Silantyev Demands Moscow Ban Two Leading Muslim Organizations

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 16 – Roman Silantyev, a specialist on the Islamic community of the Russian Federation who has long been rumored to have close ties with the FSB and the Moscow Patriarchate, is demanding that the Investigative Committee ban the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Russian Federation and the Council of Muftis of Russia.

            Both groups which are headed by Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin are “the most criminalized religious organizations of the country” and a threat to the country’s legal order even though they control “no more than seven percent of the really functioning Muslim communities” in Russia (https://t.me/tsennostirf/2576 and sova-center.ru/religion/news/extremism/counter-extremism/2024/09/d50433/).

            According to Silantyev, Gaynutdin and his subordinates are active supporters of Wahhabism, the Nursi movement, Hizbut Tahrir and other already banned groups and that 41 of the Muslim leaders subordinate to the two organizations he wants to ban have already been convicted of extremism.

            Silantyev has a long history of attacking the Muslim establishment and Gaynutdin personally (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-radical-muslims.html, windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/12/window-on-eurasia-silantyev-says-more.html and windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/01/window-on-eurasia-silantyev-says-muslim.html).

But this time his appeal may have more serious consequences. That is because the Kremlin has put in place a law-like system to declare any group it dislikes extremist and therefore subject to a ban. Earlier banning groups would have required special measures but not it can be done without much fuss. 

Were such a ban to be imposed, that would leave the Central MSD in Ufa under Mufti Talgat Tajuddin in the best place he has ever been to claim the status he styles himself as "the supreme mufti of holy Rus." Silantyev is an admirer of this defender of traditional Soviet-stye Islam and so his appeal to ban Gaynutdin's organizations may presage a new effort to form a single Muslim Patriarchate.

Claiming Russia is Fighting NATO and Not Just Ukraine Helps Kremlin Keep Russians from Asking Inconvenient Questions about Russian Failures, Konyeva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – The longer the war in Ukraine has gone on, the more the Kremlin and its propagandists have insisted that Russia is opposed there not by the Ukrainians alone but by the West and NATO, at least in part because that makes the failures of the Russian Army less disturbing to the Russian people, according to Yelena Konyeva.

            That is because most Russians have long been accustomed to the idea that NATO is strong and serious opponent, the founder of the ExtremeScan agency that has monitored opinion in Russian regions bordering Ukraine says (svoboda.org/a/neobnulyaemyy-effekt-provala-sotsiolog-o-sobytiyah-v-prigranichje/33117882.html).

            But few Russians are ready to accept that the Ukrainian military could hold its own or even advance against the Russian army; and were they to begin to do so, that would likely prompt the kind of questions about the state of Russian forces and the Russian leadership that no one in the Kremlin wants asked, Konyeva continues. 

            That is just one of the many important observations she offers in her latest interview with Radio Liberty. Among the others are the following:

 

·       The Kremlin decided not to use the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk to mobilize the Russian people because it was obvious to the Russian leadership because its members feared the consequences.

 

·       “For many residents of Kursk Oblast, the war began not in February 2022 but only now in August 2024” when Ukrainian forces entered their region.

 

·       The shock many Kursk residents felt about the Ukrainian incurious passed quickly because there have not been any signs of repression by Ukrainian forces. Instead, Ukrainian military personnel have distributed water and medicines to the Kursk population.

 

·       The situation has been further calmed by the disappearance of official Russian structures and their replacement by volunteer organizations who work with the Ukrainians.

 

·       Russian attitudes toward other countries is entirely the product of Moscow propaganda rather than any personal experience.

 

·       But Russians are increasingly concerned about the war and that is having an impact on their attitudes toward Putin and his regime.

 

Yampolskaya who Earlier Said Russia Survives because of God and Stalin Outrages Non-Russians with Her Latest Elevation and Remark

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – Vera Yampolskaya, notorious for her earlier comment that Russia has survived because of God and Stalin, has outraged non-Russian both by being elevated to head a new presidential council on languages and her declaration that “if Russian is not a native language, then Russia is not a Motherland.”

            At the end of August, Putin replaced the Council on Russian Language with a Council for the Realization of Government Policy in Support of Russia and the Languages of the Peoples of Russia and then named Yampolskaya to head it (idelreal.org/a/esli-russkiy-ne-rodnoy-to-i-rossiya-ne-rodina-aktivisty-raskritikovali-zayavlenie-sovetnika-putina-/33112634.html).

            Yampolskaya’s notoriously Russian nationalist views – on her history in that regard, see idelreal.org/a/32569842.html – Putin’s own words in his order creating the new body, and the fact that only three of the 50 members of the council are non-Russians shows where the Kremlin is heading as far as non-Russian languages and the peoples who speak them are concerned.

            Among those denouncing her words are the following:

·       Farit Zakiyev, a Tatar activist, says that he is glad Yampolskaya said what she did because it makes clear to all exactly what Moscow wants to do, first suppressing non-Russian langauges and then doing away with the national republics. 

·       Daavr Dorzhin, a Kalmyk activist, says that he can’t call Russian a native language because it isn’t for him. Statements like Yampolskaya’s recall Franscisco Franco’s war against Catalan; but it is worth remembering that Franco is dead and Catalan is very much alive.

·       Dorzho Dugarov, a Buryat activist, says simply that “Buryatia isn’t Russia and Russian for us isn’t a native language,” not exactly the conclusion that Yampolskaya and her backers in the Kremlin want non-Russians to draw.

·       Ruslan Gabbasov, a Bashkir activist, says that Yampolskaiya’s words are nothing new. They are fully consistent with what the Kremlin has been trying to do over the last decade but are useful because they are so explicit.

·       Aida Abdrakhmanova, a Tatar activist, says Yampolskaya’s words are especially cynical and evil because they were delivered precisely on the 10^th anniversary of Albert Razin’s self-immolation to protest Moscow’s destruction of his Udmurt language and the languages of other non-Russian nations.

Russian Nationalists Likely to Play Far Larger Role after Putin Departs, Verkhovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – When Putin departs from power, the role Russian may very well expand, Aleksandr Verkhovsky says; and the sooner the Kremlin leader does so, the larger that role is likely to be at least in the short run. That is because those known as Russian nationalists are far better positioned to play a role than were their predecessors.

            At the end of a survey of how difficult it is to define Russian nationalism and how much the consensus view as to what it consists of has evolved, the director of the SOVA analytic center which tracks this phenomenon offers his thoughts on what is likely to happen in the future when Putin leaves the scene (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2024/09/13/kto-vy-russkie).

             A major reason behind his conclusion that Russian nationalism will likely play a larger role then is that this trend of opinion has evolved under the impact of what one could call “the present-day official ideology of a unique brand of nationalism, which the powers have advanced to a large extent as alternative to the ideas of Russian ethno-nationalists.”

            The Russian nationalist movement of 15 years ago “still had a strong attachment to white racism, which was not very popular in Russia and a totally unpopular attachment to neo-Nazi roots,” two characteristics which meant that it could hardly hope to gain large numbers of supporters and challenge the regime.

            But in 2014, at the time of the Crimean Anschluss, the Russian nationalists split, not so much about whether they viewed Ukrainians as Russians, part of a triune people including Russians and Belarusians, or as a separate nation than their own past ideological positions domestically.

            There are many explanations, but “it is impossible not to notice that the pro-Kiev Russian nationalists were closer to white racism while the pro-Donetsk ones, for all their ethno-nationalism, were closer to the themes of the greatness of the state and its confrontation with the West,” according to the SOVA analyst.

            That brought “the pro-Donetsk people closer” to the Kremlin’s approach while the pro-Ukraine trend lost out and appears to have “exhausted itself” as far as the future is concerned, he continues. “But one should not conclude that this excluded” their links to those who opposed the regime on other issues.”

            When xenophobia which had been declining in the second decade of this century returned to its earlier levels after the launch of the expanded invasion of Ukraine and the authorities’ use of anti-immigrant notions to win support domestically, “politically organized opposition nationalism” based on such ideas “had almost completely disappeared.”

            The desire of the authorities to generate support from below and the anti-immigrant attitudes Kremlin propaganda exacerbated is leading to a redefinition of official nationalism from one focused exclusively on great power imperialism toward a more complex mix, one that opens the way for the rise of oppositional nationalism from below.

            How this will play out remains uncertain, Verkhovsky says, but if politics does reemerge in Russia with the departure of Putin, then “today’s Russian nationalists have a somewhat better chance of mobilizing support than did their predecessors” – and that means they are likely to be a force to be reckoned with.

            Compared to the nationalists of ten to 20 years ago, the new unofficial nationalists are less revolutionary, less tied to criminal groups, less explicitly white racist and more interested in defending Russian traditions and supporting Moscow’s great power aspirations, according to the SOVA director.

            How far these groups will evolve in that direction depends to an important degree on how long Putin remains in office. The longer he is there, Verkhovsky suggests, the greater the evolution in these directions and thus the greater the role of Russian nationalism and those who represent it will be. 

Ingush Outraged by Vladikavkaz Plan to Include Portion of Ingushetia in North Ossetia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 13 – Two weeks ago, Vladikavkaz announced that it had sent out for review its plans to include within North Ossetia land that had belonged to Ingushetia before its people was deported in 1944 and that was not given back to them when those deported returned, a failure that sparked a bloody border war between the two republics in 1992.

            Earlier this month, officials in the historically Ingush regions North Ossetia says it will annex denounced the plan, and they have been followed by denunciations not only by Ingush officials in Magas but also by activists there who fear that Magas may not resist this land grab (fortanga.org/2024/09/ingushetiya-protiv-izmeneniya-granicz-vlasti-respubliki-blokiruyut-proekt-severnoj-osetii/).

            Such fears arise from the fact that in 2018, Magas said it would not change the borders with Chechnya but then the republic’s leader signed a deal with Grozny that did just that, costing the republic a large swath of its territory and sparking mass demonstrations that continue to echo in the courts.

            Despite Moscow’s repeated insistence that Magas and Vladikavkaz sign a border agreement, the two have not done so, and the dispute continues. But the Ingush government has declared a moratorium on any border changes until at least 2030, making what Vladikavkaz is trying to do at a minimum premature and more likely the trigger of new protests.

            Any such new protests almost certainly would be far more radical than those which took place in 2018-2019 given the repression that Moscow and Magas have visited on that republic, the support its people have received from Ukraine, and the formation of an Ingush independence movement.

            So far, this latest dispute has remained within the chancelleries of the two governments; and it seems likely Moscow will work to try to ensure that it remains there. But if North Ossetia takes any additional steps, the mass protests that roiled Ingushetia after the handover of land to Chechnya are likely to return and, in contrast to the earlier ones, could become violent.

Violent Crime in Russia Not Up Since Start of Expanded War in Ukraine but Interior Ministry Expects It to Rise when Veterans of that Conflict Return Home

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – While serious crimes involving the Internet and drugs have continued to rise in Russia since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, the number of violence crimes such as murder, rape and assault has continued to fall. But Russian interior ministry officials expect the latter to go up once veterans begin to return in massive numbers.

            Despite expectations, ministry experts say, violent crimes have not gone up largely ecause men in the age groups most likely to commit them are off the streets and on the battlefield. When they return, however, violent crime is likely to surge  (tochno.st/materials/cislo-tiazkix-prestuplenii-v-rossii-dostiglo-rekordnyx-znacenii-za-12-let-no-eto-ne-sviazano-s-rostom-nasiliia-glavnoe-o-prestupnosti-v-2023-godu).

            The To Be Precise portal says that violent crimes committed by foreigners have risen by 10 percent since 2019, but there is no open source confirmation of official claims that migrant workers are committing almost all of these and more. And what statistics have been released show that crimes by foreigners fell by three percent between 2022 and 2023.

            The portal also reports that violent crime is highest in Siberia and the Far East, regions where alcohol consumption is highest, and lowest in the North Caucasus, a Muslim region where alcohol consumption is far lower than the all-Russian average (tochno.st/materials/kakie-regiony-rossiie-opasnye-reiting-prestupnosti-ot-esli-byt-tocnym).

            The portal’s conclusion about crime in the North Caucasus excludes Chechnya where crimes like disappearances and the elimination by other means of opponents of the regime would likely dramatically affect the total figures, distorting the regional pattern, because figures about such crimes are not accurately reported by either Grozny or Moscow.

COVID Infections Again on the Rise in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – With the start of the school year, COVID infections are again on the rise in Russia as in many other countries, with more than 8,000 new infections and eight deaths in the city of Moscow alone last week. Experts expect this wave to peak in a month or two but prove far less widespread and lethal than was the case three and four years ago.

            A major problem in both the diagnosis and treatment of COVID now, Russian health specialists say, is that the symptoms are so varied and often so mild that many cases are misdiagnosed as something else and that new vaccinations may not work because the virus is mutating so quickly (svpressa.ru/society/article/429221/).

            Many of the vaccine boosters now being offered, Russian officials say, protect people against only a few of the strains out there. That message will likely keep many Russians from seeking the vaccine, just as was the case three and four years ago, and mean that there is a risk that the growth in the number of COVID cases could be far larger in Russia than elsewhere.

            The Moscow specialists insist that there is no chance that the number of new cases will rise to the level of 200,000 a day as was true in 2020; but if Russians don’t get vaccinated and do not adopt healthy practices like washing their hands frequently and getting enough sleep, there is a real danger of an epidemic in Russia that could fuel the rise of COVID elsewhere.