After Four Years of War, Russia has Moved from ‘Iranization’ to ‘Sinfication,’ Lea and Taskin Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 13 – When Putin began his expanded war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin assumed that it would be able to respond to sanctions the way Iran has and thus “Iranize” Russia, Aaron Lea and Borukh Taskin say. But instead Moscow has made Russia into a colony of China’s, a process they refer to “Sinification.”

            And the two Israeli analysts of Russian origin say that as a result, behind all of Putin’s talk about “multipolarity,” the Kremlin leader “has in fact destroyed Russia’s status as a subject of international affairs, capable of acting on its own rather than being dictated to by others, in this case by China (kasparovru.com/material.php?id=69B42CDDEC8A0).

            Drawing on the ideas of the late Zbigniew Brzezinski and recent research by two Russian analysts, Igor Lipsits and Vladivslav Inozemtsev, Lea and Taskin argue that “over four years of war, the Russian Federation has [thus] transformed from an energy superpower into a resource appendage of China.”

            Lipsits, the two write, demonstrated that Moscow is now selling oil to China for less than the cost of production, the typical action of a colony and one that means “the Russian Federation has voluntarily transformed itself into a resource appendage left with exactly one customer” (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/24/ekonomicheskii-itog-voini-rossiiskoe-gosudarstvo-stalo-ubytochnym-a188001).  

            And Inozemtsev, Lea and Taskin say, warned in his article that Russia “won’t collapse tomorrow” but instead “will slowly, almost imperceptibly lose its room for maneuver, year by year and decision after decision with the real levers of powershifting to Beijing, where the system of governing ‘a barbaric periphery through economic dependency has been practiced for millenia” (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/25/bezumie-stavshee-normoi-a188010).

            “In 2022,” the two write, “one scenario dominated the thinking of Russian economists: ‘Iranization,’ that is, the Russian Federation would learn to live under sanctions, preserve market mechanisms and find workarounds,” a pattern that Lipsits accurately characterizes as a form of monopsony.”

            But what has happened, they say, is that Russia’s traditional customers adapted just as they did after the 1973 oil crisis and force Moscow to turn to China, leaving it without the flexibility that a sovereign state is supposed to have and that Putin prizes almost above everything else.

            At the same time, as Inozemtsev has argued, “Putinism rests on ‘death-onomics,’ in which the state pays more for death on the frontlines than for a peaceful life. That postpones social unrest, and apathy becomes the regime’s foundation.” But that can go on only so long because the drop of oil revenues is destroying the fiscal balance of the state.

            In 2022-2023, the Russian economy was “saved not by the Central Bank, the finance ministry or state corporations but by private entrepreneurs; but because the Kremlin couldn’t tolerate any independent centers of wealth formation, it has since been attacking the very private entrepreneurs who saved it earlier.

            According to Lea and Askin, “Private business was utilized like a fire brigade; once the fire is extinguished, the brigade is disbanded. This mechanism of self-destruction requires no external triggers.” And this happened while Moscow relied ever more on China “failing to grasp that China in this case was not acting as an ally but as a manager of a strategic asset.”

“Beijing has, de ​​facto, become the guarantor of the regime—not out of ideological affinity, but out of the calculated investment logic of an "asset manager." … This is neither an alliance nor a partnership; rather, it is a symbiosis between a predator and a resource that must be shielded from competitors so the predator may gorge on its mineral wealth itself,” the two say.

All this “creates an uncomfortable paradox for the West: sanctions that financially weaken the Kremlin simultaneously deepen Russia’s dependence on Beijing: the poorer the Russian Federation becomes, the tighter is its bond to its sole creditor – and the deeper China’s control over a nuclear-armed nation.”

Lea and Taskin stress that “this is not an argument against sanctions. Rather it is an argument that Western policymakers need to finally formulate a strategy regarding China, the true beneficiary of the war [in Ukraine] rather than continuing to pretend that Beijing is a neutral observer there.”

“Evolutionary absorption is no less real simply because it unfolds slowly,” they argue; “but there is a catch … upon realizing the full extent of its humiliation, the Kremlin might well prefer nuclear escalation to the status of a Chinese protectorate—a choice that would render this "colony" the most explosive in world history.

And they continue: “The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 21st century—Russia’s forceful ‘liberation’ from its dependence on the West—has yielded the exact opposite result. Moscow has escaped one form of dependency only to thrust itself into another: one that is deeper, less advantageous, and far more difficult to reverse.”

In addition, there is another “catch,” Lea and Taskin say. Russia “is degrading unevenly and stabilization at a low equilibrium remains a probable scenario” one in which it will slowly decline while depending on its production of things other than oil and gas. But in that case too, “Beijing can afford to be patient; after all, the asset it is absorbing isn't going anywhere.”

 

Russia’s Liberal Parties have Failed Because Most Parties Called Liberal Really Aren’t, Minchenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 13 – “Liberal” is a curse word for many Russians for a variety of reasons but one of the most important is that most Russian parties identified as liberal haven’t been committed to liberal principles and thus have not received support from business interests that would benefit from genuine liberalism, Yevgeny Minchenko says.

            The Moscow political analyst who heads the Center for Research on Political Elites at MGIMO, says that if one examines parties in the Russian Federation which have identified themselves as liberal, one discovers that few of them were actually committed to liberal values or misunderstood that term (svpressa.ru/politic/article/506440/).

            Russia’s Choice, for example, had “little relationship to liberal values like the division of powers” but instead defended what Yeltsin did in 1993 and thus served as a policy for “the continuation of privatization and the creation of a new entrepreneurial class and new big business at any price.” (stress supplied)

            Democratic Choice of Russia failed in 1995, Minchenko says, because “it was a small coalition of officials who held power as a result of privatization” as it was conducted and had ties to Westernizers in Moscow rather than a commitment to liberalism. As a result, that party suffered defeat and “lost its base.”

            And today’s New People Party isn’t liberal either, he continues. “This is a party of technological progress,” an entirely different thing. “In the classical understanding, liberalism promotes the rights and freedoms of the individual as the highest value.” But Russia’s nominally “liberal” parties were concerned only with privatization.

            They believed and believe that if state property is privatized, in whatever way and with whatever consequences, the result will be liberalism, a complete misunderstanding of what liberalism is about and the reason why most Russians now view liberalism with distaste, largely because they haven’t seen a genuine version of it.

            Had parties arisen that were committed to these principles, they would have had a better chance of success, Russia would be a different place, and liberalism would not have the image it has in Russia today. 

Duma Deputies Want to Ban Foreign Films Featuring ‘Stereotypical Images of Russians’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 13 --  A group of Duma deputies wants to ban the distribution of foreign films in Russia that Moscow judges contain “offensive stereotypes regarding Russia and the Russian people, including films like Rambo which they say shows the “cruel and inhumane treatment of Russians by their government, the National Accent portal says.

            According to the explanatory note accompanying the proposed amendment, this action “aims to protect the honor and dignity of the Russian individual, the multi-ethnic people of the Russian Federation, the RF itself, the USSR, and their respective armed forces and state bodies from the discrediting influence of foreign content” (sozd.duma.gov.ru/bill/1173329-8#bh_histras as cited by nazaccent.ru/content/45241-deputaty-predlozhili-zapretit-filmy-gde-pokazany-stereotipnye-obrazy-russkih/).

            In addition, the deputies behind this measure say that this ban will serve as “an incentive” to producers of films abroad to come up with movies that “portray Russia and its people in a positive light,” noting that as of 2026, Moscow no longer gives licenses to such films which “discredit” traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.

            What the measure does not do is specify just what these stereotypes are and who or by what process they will be identified, a lack of clarity that will allow Moscow to go after any films it doesn’t like for any reason simply by invoking references to this legislation. 

Aliyev Takes Complete Control over Nakhchivan Government

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 11 – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has approved amendments to the constitution of Nakhchivan that eliminate most of the autonomy that non-contiguous portion of the country had enjoyed and instead give Aliyev himself total control over its political life by imposing his personal representative as the head of the region.

            Under the new rules, the government of Nakhchivan will report to that individual rather than to the region’s parliament (oc-media.org/nakhchivan-loses-autonomy-in-new-constitutional-amendments/). In addition, Aliyev ordered Nakhchivan to “harmonize” the region’s laws with those of the republic as a whole (president.az/az/articles/view/71836).

            Yalchin Imanov, a human rights lawyer, said that these changes “effectively reduces the autonomy of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to zero and contradicts the principles of its sovereignty” and show that “the Azerbaijani authorities are interested in concentrating all power in the hands of one person, the president.”

            Earlier, most observers had focused on the way in which the constitutional changes involved dropping all references to the Kars Treaty of 1921, an agreement which gave Turkey and Russia a voice over future changes in Nakhchivan especially with regard to borders (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/02/nakhchivan-to-drop-references-in-its.html).

            But the administrative changes that Aliyev has signed off on now may prove more important. They suggest that Nakhchivan itself will not play any direct role in talks about the development of the TRIPP through the Zengezur/Syunik corridor and that instead Baku will be the only player on the Azerbaijani side. 

Instead of the Siberianization the Kremlin Talks About, Moscow is Taking Actions that will Lead to ‘the Final Sinification” of Russia, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 12 – For more than five years, senior Russian officials and commentators have been talking about promoting the Siberianization of Russia as part of Vladimir Putin’s “turn to the east.” But instead of doing so, Vadim Shtepa says, they are taking actions that will lead to “the final Sinification” of the country.

            The editor of the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert says that Moscow has ignored the demographic collapse of Siberia and the economic problems the war has exacerbated there in pursuit of an alliance with China which wants to dominate areas that once were its own (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/sibirizacia-ili-kitaizacia-k-chemu-privedet-povorot-rossii-na-vostok).

            Instead of building up Siberia by investing it in in a serious way, Shtepa continues, Moscow has again and again come up with ideas that either can’t be realized – five new millionaire cities in a region losing population, for example – or that play into the hands of the Chinese – calling for building microchip factories east of the Urals with Chinese help.

            The latter is especially absurd, the regionalist continues, because China isn’t going to want to help build competitors to its own microchip industry but Beijing may want to exploit Moscow’s naivete and develop what will be Chinese industries on what is now Russian soil. If so, then that will almost certainly lead to “the final Sinification” of Russia east of the Urals.

            All this is happening, he argues, because Moscow does not take the regions of the country seriously but rather as pawns in its geopolitical and geoeconomic games. Were it to view the federal subjects as potential allies, it would not be making these mistakes and would be improving its chances of achieving its goals and holding the country together. 

Moscow City Administration’s Much-Ballyhooed Reductions in Force a PR Exercise to Calm Other Russians and the Kremlin, Rybakova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 10 – On March 4, the Moscow city government announced that it was slashing its staff by 15 percent, a move that suggested the city notorious for its lavish approach was responding to the difficulties other locations in Russia are currently facing  (themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/04/moscow-city-government-plans-major-layoffs-amid-budget-strain-a92120).

            But in fact, journalist Tatyana Rybakova says, all the powers that be in the Moscow city administration were doing was to engage in a PR action designed to reduce criticism of the city from both the population beyond the beltway and in the Kremlin, criticism that “has become a political problem” for Mayor Sergey Sobyanin (themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/10/moscows-lavish-excess-has-become-a-political-problem-a92186).

            The reductions in force the mayor has announced are much smaller than he wants to suggest, the journalist says. Sobyanin has relied from the start on outsourcing of tasks, maintaining a small central staff surrounded by a large number of contractors who do the actual work – a very different situation than in other Russian population centers.

            Consequently, the cuts he has announced won’t reduce the real size of the city’s employment, given that tasks now performed by regular staff can be shifted even more completely to contractors. That may deceive some Russians outside of Moscow but it is unlikely to deceive the Kremlin which certainly knows the score.

            Moscow City should be cutting back, Rybakova says, given that it has “the largest budget deficit in absolute terms this year, 229 billion rubles (2.9 billion US dollars), far more than the Yamalo-Nenets AD which ranks second with a deficit of 84 billion rubles (one billion US dollars) and vastly more than anyone else.

            What makes this article noteworthy is that it is a rare example of a publication about something many know about but also know not to talk about: the growing envy and anger many Russians beyond the ring road feel about the capital city. That someone is now publishing a story like this indicates that the problems this is causing are rapidly increasing. 

Ethnic Russian Fertility Rate is Now 1.1, Half of Replacement Level of 2.2 and Below Figure of 1.3 for All Residents of the Russian Federation, Nikiforov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 12 – The fertility rate for ethnic Russians has now sunk to 1.1 children per woman per lifetime, far below the replacement level of 2.2 and even below the figure of 1.3 for all residents of the country whose non-Russian component still has far more children per woman per lifetime than do ethnic Russians, Oleg Nikiforov says.

            The editor of the NG-Energiya supplement of Nezavisimaya Gazeta says that that raises questions not only about who will pay for the pensions of older Russians but also about “how many people should live in Russia” and whether immigration or reliance on increased economic efficiency via robotics is the best way forward (ng.ru/style/2026-03-12/16_9452_style.html).

            In Russia, Nikiforov says, “there is a reluctance to write about the complex relationship between the titular nation and immigrants. Instead, there is a preference for downplaying or even completely ignoring the existence of this issue. But it undeniably exists” as any conversation with a hairdresser or taxi driver will confirm.

            Hairdressers routinely say they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t look “European” lest customers go elsewhere; and taxi drivers insist that migrants working as drivers are less safe than are Russians presumably because the standards for getting a license are thought to be lower in non-Russian countries than in Russia.

            To be sure, Nikiforov says, “this ‘everyday nationalism’ is most likely rooted in inadequate professional training and difficulties in communication among speakers of various languages.” But it is also the product of broader socio-cultural changes in Russia, changes that are pushing down the fertility rates to the point of crisis.