Paul Goble
Staunton, July 17 – United Russia deputies in the Arkhangelsk parliament have appealed to Moscow to provide “emergency financial assistance” because they lack the funds to ensure that residents will be provided with heat this winter and note that fuel deliveries for northern settlements are already falling far behind because of budgetary stringencies.
Not only does this highlight how Putin’s war in Ukraine and Western sanctions are having a deleterious effect on the Russian North, but it also strongly suggests that the most negative impact of the current gas shortage is ahead because critical deliveries won’t arrive (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/na-grani-cs-arhangelskaa-oblast-prosit-u-moskvy-dengi-ctoby-ne-zamerznut-zimoj-izza-sankcij/454130).
For members of the ruling party to make such public appeals is unusual, and their actions almost certainly reflect fears among them that the population will vote against them for what is going on unless they can somehow distance themselves from Kremlin policies, a move with grave consequences for the Putin regime.
Unless Moscow comes up with the money and soon, that means that the much-ballyhooed power vertical Putin has created may begin to show more and deeper cracks as deputies pay more attention to those who nominally elect them and less to those above who in fact have selected them.
That both reflects and could intensify a growing regionalization of political life in the Russian Federation at least while the election campaign is going on, something that will simultaneously frighten Moscow and give encouragement to regionalist and ethno-national movements as well.
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