Russians Believe Their Country Needs a Strong State More than an Open Political System, Busygina and Filippov Argue, and Putin Relies on That

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 11 – Many assume that Putin remains strong because of repression and fear, Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov say; but in fact, it is because he relies on the widespread belief among his countrymen that Russia can be successful if and only if the state is insulated from the buffeting of a competitive political system.

            The Kremlin leader’s “regime does not merely suppress alternatives: it offers its own distinct political formula for the country, one that is internally consistent, historically recognizable and institutionally codified. At its core is the idea of the need for a strong state” (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/04/11/gosudarstvo-vmesto-politiki).

            Because of the need for such a state, the two Russian analysts who now teach in the US, most Russians follow Putin and believe that “open competition for power must be expunged from public life. Politics is permitted only in forms that are controlled—and, for the regime, safe.”

            For that reason, Busygina and Filippova argue that “Putinism frames depoliticization not as a restriction on normal life, but as its very precondition. This concept was not imposed from above; rather, it rests upon a genuine and broad consensus that took shape within Russian politics as early as the 1990s.”

“In various guises,” they continue, “this consensus was shared by democrats, federalists, nationalists, and communists alike. While they harbored profound disagreements on nearly every other issue, they concurred on one point: Russia requires a strong state. It is upon this very foundation that Putinism has constructed its political hegemony.”

The Putin regime delivers “a level of macroeconomic stability, administrative competence, and targeted social support adequate to ensure that the majority does not view democratization as a necessary price to pay for improving their lives” that the Kremlin feels no compulsion to promise freedom.

Instead, the two write, the Putinist state “promises a ‘managed normality’—and, moreover, a ‘modern’ normality: a market economy without political competition, technocracy without accountability, and limited openness to the world without political pluralism.” That is why this state is so hard to change and why the war in Ukraine has made it more not less so.

For a successful challenge, “simply calling for freedom of speech, fair elections or a reduction in arbitrary rule is not enough.” Instead, those making it must “answer a more complicated question: how can a strong Russia be built without a ruling elite that is insulated from political competition and accountability?”

According to Busygina and Fillipova, “the Russian opposition lacks a coherent answer to this question and, as a result, the system is resilient,” with most of the elite and much of the population believing that “even a limited liberalization ‘within’ the regime appears to be too dangerous.” Until that changes, the Russian regime isn’t going to change, even after Putin.

A Measure of Moscow’s Desperation: People Visiting AIDS Centers in Karelia Urged to Join Russian Army

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – Even though the Russian defense ministry prohibits those with HIV or hepatitis from serving in the military, recruiters in Karelia are now circulating appeals to those visiting HIV/AIDS centers in Karelia to join up with promises that they will get substantial bonuses, debt relief and consideration even if they have criminal records.

            The ban can be found at publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202601300038; the report about this recruitment effort in Karelia is at ru.thebarentsobserver.com/v-centre-spid-razmestili-reklamu-kontraktov-dla-ludej-s-vic-i-gepatitom/448477; and background on such efforts elsewhere at t.me/istories_media/10317.

            The Russian military has avoided recruiting those with such illnesses in the past not only because such soldiers would likely require more medical attention but also because knowledge by the Russian population that the military was allowing those with HIV/AIDS  to serve would likely discourage others from signing up.

            Hence, this recruitment effort, which explicitly says that “recruitment is [now] open for people with HIV and HEPATITIS,” strongly suggests that the Russian military is having increasing difficulty filling its depleted ranks in Ukraine and has apparently has been directed to take in even those with serious and highly communicable illnesses.

            Not surprisingly, this effort so far appears confined to places far from Moscow where coverage is less likely to reach a broader audience. For that reason, The Barents Observer is to be commended for reporting in detail on this latest action by the Moscow authorities. Its report should be picked up and disseminated by others. 

Majority of Treason Cases in Russia Result of Provocations by FSB or Other Intelligence Agencies, ‘First Department’ Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 11 – Before Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, treason charges and convictions in the Russian Federation were relatively rare, Yevgeny Smirnov of the judicial rights group First Department says; but since then more than 700 Russians have been convicted, most as the result of provocations by the security services.

            “Russian intelligence officers incite people to commit acts for which the latter are subsequently imprisoned,” he says; and these officers, especially outside the major cities, don’t even hide that this is what they are doing (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/04/11/bolshinstvo-del-po-gosizmene-seichas-eto-rezultat-provokatsii).

            In fact, Smirnov says, outside of Moscow or St. Petersburg where intelligence officers are more sophisticated and careful, those working with fields “actually document within the case files that cases brought to court were in fact preceded by what they refer to as ‘an operational experiment.’”

            “During the course of surveillance,” he continues, the case file says that an intelligence officer “showed an inclination to support a hostile ideology” and that led the intelligence agency to “conduct an operational experiment during which the person in question agreed to carry out a task directed against the security of the Russian Federation.”

            Just how this works, Smirnov says, is shown by the case of Ivan Tolpygin, an Oryol resident convicted of treason in 2024 and sentenced to four years in the camps. The entire case was “based on the claim that Tolpygin had ‘established and maintained contact” with an unnamed ‘representative of Ukraine.’

            In fact, Smirnov says, “no such ‘representative of Ukraine’ existed,” and the court verdict even specifies that Tolpygin was “corresponding with a certain intelligence officer who was ‘acting within the framework of an investigative operation, that is, ‘an operational experiment,’ being carried out by officers of the FSB.”

 

Since 2022, Russian Authorities have Forced Removal of At Least 600 Books from Stores, ‘The Insider’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Prior to Putin’s launch of his expanded war in Ukraine, the Russian government rarely sought to remove books from the shelves of booksellers; but since that time, it has forced sellers to remove “at least” 600 books with the number of bans peaking in 2024 but again on the rise, according to Vlad Gagin of The Insider portal.

            In addition, he reports that more than 50 Russian writers have been declared “foreign agents,” that numerous publishers and bookdealers have been charged with administrative or criminal violations for books containing materials about LGBT+ subjects or drug use and that the siloviki have raided shops looking for “satanic” literature (theins.ru/obshestvo/291184).

            Publishers sometimes publish books that they feel have such minimal amounts of materials the authorities find objectionable rather than cave immediately. Sometimes that strategy works, Gagin says; but sometimes the books are confiscated and the publishers are fined.

            Large publishers are in a better position to pay fines and thus may take risks, but smaller houses are increasingly unwilling to take risks and therefore far quicker to reject for publication manuscripts that they fear may get them into trouble. That makes it difficult to predict what will be published by at least someone, a difficulty exacerbated by the confusion of court findings.

            The situation is further complicated, Gagin continues, by the rise of a new generation of samizdat publishers who use printers at home; but so far, the number of copies and the kind of books disseminated in this way remains small. A far bigger impact is had by tamizdat, Russian-language books published abroad and then brought into Russia one way or another.

Moscow’s Declaration of Ichkeria a ‘Terrorist Organization’ Reflects Its Continuing Importance and Likely Presages New Russian Moves Against Those who Support It

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – Grozny has declared Ichkeria, the name Chechens seeking independence used in the 1990s for their country and one that those opposed to Russia and the Kadyrov regime in Chechnya still use, an action that reflects its continuing importance and likely presages new Moscow moves against those who support it, rights activists say.

            On the one hand, this decision represents a change in Russian and Chechen propaganda which has consistently declared Ichkeria to have been destroyed in the second post-Soviet Chechen war, an action that highlights the continuing importance of the Ichkeria movement, including in the formation of units fighting alongside Ukrainian forces against Russia.

            But on the other hand, it formalizes what has been an increasing Russian and Chechen effort to attack those who identify with Ichkeria and their relatives not only inside Chechnya but internationally (kavkazr.com/a/otritsali-i-priznali-pochemu-ichkeriyu-obavili-v-rossii-terroristicheskoy/33728400.html).

            Now, human rights activists in the North Caucasus say, such attacks are likely to increase in number and intensity, actions that show just how worried Moscow and Grozny now are about the continuing impact of Ichkeria as a movement among Chechens and how willing they are to violate both Russian and international law in pursuing that movement and its supporters.

Post-Soviet States Engaged in Building Nation States Not in Ethnic Nation Building, Iskandaryan Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Aleksandr Iskandaryan, who has lived in the Republic of Armenia since 2002 and now heads that country’s Institute of the Caucasus, says that Armenia like the other post-Soviet countries is engaged in the process of building a nation state rather than in forming an ethnic nation.

            Those are two very different things, he points out. The first involves creating a set of institutions and ideas about the relationship of the state to its population while the latter is all about defining an ethnic nation, two processes that may occur together but must not be confused (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/04/10/natsiia-stroisia).

            The former is better captured by the English words “nation sate, a government of citizens” than in Russian where “in the word ‘nation’ is the component of ‘an ethnic state,’” something that is incorrect. For example, ‘the construction of a nation state is translated as state construction and not nation building.”

            “Before modern times,” the Armenian scholar says, the normal state was an empire; but the residents of an empire did not have the identity which they have now. Individuals defined themselves by religion or sometimes subject status, that is by saying who was their tsar or their hehshah.”

            Iskandaryan says that he doesn’t think that the Chechen national project has failed because “ever more of them consider themselves to be a nation in the contemporary sense of this word” and act accordingly in ways that are very different from other parts of the Russian Federation. “I would call Chechnya a proto-state.”

            Elsewhere in Russia processes are taking place “like those we saw in the Soviet Union earlier,” he continues. “The present day North Caucasus as regards the birth of nationalist ideologies is similar to the South Caucasus of the 1970s and 1980s. We see the same processes in Tatarstan and Sakha.”

            “But this doesn’t necessarily mean,” Iskandaryan concludes, that this process will be rapid or lead in only one direction. After all, “we have seen Scottish nationalism for 700 years;” and it is not yet an independent country.

Unlike in Soviet Times, Siberian River Diversion Now ‘More a Political Slogan than a Scientifically Grounded Project,’ Puzanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – Before the Soviet government in 1986 rejected the idea of diverting the water of Siberian rivers to Central Asia, Aleksandr Puzanov says, Moscow established a network of scholarly centers to examine the question given its extraordinarily complex and unprecedented nature.

            But today, the deputy director of the Institute of Water and Ecological Problesm of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences says, the whole issue is “more a political slogan than a scientifically sound project” and “no one has calculated the problems that will arise” if it is undertaken (vfokuse.mail.ru/articles/69615546-ekspert-pochemu-ideya-razvorota-sibirskih-rek-na-yug-nuzhdaetsya-v-glubokoj-prorabotke/).

            In Soviet times, he says, experts calculated exactly how much electricity would have to be generated to raise the waters from Siberian rivers to a height where they could flow to Central Asia, how much would be lost in transit, and what would be the impact on Siberia and the Arctic Ocean by removing so much water from the region.

            Now, however, many are again talking about diverting water southward;  but they are doing so almost in every case without any new research because there simply aren’t enough expert centers to conduct it. Consequently, the issue has been reduced to one of political choice rather than expert judgment.

            Puzanov’s words, of course,  apply with almost equal force to almost all of the major projects involving transfer of resources from one region to another, projects that the Kremlin leader and others appear to believe are simply the occasion for a display of political will rather than scholarly attention.