Komi Activists Say Liquidation of Local Administrative Bodies ‘Especially Dangerous’ for Them and Other Dispersed Ethnic Minorities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 28 – The Komi, a Finno-Ugric nationality in the northeastern portion of European Russia seldom gets much attention from Moscow and the West; but it is playing an ever more important role as a leader of regional protests against Kremlin policies directed against the environment and the rights of minorities.

            Komi activists in cooperation with the KPRF were central to the success of the Shiyes protests against Moscow’s plans to dump trash from the Russian capital into their hitherto pristine republic, and now they with the support of the communists are doing the same with regard to the destruction of local self-administration bodies, albeit not yet with the same success.

            Now that the Komi State Council, dominated by ethnic Russians and United Russia, has now voted to force the republic to fall in line with Putin’s program and liquidate local administrative arrangements (www.semnasem.org/news/2026/05/28/gossovet-komi-likvidiroval-dvuhurovnevuyu-sistemu-mestnogo-samoupravleniya-nesmotrya-na-protesty-rajonov), many are likely to ignore the Komi once again.

            But that is a mistake because Komi activists have articulated why the Putin program of local government “optimization” is such a threat to smaller and dispersed nations and has succeeded in involving the KPRF organization in seeking to block or at least modify what Moscow wants.

            The Komi Daily, a portal produced by activists now in emigration, points out that “if the reform is fully implemented, many decisions will no longer be made at the level of villages and other rural communities [where Komis are a majority] but in district centers [where they aren’t]” (komidaily.com/2026/05/28/pochemu_likvidatsiya_samoupravleniya_osobenno_opasna_dlya_komi/).

            The portal continues: “the KPRF  has submitted documents for a regional referendum against the liquidation of rural settlements and the transition to a one-level system of government. If the reform is fully implemented, many decisions will no longer be made at the level of villages and villages, but in district centers and municipal districts.”

            Moreover, the Komi Daily points out, supporters of the reform talk about ‘efficiency’ and lack of personnel, while opponents talk about the further centralization of power, the disappearance of real local self-government and even greater alienation of power from the residents of the villages” and further worsen the demographic situation there.

“In such conditions, centralized management does not work well. The city authorities are physically unable to manage all remote territories equally effectively, so a significant part of the powers is transferred to the local level. Municipalities receive their own budgets and the right to independently solve many day-to-day issues.”

“This benefits both the center and the regions. The state does not need to manage each village, and local authorities respond faster to problems and better understand the specifics of their territory. For example, northern municipalities know better how to organize transport, medicine or heating over long winters and long distances.”

As such, the Komi Daily concludes, powerful local governments would be natural for Russia, especially for the North, Siberia and the Far East. The country is too large and too diverse for all issues to be effectively managed from Moscow. But the current regime doesn’t seek an effective distribution of powers or care about the deteriorating demographic situation.”

Such arguments are likely to find support in other parts of the Russian Federation, and the success the Komi have had on other occasions in resisting Moscow’s power grab is certain to lead people elsewhere to follow the Komi lead.