Team Against Torture Report Provides Rare but Very Partial Window into Torture by Russian Force Structures

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – The Team Against Torture, an independent human rights group, has released a report on torture in the Russian Federation. Its findings are interesting but necessarily incomplete because the report was based exclusively on incidents where those who committed this crime were brought to court and convicted.

            That is likely why there are no cases reported of torture against women prisoners or of torture carried out by the FSB which is likely to have more success in protecting its officers against charges than are the militia of the interior ministry (echofm.online/documents/pytki-delo-molodyh-novoe-issledovanie-komandy-protiv-pytok-o-portrete-pytatelya-v-rossii).

            Nonetheless, because data on torture in Russian penal institutions is so rare and usually anecdotal, the report is worth noting because it was based on an examination of 77 torture cases held in the archives of human rights defenders in which 144 law enforcement officers were convicted of torture.

            Three-quarters of those convicted were under the age of 35, 93 percent were employees of the interior ministry, with 88 percent being officers of various territorial subdivisions and 43 percent were part of the Criminal Investigation Department of the ministry, according to the Team Against Torture report.

            Fifty-eight percent of those convicted were cooperating with others, the report says, noting that “securing a conviction against those who did not participate in torture but merely turned a blind eye to it is practically impossible.” It also notes that sometimes officers failed to stop their colleagues from torturing people because of ignorance of the law.

Moscow Not Only Carried Out a Genocide against Soviet People but Announced It was Planning to Do So and Even Boasted about It, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – The Putin government has now pushed through legislation that makes it a criminal offense to deny that the Germans carried out a genocide against the Soviet people and continues to persecute those who point out that the Soviet regime was responsible for many of the losses Moscow now wants to blame exclusively on the Germans.

            But in doing so, Dimitry Savvin says, editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian Harbin portal, the Putin regime is seeking to cover up that the Soviet regime launched a genocide against the Soviet people shortly after it came to power in its September 1918 Decree on the Red Terror (harbin.lv/dekret-o-krasnom-terrore).

            That has been covered up now as the Putin regime has tried to shift all the blame for losses on the Germans and has been largely ignored by many in the West who are prepared to accept Putin’s lies as long as they are doused in what has become a kind of universal moral solvent provided by Soviet victories in World War II.

Russians Believe Their Country Needs a Strong State More than an Open Political System, Busygina and Filippov Argue, and Putin Relies on That

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 11 – Many assume that Putin remains strong because of repression and fear, Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov say; but in fact, it is because he relies on the widespread belief among his countrymen that Russia can be successful if and only if the state is insulated from the buffeting of a competitive political system.

            The Kremlin leader’s “regime does not merely suppress alternatives: it offers its own distinct political formula for the country, one that is internally consistent, historically recognizable and institutionally codified. At its core is the idea of the need for a strong state” (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/04/11/gosudarstvo-vmesto-politiki).

            Because of the need for such a state, the two Russian analysts who now teach in the US, most Russians follow Putin and believe that “open competition for power must be expunged from public life. Politics is permitted only in forms that are controlled—and, for the regime, safe.”

            For that reason, Busygina and Filippova argue that “Putinism frames depoliticization not as a restriction on normal life, but as its very precondition. This concept was not imposed from above; rather, it rests upon a genuine and broad consensus that took shape within Russian politics as early as the 1990s.”

“In various guises,” they continue, “this consensus was shared by democrats, federalists, nationalists, and communists alike. While they harbored profound disagreements on nearly every other issue, they concurred on one point: Russia requires a strong state. It is upon this very foundation that Putinism has constructed its political hegemony.”

The Putin regime delivers “a level of macroeconomic stability, administrative competence, and targeted social support adequate to ensure that the majority does not view democratization as a necessary price to pay for improving their lives” that the Kremlin feels no compulsion to promise freedom.

Instead, the two write, the Putinist state “promises a ‘managed normality’—and, moreover, a ‘modern’ normality: a market economy without political competition, technocracy without accountability, and limited openness to the world without political pluralism.” That is why this state is so hard to change and why the war in Ukraine has made it more not less so.

For a successful challenge, “simply calling for freedom of speech, fair elections or a reduction in arbitrary rule is not enough.” Instead, those making it must “answer a more complicated question: how can a strong Russia be built without a ruling elite that is insulated from political competition and accountability?”

According to Busygina and Fillipova, “the Russian opposition lacks a coherent answer to this question and, as a result, the system is resilient,” with most of the elite and much of the population believing that “even a limited liberalization ‘within’ the regime appears to be too dangerous.” Until that changes, the Russian regime isn’t going to change, even after Putin.

A Measure of Moscow’s Desperation: People Visiting AIDS Centers in Karelia Urged to Join Russian Army

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – Even though the Russian defense ministry prohibits those with HIV or hepatitis from serving in the military, recruiters in Karelia are now circulating appeals to those visiting HIV/AIDS centers in Karelia to join up with promises that they will get substantial bonuses, debt relief and consideration even if they have criminal records.

            The ban can be found at publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202601300038; the report about this recruitment effort in Karelia is at ru.thebarentsobserver.com/v-centre-spid-razmestili-reklamu-kontraktov-dla-ludej-s-vic-i-gepatitom/448477; and background on such efforts elsewhere at t.me/istories_media/10317.

            The Russian military has avoided recruiting those with such illnesses in the past not only because such soldiers would likely require more medical attention but also because knowledge by the Russian population that the military was allowing those with HIV/AIDS  to serve would likely discourage others from signing up.

            Hence, this recruitment effort, which explicitly says that “recruitment is [now] open for people with HIV and HEPATITIS,” strongly suggests that the Russian military is having increasing difficulty filling its depleted ranks in Ukraine and has apparently has been directed to take in even those with serious and highly communicable illnesses.

            Not surprisingly, this effort so far appears confined to places far from Moscow where coverage is less likely to reach a broader audience. For that reason, The Barents Observer is to be commended for reporting in detail on this latest action by the Moscow authorities. Its report should be picked up and disseminated by others. 

Majority of Treason Cases in Russia Result of Provocations by FSB or Other Intelligence Agencies, ‘First Department’ Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 11 – Before Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, treason charges and convictions in the Russian Federation were relatively rare, Yevgeny Smirnov of the judicial rights group First Department says; but since then more than 700 Russians have been convicted, most as the result of provocations by the security services.

            “Russian intelligence officers incite people to commit acts for which the latter are subsequently imprisoned,” he says; and these officers, especially outside the major cities, don’t even hide that this is what they are doing (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/04/11/bolshinstvo-del-po-gosizmene-seichas-eto-rezultat-provokatsii).

            In fact, Smirnov says, outside of Moscow or St. Petersburg where intelligence officers are more sophisticated and careful, those working with fields “actually document within the case files that cases brought to court were in fact preceded by what they refer to as ‘an operational experiment.’”

            “During the course of surveillance,” he continues, the case file says that an intelligence officer “showed an inclination to support a hostile ideology” and that led the intelligence agency to “conduct an operational experiment during which the person in question agreed to carry out a task directed against the security of the Russian Federation.”

            Just how this works, Smirnov says, is shown by the case of Ivan Tolpygin, an Oryol resident convicted of treason in 2024 and sentenced to four years in the camps. The entire case was “based on the claim that Tolpygin had ‘established and maintained contact” with an unnamed ‘representative of Ukraine.’

            In fact, Smirnov says, “no such ‘representative of Ukraine’ existed,” and the court verdict even specifies that Tolpygin was “corresponding with a certain intelligence officer who was ‘acting within the framework of an investigative operation, that is, ‘an operational experiment,’ being carried out by officers of the FSB.”

 

Since 2022, Russian Authorities have Forced Removal of At Least 600 Books from Stores, ‘The Insider’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Prior to Putin’s launch of his expanded war in Ukraine, the Russian government rarely sought to remove books from the shelves of booksellers; but since that time, it has forced sellers to remove “at least” 600 books with the number of bans peaking in 2024 but again on the rise, according to Vlad Gagin of The Insider portal.

            In addition, he reports that more than 50 Russian writers have been declared “foreign agents,” that numerous publishers and bookdealers have been charged with administrative or criminal violations for books containing materials about LGBT+ subjects or drug use and that the siloviki have raided shops looking for “satanic” literature (theins.ru/obshestvo/291184).

            Publishers sometimes publish books that they feel have such minimal amounts of materials the authorities find objectionable rather than cave immediately. Sometimes that strategy works, Gagin says; but sometimes the books are confiscated and the publishers are fined.

            Large publishers are in a better position to pay fines and thus may take risks, but smaller houses are increasingly unwilling to take risks and therefore far quicker to reject for publication manuscripts that they fear may get them into trouble. That makes it difficult to predict what will be published by at least someone, a difficulty exacerbated by the confusion of court findings.

            The situation is further complicated, Gagin continues, by the rise of a new generation of samizdat publishers who use printers at home; but so far, the number of copies and the kind of books disseminated in this way remains small. A far bigger impact is had by tamizdat, Russian-language books published abroad and then brought into Russia one way or another.

Moscow’s Declaration of Ichkeria a ‘Terrorist Organization’ Reflects Its Continuing Importance and Likely Presages New Russian Moves Against Those who Support It

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – Grozny has declared Ichkeria, the name Chechens seeking independence used in the 1990s for their country and one that those opposed to Russia and the Kadyrov regime in Chechnya still use, an action that reflects its continuing importance and likely presages new Moscow moves against those who support it, rights activists say.

            On the one hand, this decision represents a change in Russian and Chechen propaganda which has consistently declared Ichkeria to have been destroyed in the second post-Soviet Chechen war, an action that highlights the continuing importance of the Ichkeria movement, including in the formation of units fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Russia.

            But on the other hand, it formalizes what has been an increasing Russian and Chechen effort to attack those who identify with Ichkeria and their relatives not only inside Chechnya but internationally (kavkazr.com/a/otritsali-i-priznali-pochemu-ichkeriyu-obavili-v-rossii-terroristicheskoy/33728400.html).

            Now, human rights activists in the North Caucasus say, such attacks are likely to increase in number and intensity, actions that show just how worried Moscow and Grozny now are about the continuing impact of Ichkeria as a movement among Chechens and how willing they are to violate both Russian and international law in pursuing that movement and its supporters.

Post-Soviet States Engaged in Building Nation States Not in Ethnic Nation Building, Iskandaryan Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Aleksandr Iskandaryan, who has lived in the Republic of Armenia since 2002 and now heads that country’s Institute of the Caucasus, says that Armenia like the other post-Soviet countries is engaged in the process of building a nation state rather than in forming an ethnic nation.

            Those are two very different things, he points out. The first involves creating a set of institutions and ideas about the relationship of the state to its population while the latter is all about defining an ethnic nation, two processes that may occur together but must not be confused (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/04/10/natsiia-stroisia).

            The former is better captured by the English words “nation sate, a government of citizens” than in Russian where “in the word ‘nation’ is the component of ‘an ethnic state,’” something that is incorrect. For example, ‘the construction of a nation state is translated as state construction and not nation building.”

            “Before modern times,” the Armenian scholar says, the normal state was an empire; but the residents of an empire did not have the identity which they have now. Individuals defined themselves by religion or sometimes subject status, that is by saying who was their tsar or their hehshah.”

            Iskandaryan says that he doesn’t think that the Chechen national project has failed because “ever more of them consider themselves to be a nation in the contemporary sense of this word” and act accordingly in ways that are very different from other parts of the Russian Federation. “I would call Chechnya a proto-state.”

            Elsewhere in Russia processes are taking place “like those we saw in the Soviet Union earlier,” he continues. “The present day North Caucasus as regards the birth of nationalist ideologies is similar to the South Caucasus of the 1970s and 1980s. We see the same processes in Tatarstan and Sakha.”

            “But this doesn’t necessarily mean,” Iskandaryan concludes, that this process will be rapid or lead in only one direction. After all, “we have seen Scottish nationalism for 700 years;” and it is not yet an independent country.

Unlike in Soviet Times, Siberian River Diversion Now ‘More a Political Slogan than a Scientifically Grounded Project,’ Puzanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – Before the Soviet government in 1986 rejected the idea of diverting the water of Siberian rivers to Central Asia, Aleksandr Puzanov says, Moscow established a network of scholarly centers to examine the question given its extraordinarily complex and unprecedented nature.

            But today, the deputy director of the Institute of Water and Ecological Problesm of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences says, the whole issue is “more a political slogan than a scientifically sound project” and “no one has calculated the problems that will arise” if it is undertaken (vfokuse.mail.ru/articles/69615546-ekspert-pochemu-ideya-razvorota-sibirskih-rek-na-yug-nuzhdaetsya-v-glubokoj-prorabotke/).

            In Soviet times, he says, experts calculated exactly how much electricity would have to be generated to raise the waters from Siberian rivers to a height where they could flow to Central Asia, how much would be lost in transit, and what would be the impact on Siberia and the Arctic Ocean by removing so much water from the region.

            Now, however, many are again talking about diverting water southward;  but they are doing so almost in every case without any new research because there simply aren’t enough expert centers to conduct it. Consequently, the issue has been reduced to one of political choice rather than expert judgment.

            Puzanov’s words, of course,  apply with almost equal force to almost all of the major projects involving transfer of resources from one region to another, projects that the Kremlin leader and others appear to believe are simply the occasion for a display of political will rather than scholarly attention.

 

Moscow’s Naming Memorial an Extremist Organization ‘Direct Result’ of Putin’s Declining Poll Numbers, Davidis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Sergey Davidis, a longtime Memorial activist now in emigration, says that the main cause behind the decision to declare Memorial an extremist organization is connected “with the decline in Putin’s rating and in general of trust in the government” in the Russian Federation.

            Putin’s lack of success in Ukraine and the deterioration of the economy, he says, has led to “the growth of dissatisfaction among broad swath of the population, including those who until now have supported the war” (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novye-repressii-protiv-memoriala-svazany-s-padeniem-popularnosti-putinskogo-rezima-uvereny-pravozasitniki/448415).

            Given this trend, Davidis continues, “it is becoming especially important for the powers to take steps for the destruction of everything alive and independent which still remains on the territory of the country;” and by declaring Memorial extremist, it can more easily go after all those who are associated with the ideas of that movement.

            The second reason Davidis points to is closely tied to the first and concerns “the desire of the authorities to destroy ties between Russians who have left the country because of their lack of agreement with the policy of the Putin regime and those who remain in Russia while retaining the very same opposition views.”

            Breaking such ties is especially important for the Putin regime which “suffering from conspiratorial thinking” is inclined “to see in everything a plot involving the participation of ‘foreign agents,’” something it imagines Memorial to be and thus to play that up with new waves of repression at home.

            Davidis’ colleague Elena Zhemkova, who was among the original organizers of Memorial, agrees and notes how worried Moscow seems to be about the activities of the Zukunft Memorial organization she leads in Berlin and wants to complicate its life and those of its allies as well.

            The Putin government is “already a real totalitarian regime which in principle does not allow any opinion except its own;” and thus it is no surprise that Memorial which has always acted independently has long been a target, Zhemkova says. The Kremlin’s latest moves, however, are doomed to fail.

            That is because, she says, “the more the powers will try to force us to be silent, the more active we will work.”

To Punish Yerevan, Moscow Should Tighten Control Over or Even Expel Armenians from Russia, Some Russian Commentators Suggest

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – Following Yerevan’s moves away from Moscow and toward the West and what was a tense meeting in the Kremlin between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian commentators are discussing how Moscow should punish Yerevan in an attempt to force it into line.

            Pashinyan has already warned that if Moscow raises the price of gas it now sells to Armenia, Yerevan will leave the main alliances that Russia has set up to dominate the former Soviet space, a threat that means that choice would rapidly prove counterproductive and lead Armenia to move even more quickly away from the Russian Federation.

            Closing the Russian base at Gyumri in Armenia is not something Moscow wants to think about either, but in the views of some in Moscow its status is likely to be reviewed and changed if the situation continues. And so now some in the Russian capital are focusing on moving against the Armenian diaspora in Russia as a way of punishing Yerevan.

            Among those advocating a new tough line against the Armenian diaspora is Leonid Krutakov of the Russian Finance University. He says that Russia has been too welcoming and has allowed Armenians to earn a lot of money that often escapes Russian taxes and that Russians should ask “if it isn’t time to put an end to this (svpressa.ru/weather/article/510232/).

            Just what such moves could look like is suggested by Russian actions against the Azerbaijani diaspora in the Russian Federation, actions that have soured relations between Moscow and Baku beyond any easy repair. But any such move against the Armenian diaspora in the Russian Federation would likely backfire very quickly against Moscow.

            Unlike the Central Asian and Caucasian migrant workers in Russia, the Armenian diaspora consists of highly educated and strategically placed individuals who have for decades played a key role in Russian intellectual life and administration. Going after then as Moscow has against the Armenians could lead to their flight and to huge losses for Russia.

            Nonetheless, the Kremlin appears to be laying the groundwork for expulsions of people like the Armenians, pushing for legislation that will make it easier for the Russian authorities to expel not just migrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus generally but also well-educated foreigners like the Armenians who’ve been in Russia for decades (ng.ru/politics/2026-04-09/1_9472_control.html).

 

Moscow’s Difficulties in Defining Who is ‘a People of Russia’ Intensifying Conflicts among Russia’s Parties as Duma Elections Approach

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 8 – Putin has proclaimed 2026 to be the Year of the Unity of the Peoples of Russia,” but officials and politicians are now locked in a fight over defining which groups are on this list and what rights they should have, issues two Nezavisimaya Gazeta journalists say are sharpening divisions among Russia’s political parties in advance of the Duma elections.

            Russian officials and politicians have been debating this issue since the 1990s when most believed that “a people of Russia” was any ethnic minority inside Russia without an independent state of its own abroad. Such a definition was not unproblematic but has become unsustainable as Moscow has given those classed as “a people of Russia” greater rights than those without it.

            The latest such conflict, Darya Garmonenko and Ivan Rodin of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, say involves the Russian government’s decision that the 1996 law governing national cultural autonomies needs to be updated and handed that task to the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs (FADN) (ng.ru/politics/2026-04-08/1_9471_law.html).

            Many Russian nationalists, the KPRF and the For Justice Party do not want to allow national territorial autonomies based on immigrant groups from Central Asia and the Caucasus to have the right to demand that local governments set up special educational arrangements for them as it now the case.

            In its draft, either because it is poorly written or because it reflects the intentions of someone in Putin regime, FADN has offered language that appears to retain the 1996 provisions even though its language has changed. Thus, the government agency is on a collision course with the opposition parties.

                The situation is exacerbated not only because of the upcoming election but because under other Russian legislation, it is FADN which maintains the official list, such as it is, of which nations are “peoples of Russia” and which are not, thus raising the stakes about the future not only of migrant NCAs but of all others.

            Often in the past, observers have suggested that elections can be the occasion for a sharpening of ethnic tensions in the Russian Federation. This year, the Russian government has made that a certainty by its talk about “the peoples of Russia” and simultaneously calling for a redraft of the legislation one of the most important components of its nationality policy rests.

With 11 Percent of Its Cargo Cars at Risk of Falling Apart, Russian Rail an Accident Waiting to Happen

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – The Moscow Institute on Natural Monopolies says that 11 percent of the cargo cars on Russian railways – 158,000 – are in bad shape and need immediate repairs, a figure that is almost twice as many as last year, a reflection of the fact that the number being repaired each month fell from nearly 40,000 a month in 2024 to 20,000 per month in 2025.

            Because the number of cars needing repair is so large, the railways now don’t have the reserves they did to replace cars that should be taken offline immediately. And that in turn means accidents are becoming ever more likely (vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2026/04/09/1188967-na-seti-rzhd-viroslo-chislo-neispravnih-gruzovih-vagonov).

            There is little hope for a turnaround anytime soon. Because of reductions in earnings and government subsidies, the number of new cargo wagons coming online to replace the aging ones at risk of accidents was down by almost 50 percent in the first two months of 2026 as compared to the same period a year earlier.

            Many but of course far from all of these problems are a direct result of the Kremlin’s shifting of funding from services like railroads to the needs of the Russian military now fighting in Ukraine. 

Vilnius Stepping Up Pressure on Russian Orthodox Church There, Moscow Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Relations between the Lithuanian government and the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania have been far less fraught than those between the Estonian and Latvian governments and Orthodox hierarchies in those two Baltic countries, at least in part because the share of Lithuanians who are Orthodox is so small, less than five percent.

            But since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, relations between the state and the Orthodox Church in Lithuania have deteriorated, at least in part because the church remains canonically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate and its leaders usually but not always follow that patriarchate’s line.

            (That has led some Orthodox priests there to appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to form an alternative Orthodox see in Lithuania and take them under its protection. On that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/vilnius-expects-constantinople-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/lithuania-may-soon-have-two-orthodox.html.)

            Now, the situation in Lithuania may becoming more tense. Earlier this year, the Lithuanian government’s Department of State Security issued a report identifying the Orthodox church in that country to be “a national security threat,” a statement that was somewhat softened by other officials but has provoked a sharp response by the Orthodox Church there.

            On March 17, the Diocese of Vilnius and Lithuania declared that statements like those of Lithuanian officials “foster a negative attitude toward Lithuania’s second-largest traditional religious community” and ignores that the church’s links with Moscow “do not “hinder use from remaining law-abiding citizens and patriots of Lithuania.”

            In reporting this development, Moscow commentator Vsevolod Shimov says that this exchange suggests that tensions between the state and the Orthodox Church in Lithuania are nonetheless likely to deteriorate (fondsk.ru/news/2026/04/10/litovskie-vlasti-obvinyayut-pravoslavnuyu-cerkov-v-ugrozakh-nacionalnoy).

Ever More Russia’s Federal Subjects Imposing Fines on Firms that Don’t Hire Enough Veterans of Putin’s War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 8 – In yet another sign of how difficult it is going to be to reintegrate veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine into the Russian economy, firms across the country are refusing to hire enough veterans to meet Moscow-set quotas; and ten regions so far have responded by announcing plans to impose fines on companies that don’t hire enough veterans.

            Such measures are now at the stage of discussion but many appear to be near passage in many of the regions including Moscow, predominantly ethnic Russian regions and krays and in the Altai and Tatarstan republics (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/08/10-i-rossiiskii-region-nachnet-shtrafovat-biznes-za-otkaz-brat-na-rabotu-uchastnikov-svo-a192109).

            Most of these proposed laws require firms with more than 100 employees to reserve up to two percent of their vacancies for veterans of the war in Ukraine. That such legislation is necessary reflects the fact that many firms don’t want to take these veterans on, with the push to do so coming not from the center but the regions.

            That is presumably because the Kremlin does not want to advertise either resistance to such measures, resistance that undercuts its line about broad support for the war and for helping veterans, and so thus sets the quotas but then expects the federal subjects to take the actions necessary to try to meet them.

Interest in Rare Earths Transforming Central Asia and South Caucasus from Periphery to Center of International System

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – Just as oil transformed the Arab countries from an international backwater to the c of geoeconomics and geopolitics in the 20^th century, so too growing interest in rare earth minerals is now transforming Central Asia and the South Caucasus into the center of international competition and transformation in the 21^st.

            The critical role of rare earths in the world economy and the reserves of many of them in Central Asia and the South Caucasus is attracting ever more attention to these regions and concern there about how to respond so that they don’t simply become raw material suppliers to others (eurasiatoday.ru/redkozemelnaya-revolyutsiya-pochemu-tsa-i-kavkaz-stanovyatsya-novym-tsentrom-mirovoj-sily/).

            Experts and officials across the region are now focusing on how to use the interest of the West and of China in these reserves as the way to transform the economies of their countries so that they will be able to compete at the top level with other states rather than remaining backwaters.

            Both the interest of foreign powers in their rare earth reserves and concerns about how to use that interest to promote development are now fueling regional cooperation efforts in both areas so that the countries are not played off against each other but rather work together to boost their regions, according to an Azerbaijani commentator (minval.az/news/124525157).

            Kazakhstan, which has the largest proved reserves in this part of the world according to the US Geological Survey, has taken the lead, something that will help Astana become a regional leader and also ensure that Central Asia and the South Caucasus in this  area at least will work more closely together than many now expect.

Gorbachev Wanted to Block Denunciation of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's Secret Protocols, Tsipko Says New Memoir Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – In his recent memoirs, Igor Smirnov, who in 1985-1990 worked as an aide to Vadim Medvedev on the staff of the CPSU Central Committee, says that Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to block the denunciation of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact but was blocked by Medvedev from doing so.

            As senior Russian commentator Aleksandr Tsipko, who worked with all three, writes in a new article on the way in which perestroika evolved, says the key role Medvedev played was something the latter did not stress in his own 2015 memoirs but that is now coming to light thanks to Smirnov’s (ng.ru/ideas/2026-04-09/7_9472_leader.html).

            Tsipko points out that as Smirnov now recounts, “it was not Gorbachev but rather Vadim Medvedev who initiated the condemnation by the USSR Council of Peoples’ Deputies in 1989 of the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” which partitioned Eastern Europe between the two dictatorships.

            According to Tsipko, the most unexpected aspect of this for him is the fact that “Medvedev has to argue with Gorbachev for the right of the Congress of Peoples’ Deputies to condemn these secret protocols” because “Gorbachev was categorically opposed to accusing Stalin of collaborating with Hitler and did everything he could to conceal the originals of the protocols.” (On their eventual publication, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/for-first-time-moscow-publishes.html.)

            And the Russian commentator quotes Smirnov: “Valery Boldin—who at the time served as head of the General Department of the CPSU Central Committee (and later as Chief of Staff to the President of the USSR)—recalls how, at Gorbachev’s request, he effortlessly located the originals of the secret protocols within the archives of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo.”

            “Upon seeing them -- along with a map of a Poland divided into two parts, bearing Stalin’s characteristic three-letter signature, ‘I. St.’—Gorbachev remarked: ‘There is no need to show anything to anyone. I will personally inform those who need to know.’ Later, he demanded that they be destroyed; Boldin, however, refused to do so without a specific official directive.”

            According to Tsipko who is relying in this case both on Smirnov’s memoirs and his own recollections, “a similar story unfolded regarding the public disclosure of the decision made by Stalin and members of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo to organize the execution of Polish prisoner-of-war officers in Katyn.”

Kazakhstan to Modernize and Expand Highway Network to Support Domestic and International Trade

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – Kazakhstan has announced plans to modernize and expand its highway network both to integrate that Central Asia country more completely and to play a key role in international trade both east-west between China and Europe and north-south between Russia and the Indian Ocean.

            Most of the countries in the former Soviet space have focused on railways and to a lesser extent on air routes. In this, they have followed the pattern of the Russian Federation which relative to the size of the country has the most under-developed highway system of any country on earth.

            But Kazakhstan has adopted a different approach, one driven both by its own domestic needs and by its recognition of the problems of intermodal trade that have slowed Russian routes where the requirement to change the gage of railways from international standards to Russian ones remains a serious bottleneck.

            Last month, Astana announced that it plans to widen existing  roads from two lane to four lane and to ensure that all of them have regular service stations and internet connectivity and to build new roads to connect existing ones (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-03-19--kazahstan-usilivaet-pozicii-na-karte-evrazijskoj-logistiki-novyj-plan-razvitija-avtodorog-do-2028-goda-86558).

            Russian commentators are impressed, an indication that Moscow too may increase the role of highways in domestic integration and international transit, thus reversing a situation in which roads like fools are two of that country’s greatest problems (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-04-07--kazahstan-zapuskaet-novyj-plan-razvitija-avtodorog-radi-usilenija-evrazijskoj-logistiki-86913).

            One of the most impressive features of Kazakhstan’s plans is its intention to upgrade and build highways with concrete rather than macadem and to ensure that the ground under the roads is far more compacted than the Soviet and Russian approach had used. If Astana succeeds, its roads will carry heavier loads and last longer than their Russian counterparts. 

Moscow Faces Serious Problems in Using Drones to Compensate for Lack of Transportation Infrastructure in Siberia and Far East

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – The rise of drone technology has encouraged many Russian officials and businessmen, especially in Siberia and the Far East, that such aircraft can help their country to compensate for the lack of other kinds of transportation infrastructure in that region. But while optimism remains, problems of doing so are mounting.

            While drones have proven successful in fighting fires and identifying problems in roads and railways, they have yet to expand much beyond that to deliver cargo to distant population sites; and officials involved concede that drone technology is not nearly as cost-effective as originally thought (eastrussia.ru/material/bespilote-iz-budushchego/).

            While the costs of per-hour travel of drones are much lower than the costs of airplanes, that benefit, much trumpeted by some, disappears given the need to develop a network of stations to allow the drones to operate effectively and of a large number of operators who can control them and especially insurance rates that remain astronomically high.

            The image of one drone operator controlling dozens of drone flights is still something out of science fiction and is likely to remain there for some time to come, Russian analysts concede; and thus there is going to have to be a large commitment to building ground support for drones before they will become effective in the air. 

            Until those bottlenecks can be overcome, the age of the drone in Russia east of the Urals that some Russian writers have projected is not going to arrive, although eventually all of these problems could be addressed when veterans of Russian drone warfare against Ukraine return home and start looking for work. 

Komis Declining in Number but Increasing Share of Their Republic’s Population

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – In the current demographic situation of the Russian Federation where most national groups are declining in numbers because of birthrates below replacement level, those who decline less rapidly than others who may be leaving their homelands as well may actually see their percentage in their republics increase.

            That is happening in the Finno-Ugric Komi Republic where since 1989, the total population has fallen from 1.25 million to 715,000, but where over the same period, the share of Komis in the republic’s population has risen from 23 percent to 33 percent, not because the Komis have not declined but because others, predominantly Russian, have declined more.

            That does not mean that the Komis are about to become dominant, but it suggests that this Finno-Ugric nation has at least one reason to be more optimistic about its future than statistics about declining language use and the number of people declaring Komi as their native language might suggest (mariuver.eu/2026/04/09/procent-komi-rastet/).

            More immediately, the Komi Republic which has been among the most active in defending its environment against Moscow’s encroachment and calling for the restoration of the rights of republics may become even more active, a pattern that may also take place in other republics where the exodus of ethnic Russians makes the titular nation more important.

            This demographic pattern, which might be called a race to the bottom, is found in many Finno-Ugric areas and in some other non-Russian ones and may provide a basis for optimism at a time when the Kremlin is working so hard to destroy the non-Russians and when other statistics provide little encouragement about the future.