Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 9 – The Russian government’s Academy of Economics and State Service has released the results of a study it undertook in response to the 2022 protests against Putin’s partial mobilization in various parts of that country. Its findings suggest these protests were even more widespread than has been acknowledged.
The study examined what it calls efforts by outside actors to influence the situation among young people at that time in 39 federal subjects, just under half of the total. Given that blaming “outside agitators” is Moscow’s preferred way of explaining protests, that suggests that significant anti-mobilization protests took place in these but not other places.
For discussions of this study and what it may say about Moscow’s perception of the state of protest activity, see verstka.media/v-ranhigs-zayavili-o-vneshnem-informaczionnom-davlenii-na-molodyozh-v-45-regionah and kavkazr.com/a/dagestan-nazvali-glavnoy-tseljyu-informatsionnyh-atak-na-molodezhj-severnogo-kavkaza/33699641.html.
Two things support this conclusion about how widespread the protests were at that time. First, the list of problem regions in the new study includes many predominantly ethnic Russian federal subjects where protest activity was slight or not reported at all when the mobilization was declared.
And second, in the North Caucasus, the list includes Dagestan where protests were massive and widely reported but not Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karachayevo-Cherkesiya and Kabardino-Balkaria where protests were smaller or even non-existent at least to judge from reportage at the time.
If this interpretation is correct, then it appears likely that the Academy’s study was ordered by the Kremlin in anticipation that Putin may feel compelled to announce another partial mobilization and that officials are now trying to anticipate just how much opposition there would be given how much there was four years ago.
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