Soviet Treatment of Emigres who Returned Makes Moscow’s Task of Attracting ‘Relocators’ Extremely Hard, Pavlova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – Few who have seen the brilliant 1999 film, “East/West,” starring Catherine Deneuve, will ever forget the scene in which some Russians who have returned to the USSR after World War II are shot on the docks after being brought to their homeland on a Soviet passenger liner where they were wined and dined and others are treated as prisoners.

            That scene tragically is all too typical of the way the Soviets treated many emigres who did return; and memory of that continues to cast a dark shadow on discussions about what Moscow should do to attract back to the Russian Federation those who have chosen to “relocate” abroad because of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

             But because the exodus of many IT professionals now just like the exodus of educated professionals a century ago is harming the Russian economy, some in Moscow today are thinking about what they can do to bring people back and recalling the selective approach of the Soviets in 1923 (newizv.ru/news/2023-01-30/sharashka-dlya-vozvraschentsev-chto-pokazyvaet-reemigrantam-istoricheskiy-opyt-sssr-395451).

            According to Viktoriya Pavlova, a journalist for Novyye izvestiya, the Russian authorities recognize that they won’t get many takers by offering high salaries or special benefits, not only because they can’t compete with the West or the memories of those who left about what happened earlier but also because Russians who never left would be outraged.

            That latter factor, she says, is encouraging some in the Russian capital to think about reviving another Soviet practice, the special working facilities within prisons known as sharashkas and described in devastating detail in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s classic novel, The First Circle.

            The very fact that that is being discussed is certain to make it even more difficult to attract back the so-called “relocators” unless and until Moscow’s policies in Ukraine and elsewhere change fundamentally, something that doesn’t seem likely to happen as long as Putin is in the Kremlin. 

Circassian Diaspora Counters FSB Penetration Efforts by Setting Up New National Organization

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – As in tsarist and Soviet times, the secret services of the Russian Federation have devoted enormous efforts to penetrate and disorder when they can’t control émigré and diaspora organizations. Among the chief targets of this effort have been groups linking the Circassian diaspora to their co-nationals in the North Caucasus.

            Some Circassians have sought to distance themselves from these latest Russian attempts by ending their involvement in Circassian activities, an understandable but collateral benefit. Others have tried with mixed success to fight the FSB puppets within groups Moscow has penetrated. And still others have formed new organizations free at least now of such influence.

            The latest is The Council of United Circassia (united-circassia.org/basin/announcement-jan30-2023). In addition to the traditional tasks of Circassian groups such as gaining international recognition of the 1864 genocide and support for the restoration of a Circassian state, the new Council is seeking to counter Moscow’s use of Circassians in its war in Ukraine.

            In its founding message, the Council says that Circassians must not be deceived by Moscow’s arguments concerning Ukraine but instead refuse to fight in yet another Russian colonial war rather than becoming part of the mounting list of Circassians who have died over the last year in Ukraine.

            It also pledges to unmask Russian efforts to penetrate Circassian organizations and to suppress the rights and freedoms of the Circassian people. Moscow will certainly counter this move by seeking to penetrate the Council as well, adding yet another chapter to the fight between the diaspora and the Kremlin.

Russia Can’t Liberalize and Therefore Must be Dissolved, Amnuel Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – Each new generation needs to learn from the past and nowhere is that the case more so than concerning what happens when a repressive era ends and some try to promote liberalization, Grigory Amnuel says. And what happened after 1991 shows that liberalization won’t happen in any Russian Federation and that that entity must be dissolved.

            According to the Russian filmmaker, politician and commentator, it is long past time to give up illusions that a new outcome can be achieved by doing the same thing as 30 years ago or to believe that what happened after 1991 won’t simply be replicated unless far more of the country goes its own way (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63D668BA4590F).

            Not all the parts will leave, and not all of them will make progress. But at least some will have the chance to do so; and at the very least, Amnuel says, such a development will undercut the power of those who now control nuclear weapons and the military forces capable of invading neighboring countries.

            Beginning with Chechnya and ending with Tatarstan, the current RF government has done everything possible to prevent any part of the country from leaving and has managed to convince a large number of Russians that if any part does go, then all their ill-gotten gains will  somehow disappear.

            In fact, it is the holding of the country together on that basis that prevents the rise of freedom; and consequently, it is absolutely necessary, Amnuel says, to declare that “ALL REGIONS” -- both national republics and predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays -- have “the constitutional right” to secede from the Russian Federation.

            Not all of them will exercise that right, he continues; but such a declaration will have a positive effect, leading elites in these various places to conclude that they will be better off in control of their own territories than they are as vassals of Moscow and at least some will promote freedom to win support of their own people and the international community.

            Some will object to this idea and argue that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the wrong hands and civil wars will begin if they “fall into the hands of adventurers.” Perhaps that will happen, but it is already the case that these things are “in the wrong hands” and that an aggressive nationalism is flourishing in the RF.

            The past teaches that there are dangers in taking this step but there are even more dangers in making the assumption that a single multi-national country ruled from Moscow is going to liberalize. That won’t happen. Instead, if the country is held together, there will be a repetition not of the rise of freedom but of authoritarianism and aggression.

            It is long past time to dispense with the dangerous illusions that some Russia of the future will be different.

 

Russia on Course to Lose Its War in Ukraine, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – A year ago, few could imagine that if Russia invaded Ukraine, it would leave with anything less than a military victory although even then some did point out that such a victory would be Pyrrhic because Moscow would find itself incapable of integrating its conquest under the rule of the Kremlin.

            But now ever more people in Ukraine, in the West, and in Russia itself are talking about the possibility that Russia can lose the war and discussing what Moscow needs to do to prevent that defeat from having even more serious consequences for the country. The latest to do so is  Sergey Shelin (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/234996).

            The Russian commentator says that he made what for him is “an unexpected discovery: the Russian Federation really has a serious chance of losing this war and thus being thrown back to its historical borders.”

            “Until now,” Shelin says, he had thought that Ukraine was “struggling to fight on an equal footing and that only with luck would it be able to attack in any serious way.” But now, keeping things equal in that sense is at best the most the Russian Federation can even hope to aspire to.

            He writes: “I was preparing an article about the material side of the war, about the war as a struggle between two military economic machines. It is not yet ready and will not be published very soon. But here's what I see in the entire set of numbers - at the level of these machines, the Russian Federation simply has no trump cards.”

            Putin hasn’t spent more than the opposite side has and thus does not have an army better than the Ukrainian one. Instead, it is worse quantitatively as well as qualitatively. And given Ukraine’s allies, if the Kremlin leader were to double his spending on the military, the other side could easily counter.

            As a result, Shelin says, Moscow does not now have and can’t achieve “the strategic advantage needed for an offensive war.” It has enough for a defensive one but not the other and so will be forced gradually or even quickly to retreat from what it now holds given the existing balance of forces.

            For there to be any other outcome, he continues, Moscow will need a stroke of luck or a radical change in Ukraine itself or in its allies. And those who talk about a nuclear strike need to remember that such a move “will not go unanswered.” In this situation, the Kremlin should be suing for peace rather than acting as if it can win in the end.

Except when Ordered to Do Otherwise, Russia’s Police Seek to Avoid Getting Actively Involved in Society, Titayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – Russia is sometimes thought to be a police state, Kirill Titayev says; but in fact, it is so in part. When the powers that be give orders to crack down on this or that group, the police react; but otherwise, they try to feather their nests by improving their statistics and their incomes and avoiding getting actively involved with society.

            The Russian sociologist of law who is currently a visiting scholar at Cornell’s Law School says that the average Russian comes into contact with the police only once every twelve years, that about half of all crimes the police solve are crimes without victims, and that the number of crimes reported to the police is far lower than in other countries.

            Instead of enforcing the law, Titayev says, the police enforce whatever orders they receive from above and in ways that impose the least burden on themselves and allow them to enrich themselves and continue to act as they currently do (reforum.io/blog/2023/01/27/pojmat-signal-zapolnit-bumagi-kak-ustroena-rossijskaya-policziya/).

            He points out that most repressive actions in Russia have been transferred from the police to special forces of various kinds and that the police system in Russia is not well-prepared to engage in mass repressions. It will respond, of course, but only with simulacra of actually doing something and lustrations to try to show those above that it is following orders.

            If this system is to be changed, Titayev says, then the police will have to be fundamentally restructured. Just engaging in lustration when the police violate norms won’t be enough because the police which have continued to act as they did earlier will only continue to do so in the future.

Russia Must Revive Siberian River Diversion Plan to Keep Central Asian Countries in Its Orbit, Hydrologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – Water shortages in Central Asia caused by rapid population growth and already provoking conflicts among the countries of that region are about to get much worse because of plans in Afghanistan to divert waters from the Amu-Darya basin for its own use, according to Andrey Zakhvatov, a hydrologist who specializes on Tajikstan.

            That means that water wars in Central Asia are likely to intensify and that Russia may simultaneously be drawn into them and lose influence in the region as the countries seek not a common approach but arms and support from outside powers so that each can gain the water it needs (ng.ru/dipkurer/2023-01-29/11_8646_water.html).

            There is a solution that will not only offer Central Asia the chance to develop without water wars and Russia the chance to cement its influence in the region: Siberian river division, a plan talked about for more than a century but rejected by Moscow during the reign of Mikhail Gorbachev, Zakhvatov says.

            Central Asia’s water problems could be “completely eliminated by a transfer of part of the Ob River’s flow to Kazakhstan and Central Asia,” he says. Not only would it revive the Aral Sea and address the needs of consumers and industry in the region, but it would importantly “forever ‘tie’” the Central Asian countries to Russia.

            Unfortunately, Zakhvatov says, there seems to be little interest in doing so at present. Central Asians aren’t focused on the possibility and Moscow is busy with “other things.” What that means is that water wars in the region are increasingly likely and the decline in Russian influence there is ever more certain.

 

Lukashenka Expects to Benefit Regardless of Whether Putin Wins or Loses in Ukraine, Galko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 31 – Most analysts see Alyaksandr Lukashenka as playing a defensive game to survive politically as head of Belarus, Dmitry Galko says; but the Minsk dictator has never given up on his grander plans from the 1990s to become head of a pan-Slavic state and now expects to gain regardless of whether Putin wins or loses in Ukraine.

            The Belarusian journalist who has been living in Ukraine since 2018 says that it is a mistake to view the relationship of Putin and Lukashenka only as a game in which the Russian leader is using a combination of carrots and sticks and the Belarusian one is parrying each offer to survive and gain more for himself (graniru.org/opinion/m.287163.html).

            That is certainly part of what is going on given the power imbalance between Russia and Belarus, but it is far from the whole story. Lukashenka has a broader agenda which includes a vision of himself as the future head of a Slavic state, a vision that he promoted in the past and that at least some Russian authoritarians would support the realization of.

            Long before Putin entered the Kremlin, Galko points out, “Lukashenka was a player in Russian politics.” And he saw himself in precisely that way: in 1996, for example, he described Belarus as “a stepping stone” to something large; and he was “the most popular politician” among those like Aleksandr Dugin who have seek power and revenge.

            For the last two decades, Lukashenka has had to keep this dream more or less quiet, but the war in Ukraine has given him an opening, one he has been quick to seize upon. In July 202, for example, he openly stated that he has promoted the idea of a common Slavic state long before there was talk of a Russian world.

            That position and the support it gives Lukashenka in Moscow helps to explain why he has been able to resist Putin and simultaneously get ever more resources out of him, Galko says. It also is why the Minsk leader has refused to join Russia in invading Ukraine.

            That gives Lukashenka the opportunity to come out a winner regardless of what happens to Putin there. If Putin succeeds, Lukashenka can lead in the integration of Ukraine into the Slavic world; if the Russian leader doesn’t, Lukashenka doesn’t suffer anything and may even gain. 

              Like Yeltsin before him, Putin is going to do all he can to ensure that Lukashenka doesn’t achieve his goal of becoming the ruler in the Kremlin; but also like Yeltsin, he has to defer to Lukashenka for domestic as well as foreign policy reasons.

            Assuming that what is going on in relations between Moscow and Minsk is all about pressure and resistance is to misunderstand the situation, Galko argues. Lukashenka has more cards to play than many assume; and in this case, Putin has fewer.