Putin’s Plan to Make Veterans New Russian Elite Not the Social Escalator He’s Implied, ‘Meduza’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – More than half of the 1300 veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine who have been given government jobs had those or other government positions before they went to fight, according to a Meduza portal investigation, a pattern that calls into question Putin’s claim that his plan to make veterans a truly new elite.

            This reflects the fact that many left government positions to fight in Ukraine to curry favor with the Kremlin, but it means that this new Russian elite is far less new that Putin and his regime assert and that many observers accept as true (meduza.io/feature/2026/06/29/novaya-rossiyskaya-elita).

            The portal concedes that there almost certainly are more veterans now in the government because in many cases, individuals taking new positions do not list whether they are veterans or not. But the percentage it does report is indicative of the way that the veterans who are getting government jobs are not the complete outsiders many assume Putin intended.

            Meduza says there are three basic avenues for those veterans who do get government jobs: the Time of Heroes program and its regional analogues which select from among veterans for appointments, participation in elections mostly at the local and regional level, and returning to the same job or a better one after fighting in Ukraine.

            The study provides a wealth of data about veterans who join the government, but beyond question its most important finding is that the third category, those who had been working in the Russian government before fighting in Ukraine and then returning to such service afterwards, is far larger than most had assumed. 

Gas Crisis has Prompted Heads of Three Russian Regions to Declare a State of High Alert, a Step Allowing the Postponing of Elections

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 30 – The governors of three federal subjects – Penza, Transbaikal and Irkutsk – have declared a high state of alert because of the gas crisis, a move that permits them among other things postponing elections, including for the Duma. But Putin has indicated that he plans for the September vote to take place as scheduled, the Meduza portal reports.

            Because Putin’s commitment to hold the vote on time is almost certain to be determinative, some may be inclined to view this report as largely meaningless meduza.io/feature/2026/06/30/uzhe-tretiy-region-rossii-vvel-rezhim-povyshennoy-gotovnosti-iz-za-toplivnogo-krizisa-etot-rezhim-pozvolyaet-perenesti-vybory.

            But there are three reasons why that is likely a mistake, only the first of which Meduza mentions. First, as it notes, the heads of the FSB and the National Guard are lobbying for a postponement; and they are likely to use the governors’ declarations as a sign of support for their position.

            Second, these announcements give Putin himself an additional set of options, including putting off the elections if he judges the situation has changed or alternatively having the heads of the federal subjects deploy even more force to repress the population should that be needed.

            And third, the declaration of a state of heightened alert gives those governors who do it enormous powers to override normal procedures. It is entirely possible then that some governors want to do this in order to demonstrate support for the Kremlin, but it is not impossible to imagine that others who take this step may have other agendas.

40 Percent of Almaty Suffering Water Shortages During Periods of Peak Use, Kazakhstan Officials Acknowledge

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – That Central Asia is suffering from a water shortage is universally acknowledged but that this shortage is so severe that it may require the evacuation of people from its largest cities or lead millions of residents to flee to neighboring countries remains a matter of dispute.

            Now, officials in Kazakhstan have acknowledged just how serious the problem is by reporting that “about 40 percent” of Almaty, that country’s largest city, is already suffering from a water shortage during periods of peak loads” (vlast.kz/novosti/69932-na-okolo-40-territorij-almaty-est-deficit-vody-v-casy-pikovoj-nagruzki.html).

            Among the steps the authorities say they plan to take to ensure “the comprehensive modernization of the water supply and sanitation system” are new filtration stations, replacement of more than 2450 km of water networks, expansion of sewage treatment by 50 percent, and the introduction of digital monitoring.

            If all those steps are taken, Kazakhstan may be able to avoid having to evacuate people from its metropolis and the embarrassment of seeing ever more  Kazakhs flee to other countries not just to earn money but to have access to sufficient water supplies to survive.

            But if the authorities aren’t able to take all of these steps, and they will be more expensive and take years to introduce, the apocalyptic predictions that some have made may prove to be the case. (On these all too real risks, see jamestown.org/growing-water-shortages-in-central-asia-threaten-region-and-its-neighbors/.)

Moscow Sending in More Troops into Circassian Regions of North Caucasus to Forcibly Recruit Men to Fight in Ukraine, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – Moscow is currently sending more troops into Circassian regions in the North Caucasus, specifically, the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Adygeya to forcibly recruit men of that nationality to fight in Putin’s war in Ukraine, Circassian activists say.

            For the KBR alone, the troops have a quota of 3500 men, activists there say, an enormous number relative to the size of that national component in that republic’s population (abn.org.ua/en/news/war-at-the-cost-of-enslaved-peoples-circassian-activists-warn-of-mobilization-pressure/).

            In the first several years of the expanded war, Moscow recruited more heavily from non-Russian nations than from the ethnic Russian majority both in order to hide the extent of the conflict and of the losses the Russian military was taking. But at that time, the Circassians were not the focus of as much attention as they are now.

            Circassian activists say that this new effort has three goals: reducing the number of Circassians in the North Caucasus, providing cannon fodder for its war, and sowing discord between the Ukrainians and the Circassians, both of whom, they say, have been victims of Russia’s genocidal wars.

For Fourth Time Since 2022, Putin Boosts Size of Federal Protective Service after Leaving It Unchanged the Previous 13 Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – In a clear indication of his nervousness about popular attacks on himself and other senior Russian officials, Putin has just boosted the size of the central office of the Federal Protective Service which is charged with protecting him and them. As of July 1, the FSO’s central bureaucracy will grow from 785 to 812, the Vyorstka portal says.

            These increases and their frequency stand in sharp contrast to the period before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine. Then, he went for 13 years before increasing the size of this staff (t.me/svobodnieslova/9174 and nemoskva.net/2026/06/29/putin-snova-uvelichil-shtat-czentralnogo-apparata-fso-v-chetvertyj-raz-za-vremya-vojny/).

            Moreover, it appears from this report that the Kremlin leader is doing so even more frequently now than he did in the first years of that war, boosting the number of staffers in the FSO central office in the middle of the year rather than at the end or beginning when it might be part of a more regular bureaucratic adjustment.

            These expansions in the size of the central offices of the FSO likely mean that the total number of people working in various branches of that security organization have increased as well, although the government documents Vyorstka examined do not provide data on that point.

China Now Dredging Kazakhstan’s Caspian Ports as It is Already Doing Russia’s

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 27 – Falling water levels in the Caspian and the rivers flowing into it are forcing littoral countries to dredge them so as to prevent the emergence of a situation in which large or fully laden ships are unable to pass. And because they lack the dredging capacity needed to do so, two of them have now turned to China for assistance.

            Russia began doing so last year (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/falling-water-levels-forcing-moscow-to.html). Now Kazakhstan has followed the same course and contracted with the China Harbor Engineering Company to dredge its port of Aktau (casp-geo.ru/dnouglubitelnye-raboty-v-portu-aktau-realizuet-kitajskaya-kompaniya/).

            Iran has a significant dredging capacity but none of the other littoral states do; and consequently, as the Caspian water level continues to fall, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan may be forced to do the same thing, unless other dredging operators sell them the necessary equipment to do it themselves.

            To the extent that happens and there is every reason to think that it will given how specialized and expensive dredging equipment is, China will gain yet another powerful position along the trade routes across the Caspian, something that will give it additional leverage not only over the littoral countries but further afield.

Neo-Stalinism and Political Islam Increasingly in Symbiotic Relationship in Russia, Advocate of Secularism and Humanism Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – Neo-Stalinism and political Islam might seem unlikely bedfellows, Sergey Ivaneyev says; but increasingly in the Russian Federation, they are in a symbiotic relationship, with each taking ideas from the other and helping them both to expand.

            The president of an NGO that promotes secularism and a member of the expert council of the Duma Committee on Civil Society says that two events highlight this danger: the KPRF’s denunciation of the anti-Stalin campaign and the Russian government’s recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate government (ng.ru/ng_religii/2026-06-25/7_9524_symbiosis.html).

            Each of these developments and others as well have allowed neo-Stalinists and followers of political Islam to become allies, although few in either camp talks much about that. Instead, both talk about historical justice, the first in what they see as political justice and the second in what they believe is the requirement of their religious faith.

            According to Ivaneyev, the “symbiotic” relationship between the two is growing and will make the fight against both more difficult. Indeed, this unspoken alliance is pushing Russia ever further away from its commitments to secularism, humanism and genuine social justice.

            Combatting this phenomenon will be difficult; but the obvious first step is to recognize that it is a problem rather than acting as if those who favor Stalinism and those who support Taliban-style rule have nothing in common. They are far closer together than many Russians now imagine. 

Bastrykhin Wants to Amend Russian Constitution to Allow for a State Ideology like China's

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 26 – Aleksandr Bastrykhin, the influential chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee, has called for an all-Russian referendum to amend the constitution in order to allow for the introduction of a state ideology, something that Russia’s basic law currently forbids.

            He told the St. Petersburg International Youth Legal Forum that such a step was necessary to “answer the question: ‘What are we building?’” and he pointed to the case of China which combines socialism as a basic doctrine with a market economy (kommersant.ru/doc/8777915).

            While it is unlikely that the Kremlin will move in that direction anytime soon given both the looming Duma elections and the certainty that both many Russians would oppose such a step and many in the Putin elite would likely disagree over just what that ideology should consist of and how it would be imposed, this is another sign that the Kremlin is moving in this direction.

            And at the same time, it is another indication of the extent to which for many in the Putin regime, China has become the model for Russia, a reversal of the pattern of earlier decades and one that at least some Russians will be angry about for that reason even if they would like to see the revival of a state ideology in Russia. 

Calls for ‘a CIS without Russia’ Doomed to Failure, Mendkovich Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Calls coming out of Armenia and finding some resonance elsewhere to form a kind of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) without and opposed to Russia are nothing more than a warmed-over version of GUAM and equally “stillborn,” according to Nikita Mendkovich.

            The head of Russia’s Eurasian Analytic Club says the idea was first floated by Armenian leader Nikol Pashinyan a month ago (https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/8636026) and then apparently was discussed by diplomats from some of the countries of the region in Brussels and Vienna (https://t.me/enabludatel/3943).

              He suggests that what is going on is a new attempt “to revive the long-ago failed project of GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) which was established as a regional grouping opposed to any integration with Russia and will fail for the same reasons (vfokuse.mail.ru/articles/69627944-ekspert-pochemu-proekt-sng-bez-rossii-obrechen-na-proval/).

            Indeed, its rapid failure is even more likely because it is impossible to imagine any organization in which both Armenia and Azerbaijan would be members without the balancing influence of the Russian Federation. That is something everyone must recognize, Mendkovich says, and dismiss such talk as worse that meaningless except as a kind of voice of despair. 

Moscow Offers West’s Extreme Right Validation Because It No Longer has Much Else to Offer Anyone Else, Memorial Researcher Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 26 – Many in the West mocked the decline in the status of the foreign guests at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum noting that world leaders no longer came but instead had been replaced by “conspiracy theorists and convicted criminals” from the West’s far right, Inna Bondarenko says.

            But in doing so, they missed the main point of this meeting now, the Memorial researcher says. By attracting this different audience Moscow is “validating” these people by flattering them and making them feel “they matter” (themoscowtimes.com/2026/06/26/russia-helps-the-western-far-right-feel-at-home-a93112).

            That is easy for Russia to do, she continues, as “there is very little in today’s Russian message that is distinctly Russian. The anti-woke politics, the anti-migrant rhetoric, the vaccine scepticism, the panic about Western decline – none of it originated” in Russia. Instead, these grievances have been “imported from Western culture wars” and lightly “repackaged.”

            According to Bondarenko, “this is the change that matters most, hiding in plain sight behind the spectacle. The USSR exported the image of a forward-looking country, which the world debated until its collapse. Contemporary Russia has no idea of its own to export, and sowWhat it offers instead is a mirror to the conspiracists of the world.”

            “These days,” she says, “that is the only thing Russia has left to offer — and, increasingly, the only thing the far-right still travels there to collect. The guest list and spectacle are easy to laugh at. The rest is harder.”

Censorship Restrictions ‘Far from Only or Most Important’ Reason for Decline in Russian Publishing Industry, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 26 – The evidence is clear, Russia’s Book Industry journal reports, “the book industry [in Russia] is dying at an accelerating pace,” with total circulation down by 26 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to a year ago, print runs down by 17 percent, and the number of bookstores down by almost that much.

            “But censorship restrictions are not the only and not the main reason” for these declines, the Not Moscow portal says. Instead, this decline reflects the economic situation: “People are running out of money and life in Russia is becoming too expensive to buy books at current prices.” Other needs take priority (nemoskva.net/2026/06/26/kot-findus-i-drugie-inoagenty-i-ekstremisty/).

            But the latter source says that the way that Moscow is currently moving against publishing is in some ways worse than censorship. Too many different parts of the bureaucracy are involved, publishers don’t know what is required, and some people are even urging that Soviet-style centralized censorship be restored.

            For better or worse, that isn’t going to happen, experts the portal cites say. The costs would be prohibitive to create such an expensive and ramified system at a time of budgetary stringency. As a result, uncertainties about what is allowed will continue or even grow, exacerbating the declines driven by economic stagnation and decline.

Kremlin Approves Building Fifth Mosque in Moscow, Simultaneously Giving Boost to Mufti Krganov and Promoting Religious Quiescence and Syncretism

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – The Kremlin has given the go ahead for start of the construction of a fifth mosque in Moscow, a step that ignores the opposition of the city’s mayor, boosts the standing of Mufti Albir Krganov relative to other Muslim leaders in Russia, and promotes religious quiescence and syncretism by putting it alongside facilities for other traditional religious faiths.

            Krganov, who has been pushing for such a mosque since he arrived in the Russian capital from Chuvashia in 2010, is celebrating his victory, one that gives him a leg up on the other heads of the super-Muslim Spiritual Directorates who have long sought without success to build another mosque in Moscow (business-gazeta.ru/article/705412).

            (On Krganov’s standing and especially on his rise in the eyes of the Russian government relative to these others, see jamestown.org/moscows-arrests-of-muslim-spiritual-directorate-officials-likely-to-backfire/. For background on the fight over a fifth mosque in Moscow, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/muslims-plan-to-erect-fifth-major.html.)

            But the Kremlin’s agreement is not an unqualified victory for Krganov personally or for Islam. On the one hand, the authorities have insisted that the new mosque include elements of Russian Orthodoxy in its design and be located in a complex with Orthodox Christian, Jewish and Buddhist shrines.

            That appears to be a new part of the Kremlin’s strategy for dealing with calls by minority religions like Islam for more religious buildings, a strategy that has already been tested out elsewhere, most prominently in the southern Dagestani city of Derbent (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/derbent-to-erect-synagogue-mosque-and.html).

            And on the other hand, the Kremlin has also required that the mosque as part of this complex participate in civic educational projects and in the rehabilitation of veterans of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, both efforts that will limit the ability of Krganov to present this development as a personal triumph or for Muslims to view it that way as well.

            Moreover, Krganov acknowledges that the new mosque will be financed by contributions which have only begun to be collected and that its construction will take three or more years. That means what looks like a victory now may turn into another defeat, especially given continuing Russian opposition to the building of any more mosques in Moscow.

Number of Maris in Sverdlovsk Oblast who Speak Their National Language has Fallen by 40 Percent over Last Decade, Academy of Sciences Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Most data on declines of native language use come from the republics where it is falling rather than from the large communities of such people who live outside the borders of those republics and who in almost all cases are suffering from even more intense assimilatory pressures than their co-ethnics within their titular republics.

            That makes the findings of a large Academy of Sciences study of the fate of the Mari language in Sverdlovsk Oblast, a massive study carried out by the Moscow Institute of Linguistics especially important. (For the complete text of the study, see ling.tspu.ru/files/ling/PDF/articles/kutsaeva_m.v._49_61_2_52_2026.pdf; for a discussion of its key findings, see mariuver.eu/2026/06/24/ural-mari-vymirajut/).

            Those conducting the study visited three districts in the predominantly ethnic Russian federal subject and found that the Maris are increasingly using Russian even in completely Mari families. In fact, the study said, the national language is now used there “only by older and middle-aged people” and not even all of them.

            “Young people,” the study continued, “massively go to the cities and completely switch to Russian. At the same time, parents often do not pass the language themselves to children because of its low prestige. They are afraid that doing elsewhere will  unnecessary difficulties for their children in schools.”

            As ever fewer Maris speak Mari – and 40 percent fewer do now than only a decade ago – officials find it easier to close local schools offering courses in that language, a practice that only accelerates the demise of the Mari language outside the Mari El Republic, the Moscow linguists say.

Even Though Moscow has Not Yet Annexed South Ossetia, Some are Now Asking Whether It will Absorb Abkhazia Next

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June  24 – Whenever one country annexes part of another as Russia did with Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, many observers immediately ask whether such moves presage the opening of a new era in which annexations will become more common. Now although Moscow hasn’t yet annexed South Ossetia, some are already asking about the future of Abkhazia.

            In most cases, it becomes obvious that any annexation does not lead immediately to more but rather delays any further moves in that direction not only because conditions in other potential candidates for absorption are different but also because the international community makes it clear that it opposes any such actions.

            Now, it appears that Moscow is close to annexing South Ossetia, a territory Russian forces carved out of Georgia in 2008, with both the Russian and South Ossetian sides apparently on track to take this step, long rumored because South Ossetia has so few attributes of an independent state, sometime in the near future (jamestown.org/south-ossetia-and-russia-make-further-steps-toward-annexation/).

            Georgia would certainly be infuriated if Moscow and Tskhinvali take that step. Indeed, it could put on hold any hopes Moscow may have making more progress to returning Georgia to its fold. But given the size of South Ossetia and the fact that many in the West have assumed Moscow would eventually take this step, it is not clear how Western governments would react.

            But even before Moscow makes such a move, some are speculating that the Kremlin will follow this step by annexing Abkhazia, which also achieved the status of a partially recognized state in 2008 as a result of the Russian invasion of Georgia, although even those who do are saying Moscow would face more problems with the Abkhaz case than the South Ossetian one

            One observer in the region, Ruslan Magomedov, says that no one should forget that Abkhazia represents a much different situation than does South Ossetia, something many are inclined to do because for them the two attracted attention as Russian-sponsored breakaway states at the same time (akcent.site/novosti/45307).

            According to that commentator, “Abkhazia’s political circles are actively discussing the scenario of the republic joining Russia. This discussion has become inevitable against the backdrop of developments in South Ossetia, which could culminate in that republic’s integration into Russia.

            But he stresses, Abkhazia is very different. It has a border on the Black Sea. Its own people worked far more actively to achieve independence even before the Russian invasion. And “it is a region with a far more complex elite structure” and with a far more ramified legal system allowing elites to control the situation.

            Many in the Abkhazian elite “are not as heavily dependent on direct subsidies from Moscow as their South Ossetian counterparts and are prepared to aggressively defend their autonomy. They have their own economic interests which do not always align with Russia’s” and have shown themselves capable of blocking Moscow moves they oppose.  

              As a result, what is most likely to happen in the near term, regardless of any moves in South Ossetia will be “a faster harmonization of the tax and legal systems of Russia and Abkhazia” and ones that will involve not “a landing party’ of Russian officials … but rather “the cultivation of a loyal pro-Russian pool of administrators.”

              That will serve Russia’s interests without the problems that an attempt at annexation would cause and over the longer term could help make Abkhazia a stronger candidate for emerging from its partially recognized status to a more normal position in the international order, a development some in Moscow may see as the most useful.

Russian Couples who “Live Together Outside of Marriage Threaten Country’s National Security,’ Deputy Justice Minister Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Apparently because couples who live together without getting married have fewer children than those who do tie the knot, Vadim Balanin, the deputy justice minister says that those who live together but don’t get married “threaten Russia’s national security” as do those who marry and then divorce.

            The deputy minister made those remarks at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum and suggested that the government must do more to limit cohabitation and promote marriage as part of Putin’s much-ballyhooed program of supporting traditional values against the nefarious influence of the West (rbc.ru/society/24/06/2026/6a3b8e149a7947a63e54e6a4).

            Belanin’s suggestion has attracted much criticism, including by a Moskovsky Komsomolets journalist who says that the deputy minister fails to recognize that those who live together without formal marriage nonetheless produce 23 percent of all Russian children (mk.ru/editions/daily/2026/06/24/sovokupivshikhsya-posredstvom-bluda-luchshe-razluchat-kak-vlast-budet-borotsya-s-vnebrachnymi-svyazyami.html).

            Those who live by themselves rather than cohabiting produce far fewer and so, according to the journalist, the government should be supporting cohabitation as better than single life styles as it is giving the Kremlin some if not all of what it wants. Belanin’s failure to talk about that raises questions about what he wants to do.

            The deputy justice minister says his agency is monitoring closely changes in the family code to try to address the situation, but unless he is prepared to take really draconian and deeply unpopular steps such as compelling people to marry, he is unlikely to achieve the demographic outcomes he hopes for.

            The journalist then suggests that what Belanin is really interested in is a Russia where everyone follows the same path and subordinates himself or herself to what the Kremlin prefers, the West will exploit that – and the risk that it will do so is the real threat to Russian national security that the deputy minister is so concerned about.

United Russia Routinely Blocks Public Efforts to Protect the Environment, New Report Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Russians are increasingly concerned about the degradation of the environment, but they are seldom able to get the Russian Duma to pass legislation to protect the air and water around them, according to a new report by the DumaBingo project in advance of Russian parliamentary elections in September.

            Novaya Gazeta has published the 5,000-word report. It shows that the Kremlin and the United Russia super majority in the Duma work together to advance and protect business interests by blocking public efforts to achieve greater protection of the environment (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/06/24/eko-nevidal).

            DumaBingo considered 73 proposals for environmental reform over the last 30 months. “More than half” of these were advanced not by environmental groups but by businesses. Only 16 percent of the bills received the backing of the ecological community, “and only two of these became laws.” 

            “This imbalance,” DumaBingo says, “is the direct result of the lack in Russia of a law on lobbies and the lack of transparency of the profile committee on ecology where decisions are often taken without the participation of independent experts and scholars” but instead reflect whatever United Russia and the Kremlin want.

            That is something Russian voters concerned about protecting the environment should remember when they go to the polls.

For First Time, UN Body Puts Russian Forces in Ukraine on Its List of Worst Perpetrators of Sexualized Violence

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – The UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexualized Violence in Conflict for the first time ever has included Russian armed and security forces operating in Ukraine on its list of those guilty of sexualized violence in conflicts around the world.

            The UN body has documented more than 300 such cases since Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, although experts say that the actual number of rapes and other forms of sexual violence by Russian forces there is far larger (svoboda.org/a/rossiyskaya-armiya-v-chernom-spiske/33788780.html).

            That is because many victims are afraid or unwilling to come forward and because Russian commanders either ignore or even sanction such actions as part of an effort to intimidate the population and make it conclude that any dissent will be brutally and even illegally suppressed and that those who engage in such actions won’t be punished.

            Russian forces have behaved in a similar way in the past, including in Chechnya, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch says; but the Ukrainian situation is much larger and the willingness of women and men to come forward to report such abuse is greater than was the case in the two Chechen wars.

            Nevertheless, she says, the UN figures represent only a portion of this form of inhumane violence. What is needed is a change in orders from the Kremlin not to engage in such practices. Were those to be given and then enforced, the problem would be much reduced. That they haven’t been means that much of the blame for such crimes rests on Putin and his entourage.

If Current Trends Continues, the Tatar Language will Disappear in 45 Years and the Survival of the Tatar Nation will be at Risk, Lobova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – If  knowledge and use of Tatar decline at the same rate they have over the last decade, Elizaveta Lobova says, then in 45 years, the Tatar language will disappear and the survival of the Tatar nation will be at risk, remaining at best an identity without much content and subject to market forces and political decisions.

            The author of the Tea with Tatar telegram channel says that what is happening now is that Tatar identity is separating from the Tatar language, raising the existential question: “can culture exist without language or is it transformed into another culture?” (milliard.tatar/news/i-tugan-tel-i-matur-tel-tri-mogily-dlya-tatarskoi-identicnosti-9906).

            Lobova suggests there are three possible paths forward. The first makes identity “a consumer choice,” one in which what survives is anything that “can be bought and sold quickly.” Because language requires study, it isn’t one of those and thus may only survive in a narrow circle like Latin in medieval times, “prestigious but dead.”

            That is the preferred outcome as far as Moscow is concerned, she suggests, because it allows the market to do the assimilatory work and destroys the basis of national culture and thus resistance to the wholesale destruction of minority nations like the Tatars within the Russian Federation.

            The second scenario is a national “renaissance from below” in which Tatars save the language by forming social networks and promoting its use even if it is driven out of the schools and most public forums. But that is only a beautiful dream, Lobova says, given that even in rural areas, young people now don’t speak their national language.

            And the third is that without a language to support it, Tatar identity will turn into a souvenir to be dragged out a few times a year but otherwise neglected, something that will lead to its death as well. Moscow will like this scenario best of all because it will insist that it isn’t destroying nations. Instead, they are destroying themselves.

            In the current environment, Tatars who care about their identity must care about their language and seek ways to reverse the current decline, including but not only by restoring the place of the Tatar language in the school system so that the language and as a result their nation will have a future.

Online Sales of Books Especially Important for Non-Russian Peoples in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – During the first quarter of this year, one in four books in foreign, national or ancient languages was purchased by people living in Russian towns with populations of less than 50,000, places where such books are not available in local bookshops, many of which have closed, and that means that online sales are especially important.

            Over this period, Kommersant reports, demand for books in Udmurt, Mari and Vepsy more than tripled, a sign not only that online sales are especially important to such communities but that despite expectations to the contrary, hard copy books remain in demand despite the rise in electronic versions (kommersant.ru/doc/8760489).

            Measured by the amount of money spent on them, books  retain their dominance in the Russian book market, although such a measure overstates their significant overall because hard copy books in almost all cases cost more than electronic versions; but the Moscow paper insists that hard copy books have retained their niche.

            According to Irina Antonova of the Alpina publishing group, “for the past few years, the Russian book market has exhibited a curious paradox: the total number of titles is rising and the average print runs are falling, but the average prices are increasing,” something that suggests there will be demand for hard copy books well into the future.

            One reason for that pattern, she and others in the publishing industry say, is that young adults now dominate the market for hard copy books, care especially about the physical qualities of the publications, and see books as something of an investment for the long term at a time when there are few others they feel confident will rise in value.

            Konstantin Anokhin of Kommersant concludes: “The printed book has neither defeated digital services nor lost out to them; instead, it has carved out its own niche alongside them. Digital formats do offer speed and convenient access to content, whereas the printed book offers something else.”

Specifically, he continues, they give purchasers “the chance to immerse oneself more deeply in a subject, build a personal library, derive aesthetic pleasure from the physical volume itself, or share the reading experience with others. Consequently, the question of the printed book’s survival is no longer a pressing issue.”

That appears to be especially true in non-Russian regions.

‘Shariat Patrol’ Controlled Dagestani Village ‘for More than a Decade,’ Investigators Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – The Investigative Committee of Dagestan have arrested three residents of the village of Gubden for operating as “a Shariat patrol” that kept more than 10,000 residents of that settlement and surrounding territory in thrall “for more than a decade,” Elizaveta Chukharova says.

            The three joined the group in 2019, the North Caucasus journalist now living in Prgue says; but investigators say it had existed since 2015 and over the decade had “patrolled the village, monitored the appearance of residents, clothing and behavior and called those deemed ‘unrighteous’ in for conversations” (oc-media.org/three-members-of-so-called-sharia-patrol-identified-in-daghestan/).

            Two things are striking about these arrests, which are likely to lead to sentences of as much as seven years each behind bars. On the one hand, the Shariat patrol had operated in Gubden for so long despite repeated interventions by the police, and thus the arrest of only three people suggests there is more support for it than just those now under detention.

            And on the other, as Chukharova points out, Gubden isn’t unique. There have been similar cases in other republics of the North Caucasus in recent years, most prominently in Kabardino-Balkaria, yet another sign of the spread of this Salafist phenomenon and the unwillingness or inability of officials to do much about it.

            The Gubden arrests are thus likely more for show than an effective means of countering this spread of Islamist ideas, yet one more reason to conclude that Dagestan and its neighbors have not become the islands of secular authority, law and order that Moscow officials routinely claim. 

Moscow Orders ‘Destructive Literature’ Be Kept in Special Library Collections Most Russians Won’t be Allowed to See

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – The Lenin State Library in Moscow is setting up a special restricted access collection (in Russian, spetskran) to hold what officials call “destructive literature” that scholars and officials may need to see to do their work but that ordinary Russians will not have access, according to Zhanna Alekseyeva.

            The Russian deputy culture minister says other libraries will follow suit and will place books not on the approved list in such restricted collections (kommersant.ru/doc/8764633, echofm.online/news/minkult-vedyot-rabotu-po-sozdaniyu-zakrytogo-hranilishha-destruktivnoj-literatury and rbc.ru/society/25/06/2026/6a3cdc739a7947fd3cda0872).

            The push for such special collections began in June 2024 when the Duma passed on first reading a measure that would restrict access to writers classified as foreign agents and extremists. But the bill was never brought up for a second and third reading. Alekseyeva’s words suggest that may be about to change.

            In one respect, of course, this recrudescence of a notorious Soviet-era practice in fact represents a step forward. In December 2022, Novyye Izvestiya reported that officials had told librarians not just to make objectionable books inaccessible but to send them to be burned  (newizv.ru/news/culture/20-12-2022/to-li-sozhgut-to-li-spryachut-iz-bibliotek-moskvy-izymayut-knigi-znamenityh-avtorov).

              The image of book burning is so horrific given its echoes with the Hitler regime that it appears cooler heads around Putin blocked this from happening; and their restoration of this Soviet practice is thus less horrific that book burning even though it imposes similar restrictions on the rights and freedoms of the Russian population. 

Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ 'Saving Russia' from NATO Attack, Matviyenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – Given the centrality of World War II in Russian propaganda after Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, it is no surprise that some senior Moscow official would argue that perhaps the best reason for supporting Putin’s war is that it is saving Russia from an attack by NATO and the West.

            Valentina Matviyenko, the chairman of the upper chamber of the Russian legislature, has now done that on the 85^th anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 (council.gov.ru/services/discussions/blogs/175570/ reposted among other places at ehorussia.com/new/node/34779).

            According to her, after the Euromaidan in Ukraine led to a change in the political orientation in Kyiv, the West “assigned” that country to be “the springboard for a new campaign by the West against Russia,” something that meant Moscow had “no other way to ensure Russia’s security than by the special military operation.”

            Even now, more than four years later and with the war continuing, Matviyenko says, “only the achievement of the goals of the SVO will completely remove the threat of a global war.” Given how elastic Moscow has defined those “goals,” it is not entirely clear just which ones have to be achieved at least as far as Matviyenko and Putin think.

            But the parliamentarian’s words are likely to lead somw to draw another parallel with the period immediately preceding the German invasion, the time when Stalin launched his winter war against Finland, a conflict that even though it did not lead to a complete Russian defeat nonetheless highlighted the weakness of the Red Army and likely encouraged Hitler.

            That opponents of the Russian Federation today might read anything less than a total victory in the same way and exploit the situation in some way likely explains why Putin will keep fighting. After all, as long as he does, he can be sure that many Russians and some in the West can be counted on to assume that a Russian victory is just around the corner.  

New Putin-Backed Measure Makes It Easier to Add or More Likely Remove Nations from List of Indigenous Peoples

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – The Duma is set to pass a government-backed measure that will make it easier for Moscow to add or remove nations from the list of numerically small peoples who currently receive special benefits. The bill does so by shifting responsibility for the inclusion on this list from the center to the regions.

            Up to now, numerically small peoples of the North and Far East were listed by Moscow if they numbered fewer than 50,000 residents each and if they engaged in traditional ways of economic activity, but the Kremlin says that those standards are insufficient and wants both regions and the Academy of Sciences to have a voice in the matter.

            As a result, this new measure drafted at the direction of Vladimir Putin says that it will fix the bases for membership more precisely and the sources of expertise that are to be used for making such decisions (nazaccent.ru/content/45626-v-gosdume-podderzhali-pravitelstvennyj-zakonoproekt-o-korennyh-narodah/).

            That might seem to be a positive development but in fact it is likely to have just the opposite effect. That is because the regions which will likely bear most of the costs will have now have a special voice and decisions will be taken not in forums where all indigenous people are likely to focus on a decision but in single regions regarding single groups.

            That conclusion is suggested by the fact that the Duma nationalities committee while recommending that this bill be approved by the Duma as a whole sent back for revision a bill calling for the formation of a system of regional councils of representatives of the numerically small indigenous peoples, almost certainly killing the measure for the foreseeable future.

Baku to Line Karabakh Canal and Other Waterways with Concrete to Reduce Water Losses

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – The loss of available water supplies as a result of global warming and the reduction of the inflow of water from trans-border rivers has prompted Azerbaijan to address a problem that plagues many other countries in the former Soviet space but that they have done far less to address.

            That is the loss of water from canals and other water networks because the former are not paved and the latter are old and leak, something that not only costs Azerbaijan as much as 38 percent of the water it should have and ruins land under and adjoining the canals which in some cases turns into swamps.

            For more than two years, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has called for paving the major canals in his country; and now, with financing lined up and project planning close to completion, that project is now slated to begin in earnest (caspianpost.com/analytics/how-azerbaijan-is-losing-water).

            The centerpiece of this effort is  the Karabakh Irrigation Canal, one of Azerbaijan’s longest and most important as it extends more than 170 kilometers and provides water to 115,000 hectares of agricultural land and people in nine districts in the western portion of that country.

            According to Baku analysts, this canal, most of whose route is unlined, currently loses roughly 300 million cubic meters of water, something that restricts agricultural production in two ways: it limits the among of irrigation that is possible and it destroys agricultural land near the canal’s path.

            Baku officials say that their country is losing 38.6 percent of the water it needs from loss of water in the canals and irrigation systems across the country. That is almost twice the amount lost in EU countries where most canals and lined with concrete and irrigation systems are far more modern.

            They say that within ten years, the lining of canals and the installation of better irrigation systems will reduce the loss of water from that current figure to 20 percent and by 2050 to 10 percent. If that happens, Azerbaijan will be able to achieve water security almost regardless of what happens with global warming or the reduction of river flows.

Moscow’s Compatriots Program Unintentionally Leading to Formation and Growth of Ethnic Enclaves in Russian Federation

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 21 – Twenty years ago this month, Putin established a program for the resettlement of ethnic Russians and other Russian speakers in the Russian Federation. As a result, 1.2 million people have arrived, but many aren’t ethnic Russians – and they are now contributing to the rise of ethnic enclaves, critics of the program say.

            The program was adopted in 2006 in order to compensate for the demographic decline of ethnic Russians in the first decade of this century after the relatively large-scal returns of ethnic Russians from the former Soviet space had ended in the decade before  (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2026-06-21--20-let-programme-pereselenija-sootechestvennikov-naskolko-ona-okazalas-effektivnoj-88501).

            But it has not worked entirely as intended, Rhythm of Eurasia says. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Russians who lived in the other Soviet republics in 1989 still live in what are now independent countries, and Moscow’s efforts to have them specifically return have been far less successful in percentage terms than have Astana’s to facilitate the return of ethnic Kazakhs.

            Most of the returnees are from five republics of the former USSR, the portal says, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Armenia. The inclusion of Tajikistan and Armenia on this list highlights something Moscow prefers to ignore: a large share of the compatriots returning to Russia aren’t ethnic Russians.

            There were only 68,200 ethnic Russians in Tajikistan in 2000 and only 14,600 ethnic Russians in Armenia in 2001. Consequently, “the intake from these countries could only occur through the participation of representatives of their titular ethnoses,” Tajiks and Armenians, something that has led to the appearance of growth of enclaves in Russia.

            Equally serious is the fact that the compatriots program which has been promoted as a way to increase the share of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation population or at least limit the decline of this metric is not having the intended effect but instead is contributing on its own to the mounting migration crisis there. 

Northern Sea Route Development Experiencing Delays and Cost Overruns Because of Shortages of Skilled Workers and Attempts to Attract Them with High Salaries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 21 – Russia’s much-ballyhooed Northern Sea Route is currently facing serious shortages of skilled workers needed to complete development projects on land. To try to attract more workers, companies are increasing the salaries they are prepared to pay; but that is creating another problem: pushing up costs at a time of budgetary stringency.

            According to Maksim Maksimov, an expert consultant for the Russian North television channel based in Vologda, shortages of personnel is “one of the key systemic problems in the development of the Norther Sea Route” and one that the project has not been able to overcome (caspian.land/37380-severnomu-morskomu-puti-nuzhny-kvalificirovannye-kadry.html).

            Attempts by the companies involved to lure specialists from other places by offering high salaries has created another problem: the costs of these projects increase dramatically, something that makes them targets for cutbacks by a government that is facing budgetary restrictions due to the growing costs of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine.

            Consequently, higher salaries are at best a stopgap and may end by forcing Moscow to cancel projects because they have become too expensive to finance at the present time. 

Popularity of Conspiracy Theories about Demise of USSR Intended to Distract Attention from Real Causes, Tsipko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – Conspiracy theories about the demise of the USSR, associated in the first instance with publicist Yevgeny Spitsyn, are intended to distract attention from the real causes of that event – the way Lenin reassembled the empire after 1918, the way Stalin repressed the population, and the way Russian nationalism undermined the USSR, Aleksandr Tsipko says.

            In a 5,000-word article in which he details the numerous mistakes and misinterpretations Spitsyn and his ilk make, the senior Russian social scientist and commentator makes a large number of points based on his reading of history and on his own experience near the center of power in Gorbachev’s time (ng.ru/ideas/2026-06-22/6_9521_ussr.html).

            But his arguments about the real reasons for the disintegration of the USSR in 1991 are especially important, particularly because all three of them are not only ignored by the conspiracy theorists but also are at odds with the ideological pronouncements of Putin and supporters of his regime.

            First, Tsipko says, one must keep in mind that Russia was reassembled by Lenin in 1918-1921 not as a voluntary union of republics but by military force. It was never the free union of peoples that Soviet leaders insisted and that Putin and company continue to insist existed. Consequently, when the center weakened, the country Lenin established began to fall apart.

            Second, he continues, Stalin was never the hero for most Soviets. Instead,  he was recognized as a brutal dictator from which not only the population of the USSR wanted to escape but also from which the leaders of the CPSU wanted to do as well. Any attempt to restore Stalinism, therefore, will only increase opposition and fissiparousness as it did in 1991.

            And third – and this is Tsipko’s key point, one especially important because it is typically ignored – the USSR “was destroyed in 1991 above all by the ethnic Russians and became a victim of Great Russian separatism” (stress supplied), with Boris Yeltsin playing the key role but others like Aleksandr Yakovlev who earlier warned about this doing so as well.

            According to Tsipko, it was Yeltsin’s drive in 1990 to have the RSFSR declare its laws rather than those of the USSR dominant on its territory that was the proximate cause of the demise of the Soviet state; but it was efforts by Yakovlev and others to boost the study of pre-revolutionary Russia that also contributed to the USSR’s collapse.

            The senior Russian commentator says “we must always bear in mind what Nicholas Berdyaev said about the mystery of Russianness,” specifically his argument that the Russian people made great sacrifices to create the Russian state … but remained without power over their own vast realm.”

            “Imperialism, in the Western and bourgeois sense of the word, is alien to the Russian people and yet they have submissively devoted their energies to building an imperialism in which they were not committed or beneficiaries. Herein,” Berdyaev wrote, “lies the mystery of Russian history and the Russian soul.            “

Kremlin will Use Indebtedness of Russia’s Federal Subjects to Impose Even Tighter Central Control, Economist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – The increasingly hard-pressed federal subjects of the Russian Federation are now forced to cut costs, but because of the absence of any law allowing them to go bankrupt, Moscow will ultimately have to bail them out, although such aid will come at the price of what is left of their autonomy, economist Dmitry Nekrasov says.

            Nekrasov, who now lives abroad and is part of the CASE network, says “the painful reduction in various expenditures at the regional level will continue, but on the other hand, it is clear that Moscow will intervene to solve these issues” (svoboda.org/a/bednye-stanut-bednee/33785267.html).

            Russia “doesn’t have a procedure for regional bankruptcies” and so when regional governments get in debt over their ability to cope, Moscow will have to take action – but that action will come at a high price in the ability of the regions involved to take any decisions on their own.

            Nekrasov suggests that this situation is “rather similar to what happened to Greece in the EU during the debt crisis” 15 years ago. The EU refused to allow Greece to default and provided  funds to ensure that that wouldn’t happen, but this money was given only on condition of “severe reductions” in Greek spending, something that infuriated Greeks and created other problems.

            The economist does not address the most extreme step Moscow might take: the amalgamation of the hardest hit regions with those doing somewhat better. Putin has long wanted to reduce the number of federal subjects; and the debt crisis in the federal subjects could very easily become the trigger to restore that process. 

Infertility Increasing and Affecting Ever Younger Russians, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – In its drive to increase the birthrate of Russians, the Kremlin faces a many problems including on that is seldom discussed, that few of its programs address and that in at least one case make the problem even worse, according to Russian experts surveyed by Elena Rychkova of the Nakanune news agency. 

            Between 2023 and 2024, the number of cases of infertility diagnosed in Russia rose 5.5 percent to 245,800 women and 6.9 percent to 32,700 men, the result of both medical conditions and stress factors like fatigue, poor nutrition, and especially increases in the use of anti-depressants, medical researchers say (nakanune.ru/articles/124745/).

            Because these behavioral consequences are more often found in younger people than older cohorts, that has led to increases in infertility among both men and women at ever earlier ages, precisely the time when underlying medical conditions are typically the best for having children.

            Most government programs intended to boost the birthrate ignore these factors and instead relying on financial incentives and increasing opposition to abortion. While the former may help reduce stress, it isn’t explicitly intended to do so; and anti-abortion campaigns may increase stress and thus increase infertility.

            But the most important consequence of government policies in this area is the constant raising of the age that Moscow considers young. Now, it stands at 40. That is designed to ensure that couples who want to have children well into their 30s will not feel that they are taking a risk. But in fact, experts say, after 35, the physical condition of women leads to more infertility.

            That in turn means that talking about youth as extending to age 40 may lead some couples to delay trying to have children and those who do may find themselves less able to have them, something that will push down the fertility rate in the Russian Federation still further, exactly the reverse of what the Kremlin wants.  

Russia Media Losing Audiences as People are Tired of Bad News and as Aggregator Algorithms Expand, Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – Russian media are losing their audiences for many of the same reasons that their counterparts in other countries are: people are tired of bad news and feel a sense of information overload and at the same time aggregator algorithms like Google are summarizing media products in ways that mean people don’t have to go to the originals.

            Such downward pressure is costing many media outlets their audiences even if such newspapers and websites are able to escape pressures to conform from the authorities, commentator Denis Yakovlev writes (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/novosti-bez-chitateley-pochemu-smi-terjajut-auditoriju-po-vsemu-miru-i-kak-eto-proishodit-v-rossii).

These two factors are hitting media at all levels in the Russian Federation. Between May 2025 and May 2026, Russians turned to internet media sites far less often. In Moscow, the decline was from 17.2 million users a month to only 12.3 million this May. At the regional and local level, the declines were even more precipitous, by almost 50 percent or even more.

Consequently, any analysis of the Russian media scene must recognize this and not ascribe them to Kremlin actions alone. Indeed, Yakovlev suggests, the impact of the popular desire to avoid bad news and the willingness of people to use aggregator summaries rather than go to originals may be even more important.

If these twin factors continue to operate, many of the media operations that now offer their own product will close regardless of whether the Kremlin seeks that outcome or not in an particular case; and the amount of genuinely produced news will decline perhaps even more than those around Putin in fact want. 

Andrey Danilov, ‘the Saami Navalny,’ Says Separatism is ‘Nonsense’ for His Nation but that It will Survive

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 19 – Andrey Danilov, known to his friends and supporters as “the Saami Navalny,” says that separatism is “nonsense” for his numerically small people in the Russian North – there are only about 1300 left there  --  but that his nation will survive because its members have their own strategy for dealing with the governments under which they live.

            That strategy, he says, combines a readiness to work with the governments on whose territory they live while simultaneously resisting attacks on their culture and language and withdrawing to the north when these states adopt aggressive strategies against them (nemoskva.net/2026/06/19/saami-my-est/).

            And they have the advantage, Danilov continues, in that there are Saami communities in Norway, Sweden and Finland, all of whom unlike Russia admitted guilt for their past genocidal policies and now actively support the Saami who live on their territories, including those like him who have fled there from Russia.

            He had been deputy chairman of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula in the Russian Federation before he fled from that country when Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022. Now he lives among Saami in Norway and continues to speak out in defense of  his nation.

            Of mixed ethnicity himself – his father is a Saami while his mother is an ethnic Russian – Danilov grew up at a time when few of his age cohort spoke the Saami language; and he admits that he still has to use a dictionary when he does because he has not yet mastered all the words he needs.

            According to the émigré activist, “the Saami are a semi-nomadic cross-border numerically small people who have an anthem and a flag but have never had their own statehood” or army. “Today, they live in four countries, who colonized their lands and forces the Saami to retreat northward when that was possible.                     

“In Norway, Sweden and Finland, the Sami parliaments have been working as official representative bodies of the indigenous people for several decades,” he continues. “They do not pass laws, but without their consent, no issue concerning language, culture, reindeer husbandry and other traditional crafts can be resolved.”

            That is what the Saami people inside Russia have sought to copy. They too created representative bodies, but those were first taken over and gutted by the Russian authorities and then suppressed altogether, although Danilov still refers t himself as the deputy chairman of their common parliament.