Moscow Files Charges Against KPRF Politician from Komi Republic who Acted Like a Regionalist Leader

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 21 – One of the greatest fears the Kremlin has about its party system is that the nominally opposition parliamentary parties will begin acting like the regionalist parties that Putin banned at the start of his rule and thus threaten to revive some of the center-periphery tensions that roiled Russian politics in the 1990s.

The case of Sergey Furgal, an LDPR member who served as governor of Krasnoyarsk and whose dismissal sparked massive protests there, is the most well-known; but the situation in the Komi Republic may be even more significant because the KPRF there as a whole has been acting as a regionalist party de facto, protesting Moscow for its plans to build a dump at Shiyes.

(For background on the way in which that parliamentary party in the Komi Republic transformed itself into a regionalist force and how Moscow has worked sometimes with success and sometimes not, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/despite-law-against-regional-parties.html.)

In an indication of just how concerned Moscow is about such a possible trend, the case of a Komi KPRF leader is instructive. Oleg Mikhaylov, who helped organize the Shiyes protests and served as head of the KPRF fraction in the republic parliament, served in the last Duma but now has been forced out and charged with a serious crime.

Mikhaylov has been charged with “public calls for terrorist activity, its justification and propaganda on the Internet” by Moscow officials. If he is convicted, as is likely, he could face a prison term for five to seven years (komidaily.com/2026/10/21/v-moskve-zaderzhan-oleg-mihailov/ and thebarentsobserver.com/news/former-member-of-state-duma-from-komi-republic-detainednbsp/460309).

This case likely marks the end of Mikhaylov’s political career, but it is more important as a warning to other parliamentarians in the federal subjects that Moscow will not only seek to drive them out of politics as it tightens central control but send them to prison for good measure, an implicit indication of the strength of regional attitudes and Moscow’s fears of them.