Russians, Fleeing Oppression, Now Making Baltic Countries Their Home

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 31 – Over the last five years, something remarkable but often unremarked has been happening in the Baltic states: thousands of Russians, faced with oppression in their homeland, have fled to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania where they are not only making a home but working to transform the political situation in Russia itself.

            One Russian who passed through Riga suggests that as a result the Latvian capital has become “an intellectual Hong Kong” for Russia much as Hong Kong has for China in recent years and as Riga itself did for the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s (svoboda.org/content/transcript/27354348.html).

            Aleksandr Genis says that “the fact that Riga is becoming one of the centers of free Russian culture is an extraordinarily interesting development … one can imagine that similar processes will happen across the near abroad.”  Others agree: Artemy Troitsky, a Russian music critic now living in Tallinn, predicts “a mass exodus” of the Russian opposition to these countries (bbc.com/russian/blogs/2016/01/160120_blog_troitsky_forecast_2016).

            Troitsky even goes so far as to say that “the center of gravity of [Russian] opposition activity is gradually shifting from Russia to foreign countries” and that this process may give birth to “something like ‘a government in exile,’” a description that recalls some of the views of Russian emigres before World War II.

            “It is very doubtful,” Kristina Khudenko and Vitaly Khlapkovsky write for the Delfi new portal, that any such “’government in exile’” will appear “on Baltic soil.”  But they point out that “Russians are becoming ever more numerous” in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and say “this is not simply ‘Jurmala dacha owners’ or those who have bought an apartment to gain a residence permit in the Shengen zone” (m.rus.delfi.lv/article.php?id=46978201).

            In contrast to most media discussions of the phenomenon of Russian flight, the two journalists provide statistical information from each to back up their arguments, thus highlighting a trend that undercuts Moscow propaganda about the Baltic countries and shows that Russians oppressed at home increasingly view these three NATO and EU countries as safe havens.

            In Estonia, 7731 Russian citizens live on the basis of a temporary residence permit. (Those with permanent residence permits are mostly ethnic Russians who have been in Estonia since the times of the Soviet occupation.  Since 2013, 3474 Russians have received temporary residence permits there, and 5319 have extended theirs.

            Troitsky is perhaps “the most notable Russian ‘émigré’” in Estonia, the Delfi journalists say. But there are many others: Filipp Bakhtin the former editor of the Russian version of “Esquire,” Filipp Dzyadko, the former editor of “Bolshoy gorod,” actresses Chulpan Khamatova, Viktoriya Tolstoganova, and Alisa Khasanova, actor Yevgeny Stychkin, director Boris Khlebnikov “and many others” from the world of art and the media.

            Just under a year ago, ecologist Yevgeniya Chirikova who became famous for her defense of the Khimki forest, fled to Tallinn to escape persecution in Russia. Blogger Maksim Yefimov who got in trouble at home for criticizing the Russian Orthodox Church has had political refugee status in Estonia since 2012. 

            And the list of Russians who have decided to make Estonia their home goes on and on, Khudenko and Khlapkovsky say, with many of them simply seeking to live their lives without fear and others to promote change in the Russian Federation.

            Latvia, the Delfi journalists point out, is the Baltic country where this influx has been the most draatic.  In 2009, there were only 3351 Russians with temporary residence status there; now there are 13,362.  This growth happened because of a Latvian law that gives such status to those who purchase property in the republic.

            The growth in the number of Russians settling in Latvia has slowed since 2014 because Latvian legislators have tightened the rules for offering residence permits. “The reason,” the two journalists say, “involves concerns that the newly arriving Russians will become part of ‘a fifth column.’”

            What is ironic about that, they say, is that “a large part of ‘the new Russians’ moved to the Baltic precisely for that reason: many of them have been listed as being part of ‘the fifth column’ in their motherland.”

            The list of Russian media figures, artists, actors and intellectuals who have settled in Latvia is even larger than it is in Estonia or Lithuania.  Many of them continue to issue Internet publications directed at Russians in the Russian Federation. Others are simply prominent intellectuals who do their own work, and many divide their time between Latvia and Russia.

            Those who have resettled in Latvia overwhelmingly say that they identify with their new country and would either defend it or flee if Moscow sought to extend the boundaries of Putin’s “Russian world” to include Latvia.

            Two cases are currently attracting a great deal of attention: After the murder of Boris Nemtsov, Kseniya Sobchak said that she was considering the possibility of emigrating to Latvia although she has not yet done so. And Dmitry Kuzmin, a Russian LGBT activist, who now lives in Riga because “Russian culture needs bases beyond the country’s borders.”

            And in Lithuania, some 4260 Russians sought temporary residence in 2015. (During the same year, 5441 citizens of Ukraine and 3844 citizens of Belarus did the same.).  Forty-two Russian citizens have sought refugee status, with nine having obtained it, and five have been offered additional legal defense.

            “In a certain sense,” the Delfi journalists say, Lithuania “has become a Mecca for the Russian opposition,” with many activists and journalists who were oppressed after the 2011-2012 protests choosing to live in that Baltic country. Many are operating their own companies, especially in IT, and generally promoting the development of Lithuania.

Putin Sees Himself as Stalin But He’s Really ‘Half-Khrushchev and Half-Gorbachev,’ Kazakh Historian Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 31 – “Putin would like to see himself as Stalin in the company of Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta,” Azimbay Gali says; but “Putin is not Stalin. He is half-Khrushchev and half-Gorbachev” – and both that split in his perception and reality and that division within himself is likely to have a profound impact on Russia’s future.

            According to the Kazakh historian, “the West will try to categorically not to allow” a new Yalta,” although “a united West will foot Putin by periodically offering Russia a summit and then putting off one like that.” Over time, “the long-suffering quality of the Russian people could end” before any such meeting could occur (centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1454229240).

            In an earlier article, Gali argued that Russia is “on the eve of Perestroika-2 or a Russian time of troubles” (openrussia.org/post/view/12452/). But in this one, explicitly offered as a test of the hypotheses he proposed earlier, the historian suggests that one should not rush to judgment about any radical change.

            He argues that “at the present moment there is not observed what one might call a revolutionary situation.” The authorities are in clear control, and “the dissatisfaction of the population is local and fragmented; and the dissatisfaction of ethnic elites also bears a local character.”

            Russians are now focused on economic issues – how to survive in the current economic crisis – rather than political ones; but “no one knows how big a resource the long-suffering quality of the Russian people is.”  It is likely to continue for some time before it snaps, just as was the case in World War I.

            But the signs that the current war could have the impact the first world war did are not in evidence, Gali says.  Unlike 90 years ago, there is no fraternization on the Russian-Ukrainian front.” Up to now, television programs of both Ukraine and Russia are successfully promoting mutual alienation.” 

            One trend that is worth watching, the Kazakh historian suggests is that “Russians have become more sensitive to military losses and are tired of war,” but despite the impact of the Internet, this has “not yet achieved critical mass.”  Until it does, the war won’t create a revolutionary situation in Rusisa.

According to Gali, the US and the EU want to drive Russia toward economic collapse, isolate Russia economically, split Russia from its remaining allies, promote the idea of a second perestroika, and make Russians more sensitive to military losses. If they succeed, Russia “cannot conduct a serious and long-term war even with a ravaged Ukraine.”

In response, Putin has countered by isolating Russia from the West economically and himself from the leaders of the West, something that has narrowed his “field for geopolitical maneuver.”  Second, he has sparked a new discussion about what Russia’s domestic and foreign policy should be via his new “concept” papers.

In foreign policy, the Kazakh analyst says, the Kremlin leader has promoted the unrealizable idea that Russia can be a dominant player “in the club of great powers,” and he has presented as his country’s right to dispose of everything across the entire post-Soviet space “from the Baltics to Turkmenistan.”

            And in a subject that links domestic policy to this foreign policy vision, Putin has made it clear that for him “Stalin remains a villain but Lenin is worse.” If one considers this in the broadest terms, it is clear that this is “a perestroika-like concept, and this concept has destructive force for Russia” just as the original one did.

            In this situation, Gali argues, analysts and commentators should stop thinking that Putin is the Stalin of today. In fact, he is “half Khrushchev and half Gorbachev,” a combination that in fact means that what the current incumbent of the Kremlin hopes to achieve he is, by his own policies, making all but impossible.

Putin Overplays His Hand with Liza Case in Germany and Loses Friends in Berlin, Mitrokhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 30 – In the pursuit of his goal of exacerbating the European refugee crisis, Vladimir Putin has taken actions in Germany including stirring up the Russian German community over the Liza case that have sent Russian-German relations to a new and much lower level, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Russian analyst who lives in Bremen.

            This is no small thing to have done, the analyst says, because “Germany had been the last major state of the Western world with which Russia had the illusion of partnership relations.” Now, Berlin is looking at Moscow far more critically than it did and Germans are asking just how far the Putin regime is ready to go (grani.ru/opinion/mitrokhin/m.248146.html).

            The cause of all this is quite simple, Mitrokhin says. Liza is a 13-year-old Russian German girl who went missing for 30 hours. When she returned home, she said she had been kidnaped and raped by several Arab-looking men, an inflammatory charge now at a time of massive immigration to Germany from Syria and the Middle East.

            The police and her parents dismissed that version and one local newspaper suggested Liza was in love with a 19-year-old German of Turkish origin and had dreamed up the charges she made to hide her activities from her parents.  According to Mitrokhin, “this versioin appears quite likely.”

            That is because, he says, “despite the anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic attitudes among Russian Germans, sexual relations and marriages of Russian speakers with Turks, Kurds, and Albanians living in Germany are no rarity.”

            Had the case ended there, no one would have paid a lot of attention, but pro-Moscow outlets using social media whipped up the Russian German community, sparked demonstrations in a variety of German cities, and called into question the ability of the German police to protect Germans from Muslims and Turks.

            Underlying this conflict, Mitrokhin points out, are “the social problems of the Russian-speaking population of Germany.  It now numbers “no fewer than four million people, the largest foreign language community in the country.”  Many of those who formed its core were poorly educated and low skilled and thus were in the same social niche as Turks in Germany.

            That led to conflicts and suspicions, and the recent case shows that they are something that others can play on, even if many of the Russian Germans have acculturated if not assimilated into German life.  Indeed, sociological research shows that the Russian Germans were the most successful large diaspora in Germany.

            But precisely because they were successful, they and their problems were largely ignored by the authorities, Mitrokhin says. That neglect especially now when Berlin is focusing on the new influx has rankled many, especially since they continue to view themselves as a distinct group – they identify as Rusaks – and follow Russian media and culture more than German ones.

            Russian media have played on this, talking about the new immigrants as being “a crisis of Europe” and about the way in which the Russian Germans have been neglected and otherwise getting a bad deal.  Such stories “recall the situation at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

            Some of Liza’s relatives turned to neo-Nazis from the National Democratic Party of Germany, which has ties with Moscow, or to other radical groups and a social media campaign began to mobilize Russian Germans to engage in public protests and demand their rights against the new migrants. 

            Their success in mobilizing the Russian Germans with this story has prompted “the German authorities to evaluate this unexpected ‘warning’ and now to guess about its causes.” That is leading ever more of them to view the upsurge in the activity of Russian Germans as being the product of Moscow policies and to questions about Russian intentions.

            Whatever the exact facts of the case are – and they remain in dispute – “serious harm has been inflicted on German-Russian relations” and that is leading Berlin to revise its “condescending attitude toward Putin sympathizers and direct agents of the Russian special services in the Russian-language diaspora,” Mitrokh continues.

            Moreover, it is prompting discussions about whether Germany needs to expand Russian-language media for its Russian speakers in order to ensure that they are not mobilized against Berlin by Moscow and to fears that “pro-Putin activity among the Russian Germans will not disappear” but must be countered in one way or another.