s findings published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, other polls and scholarly investigations provide additional support for her conclusions, making this finding far more likely to be true and thus far more worrying than many might be inclined to think. 

To Keep Armenia in Russia’s Orbit, Moscow May Soon Use Migration Weapon, Shustov Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 24 – Roughly a quarter of Armenia’s GDP consists of transfer payments by Armenians working in the Russian Federation; and if Yerevan pursues EU membership, Moscow will be “compelled” to consider imposing restrictions on Armenian migrant workers in Russia, Aleksandr Shustov says.

            So far this possibility and the deadline Moscow has supposedly set for Yerevan to make a choice about its future have been mentioned only in the Armenian media, the Russian nationalist commentator says (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-08-24--naskolko-silna-migracionnaja-zavisimost-armenii-ot-rossii-89830).

            But since Armenia gives no sign of changing its direction, Shustov continues, Moscow will have to “use new instruments” to influence Yerevan, and “one of these soon could be limitations on labor migration” from that country, something that the figures show would be devastating for Armenia.

            According to the Armenian Central Bank, Armenians working in the Russian Federation sent home 3.87 billion US dollars in 2025, an amount equal to 13.3 percent of Armenia’s GDP. That is less than the share of transfer payments to Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan but still enormous and potentially crippling.

            That the Kremlin is thinking about doing precisely this, Shustov continues, was suggested by Putin’s remark earlier this year that if Armenia breaks with Russia economically, it will suffer an economic loss of 14 percent of GDP, less than a single percentage point different from what ending such transfer payments would be.

            The number of Armenian workers in the Russian Federation has been falling in recent months, but until then, with the singular exception of the covid year, it has been running at about 160,000 a year over most of the last decade. If these people are forced to go home, Yerevan will find it difficult to support them; and they will find it very difficult to find work in other countries.

            This is what Armenia should be thinking about rather than pursuing what Shustov clearly considers the will of the wisp of EU membership; and his words suggest very strongly that Moscow is quite prepared to take this step, something that Armenia’s friends and supporters should take into consideration as well. 

Russian Literature Now Threatened by Both Censorship and AI, Two Phenomena which Re-Enforce One Another, Literary Critic Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – In 1946, George Orwell wrote in his essay “The Suppression of Literature” that in a totalitarian society of the future, government censorship will be re-enforced by a system in which “machines will write books,” something that is now happening and means that Russian literature is threatened by both censorship and AI, Semyon Vladimirov says.

            Government censorship in the Russian Federation has attracted enormous attention, the Russian literary critic says; but the ways in which AI re-enforces it both in the course of editorial checking when computer algorithms are used and in the writing of books that will slip through the system has not (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/08/23/neiroslop-i-neirotsenzor).

            At least since last year, major Russian publishing houses are using AI to check manuscripts not as elsewhere to ensure that a human wrote them but rather than they will pass muster with the censors, thus helping the latter to restrict the publication of works the officials don’t approve of, Vladimirov says.

            That is insidious enough given how many mistakes such AI surveys involve, confusing something innocent with something that must be banned. But AI is also allowing writers who hope for publication to avoid any mention of something that could get them in trouble, thus helping censorship and leaving literature ever grayer.

            The specific features of the Russian case that Vladimirov points to are important, but his general point is even more so. AI can easily re-enforce impulses to censor especially if it makes it easy for other governments to impose their will via what may appear to many as “objective” computer models.

Moscow will Promote Traditional Values but Only ‘Delicately and Subtly,’ Kremlin Aide Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – Putin frequently says that Russians “sincerely value” traditional values and that he will continue to support them in that ( nazaccent.ru/content/45631-vladimir-putin-my-iskrenne-dorozhim-nashim-kulturnym-i-duhovnym-dostoyaniem/). But there are signs that this effort may now be slowing because of popular resistance.

            In an interview with TASS, Garri Minkh, Putin’s representative to the Duma, says that promoting traditional values among children and adults remains importance but that it must “be done with sufficient delicacy and subtlety” (tass.ru/politika/28030937 and nazaccent.ru/content/45856-prodvigat-tradicionnye-cennosti-v-rossii-budut-delikatno-i-tonko/).

            His words and the fact that this message was delivered by an official responsible for ensuring that Duma deputies follow Putin’s lead suggest that some Russians may be upset by the heavy-handed way some Duma initiatives in this area have been structured and that the Kremlin wants to ensure that deputies don’t overstep the mark and provoke a negative reaction.

            Minkh said that pursuing the goal in this way is “a very challenging task, as there is a risk of slipping into mere rote adherence to dogma” or not forming a unified basis of identity which “serves the good of our society and state,” an apparent warning that the Kremlin wants deputies to avoid pushing in this direction too hard and too quickly.

37 Years On, Baltic Chain Continues to Inspire Non-Russians Elsewhere

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – Thirty-seven years ago, some two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians formed a human chain more than 600 kilometers to remind the world they were committed to achieving freedom and independence, an action that became for many “one of the most powerful symbols of the struggle of nations for independence.”

            Those quoted words belong to Aida Abdrakhmanova of the Tatarstan Independence Committee and vice president of the Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations and highlight the fact that Baltic actions at the end of Soviet times continue to inspire non-Russians still under Moscow’s rule (tatarstan-independence-committee.blogspot.com/2026/08/blog-post_23.html).

            The Tatarstan leader delivered those words in Stockholm at the site where in 1990-1991, Swedes gathered every Monday to support the recovery of Baltic independence, a place which she says “reminds us of that struggle and of the fact that the solidarity of free people can change history.”

            Abdrakhmanova says that this tradition is continuing: “every Monday, following the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, rallies in support of Ukraine have been held here. People gather to support the Ukrainian people, who are defending their country, their freedom and their right to determine their own future.”

            She and other Tatars continue this tradition not only in defense of Ukraine which is standing up to a Russian invasion but in the name of their own nation which one day “will become a free and democratic country, a country that will be a friend of Sweden, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”

            Thus, if can be said, the Tatarstan leader continued, just as when people joined hands 37 years ago “to show the world that freedom is possible,” so too today, “we continue to hold on to this chain” in support of our own national drive toward independence and others like it as well.

Moscow Transforming Groups which Oppose It and UsingThem Under Their Original Names to Push Its Own Line

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – What the Putin regime has done to the Yamal to Its Descendants NGO represents an increasingly serious challenge to the West: Working with Russian business, it has transformed a group that routinely spoke against Moscow’s pretensions into one that now can be counted on to spout the Kremlin line but without changing the name.

            Because many in the West know of this group because of its earlier activities, it thus retains an image which is no longer deserved but which many who interact with it at international forums do not fully recognize has been made into something entirely different, thereby creating a situation far more fraught than when Moscow closes down organizations. 

             This process is thus far more insidious and serious in its implications than when Moscow as often has been the case disbands existing groups and creates alternative ones, a tactic that has attracted far more attention but that has typically worked less well for Moscow than continuing to use existing groups after taking them over.  

            This process has occurred in many groups formed in Russia in the late 1980s and 1990s (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/moscow-not-only-repressing-non-russian.html); but nowhere has it been described in more detail than Arctida’s new article on changes in the Yamal to Its Descendants association (arctictoday.com/how-yamals-independent-indigenous-association-became-a-partner-of-the-authorities-and-the-oil-and-gas-companies/).

            The group, Arctida notes, was formed in 1989 to defend the indigenous peoples of the Yamal against the untrammeled actions of oil, gas and mining companies. It did so with vigor and sometimes success until about 2010  but now has stopped doing that and instead parrots the Kremlin line about Ukraine and other issues.

            In part, this change reflects the repression Moscow has visited on all hitherto independent groups; but in this case, it also involved the financial and personnel takeover of these groups by the businesses they had been opposed to and by Moscow loyalists in United Russia as well.

            As a result, Arctida says, the group still poses as a defender of the rights and interests of indigenous peoples but only “in situations where such a defense does not conflict with the interests of administrative elites and extractive companies.” This “defense” leads many to belief nothing has changed when in fact almost everything has.

            The new article traces how this process of regime capture was taken over the last two decades and how it has become even more severe since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022 and how this has helped the Kremlin confuse and misinform the West about what Moscow is doing in recent years.

           

International Conference in Baku Denounces ‘New Wave of Persecution of Circassians’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – A conference organized in Baku by the Azerbaijani Silk Road Association which drew online participants from around the world denounced Moscow for what attendees described as “a new wave of persecution of Circassians” that recalls Russian actions in tsarist times and under Stalin.

            The conference had been in the works for some time given Moscow’s policies; but it was given new urgency by new reports that Russian officials in their drive to recruit Circassians for Putin’s war in Ukraine have tortured and killed a young Circassian, an action that has sparked protest through the Circassian world and in the countries where some seven million of them live.

            (For background on Russian actions in this regard and the growing reaction they have sparked, see saratoga-foundation.org/p/putins-conscription-drive-in-north, minval.az/news/124549681 and icpc-circassia.org/news-and-updates/circassian-young-man-nurdin-karaf-reportedly-killed-under-torture.)

            Speakers at the Baku conference denounced Moscow’s actions in this case but argued that they are part of a broader policy of suppressing the Circassians and other non-Russians and predicted that these acts of repression would have exactly the opposite effect and lead the Circassians and other non-Russians to increase their activism.

            They also thanked Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Turkey, Ukraine and other countries for focusing attention on the Circassian cause and suggested that such attention will play a key role in the expansion of the Circassian movement despite everything Moscow has done to try to suppress it (minval.az/news/124549797).

Russian Elites Attitudes toward Putin have Shifted But This By Itself isn’t Yet a Threat to Kremlin Leader, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug.23 – Over the past several months, the attitude of Russian elites toward Putin has become more negative, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but this isn’t yet a threat to the Kremlin leader because his use of repression has prevented them from acting on this shift and because the Russian people are even more hostile to these elites than they are to Putin himself.

            The London-based Russian analyst, one of the closest and most thoughtful observers of the Moscow scene, says that he is convinced that the shift in elite attitudes is real and not some notion promoted by Ukraine or others opposed to Putin (t.me/v_pastukhov/1988 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/perelom-nastroenij-v-elite-ne-mif).

            Moreover, Pastukhov continues, he views this frone “not so much as anti-war, however much many would like to see it, but rather as anti-Putin, a shift in attitudes that reflects the judgment of elites that Putin has failed to achieve his promised goals” and his allowing the war to come home to Russia and threaten their interests.

            This shift in elite attitudes thus “does not pose any danger to Putin at the moment, first of all because he has control of a repressive regime that can eliminate anyone who raises his head; second … because the Russian people dislike them even more than they dislike Putin; and third, because the frond does not have a leader.”

            But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a problem. “The very fact of its existence is something Putin cannot ignore,” the London-based analyst says; and his reaction can turn this shift in attitudes into something more serious for the future of his rule. “The best way out would be to do nothing,” but that isn’t something Putin is capable of.

            Consequently, it will be how Putin reacts rather than how the elite feels that will define what will happen in the coming weeks and months, Pastukhov concludes. 

Finno-Ugric Movement Becoming Trans-Atlantic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – Since Moscow blocked most contacts between Finno-Ugric activists outside Russia and Finno-Ugric communities within Russia in the years since 2022, émigré Finno-Ugric activists have been expanding their activities across the Atlantic and now are calling for establishing in the US of a Day of Finno-Ugric Peoples on the third Saturday of October.

            Between the end of Soviet times and the beginning of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, activists in the three Finno-Ugric independent countries – Estonia, Hungary and Finland – took the lead in developing ties with their co-ethnics in the Russian Federation. But as Russia has blocked most of those channels, the activists abroad have begun to look across the Atlantic.

            This year, an American city, Hancock, Michigan, was named the Finno-Ugric Cultural Capital for 2026, hosted meetings with activists and officials from Finno-Ugric countries, and featured a call for the creation in the US of a Day of the Finno-Ugric Peoples on the third Saturday of every October (mariuver.eu/2026/08/21/fu-dvizhenije-transkontinentalnyj/).

            Estonians and Finno-Ugric activists, alarmed by Russia’s actions over the last five years, welcome this call because it will broaden support for numerically small groups inside the Russian Federation in ways that recall the impact of the Captive Nations Week declarations that helped the Baltic countries recover their independence.

            Indeed, Estonian commentator Anti Lillak entitled his report on this development “The Transcontinental Finno-Ugric World” (sirp.ee/transkontinentaalne-soome-ugri-maailm/) and said it was a useful response to Moscow’s actions that were documented in a report to the Estonian foreign ministry earlier this year. (For the text of that detailed report, see fennougria.ee/en/fenno-ugria-report-on-finno-ugric-peoples-in-russia/.)

            The most likely next step to ensure that such a day is created will be for Finno-Ugric activists in the US and Europe to appeal to the Baltic Caucus in the US Congress to have it push for the establishment of a day that will focus American attention on peoples who today are even less well known than were the union republic nationalities in Soviet times. 

Russians Not Telling Putin ‘No’ But No Longer are Saying ‘Yes,’ Gallyamov Argues

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – The average Russia is not now saying “’no’ to Putin,” Abbas Gallyamov says. “That is too dangerous.” But ever more of them are “no longer saying ‘yes’” either, “the only form of opposition available to most in a totalitarian state” and a kind that ultimately subverts such regimes.

            The former Putin speechwriter and current Putin critic says Russians have been on a rollercoaster in this regard since Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022. That move “led to a sharp politicization of Russians,” with many backing Putin because they felt involved in “something grandiose” (pointmedia.io/story/6a8810f775d0d3346a25cb7f).

            That response, Gallyamov continues, is typical: “People who feel involved in something grandiose usually are grateful to the one who gave them that opportunity at least as long as the price to pay for this chance does not become to high.” But now that the price has risen and become more obvious, Russians have changed their minds.

            Kremlin repression keeps this disappointment from taking the form of open protest, he says; but that leaves as “the only means of expressing discontent depoliticization,” a good choice for many because it allows for asking “from time to time to ask questions about what is happening” with less risk.

            In this new situation, Gallyamov argues, “the average Russian now does not say ‘no’ to Putin – that is too dangerous; but he just stops saying ‘yes’ to him.” At first, the state welcomes this passivity and even encourages it; but over time, the regime needs more support and such “apathy” becomes a problem.

Depoliticization is not just an escape from politics,” the commentator says. “In conditions when the government demands from a person constant emotional mobilization -- that he should follow, worry, be proud, hate, be willing to sacrifice and unite -- the refusal to do all this becomes a political gesture” – and an ever more important one at that.

Initially, Putin build his power precisely because “he provided the system with legitimacy,” thus reducing the dangers to the central authorities that grew during the 1990s. He stabilized the situation; but now as the population stops saying yes to him because of his repressions and failure to deliver more, “Putin is ever less needed” and elites can see that.

 “What the Russian president is doing in Ukraine and in the international arena as a whole is completely contrary to the interests of the vast majority of the domestic establishment. Elites are rational people and to wreck the country’s economy for the sake of taking a small piece of scorched earth is viewed as a profound mistake.”

And Gallyamov concludes: “depoliticization allows Russians to get out of the game imposed” by Putin;  but eventually, it encourages members of the establishment to think about demanding the leader listen to it or face replacement especially if he is doing things as Putin now is that are harming these elites. 

Kremlin-Backed Buddhist Forum Declaration Suggests Moscow May Drop Judaism from Its List of Favored ‘Traditional Religions of Russia’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – Perhaps the most important aspect of the just concluded Fourth International Buddhist Forum in Tyva was not the greetings from Putin or the fact that some 1,000 people from 20 countries took part but rather the meeting’s declaration which violated long-standing practice concerning which are the traditional religions of Russia.

            Since the end of Soviet times, Moscow has been consistent in declaring that there are four traditional religions of Russia – Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism – giving special deference to these and reducing others like Protestantism and Catholicsm to a lesser status (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/kremlin-divides-churches-subordinate-to.html).

            While the Russian Federation does not have a formalized ideology that the Soviet Union did, it does have certain formulations such as about “the four traditional religions of Russia” which are almost never violated. That makes what happened at the Tyva conference so intriguing.

            The forum concluded with a declaration that said in part that “Russia is a multi-confessional, multi-national country where Buddhism, Orthodoxy and Islam live in peace and harmony, failing to mention Judaism in its list (asiarussia.ru/news/52107/ and egov-buryatia.ru/press_center/news/detail.php?ID=208193).

            That a meeting as important as this one should do so is striking and suggests that even though Putin himself has continued to meet with Jewish leaders on occasion and other groups have used the standard formulation in recent months, there appears to be a greater willingness than in the past to change that formulation and drop the reference to Judaism in this favored list.

            That list continues to matter not just as a declaration but as a guide to policy. Putin himself has worked hard to marginalize all faiths not on the list (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/putin-seeks-to-marginalize-or-even.html); and groups as diverse as Protestants and Shamans have sought to join it (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/putins-war-in-ukraine-has-divided.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/02/russias-4000-shamans-seek-official.html).

            If what the Buddhists have now done at a Kremlin-backed meeting is a harbinger of the possible ideological fate of Judaism in Russia, that could presage a major change in Moscow’s policies toward Jews. At the very least, it will encourage those Russian nationalist groups that they may be able to act more aggressively against Judaism than in the past. 

 

More than Just Fears of Mobilization Driving Up New Interest in Emigration among Russians, Emigration Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – Unlike in 2022 when most Russians thinking about or actually pursuing emigration because of fears they would be mobilized for service in Ukraine, today, Russians thinking about leaving the country are doing so for a broad range of reasons including the conviction that the situation in Russia is getting worse, Ark emigration activists say.

            This change suggests three important conclusions, although the Ark analysts who report this development aren’t drawing these at least in public. First, even if the threat of mobilization this fall passes, interest in and even actions toward emigration will continue          (echofm.online/news/eto-lyudi-kotorye-gotovy-ehat-pravozashhitniki-iz-kovchega-rasskazali-ehu-o-novoj-volne-emigraczii-iz-rossii).

            Second, the number of steps the Russian government would have to take to change this situation is enormously broad, ranging from a significant decline in repression to an economic policy improving the lives of ordinary Russians and reducing the enormous gap between the wealthy and the poor in that country.

            And third, because the Putin regime shows no signs of moving in that direction, the Kremlin almost certainly will seek to make emigration both less attractive and more difficult and take ever more steps to restore the situation of pre-perestroika times when few people were allowed to leave.

            Given that free travel to and from foreign countries is one of the benefits of the collapse of the Soviet system that Russians say they most value, Putin will likely try to avoid a public declaration that he is closing the borders lest making such a move would likely trigger even more anger than his moves against the internet.

Unlike Stalin, Putin isn’t Compensating for Repression with Victories, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – Many observers are suggesting that Russians will accept Putin repressions for a long time to come because they accepted Stalin’s a century ago, but those who do are missing an essential point, Abbas Gallyamov says; and it is this: Unlike Stalin, Putin isn’t compensating for his repressions with victories.

            According to the former Putin speechwriter turned Putin critic, “repressions against one’s own population, carried out by the authorities when they are defeating an external enemy, have far more legitimacy than do repressions when the authorities are unable to defeat such an enemy” (echofm.online/opinions/stalin-kompensiroval-repressii-pobedami).

            “Therefore,” Gallyamov says, “it makes no sense in the current situation to point to the fact that Russians supposedly accept the Stalin-era repressions with equanimity. Stalin offset repressions with victories; in recent years, Putin has brought the country nothing but defeats alongside his repressions.”

            And what that means in turn is that Putin must have an outcome in Ukraine that he can present to Russians as a victory or he will likely be confronted with a population that will be far less willing to accept his repressive policies because he hasn’t given them the victory that he has been promising.

            That is a major reason why Putin can’t agree to anything other than what he can describe as a victory, however much pressure anyone puts on him because for him victory in Ukraine is not a geopolitical issue but an existential one of his survival in power and perhaps even more than that. 

Even Before Drone Attacks, Many Russians who had Supported Putin’s War Earlier had Turned against It, Public Sociology Laboratory Interviews Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 30 – Russia’s independent Public Sociology Laboratory earlier this year re-interviewed Russians with whom it had spoken two years ago and who then supported Putin’s war in Ukraine. Now, the Laboratory says, many of them have become critics of the war.

            Most of their criticism, one of the Laboratory’s sociologists says, is still “at the non-political level,” that is it isn’t directed at Putin as such, but the critiques Russians are now offering of the war are often very specific and detailed (cherta.media/interview/kak-menyaetsya-otnoshenie-rossiyan-k-vojne/).

            Significantly, these in-depth interviews took place before Ukraine expanded its drone attacks on Russia this summer, an action that many suggest has brought the war home to Russia and shaken their support for Kremlin policies. That suggests the opposition to the war the Laboratory reports may have continued to increase in recent weeks.

Emigration and Silence Far From Only Options for Russians who Recognize Putin’s Russian Federation as Their ‘Main Enemy,’ Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Many Russians when thinking about how those who object to Putinism and its actions should act offer only two extreme options, emigration so as not to live under its control or silent obedience to the Kremlin lest they get into trouble, despite their feelings, Dimitry Savvin says.

            But in fact, the editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian portal Harbin says, the situation is far more complicated than that and that there are other options although it must be admitted to begin with that “each has its own price” which those choosing it must be willing to pay (harbin.lv/chto-delat-chestnomu-cheloveku-v-rossii).

            In making one’s choice, each Russian must decide what “the so-called Russian Federation” is to him or her. “There are only two basic answers: either it is “my state and my country” or alternatively it is now “the main enemy of the Russian people and the other peoples of Russia.’

            “If you still honor the Russian Federation by Russia itself, and not with a cancerous tumor, on the body of Russia that has grown up,” Savvin says, there is nothing more to be discussed. But “if you realize that the chief and most terrible enemy of the Russian person is the state of the Russian Federation,” then a lot more needs to be considered.

            If a Russian is in the latter category, then he or she must recognize that in Putin’s Russia maintaining “clean hands and an honest name have their price.” There are many in fact, but in “at least a few, you will have to make sacrifices” and in many cases these will not be small but may be very large indeed, the Russian nationalist editor says.

            “The main thing is not to lie to yourself. There has been no opposition in Russia for a long time.” And that means, Savvin argues, that those who want to do something to oppose the Putin regime must either engage in active resistance, a serious step given the likelihood of retribution, or adopt other forms of dissent, which also have costs but lesser ones.

            Emigration for those who oppose Putin remains an option, although it is likely only for a short period more, the Russian conservative says. Putin almost certainly will work to close off that possibility just as Stalin did and do it sooner rather than later. Those who feel they can’t take the risks other actions would lead to should get out while they can.

            There are steps for those who can’t or won’t emigrate but want to act against the Putin regime, possibly in ways that will not entail the most serious consequences for themselves like militant activism but will make clear to others that they are not collaborating with the Kremlin and want to retain or recover their moral purity.

            The first step such people need to take is to “not participate” in anything the regime is organizing that is obviously fraudulent like elections. The second is to break with those who do and make clear why such a step is needed. And the third is to stop listening to the regime and reading its newspapers and instead build up an alternative library.

            “Finally,” Savvin says, “it is impossible not to turn to those who are already within the state system but who have realized that this system is the main enemy of the Russian people and a mortal danger to all free people” and having done so to take steps to try to bring them out and join the opposition.

There won’t be a large number of such people at first; but as their numbers grow, the Russian conservative suggests, the opponents of the regime will strengthen while the regime itself will grow ever weaker. The time is long past when it is enough to sit in one’s kitchen and complain about how bad things are.

Even War in Ukraine for Putin is a Means to the End of His Not Being Succeeded by Someone who will Pursue ‘De-Putinization,’ Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Vladimir Putin’s “super task” is to be succeeded by someone who will continue to rule in his name as Stalin did after the death of Lenin rather than by someone who will turn away from his system and move in new directions as Khrushchev did after the death of Stalin, Gallyamov says.

            The former Putin speechwriter who is now a prominent Putin critic insists that even the current Kremlin leader’s expanded war in Ukraine is a means to that end rather than having the independent and all-important quality for him that is often suggested (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/10989 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/glavnaya-czel-putina-putin-posle-putina).

            This reflects the fact, Gallyamov says, that “Putin is a president of the status quo, not of revisionism. He has no ideals for which he would be willing to take serious risks. Of course, he does not want to appear a cynical egoist, so he likes to throw dust in people's eyes by feigning high aspirations and values … but this is nothing more than a show.”

            The current Kremlin leader “is a revisionist,” he continues, “precisely because he is a guardian of the status quo on the inside. He may redraw borders, dismantled the international order and start wars; but his ultimate political aim is conservative: ensuring that power remains exactly where it now lies.”

            Indeed, “even posthumous greatness is something Putin needs primarily as an insurance policy. In his view, a good successor is not someone who will build an even greater Russia, but someone whose own political survival depends on preserving the Putin pantheon, the Putin elite, and the Putin version of history.”

Russian Banks Require Those Applying for Home Mortgages to Have Insurance against Drone Attacks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Putin may think that drone attacks aren’t causing all that serious damage on Russia, but Russian banks don’t share that view and are requiring those seeking mortgages for housing in so-called “vulnerable” regions have insurance covering the damage Ukrainian drones have been inflicting.

            According to Kommersant, major banks are now checking to see that the insurance borrowers have or plan to take out includes coverage of damages from drones and their parts (kommersant.ru/doc/8847161 reposted at echofm.online/news/rossijskie-banki-stali-trebovat-strahovat-ipotechnoe-zhilyo-ot-atak-bpla).

            Policies including such coverage cost from ten to 20 percent more than those which don’t, the paper says; but if borrowers don’t have this kind of coverage, the banks are increasing the interest rate on loans they extend by between  0.5 and 2.0 percent or even “refusing” to agree to offer a mortgage at all.

            Such actions by banks are likely a better indication of just how much Ukrainian drone attacks have brought the war home to Russia and how long those with money on the table think how long these attacks will extend into the future than are any upbeat comments by the Kremlin leader to the contrary. 

Putin has Failed to Learn What Jaruzelski Did: Repression Can Win a Battle but It Can’t Win a War, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 – In 1989, Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski warned Hungary against introducing martial law because of his own experience in doing so. “Yes, we did it and won the battle by crushing Solidarity but as a result we lost the war” to main the legitimacy of the government.

            That is a lesson Vladimir Putin should be learning but does not yet appear to have done so according to Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter who is now a critic of the Kremlin leader, and the results for his regime are likely to be disastrous as a result (pointmedia.io/story/6a84340f75d0d3346a25cb77).

            According to Gallyamov, Jaruzelski discovered that by imposing martial law he was able to shut down the Solidarity movement, but only at the cost of “destroying a significant part of the legitimacy of the communist authorities. Before the Polish general imposed martial law, Solidarity might have been integrated into “some kind of reformed socialism” but not after.

            Once he had crushed Solidarity, the Polish general eventually recognized, he faced a country in which “millions of Poles viewed power as something kept in place exclusively by force.” Even more he learned that while “the absence of protest” first looked like “a lack of discontent,” it soon became obvious that “it was not the same thing.”

            “Using mass repression,” Gallyamov continues, “Putin managed to solve the same problem that Jaruzelsky once faced: to defeat the structures of the opposition and remove the protest from the streets. He won the battle. But the question now is whether the Kremlin leader is losing a similar war as a result.”

            What everyone must understand, the commentator says, is that “repression  destroys not so much discontent as the opportunity to demonstrate it.” And as a result, “the need to continually resort to coercion undermines previous formulas of legitimacy: it is increasingly difficult to assert that the government rules because society voluntarily supports it.”

            That is what is happening to Putin. He started by claiming that he represented the people by means of democracy but then he proposed another basis for the population to support him: patriotism. “Even if we aren’t democrats,” the Putinists claimed, “we are defending Russia” and “protecting the motherland.”

            But now that Ukrainian drones are hitting Russian cities, Gallyamov says, it is ever more difficult for the Kremlin “to explain what exactly the ability to ensure the security of the country gives the current regime the right to demand unconditional subordination” among the population of the Russian Federation.

            That has left Putin in “a very unpleasant situation.” He destroyed his claim to democratic legitimacy by repression, and his efforts to invoke patriotism as an alternative basis are failing given the inability of his regime “to ensure the very security the population was offered in order to get it to sacrifice its political freedoms.”

            As a result, Gallyamov concludes, now, “Russia has absolutely no need for Putin from any perspective whatsoever, whether democratic or even ‘patriotic,’” a lesson Jaruzelski learned albeit too late to save himself and his regime.  Whether Putin will have better luck very much remains to be seen.