Fuel Shortage First Soviet-Style Deficit in Post-Soviet Russia, ‘Agents’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 3 – Since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has faced a variety of deficits; but “never in post-Soviet history has this led to a situation in which the entire country has faced what is has in the last two weeks,” the Agents portal says, the return of a deficit in Soviet form “with coupons, hours’ long queues, privileges for elites, and attacks on dealers.”

            Consequently, this crisis reminds Russians not only of what they overcame when the USSR disappeared but also of what the Putin regime with its war in Ukraine has brought back (agents.media/toplivnyj-krizis-vernul-v-rossiyu-defitsit-v-tom-vide-kak-on-byl-v-sssr-s-ocheredyami-talonami-spetspajkami-i-presledovaniem-perekupshhikov/).

            Those two factors alone make the current crisis more serious and likely more consequential than any Russians have suffered since the last days of the Soviet Union; and because of that, the current deficits in fuel are likely to have political consequences however much the Putin regime tries to defend itself against. 

North Caucasus Republics Divide on Abortion, with One Showing Decline and Three Increases in 2025

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 3 – Moscow is celebrating a decline in the number of abortions between 2024 and 2025, the result of a government campaign to cause women to have more children, but new statistics about the situation in the country as a whole show that in some places the number of abortions actually rose while in others it increased significantly.

            This diversity in outcomes is especially clear in the case of the republics of the North Caucasus, a region which is often treated as far more homogenous in terms of demographic development than it is (nemoskva.net/2026/07/03/minzdrav-chislo-abortov-v-rossii-snizilos-na-5-v-2025-godu/ and fortanga.org/2026/07/ingushetiya-i-respubliki-severnogo-kavkaza-lidiruyut-po-rostu-chisla-abortov-v-rf-minzdrav/).

            There, one republic, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, showed the largest decline in the number of abortions between 2024 and 2025 with the total falling 49.6 percent, while three others, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan were among those showing the largest increases in this metric.

            In North Ossetia, in contrast, the number of abortions increased by 14.6 percent; in Ingushetia, by nine percent; in Kabardino-Balkaria by five percent; and in Dagestan, by 2.0 percent.

            The decline in KChR likely reflects outright falsification of the data given that republic’s history of changing its reporting in order to make it appear more in line with what Moscow wants. The increases in the other, on the other hand, almost certainly reflects the increases in the number of women in prime childbearing cohorts, given higher birthrates there earlier. 

By Shifting Responsibilities to Regions, Moscow Undermining Putin Vertical, Dukenbayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 2 – After spending the first two decades centralizing power, Vladimir Putin in response to recent crises has shifted many responsibilities onto the leaders of Russia’s federal subjects, something that is gradually turning them from administrative executors into subjects who are forced to act independently,” Aska Dukenbayev says.

            Up to now, the Kazakh political analyst who now lives in the US says, “we are not talking about separatism or political autonomy but rather, in the context of a growing number of crises, ‘the federal center’ is increasingly unable to respond simultaneously and quickly to a wide range of problems” and the regions are responding (region.expert/vertical-crisis/).

            What is happening, Dukenbayev says, is that in response first to the covid pandemic and now more dramatically to recruitment for the war in Ukraine, “responsibility and practical management are increasingly shifting to the regional level, where the authorities are forced to act in direct contact with the population and local challenges.”

            As a result, he continues, “in these conditions, it is regional and local authorities that find themselves between the demands of the Moscow center and the rapidly changing situation on the ground, becoming a kind of political shock absorber between the Moscow leadership and the population.”

            Not surprisingly, “the political consequences of the military and economic crisis are beginning to appear. In some regions, politicians and public figures appear, which allow themselves more openly criticism of certain aspects of state policies and mechanisms of centralized decision-making.”

            The Putin system operates on the basis of “the assumption that regional elites should remain primarily loyal executors” of central policy; but “crises are gradually changing the very nature of their functioning,” with ever more problems having to be solved locally and regionally” and with leaders increasingly viewing themselves as participants in this process.

            Indeed, Dukenbayev concludes, “when a region is forced to constantly solve problems on its own, it gradually begins to view itself in a new way, thus creating a paradox in which a system that strengthened the power vertical for decades is creating opportunities for the emergence of new centers of decision making.”

Putin Puts Security Council Instead of Culture Ministry in Charge of Peoples of Russia Festival

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 3 – Russia’s security services have always played an outsized role in the management of international festivals Moscow has organized to promote its agenda especially if foreigners are to be among the attendees, but this role has typically been behind the scenes with that country’s cultural minister in nominal overall charge.

            Now, however, Putin is dispensing with that cover and has openly declared that the Russian Security Council and its apparatus will be in charge of what is slated to be the annual Week of the Peoples of Russia which will include both large numbers of non-Russians from within the country and abroad (indigenous-russia.com/archives/48174).

            In making this announcement, the Kremlin leader makes no reference at all to any role for the culture ministry, the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, or other parts of the Russian government bureaucracy which are usually listed at the organizers and funders of such activities.

            The Indigenous Russia portal says that this shift not only emphasizes the increasing tendency of the Kremlin to view ethnic relations exclusively as an issue of national security but also the growing role of the Russian Security Council and its staff in overseeing and managing these relations.

            What that suggests is that the staff of the Russian Security Council is increasingly playing the role that the staffs of the departments of the CPSU Central Committee did in Soviet times and that its activities should attract more attention than it has up to now. (For key staffers, see the list at en.special.kremlin.ru/structure/administration/members.)

Militarization of Russia’s Northwest May Make It a Flashpoint for Crime and Violence as Veterans of Putin’s War Return Home, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 2 – The rapid militarization of Murmansk and Karelia with Moscow on the way to increasing its military presence there from 30,000 to as many as 100,000 troops, combined with the return of veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine and high rates of alcohol consumption may make it a flashpoint for violence, Horizontal Russia says.

            That is because, the portal which covers Russia outside of Moscow says, the share of military personnel with combat experience in Ukraine will be far higher than elsewhere, combined with PTSD and alcohol consumption will likely mean that any violence by returning veterans will be exacerbated (semnasem.org/articles/2026/07/02/sever-pod-pricelom).

            This report calls attention to a development that may prove far more important than most imagine: While most men returning from service in Ukraine will be separated, others will continue to serve in the military; and the latter will change the way in which security forces and the population interact as well.

            That is because those who remain in uniform may also suffer from PTSD as well and thus are more likely to engage in violence if they are used to suppress violence by those who are separated from the service, thus setting the stage for an escalation of crime and violence in places where the military is concentrated.

            That includes in the first instance the Russian northeast where Putin has been building up forces ostensibly because Finland and Sweden have joined NATO but in fact in order to put pressure on all the countries in that region, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and possibly engage in provocations or an invasion of them. 

Central Asian Countries Must Focus on Modernizing Infrastructure to Address Growing Water Crisis, Kazakh Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 2 – Central Asian countries can do little on their own to combat the impact of climate change on the availability of water and cannot get more water from each other or their neighbors all of whom are suffering from shortages and so must focus their efforts on modernizing pipeline and irrigation infrastructure, Azamat Kausov says.

            A specialist on water issues at Kazakhstan’s Regional Environmental Center for Central Asia, he says that this will be enormously expensive but is absolutely necessary to avert a crisis that will otherwise become a humanitarian disaster and a threat to national security (time.kz/articles/territory/2026/07/02/nado-lezt-v-butylku).

            Up to now, Kausov says, the countries of Central Asia have sought to blame climate change because that is beyond their ability to change or to engage in constant negotiations on the sharing of water from one to another. But now the situation has deteriorated to the point that neither strategy will work.

            Instead, they must modernize their national pipeline and irrigation systems, many of which date to Soviet times, so that their countries That will be expensive; and it means that the cost of water will have to rise as well as regulation of how water is used not only in agriculture and industry but by the population.

            Right now, he continues, some in these countries are opposing such steps on populist grounds and because the melting of glaciers means that water flows have increased in some places in recent years. But those increases are temporary. When the glaciers disappear, the flows of the rivers they feed will collapse and do so suddenly.

            If Central Asia is not to avoid such disasters, its governments and peoples must face up both to the problems in the water supply and their own need to invest in projects to solve those problems before they get worse. If they don’t, the disasters ahead will spring on them in ways that they are unlikely to be able to cope with.  

Gas Crisis in Russia Triggering Beginnings of a ‘New Parade of Sovereignties’ There, Kazakh Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 4 – Voronezh Oblast is restricting the sale of gasoline in large containers to prevent its export to other regions, Kazakhstan’s Altyn Orda portal says, a sign that Russia’s regions “are beginning to defend their resources from each other” and one that may lead to an updated version of “the parade of sovereignties” which weakened Russia decades ago.

            “As long as there were enough resources,” the portal continues, “the regions can and do live within a common system; but when there is a threat of a shortage, everyone begins to ask a simple question: why should we give up our own to others if tomorrow there may not be enough left for us?” (altyn-orda.kz/novyj-parad-suverenitetov-nachinaetsya-s-benzina/).

            Limiting the sale of gasoline in large quantities can lead to limiting the sale of all kinds of other things that may be in short supply; and “that ishow an economic crisis gradually turns into a political one” and thus recalls what happened at the end of Soviet times and the beginning of post-Soviet ones in Russia.

            Forty years ago, Altyn Orda points out, “the parade of sovereignties began not with the one-time collapse of a huge country. At first, the republics and autonomy began to speak of the priority of their laws, their resources and their interests with each wanting to dispose of what was on its territory.”

            But as that pattern spread, what “at first looked like a struggle for economic rights gradually became a political distancing from the center” and thus marked “the beginning of the end of the Soviet vertical” and a threat to the Russian successor state that Putin has worked so hard to reverse.

            Voronezh Oblast has “not declared sovereignty,” of course; but its actions point to something that must be of concern to Moscow, the desire of each region, at a time of economic crisis to “keep what resources it has for itself.” Today, this resource is gasoline; tomorrow, it may be many others.

            Consequently, what is happening in Voronezh is “not necessarily the disintegration of the state; but it is how the loss of trust in a single system begins,” something that Putin and others in the Kremlin certainly have not forgotten and that they will necessarily see as a dangerous development they must counter before it is too late.