Ulan-Ude’s Promise to Increase Use of Buryat in Republic Schools Welcomed But Sparking Questions on Why It Appears to Be Bucking Russia-Wide Trend

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 12 – At the end of last month, the Buryat education ministry announced that it would shift a quarter of the republic’s schools to Buryat as the language of instruction beginning in 2026. Many activists welcomed the promise, but others questioned whether Ulan-Ude would really do it or was only saying this to calm nationalist and separatist voices.
    Given the Putin regime’s Russianization of public education especially since 2017, many activists in Buryatia and in other non-Russian republics welcomed this exception and even said it showed that republic leaders had far greater freedom of action in this area if they had the will (idelreal.org/a/sto-nachalnyh-shkol-v-buryatii-hotyat-perevesti-na-buryatskiy-yazyk-obucheniya-chto-ob-etom-dumayut-eksperty-i-natsionalnye-aktivisty-/33192054.html).
    But far more expressed skepticism. Many said that Ulan-Ude would never in fact take this step but only promise it, something that in the short term would help the republic government fight nationalist and separatist attitudes and boost the standing of republic head Aleksey Tsydenov.
    Others said it would likely be only a bookkeeping measure given that approximately a quarter of all republic schools are in rural areas where Buryat remains strong but would not touch the major cities where Russian in schools and everyday life is increasingly dominant and Buryat marginalized.
    And some said that for Moscow it hardly mattered which language Buryat children were taught to become fighters for the empire given that they are now cannon fodder for the Kremlin in Putin’s war in Ukraine. If this feint toward the national language helps with recruitment, then it is all to the Kremlin’s good, not the good of the Buryat people.
    But one Russian specialist Vlada Baranova who resigned from the Higher School of Economics in 2022 hopes Buryatia will carry this promise out and that this will inspire others. The possibilities for that are real because under existing law, heads of republics have more room for maneuver in this area than many think. If they don’t act, it is only a question of will.
    “It is difficult to say what was behind the decision to increase the presence of Buryat in the educational system,” the author of Language Policy without Politicians (in Russian; Moscow: 2023) says. “Perhaps it is a PR campaign to improve the standing of an unpopular leader. But if it is implemented, that would be wonderful.”

Western Sanctions haven’t Undermined Putin’s Ability to Wage War Now and Made It More Likely Moscow will Do So in the Future, New Book Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 12 – Western sanctions have not undermined Putin’s ability to wage war now, Sergey Aleksashenko, Vladislav Inozemtsev and Dmitry Nekrasov argue. But they have prompted him to forego technological modernization and instead militarize the Russian economy, thereby making it more likely the Kremlin will continue to wage wars in the future.
    They make that case in a new book, Dictator’s Reliable Rear: Russian Economy at the Time of War (in English; Cyprus, 48 pp., the full text of which is available at https://case-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/case-241112-en_fin2_compressed.pdf and summarized at istories.media/opinions/2024/11/13/sumasshedshaya-rossiya-eto-nadolgo/).
    According to the three economists, Western hopes that the war and sanctions “would undermine the Russian economy and make Putin stop have dissipated.” They have put the Russian economy on track to degradation but that will affect Russian policies only long after Putin is gone. They won’t affect his approach or the new Russian militarism.
    Moreover, they say, “the Russian economy has been able to withstand the onslaught of sanctions because it remained market-oriented, the world could not refuse Russian oil, and the West could not isolate Russia on the world stage” and because the technocrats running the economy have been so competent and professional.
    “Russia’s domestic capacity to stimulate demand was clearly underestimated,” and “for the first time since the end of the 17th century, Russia has created a mercenary army with wages paid to soldiers being several times higher than the national average” and with “a boom in household incomes” generally and inflation accepted as the price of all this.
    This is not to say that sanctions haven’t mattered, the three say. But they have mattered in ways that will have an impact not now but in the longer term – and not always in ways that the West will like. Russia’s economy will fall behind the West technologically over time, but Moscow will remain militaristic and work to destroy the international economic system.
    “Over the past century,” the three write, “Western democracies have faced dictatorships twice, once the fascist regimes and then the communist ones. In the first case, the confrontation grew into a global military conflict while in the second, that was avoided by winning the economic competition.”
    But now, they conclude, “the West should not count on a repeat of the second scenario: Russia is still far below the level of military spending the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and it has a market economy,” one that allows it to act with far greater flexibility than its Soviet predecessor did.

Putin Era Like End of USSR but from the Right rather than the Left, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 13 – The Putin era, Vladimir Pastukhov says, resembles the last years of the USSR in terms of its repression but it lacks the cultural elite that within strict bounds created some remarkable things and even more important constituted the group that helped power a cultural flourishing after the Soviet Union passed from the scene.
    This difference, the London-based Russian commentator says, recalls what the heroine of the musical Chicago said: “to the right … it’s the same as to the left but without dinner.” That is, Putinism now is “the same as the USSR albeit without the cultural dinner” because Putinism is like the end of Soviet times but without that “cultural dinner” (t.me/v_pastukhov/1300 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=673448E0BB339).
In contrast with the last decades of the Soviet Union, Putin’s Russia is currently “without ‘An Ordinary Miracle,’ without ‘Garage,’ without ‘Crew’ and even without ‘Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears’ – and that is perhaps the most important thing to know and understand about the Putin era” given what it suggests about the future.
Without such a cultural background, he says, there is little reason to think that Russia will give birth to any flourishing after Putin passes from the scene. If the country shines at all, it will be “only with the reflected light of that old Soviet culture … and when that ghostly light goes out, everything will go out along with it.”

West Repeating Error of 1980s and Overrating Moscow’s Strength and Survivability, Zashev Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov.  12 – In the 1980s, Western governments and experts overrated both the strength and likely longevity of the Soviet Union, with many assuming it would survive and perhaps even prosper over at least several decades. Now, Peter Zashev says, their successors are making a similar mistake about Putin’s Russia.
    In fact, the Russian scholar now at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga says, “Putin’s Russia is weak, even very weak,” despite the bluffing Moscow has once again used with such success to convince the West otherwise (moscowtimes.ru/2024/11/12/sploshnoi-blef-i-bravada-rossiya-putina-slaba-ochen-slaba-a147419).
    Now just as at the end of Soviet times, Zashev says, many in the West are failing to see this and making miscalculations as a result. In reality, he continues, “the Putin regime has many weak points, and they are not some Achilles’ heel but rather other parts of the body politic, much larger” and therefore much for likely to kick in sooner than most expect.
    To make his point, Zashev lists four such weak points: the absence of an ideology, Putin’s inability to gain support unless he pays for it, Putin’s constant need to display his strength which in the nature of things ultimately leads to overreaching and defeat, and an economy that looks superficially strong but in fact is riven with problems.
    First of all, he argues, Putin’s Russia “simply doesn’t have an ideology. Instead, it offers a strange, unnatural and rather perverse mixture of Orthodoxy, Stalinism, anti-Americanism, militarism, Sovietism” and much else besides. What is on offer is intended to cover but in fact calls attention to the fact that “no one loves Putin unless they are paid to do so.”
    To conceal that reality, Zashev continues, Putin must constantly show himself to be powerful enough to win everything he gets involved with; but at present, he can’t even defend Kursk Oblast let alone take Kyiv, he can’t defend Russia’s airports or oil dumps and everyone can see that. He will try to create situations in which he can win, but he won’t be able to.
    The reason is the fourth weak point of the Putin system, the economy. It is just treading water now but is falling ever further behind the rest of the world in terms of innovation and modernization.  And that creates a situation in which the entire system can become unbalanced and then collapse.
    Zashev concludes: “The system appears to be working so far, but the example of the USSR should remind us how easily such a system can become unbalanced and what its suddent and rapid destruction this will lead to: – and more than that, that “the end will come much faster than we can imagine.”

Kremlin’s Ship-Building Plans Face Serious Obstacles, Zavyadov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 9 – Pushed by Vladimir Putin and Nikolay Patrushev, Russian shipyards have announced plans to build more than 1700 ships between 2025 and 2037, something that is at least possible, Dmitry Savyadov says, but will require that the Russian government and Russian yards overcome some serious obstacles.
    The specialist on manufacturing and logistics at Moscow’s Plekhanov Economic University says to achieve that goal Russian yards will have to continue to increase the number of ships they launch. In 2022, these yards launched 55; in 2023, 108; and in 2024, 110 (profile.ru/economy/sudovaya-rol-perspektivy-razvitiya-grazhdanskogo-flota-rossii-1615186/).
    But growth over the last three years, Savyadov continues, has been the result of massive infusions of government cash and has not overcome the impact of Western sanctions which mean that the electronic innards of the ships these yards are producing are far behind what Western yards are launching.
    In Soviet times, the USSR had the largest fleet in the world; but that figure has now fallen to less than half; and in the last decades of Soviet power and the first of Russian, shipbuilding in the country didn’t develop and more than two-thirds of the ships delivered to the navy and merchant marine had been built abroad.
    Much has been said, Savyardov says, about the fact that Russian yards are hemmed in because they cannot get electronics and other equipment abroad because of sanctions. But other problems, including corruption and especially the inability of Russian yards to build ships on an assembly-line basis as yards abroad do may reduce the chance they will fulfill Kremlin orders.

Russia Suffering Massive Teacher Shortage, Forcing Schools to Expand Class Size, Reintroduce Second and Even Third Shifts, and Harming Quality of Education

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 11 – Russia is suffering from an increasing shortage of teachers because of low salaries and poor working conditions, new studies find. There are now 250,000 vacancies forcing schools to expand class size, reintroduce second and even third shifts, and harming the quality of education Russian children receive.
    The studies find that these shortages are widespread with schools in three out of four of the country’s federal subjects now unable to fill all teaching positions and many reporting that teachers now employed are hoping to leave if they can find a better job (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/11/11/mne-by-prosto-vyzhit-v-etom-uchebnomu-godu).
    In 2018, Putin promised to end second and third shifts in Russia’s schools and to boost teacher salaries. Salaries have gone up slightly but not kept up with inflation, and “shifts” have been eliminated only by using other words to describe schedules that often mean children in poorer regions in the North Caucasus and the Arctic don’t get home until well after dark.
     This crisis has not received a great deal of attention but it merits more than many other issues that do because if the quality of primary and secondary education falls because of the tactics Russian schools are forced to adopt given the shortage of teachers, it will affect the quality of pupils going onto higher education and into the workforce.  

‘Step by Step, Malgin Says, Kremlin Transforming ‘Foreign Agents into Full-Fledged Enemies of the People’

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 11 – Since it introduced the concept of “foreign agent” in 2012, the Putin regime has “gradually, step by step and little by little” transformed that term from a mostly meaningless by highly offensive word and thus is making those it so designates “full-fledged enemies of the people” without the right to work or even survive, Andrey Malgin says.
    This process is near completion with the Duma set to adopt a law that will deprive those so designated of the right to receive income for creative work and possibly to take up a measure that will confiscate all their property so that the money can go to support Putin’s war in Ukraine (svoboda.org/a/lishentsy-andrey-maljgin-o-zakonah-protiv-vragov-naroda-/33196580.html).
    Had Putin done this all at once, the Radio Liberty commentator says, there might have been international outrage over how the current Kremlin leader is restoring Stalinist norms; but because he has done it bit by bit, most people have failed to recognize just how far he has gone and continues to go.