Water in Russia’s Major Rivers ‘Polluted’ and ‘Dirty,’ Government Report Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 29 – As if the Russian Federation did not have enough problems, the government’s ministry of nature says in a draft report that most of the largest rivers of the country including the Volga, the Ob, the Yenisey, the Don, the Amur, and their tributaries have water that is “polluted” and “dirty.”

            The main sources of this pollution are waste waters from urban areas and industries that are not treated adequately, the report says; but there is little prospect for cleaning them up given how many heavy metals have sunk to the bottom of these rivers (nemoskva.net/2026/09/29/minprirody-voda-v-krupnejshih-rekah-rossii-priznana-gryaznoj/).

            In the surface waters of these rivers, concentrations of iron, copper, organic waste, petroleum products and nitrates all exceed maximum permissible concentrations, few of which are adequately reduced by existing water treatment facilities. Consequently, the rivers are making Russians sick.

            The report does not address another aspect of this contamination, the international one. Many of these rivers, such as the Volga which flows into the Caspian Sea and the Amur which is on the Chinese border, affect neighboring countries; and so Russia’s failure to clean up its rivers is an international problem.

            It is likely that the Russian government will seek to modify the draft report to try to convince people that things are not that bad; and so it is fortunate the NeMoskva portal has provided not only a link to the draft report but also a discussion of just how much of the pollution of rivers is becoming.

Putin’s Invasion has Strengthened Ukrainian Identity including among Russian Speakers in Eastern Portions of Ukraine, Skorkin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 29 – Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had the unintended and for him unwelcome consequence of strengthening Ukrainian national identity in the eastern portions of Ukraine and promoted the rise of “Russian-speaking Ukrainian nationalism,” according to Konstantin Skorkin.

            The journalist who reports on the Donbass says that what Putin has done has “radicalized” the population there, with Ukrainians there who opposed nationalist messages changing their position and many who earlier identified as Russians now identifying as Ukrainians at least in a civic sense (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/09/29/novii-natsionalizm-kak-rossiya-ukrepila-ukrainskuyu-natsionalnuyu-identichnost-a207289).

            Both groups increasingly accept the Ukrainian nationalism that many in that country and abroad saw as restricted to the western portions of Ukraine that Stalin absorbed into the USSR at the end of World War II. That means that Ukraine has been integrated way and that Moscow and its backers will get a surprise if they force Kyiv to yield the east to Moscow.

            Such regions would not quickly integrate into Russia but rather become a source of resistance within that country, possibly even stronger than the one Ukrainians in the west displayed when Stalin moved the borders west. Neither Putin nor many others understand that if Putin gets want he wants in terms of borders, he will almost inevitably lose more than he gains.

            And such Ukrainian resistance then within the nominal borders of the Russian Federation would likely do more to spark both radical Russian nationalism and equally radical non-Russian nationalism in ways that would tear the Russian Federation apart, exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin says it wants.

            A few years ago, some joked that Ukrainians should put up two statues of Russian leaders in their capital who had done so much for Ukraine, one to Stalin who expanded Ukraine’s borders, and another to Putin, who is seeking to reduce them,  because each has done so much to promote a powerful upsurge of Ukrainian nationalism.

            That is no longer funny for Moscow, especially as the inclusion of  eastern Ukraine within the Russian Federation would have such likely fatal consequences for the survival of the Muscovite state. Indeed, it could even happen that Putin will have helped Ukraine even more than Stalin did by contributing to the destruction of Ukraine’s greatest enemy. 

Tehran May Allow Construction of Russian-Gauge Railway across Iran

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 29 – The Iranian government, which has already agreed to the use of the broader Russian-gauge railway (1520 mm as opposed to the international standard of 1435 km) on the 162 km Rasht-Astara section in the north, is now mulling allowing the extension of a railroad with the Russian gauge southward to the Gulf of Iran.

            That possibility has been announced by Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazen Jalali, and would eliminate the bottlenecks resulting from the need to change the chassis of trains from the Russian standard to the international standard at the border between the two countries (casp-geo.ru/iran-dopustil-prodlenie-rossijskoj-zh-d-kolei-1520-do-persidskogo-zaliva/).

            Were Tehran to agree and the two countries to arrange financing, something they have had difficulty in securing or coming up with, that would dramatically change trade patterns in the region, giving Russia enormous advantages in importing and exporting its goods and offering Iran large transit fees as well.

            What makes this possible agreement between the two countries so striking is that it comes after Moscow has been forced to agree to Chinese demands that it modify some of Russia’s domestic rail routes to accommodate Chinese trade. (For background on that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/04/bowing-to-china-moscow-for-first-time.html.)

            Financing may kill this idea just as it has delayed the start of construction on the Rasht-Astara section, but it is an indication of just how much Russia wants this and how willing Iran is now prepared to talk about something that had not been on the table in the past. 

Udmurts Offer Third Way Between Two Self-Defeating Radicalisms, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 29 – Non-Russians all too often either strike out radical poses and demand independence for their nations rather than cooperation with those who live among them or yield to Moscow’s demands that they yield their national languages and traditions and accept Russian ones instead, Vadim Shtepa says.

           The first of these positions is self-defeating because Moscow can play up divisions between these ethnic groups and defeat any possibility of achieving either more autonomy or independence; and the second is so as well because it promotes the idea that resistance to what the Russian authorities are demanding is somehow inevitable. Neither need to be the case, the editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal says.

            But one nation and its representatives abroad have adopted a third way in between those positions, calling for the defense of the rights of all those who live on their territories regardless of nationality and the gradual acquisition of the language of the titular republic and thus a way to expand the nation's reach and ability to cooperate rather than limit both. 

            In an article for the Estonian journal Diplomaatia (diplomaatia.ee/udmurdi-revolutsioon-omaalgatuslikud-valimised/) which has been translated into Russian (region.expert/udmurt/) praises this moderate position and sees it as a model others non-Russian and Russian should consider adopting.

            For a discussion of how Udmurts living abroad have used secure voting to choose a body that supports this middle way and is appealing to international organizations, see my article on the Udmurt position and the election it has arranged are so important at jamestown.org/two-russian-elections-whose-outcome-really-matters-in-south-ossetia-and-udmurtia/.

Along with His War against Ukraine, Putin has Conducted ‘Special Demographic Operation’ against Russian Women, Russia’s Feminist Anti-War Resistance Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 28 – Since he launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022, Putin has expanded his “special demographic operation” against the reproductive rights of Russian women, gradually hollowing these rights out rather than banning them all at once, Russia’s Feminist Anti-War Resistance says in new report.

            The report, ‘A Special Demographic Operation’: The Erosion of Reproductive Rights in Russia during Military Times, is available in Russian at femantiwar.org/ru/report-reproductive-rights/ and is discussed at nemoskva.net/2026/09/28/opublikovan-doklad-o-narushenii-reproduktivnyh-prav-zhenshhin-v-rossii/).

              The report’s conclusions recall the famous Russian story, often repeated in Putin’s time, that a frog thrown into boiling water will try to jump out but one put in water that is gradually warmed to boiling will result in the death of the frog given that, according to the Russia Outside of Moscow portal, rights haven’t been abolished but hollowed out.

              Among the examples the report gives of both the changes and popular reaction to them are the following:

·       In 1996, Russian law allowed late abortions for 13 different reasons; now, it allows it only in cases of rape.

·       The right to abortion continues to be maintained in Russian law but is limited in 75 of the more than 80 federal subjects of the country, with induced abortion banned in more than a third of them.

·       Over the last decade, the share of Russians favoring a total ban on abortion has increased from three percent to 10 percent, while the share who consider abortion to be exclusively the decision of women has fallen from 65 percent to 47 percent.

Because these are relatively slow moving changes, they are often ignored in comparison with more dramatic and all-Russian actions; but the result, as the new report says, is that Putin’s “special demographic operation” is just as destructive of human rights as are any of his other “special operations.”

Russia is ‘a Capital City-Centric State’ but ‘Ukraine is More than Kyiv,’ Portnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 28 – One of the most common errors people make is to assume that others are like themselves, Vitaly Portnikov says. And thus because “Russia is a capital city-centric state,” Putin fails to understand that “Ukraine is more than Kyiv” and that attacking it will lead to the collapse of the country.

            Unfortunately for Putin and other Russian leaders, “the Kremlin still thinks” of other countries as it does of its own, assuming that their capitals are just as central to their existence as states as has been the case of Russia throughout its history, the Ukrainian analyst says (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/9/28/699968/).

            Given that point of view, Portnikov continues, Russian leaders right down to Putin have believed that “to destroy Kyiv is to destroy Ukraine” and that “to intimidate Kyiv is to intimidate Ukraine” even though Kyiv did not assemble Ukraine the way the Russian capitals assembled Russia.

            Putin assumes and has managed to convince many others who are also ignorant of the differences between Russia and Ukraine that this “capital-centric” vision is correct and that a Russian occupation of Kyiv will be not a partial but a total Russian victory over Ukraine as a whole.

            But Ukraine is more than Kyiv, Portnikov argues; and even if Russia should succeed with its attacks on Kyiv, other parts of Ukraine will on the basis of their history continue to resist, depriving the current Kremlin leader of the victory that he believes can be his if he takes the Ukrainian capital.

Moscow’s Increasing Dependence on China for Military Electronics Why Uzbekistan is Buying Chinese Weapons rather than Russian Ones, ‘Important Theme’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Sept. 27 – Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries are increasingly purchasing military equipment from China because these countries can no longer count on Russia  because Moscow has been compelled to purchase military electronics from China, Russia’s Important Theme portal says.

            Officials in Tashkent and other Central Asian capitals know that China can cut off such supplies at will and thus prefer to purchase military equipment directly from Beijing lest that happen, given that Russia can’t produce the computers and other electronics modern weaponry is based on (temaglavnoe.ru/russia/32693/).

            Such Central Asian calculations are entirely reasonable, the portal suggests, given that Russia is increasingly unable to get such technology from anyone else, a reality that has increased since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine and one that means there is yet another reason for the collapse of Russian influence in Central Asia.

            “As long  as Chinese chips are in Russian weapons,” it continues, “Russia can’t convincingly position itself as an ‘independent’ alternative to China;” and potential purchasers of weapons thus see it “not as a geopolitical alternative supplier but as an assembly site dependent on the same source of technology as the competitor.”

            Unless Russia can begin to develop high tech industries to support its weapons production and export or find ways to get such technology from a variety of sources, it will continue to lose out to China, not so much because of a geopolitical choice, the portal concludes, but rather because of a simple and rational calculation.

            While the Important Theme portal doesn’t address this, it is entirely likely that other potential purchases of Russian weaponry are increasingly drawing the same conclusions and making the same decisions, further reducing Moscow’s influence on their governments not for ideological reasons but for calculations as simple as these.

Love for Russian People can ‘Split the Empire, But without the Russian People, the Empire ‘Can’t be Built,’ Malofeyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – At a Moscow seminar on Russians as the state-forming people, Konstantin Malofeyev, a wealthy supporter of Russian Orthodox nationalist projects, says his dilemma is that he understands that “a love for the Russian people can split the empire” but that the empire “cannot be built without the Russian people.”

            That internal contradiction, he suggests, can be resolved only by insisting that Russians are as a civilization the state-forming people of the empire and understanding that in the fighting in Ukraine today, “no one is dying for the Russian Federation.” People are “dying for Russia” (business-gazeta.ru/article/712130).

            The current Russian constitution is out of step with reality and must be change because it fails to recognize Russians as the state-forming people, threatens them with dilution by insisting that they must come together with others, and fails to require that non-Russians within the country’s borders recognize the special role of the Russian people and defer to its members.ut

            If nothing is done, Malofeyev suggests, there exist two dangers: either Russians will cease to be Russians or the Russian empire will come apart. And to avoid either of those outcomes, Russia must become Russia rather than try to be something else as all the other means of holding it together are now out of date.

            Rarely do Russian nationalists speak about the contradiction between their love for their nation and their love for the imperial state as clearly as Malofeyev does on this occasion. Whether his words represent only his own internal angst at the difficulties this generates or represents the views of others is difficult to say.

            But it is important to recognize the fact that Russian nationalism and Russian statism are in conflict and that the resolution of this conflict either by the transformation of Russians or the disintegration of the state they dominate is the choice they and others must make – and even more must be clear about as they all think about the future.

Kynyev Case Shows Moscow Actively Working to ‘Depoliticize Repression,’ Gallyamov and Romanova Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – The arrest of Aleksandr Kynyev, one of Russia’s most prominent independent electoral analysts, on drug charges just five days after the Duma vote highlights the Moscow’s increasing desire to “depoliticize repression” by using ordinary criminal charges rather than “political” ones against its opponents, Abbas Gallyamov and Olga Romanova say.

            The former Putin speechwriter and now Putin critic and the head of the Russia Behind Bars organization respectively make that point, arguing that it serves the Putin regime by suggesting that its opponents are mere criminals rather than political actors (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/11179 and echofm.online/opinions/narkoticheskie-stati-pozvolyayut-depolitizirovat-repressiyu).

            There are three reasons why Moscow is increasingly choosing to use ordinary criminal charges rather than political ones, Romanova says. First and most important, doing so allows the Kremlin to “depoliticize repression,” giving it the opportunity to treat those who act in ways it doesn’t like not as political opponents but as ordinary criminals.

            Second, she continues, charges like possession of drugs carry far more weighty sentences than do the political provisions of Russian law. If Kynyev and others charged like him are found guilty and there is little doubt he and they will be, all of them could face as much as 20 years behind bars, not the far fewer that political paragraphs of the law allow.

            And third, manufacturing and presenting evidence  in drug cases is far easier and less dangerous than in political ones, easier because drugs can be planted and less dangerous than having what the accused have actually said and done and makes it less likely that supporters will attract more support for those the state is repressing.

            “To say that drug laws are the main instrument of political repressions in present-day Russia would be incorrect,” Romanova says. “Now it is much easier to use the paragraphs about extremism, terrorism, military ‘fakes’ and the like. But the drug laws are an old and well know instrument precisely for cases when the powers want to make their actions look non-political.”

            Kynyev is a perfect case for using ordinary rather than political charges, she suggests. He is a very public political scientist who has already been designated a foreign agent. But it is unclear just who made this decision. Normally it would be Putin and the Presidential Administration; but a Vyorstka report says the PA was “surprised” by it.

            If so, Romanova says, that “could mean that this initiative did not originate from the usual political channels” but instead came from the FSB. In that case, this is another piece of evidence showing that the FSB is increasingly setting the weather even in cases where the PA had done so in the past.

Moscow Seeks to Have It Both Ways by Posting a Threat to Lithuania and Then Deleting It

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – The Russian information agency Novosti posted an article saying that the Lithuanian parliament’s support for doing away with the ban on the deployment of nuclear weapons in that Baltic country opens the way for another Russian “special military operation” against it and warning that such an SVO would be “very short.”

            A few hours later, the text was deleted ostensibly because “the material ‘does not correspond to the opinion of the editorial board, its policies and the policies of the Russian Federation” (meduza.io/news/2026/09/25/propagandisty-iz-ria-novosti-opublikovali-kolonku-o-tom-chto-rossiyu-zhdet-esche-odna-svo-v-litve-a-potom-udalili-ee).

            This is the latest example of a longstanding operational principle of the Kremlin’s media operations, one that calls for delivering a message and then claiming it doesn’t mean it and so giving Moscow an opportunity to encourage some in the West to think that the powers that be are somehow more “peace-loving” than they are.

            The author of the article, Aleksandr Nosovich, certainly knows how this game is played. He is a member of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy and editor of the pro-Moscow RuBaltic.ru portal in Kaliningrad. In 2020, a Dossier investigation linked him to the Presidential Administration and Russian foreign intelligence service.

            What is critical is that no one be deceived by what is going on: The Kremlin wants to threaten Lithuania in order to destabilize it; and articles like Nosovich’s do that; but at the same time, it wants to be able to present itself to useful idiots in the West as indicated in peace in Ukraine and cooperation in Europe.

Calling Russian Actions in Europe a ‘Hybrid’ War Understates How Dangerous They Are, Latvian President Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs says that it is a serious mistake to call the subversive actions Putin is carrying out in Europe “manifestations of ‘hybrid war’” because that makes these actions “somehow sound less dangerous and more harmless than these actions really are.”

            These actions including sabotage and cyberattacks are intended to punish those who support Ukraine and divide NATO, the Latvian leader says. Unfortunately, in the current environment, Western leaders don’t want to call them acts of war (currenttime.tv/a/prezident-latvii-rinkevichs-my-dopustili-oshibku-nazyvaya-deystviya-rossii-gibridnoy-voynoy-eto-zvuchit-menee-opasno-chem-na-samom-dele/33862766.html).

            While that is perhaps understandable given that these Russian moves are not full-scale war, Rinkēvičs says, the words of these leaders have the effect of allowing Moscow to steal a march on Western countries because Moscow is thereby given the opportunity to make advances by military means that would otherwise lead to a united front of opposition.

            But the real danger is that Moscow will conclude that it can continue to do what it is doing or even expand it to the point that the West will respond. Thus failure to label what Russia is doing accurately does not lessen the chance of a broader war but in fact increases it by leading Putin to misread Western resolve.

More than 3,000 Russians have Succeeded in Being Allowed to Perform Alternative Service So Far This Year Alone, ‘Vyorstka’ Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – Despite Moscow’s need to fill the rapidly depleting ranks of its invasion force in Ukraine, 3387 men have succeeded in being allowed to perform alternative service so far in 2026, three times more than in pre-war years, according to a study carried out by the Vyorstka portal.

            This increase has taken place, rights activists say, despite intensifying opposition in draft commissions that are usually but not always backed by the courts, because of the even more dramatic increase in the number of men seeking alternative service (verstka.media/komu-otkazyvayut-a-komu-odobryayut-alternativnuyu-grazhdanskuyu-sluzhbu-v-2026-godu).

            In the past, many who were given the right to perform alternative service had religious backgrounds; but that is no longer a guarantee that those making application for such service will be given it because of the pro-war position of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

            The Vyorstka report is important because it is yet another indication of growing unhappiness of Russians with the lengthening war in Ukraine and the unwillingness of many young men and their families to send yet more men to the meatgrinder that Putin’s military adventure has become. 

First Demonstration against Duma Vote Falsification Takes Place in Restive Komi Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – Residents of various places in the Russian Federation are talking about organizing protests against Moscow’s falsification of the Duma elections (echofm.online/news/v-semi-regionah-rossii-zayavili-akczii-protiv-falsifikaczij-na-vyborah), but the very first has taken place in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic.

            The meeting of approximately 100 people was put together by KPRF activists upset that the Putin regime had orchestrated the defeat of their comrades by first excluding some of them and then falsifying the results in other cases so that the KPRF candidates lost – even though the authorities didn’t give them permission (vkrizis.info/russia/komi-miting-po-michurinski/ and ru.thebarentsobserver.com/novosti/v-syktyvkare-prosel-pervyj-v-rossii-miting-protiv-falsifikacij-na-vyborah-v-gosdumu/458843).

            That the Komi Republic should have been the first is in many ways not especially surprising: its KPRF units have acted more like a banned regionalist party than any others (https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/despite-law-against-regional-parties.html), and Komi residents have long objected to Moscow policies.

            They have voted against Putin in the past, they were active in the successful protests to kill Moscow’s plans to build a trash dump at Shiyes, and they are currently among the leaders in protesting Moscow’s amalgamation of smaller metropolitan districts into larger ones (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/by-criticizing-putins-war-komi-deputy.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/05/komi-activists-say-liquidation-of-local.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/public-power-law-nail-in-coffin-of.html).

            Perhaps equally important, Komi activists have a long tradition of acting on their own regardless of what opposition figures in Moscow say, something that explains why they have acted while others are only talking (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/08/moscow-opposition-figures-tried-to-tell.html).