No One Left in Russia Capable of Overthrowing Putin, Let Alone Installing Someone Committed to Peace and Reform, Felshtinsky Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – There do not remain in Russia any people or forces capable of overthrowing the Putin regime, Yury Feltshtinsky says; and even if Putin does leave the scene, it is likely that he will followed not by someone who wants to make peace but rather by someone who wants to conduct the war in Ukraine against the West even more aggressively.

            The mass exodus of Russians, the US-based Russian historian tells Poland’s Dziennik Polski that those who remain in Russia are either complicit, controlled by the regime, or stupidly follow it (plus.dziennikpolski24.pl/jurij-felsztinski-putin-nie-jest-prezydentem-jest-oddelegowany-na-to-stanowisko-przez-federalna-sluzbe-bezpieczenstwa/ar/c15-17161773; in Russian at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63B32E03C4E52).

            Given the regime’s repressive nature, no one knows how much the population supports Putin; but it lacks leaders who could challenge the regime, the historian suggests. And elites groups like business and the military have too much to lose to be willing to seek Putin’s ouster whatever they think of his policies.

            Thus it is a profound mistake to think that Putin is about to be overthrown and replaced with someone committed to ending the war and reforming Russia. Far more likely should any change in fact happen that the current Kremlin leader will be followed by someone even more committed to war against the Wet.

            In that situation, Felshtinsky says, Putin has little reason to end his war and more reasons to expand it. He is convinced that the level of Russian losses is not punitive as far as he is concerned, that in fact these losses are a sign of the greatness of what he is doing, and that in the end his nuclear weapons will keep the West from winning against him.

            As a result, he continues, “Putin thinks that his victory n the battle with Ukraine and the rest of Europe is only a question of time.”

            What all this means, the historian concludes, is that “Russia will become a normal country [only] after it suffers a defeat comparable to Germany’s in 1945 and gives up its imperialistic position. Russia must be required to see that the Russian people is not great but the most ordinary that Russia is not a great power but the most ordinary, albeit big.”

            Once that happens, then everything will be in its correct place, and “Russia won’t constantly be required to ‘rise up from its knees’ in order to again become a great power.” And Russians will stop believing that all their problems are the result of the actions of others rather than of some in their own population.

            In short, “Russia will become a free country after its population comes to understand that its main enemy is the FSB, the oldest institution which was created in 1917 and the only institution which survived the disintegration of the USSR.” The FSB is Russia’s main problem and eliminating it is the only way Russia can rejoin the family of democratic peoples.

Unpaid Back Wages in Russia Now Increasing Monthly at a Double Digit Pace, Rosstat Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan.2 – In order to conceal just how much the Russian economy is hurting and keeping unemployment numbers low, the Russian government is using its leverage to force firms to keep their workers in their positions even when the firms lack the money to pay them their wages and salaries.

            A month ago, Rosstat, the state statistical service, reported that wage arrests rose by 16.4 percent in November alone to more than a billion rubles (16 million US dollars), an enormous sum in a country where the average wages are as low as they are in Russia (sibreal.org/a/dolgi-po-zarplatam-v-rossii-prevysili-milliard-rubley/32202090.html).

            These wage arrears are greatest in processing industries, in major cities, and among those aged 35 to 44, workers who likely have just started families and fear what may happen if they leave their positions and search for a new one, according to a HeadHunter survey  (rbc.ru/economics/22/12/2022/63a2e5ba9a7947fd8d9dc12c?from=from_main_7).

            Maksim Mironov, an economist at the IE Business School, says that market conditions should have led firms to lay off workers they can’t pay; but the government won’t allow theme to do that. As a result, they are holding on to workers but not paying them, a situation that became notorious in the 1990s.

            The government is providing some funds to firms to keep them afloat, Mironov says; but how much is unclear given that a veil of secrecy has been thrown over this effort. If this source of money runs out, such firms could collapse even more rapidly because of the uneconomic approach they have been forced to adopt.

Moscow Allows One Kind of Federalism to Rise while Continuing to Suppress Another, Kolebakina-Uzmanova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – In its prosecution of the war in Ukraine just as was the case with its efforts to combat the covid pandemic, the Kremlin began by insisting that it could do everything on its own and then decided that it needed the involvement of federal subjects to be able to achieve its goals, Elena Kolebakina-Uzmanova says.

            That pattern, which has occurred even as Putin has sought to destroy the remnants of federalism as outlined in the Russian constitution means that Moscow is intentionally or not opening the way for a new kind of “spontaneous” federalism even as it has broken much of the existing federal system, the Kazan commentator says.

            Indeed, Kolebakina-Uzmanova says, “one can say that spontaneous federalism has been strengthened in the country” [emphasis in the original] because “ life itself has shown again and again that only such an arrangement works, even though by inertia, Moscow has continued to liquidate the former remnants of this very federalism” (business-gazeta.ru/article/578693).

            These two vectors are often at odds. The destruction of the remnants of federalism has attracted the greater attention; but the rise of spontaneous federalism has limited what Moscow can or at least chooses to do. The compromise on the title of president in Tatarstan is a clear example of this, the commentator says.

            Forced to give up the title “president” for the republic leader, Tatarstan forced Moscow to agree to the term “rais,” “a term which in Arab countries designates the head of government” and which highlights among other things the strength Kazan has as the bridge to the Islamic world, Kolebakina-Uzmanova says.

            In this way, both Moscow and Kazan “showed wisdom,” he continues, with each side recognizing the importance of cooperating with the other and not insisting that the other submit to its demands, at a time of military conflict. That may not be the federalism some would like to see; but it is hardly the end of federalism either.

 

Dirty Air from Moscow’s War in Ukraine Harming Russia More than are Any Ukrainian Attacks on Russian Sites, UWEC Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – Yevgeny Simonov, an expert with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group, says that environmental contamination from the battles in Ukraine is currently inflicting more harm on the Russian Federation than sporadic Ukrainian attacks on Russian sites.

            The prevailing winds are carrying back into Russia various airborne contaminants with negative consequences for the country, Simonov continues, all the more so because Moscow is no longer monitoring or reporting about this or other forms of environmental degradation (verstka.media/interview-evgeni-simonov-bez-kupur-posledstvia-voyny-dlia-prirody/).

            Moreover, the ecologist says, such negative impact is currently lost in what is an across-the-board degradation of the Russian environment, including the Russian military’s clear-cutting of forests to build new bases, the erection of defense lines that destroy animal habitats, and the massive selling of timber to China that is leading to more floods and wildfires.

            Simonov says his group hopes that the international community will focus on this and also on the ways in which the Russian invasion of Ukraine is increasing the release of greenhouse gases there, something he believes Moscow should be compelled to compensate the Ukrainian side for.

Russians Face Ever More Obstacles to Going Abroad, Reducing Pressure on Moscow to Officially Block Emigration, Pankratova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – After Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine, many assumed that he would restrict the ability of Russians to leave the country, despite a constitutional ban on such limits and Russians’ belief that the right to travel abroad and back has been one of the greatest boons resulting from the demise of the Soviet system.

            Such fears increased when many Russians fled abroad first in the spring and then at the time of mobilization beginning in September in the largest exodus of Russians since immediately after the Bolshevik revolution and Russian Civil War. And as the war in Ukraine has continued, pressure to close the borders supposedly has been building

            But the Kremlin leader has not yet closed the borders, Irina Pankratova of The Bell says, largely because he hasn’t had to. Instead, the actions of other countries and his own hybrid methods have limited Russian departures (thebell.io/izolyatsiya-bez-zakrytiya-granits-kak-rossiyane-lishilis-vozmozhnosti-ezdit-za-granitsu).

            In reaction to Putin’s war, Western governments have made it far more difficult for Russians to get entry visas; and sanctions against air travel to and from Russia means that prices to fly from Moscow to the West have gone up from 250 to almost 400 percent and travel time from three to four hours to eight to 24 because of the need to go through third countries.

            As a result, Pankratova says, Russian airlines carried only 12.1 million passengers on international flights the first nine months of this year compared to 42 million during the same period in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.

            At the same time, Putin has adopted or exploited a variety of measures already in place to restrict the ability of Russians to leave the country. Some eight million now are blocked from leaving because of debt, and millions more are prevented from doing so because of their current or past places of employment (rosbalt.ru/russia/2023/01/01/1981551.html).

            Unless the war intensifies, the journalist suggests, Putin is likely to be able to rely on these two factors rather than have to declare the borders closed, something he likely want to avoid doing because such a step would not only infuriate many Russians but undercut his own narrative about the limited nature of combat in Ukraine. 

Moscow Must End Offshore-ization of Russian Economy Now, Katasonov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – For more than a decade, Vladimir Putin has called for an end to the offshore-ization of the Russian economy, the practice whereby Russian owners of physical property in Russia register them abroad to evade taxes, but Moscow has done ensure that happens, Valentin Katasonov says.

            As a result, capital flight has continued, the Moscow commentator points out; but that is not the worst aspect of this situation. Because most Russian assets abroad take this form and are registered in offshore jurisdictions, Western governments have significant leverage over the Russian economy (fondsk.ru/news/2023/01/02/prokljate-ofshorov-i-strannosti-sankcionnoj-vojny-58120.html).

            In fact, there has been a conjunction of interests that have kept these arrangements alive despite sanctions, Katasonov says. On the one hand, wealthy Russians  are pleased to be able to avoid Russian taxes and protect their wealth. And on the other, Western governments are only too happy to have Russians put themselves in a position where the West can influence them.

            But the time has come to change these arrangements, the commentator continues. The Russian state budget is running a deficit, capital flight is continuing, and the West is showing itself ever more prepared to use all the levers it has against Russia. Ending offshore arrangements by Russian owners has to become a priority, he says.

            Doing so would not be difficult “from a technical point of view.” Russian owners would have to re-register their assets in Russia; and if they failed to do so within a month, then their holdings would be nationalized and their wealth as recorded in assets now held in foreign offshore accounts would disappear.

            The bigger question is political: can the Putin regime take a step that would alienate many of its wealthy supporters? That may have stayed its hand in the past, Katasonov suggests; but circumstances have changed; and now the Kremlin must act not only to balance the budget but to ensure Russian sovereignty.

Putin Using Patriotism the Way Other Authoritarian Leaders with Falling Ratings Do, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – Vladimir Putin may be unusual in many ways, but his use of patriotism is typical of all authoritarian leaders e who, if they want to remain in power at a time of falling ratings, have concluded that they have little choice but to gin up a kind of patriotism they can use to justify repression, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            In such regimes, the former Putin speechwriter and current commentator says, patriotism become “an instrument for the formation and promotion of a foreign enemy which then is used as a pretext for the tightening of screws with regard to domestic critics” (publizist.ru/blogs/112974/44807/-).

            An authoritarian regime which doesn’t do this won’t long survive because only by declaring “the opposition a collection of traitors and foreign agents” can it repress them. And if it doesn’t do that, it will have to face them in upcoming elections and may lose out to them, Gallyamov says.

            Like to many others, the commentat continues, Putin has done so not because of some innate disposition but rather because, at a time of falling ratings, he like them has made “a cynical choice to hold onto power “by declaring himself the only patriot and all of his critics enemies of the Fatherland.”

            In fact, of course, what Putin is promoting is “not patriotism at all.” Genuine patriotism is about a willingness to sacrifice and must less about instrumental goals. “A real patriot is one who as a result of service to the Fatherland loses something and not he who thanks to his ‘patriotism’ has power, money, palaces, servants and other pleasures.”