Russian Orthodox Church Gets Official Recognition in Third African Country

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 30 – The Republic of the Congo has given the exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate official registration, the third African country to do so. Earlier, Cameroun and Madagascar took the same step, and an indication of the  expansion of the Moscow church in sub-Saharan Africa.

            Since 2021, when Moscow created an exarchate on what has been the Alexandria Patriarchate’s canonical territory, the ROC MP has increased its presence there from four countries to more than 30, the number of clerics has grown to 270, and the number of parishes now stands at 350 (tass.ru/obschestvo/27272251 and rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=121586).

            The Russian church says that it has taken these steps to provide spiritual aid to Russians now working in Africa and to Africans who have converted to Orthodox Christianity, but critics have long suggested that the Moscow church has made these moves to obscure its losses elsewhere and to provide cover for Russian intelligence operations.

            (For background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/moscow-claims-to-have-recruited-more.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/09/moscows-claims-about-russian-orthodox.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/moscow-patriarchate-says-it-has.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/03/moscow-patriarchate-has-moved-into.html,) 

Not Just in Moscow or Not Just for Security, May Day Parades Cancelled Across Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 1 – Putin’s decision to cut back in the size of the May Day parade in the Russian capital has attracted international attention, but most cities in the Russian Federation has done at least as much or more often cancelled such actions altogether and quite clearly not just for reasons of security at least in the usual sense.

            The GoGov.ru portal provides the most comprehensive list available of cities where parades either weren’t planned or were cancelled and reports that only in a few places did the parades go forward in anything like the size that they did in the past. In all cases, these reductions were also taken in the name of security (gogov.ru/articles/1may26-demonstration).

            But the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert suggests that these cancellations like the reduction of the parade in Moscow were not about the security of the population given the threat of Ukrainian drones but rather a political decision to protect the Putin regime against protests (region.expert/1may-cancelled/).

            “In reality,” the portal says, “the cancellation of May Day demonstrations in many Russian cities stems from the authorities' fear that citizens might use these legally sanctioned marches to voice protest slogans—against the war, internet and messenger blockades, tax hikes, and so forth. Historically, empires have often crumbled precisely because of social protests.”

Yet Another Critical Putin Project to Support Northern Sea Route Suspended for Lack of Funds, Reducing Russia's Ability to Export Coal

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 30 – When Putin announces a project in support of the Northern Sea Route or indeed anything else, it gets extensive coverage in both the Russian and international media; but when the lack of funds force suspension or even cancellation, something that is increasingly happening, that receives little attention from the media at all.

            The latest case is the suspension of efforts to complete a 50 km rail line in support of the Lava port near Murmansk. Announced in 2022, construction has been suspended because Russian Rail doesn’t have the money to pay the builders (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/u-rossii-net-deneg-ctoby-dostroit-zeleznuu-dorogu-k-portu-lavna/449749).

            Earlier this year, Russian officials were proclaiming that the Lavna port had reached “67 percent of its design capacity;” but already it isn’t handling that amount of coal because there is no track to carry the cargo to the port itself, yet another bottleneck blocking the realization of plans for the NSR.

            In reporting this development, The Barents Observer says that “a similar situation prevails at the Murmansk Sea Trade Port, where a steady decline in cargo turnover is being recorded—also due to the coal sector. By the end of 2025, cargo handling had contracted by approximately 30%, and the downturn accelerated in early 2026.”

But “even if the state manages to secure the funding to fully commission the Lavna port and the railway line leading to it, there will be nothing to load,” the portal says, because “the primary flow of coal to the facility originates in the Kuzbass region, where production has been in steady decline in recent years.”

Moscow’s Failure to Block Drone Attacks on Key Businesses Prompts Mironov to Call for Such Firms to Set Up Their Own Defense Forces

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 30 – After Ukrainian drones succeeded in knocking out major Russian businesses and infrastructure, Sergey Mironov, head of the Just Russia Party, has called for Russia’s energy companies to become the first to set up their own anti-drone defense forces to protect themselves.

            According to the Russian politician, they now have the authority to do so under the terms of legislation that entered into force at the end of March allowing companies to “acquire firearms for the protection of critical infrastructure (gazeta.ru/social/news/2026/04/29/28368235.shtml and nemoskva.net/2026/04/30/zashhiti-sebya-sam-sergej-mironov-predlozhil-predpriyatiyam-sozdat-sobstvennye-podrazdeleniya-dlya-zashhity-ot-dronov/).

            "All of this should have been done yesterday,” Mironov continues, but after recent events, “it is even more crucial to avoid red tape and dishonesty today, in order to ensure elections can proceed and to minimize the economic and environmental damage resulting from enemy attacks.”

            Regional officials have urged this step for some time (t.me/Govorit_NeMoskva/31014 and t.me/Govorit_NeMoskva/53966), but Mironov is the first all-Russian politician to call for it, undoubtedly part of his election campaign because it highlights the inability of the Russian state with all its powers to protect Russians. 

Moscow Gives Indigenous Status to One Percent or Less of Russia’s Population, Evenk Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 30 – Like other countries, the Russian Federation seeks to control the indigenous peoples on its territory so that the regime and its business allies can have access to the valuable mineral resources in those regions. But unlike them, Yekaterian Zibrova says, it restricts the number of peoples who have indigenous status and thus greater legal protection.

            The Evenk scholar who teaches at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa says that Russian laws limiting that status to groups pursuing a traditional way of life and numbering under 50,000 people means under one percent of Russia’s residents have it (themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/30/regions-calling-who-is-indigenous-in-russia-anyway-a92647).

            Numerically small groups of the size of her own Evenks have more protections under Russian law, although these are typically ignored when the economic or strategic needs of the Russian state are involved, than do larger non-Russian minorities, especially those without the status of an autonomous republic. 

            “Indigenous groups not recognized by Russia” as indigenous such as the Tatars, Zibrova says, “account for roughly 12% of Russia’s population, while those recognized [now some 57] are between 0.6% to 1%. Together, they live on around 20% of Russia’s territory” which just happens to be where some of its largest holdings of natural resources.

            If Moscow were to recognize all of this 12 percent of its population as indigenous, she continues, these peoples “would gain stronger legal grounds to demand restricted access or resource control based on indigenous rights.” But that is unlikely because then “Russia’s own criteria of indigeneity would work against the state.”

            According to Zibrova, Russia’s efforts to limit the status of indigeneity are breaking down at the international level because the UN, PACE and other international bodies are increasingly treating non-Russians inside the Russian Federation as indigenous even if Moscow continues to insist on this distinction. 

 

Average Age in Non-Russian Municipalities Far Lower than in Ethnic Russian Ones, ‘To Be Precise’ Survey Finds

Paul Goble

              Staunton, April 30 – The To Be Precise portal has surveyed Russia’s 2300 upper-tier municipalities to come up with a portrait of the all-Russian average of this category of administrative structures in which 27 percent of all residents of that country live. But its references to outliers is especially useful for several reasons.

              On the one hand, it provides data on a category smaller than federal subjects, in which Rosstat data are typically gathered and released; and on the other, it highlights differences between predominantly non-Russian and predominantly ethnic Russian areas that are often obscured when data are grouped in those larger categories.

              In a typical municipality which is located west of the Urals and is predominantly ethnic Russian, the average age is 40, although in some Russian areas, it is far higher with the average being over 50. In non-Russian municipalities, in contrast, the average age is far lower where it stands at 21 or 22 (tochno.st/materials/kakoi-vygliadit-tipicnyi-rossiiskii-municipalitet-obieiasniaem-na-dannyx).

              That means that the Russian areas in this category will have far fewer children than the non-Russian ones and that the non-Russian share of the population, barring assimilation or outmigration, will increase rapidly over the coming decades, a trend that often is obscured if the data are presented about only larger units.

              In nearly 40 percent of these upper-tier municipalities, “90 percent or more of the population identify as ethnic Russians,” and in only 13 percent “does the ethnic Russian share of the population fall below 30 percent,” the portal reports But in some municipalities in Dagestan, Chechnya and Tyva, the Russian share of the population is “less than one-tenth of one percent.”

              In general, the To Be Precise portal continues, “the larger the upper-tier municipality, the lower the proportion of ethnic Russians.” In small ones with fewer than 10,000 residents, “the median share of Russians in 91 percent but in cities with populations exceeding 50,000, this figure drops to 75 percent.”

              That pattern, the portal continues, is “the result of urbanization and migration: larger municipalities particularly those including major cities attract people from other regions and countries, resulting in a more diverse ethnic composition. Small settlements in contrast remain largely outside these migratory flows and thus more ethnically homogeneous.”

              To Be Precise concludes: “the typical Russian municipality belongs to [Natalya Zubarevich’s] ‘Third Russia”—a vast peripheral territory inhabited by residents of villages, settlements, and small towns, an area which ‘survives on the land' and exists outside of politics, as the agricultural calendar remains unaffected by changes in government."

Kremlin’s Promotion of Traditional Values Failing to Change Russian Behavior in Directions Putin Regime Wants, ‘Re-Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 29 – Kremlin propaganda has succeeded in promoting anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian views but it is failing in its effort to gain real support for what Putin calls “traditional values” like getting Russians to have more children or want to see their children go into the army, the Re-Russia portal says.

            Indeed, a survey of recent polls suggests, according to this outlet which is produced abroad by Kirill Rogov, those efforts not only have failed to change the behavior of Russians but appear increasingly counter-productive with Kremlin critics arguing like the z-bloggers arguing that the Putin regime is on the wrong course (re-russia.net/analytics/0421/).

            While it is possible that over the longer term, the Kremlin propagandists may succeed, Re-Russia says, its resources for doing so are “limited: the influence of television is declining, the attempts to dominate the Internet have produced anger and alienation, and the Kremlin’s monopoly on ‘patriotism’” is now being challenged.

            “As a result,” the portal concludes, “ideological pressure ‘from above’” is proving counterproductive, “tending to foster the emergence of neo-Soviet ‘doublethink’ or to provoke a backlash of resistance particularly among young people at whom the Kremlin is directing its primary ideological thrust.”

            The article offers details on polls over the last few years concerning Russian attitudes about traditional values which confirm these conclusions. 

 

In Some Russian Federal Subjects, Defenders of Architectural Monuments Only Rights Groups Left – and Moscow is Reducing Their Chances for Success

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 29 – In some of Russia’s federal subjects, local sections of the All-Russian Organization for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments are the only rights group still function, and the challenges facing them have grown as Moscow is now set to hand over the defense of such monuments to regional and republic governments.

            VOOPIiK, as the Russian acronym for these groups has long been known, often are the first line of defense of such efforts at defending historical and cultural buildings and both in the last decades of Soviet power and now once again are again breeding grounds for ethnic and regionalist movements.

            In Soviet times and in Russian ones until now, Moscow has been the exclusive arbiter of such decisions and so historical and cultural preservation efforts have pitted defenders against the central government. But now that is changing, with the Russian government set to transfer authority on such questions to regional and republic governments.

            On the one hand, this move may reduce tensions between the capital and people in the federal subjects beyond the ring road; but on the other, it is already increasing clashes between pervationists and the governments of republics and regions, clashes in which powerful business interests are finding it easier to win because local protests don’t attract as much attention.

            In April, the Duma passed on first reading a draft law that hands over control of the fate of most historical and cultural buildings and other sites to the governments of the federal subjects (sozd.duma.gov.ru/bill/827867-8). The consequences of this, which the preservationists oppose, are discussed at veter.info/posts/MHo0cC2GQIbY, an article that   has been reposted at  novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/04/29/istoricheskii-tsentr-perestanet-sushchestvovat.

            In the 1970s and 1980s, VOOPIiK was strong precisely because it linked groups across the country against a common bureaucracy in Moscow; but by transferring powers to make decisions on historical and cultural preservation to the regions and republics, Moscow is significantly weakening its chances.

            While many in the federal subjects want to see more powers handed back to their governments, this is a rare case when activists supporting a cause are taking the opposite tact, convinced with some justification that regional activists will get less attention and support and Moscow’s business allies will be able to get what they want as a result.

            If that analysis is correct, the Russian Federation is likely to face a new wave of destruction of historical and cultural monuments and Moscow is likely to succeed in placing the blame on the federal subject authorities, even though the decisions of the latter almost certainly are made inevitable by the arrangements the center has put in place.

            (For an earlier example of how such struggles are likely to play out, see among others windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/struggle-over-voopiik-in-northern.html and for how such struggles can make preservationist groups breeding grounds of nationalism and regionalism, see https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/krayevedeniye-again-becoming-breeding.html.)