Ethnic Russians Overwhelmingly Fear the Disintegration of Their Country, Gallyamov Says, and That Helps the Kremlin Retain Power

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 26 – Ethnic Russians “are afraid of the collapse of the country,” Abbas Gallyamov says. “They are no longer afraid of losing Putin, the Donbass, or Crimea. They couldn’t care less about them. But they are afraid of events like those which accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, from numerous inter-ethnic conflicts to mass impoverishment.”

            Because that is so, the commentator who earlier served as a Putin speechwriter and retains close contacts with the ruling stratum, says, the Kremlin will be able to exploit the presence of non-Russians on the PACE group representing the peoples of Russia to rally ethnic Russians around the regime (echofm.online/opinions/razvala-strany-rossiyane-boyatsya).

            That is not what the non-Russians want or even what many of the ethnic Russians on the PACE group would prefer, but “the presence of representatives of the indigenous peoples of Russia will clearly be interpreted by the Kremlin as an attempt to break up Russia; and the first result of this will bee the consolidation of the ethnic Russian majority around the regime.”

            “Perhaps in the future, the activities of the representatives of the indigenous people will play a positive role,” the commentator continues.” That can’t be excluded; “but at this stage, their presence will be used effectively by Kremlin propaganda because “Russians are afraid of the collapse of their country.”

            “Of course, this is not what the ethnic Russian opposition needs,” especially now when it can do little but issue appeals of one kind or another. But it is the reality that they too must work with given the ethnic Russian majority in the Russian Federation is so afraid of collapse that the Kremlin retains at least for now that powerful lever to use against its opponents.