Regionalism in Russia will ‘Inevitably’ Intensify and Become More Radical the Longer Putin is in Place, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – It is “inevitable” that demands by people in Russia’s regions against Moscow will increase but how radical they become is likely to depend on how long Putin’s centralizing course remains in place, Vadim Shtepa says. The longer the Kremlin leader continues his current course, the more radical they will become.

            In an interview with the European Human Rights organization, the editor of the Tallinn-based Russian regionalist portal Region.Expert adds, however, that these movements even if they lead to independence are unlikely to lead to violent conflict among the regions (human-rights-year.com/2023/05/23/vadim-shtepa-regionalizacziya-imperii-predstavlyaetsya-mne-delom-neizbezhnym/ reposted at region.expert/regionalization-interview/).

            According to Shtepa, “the chief risk” of violence “is not in the relations among the regions. This is a scarecrows that the Kremlin is seeking to use … In fact, the majority of regions do not have anything to divide among themselves, be they Siberian oblasts or the majority of republics. All of them suffer from one and the same unitary policy” of the center.

            “Some interregional conflicts are possible only in the North Caucasus,” he continues. “There the borders were drawn very artificially. Various peoples were united in one republic such as Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia; and there are others like the Nogais who are split up into various republics.”

            “The situation there is really complicated, and I think that some border conflicts are possible. But if there are elections, these will be minimized. If in all Russian regions will be elected their own parliaments, they will not be so sharply concerned about the issue of borders.” Instead, they will be focused on ending Moscow’s dominance.

            As far as foreign involvement in this process is concerned, that is likely to be minimal, Shtepa argues. China is getting all it wants now and doesn’t need to take on the burdens of absorbing Siberia; and the West increasingly recognizes that “as long as there exists a gigantic Eurasian hyper-centralized empire, it will constantly threaten its neighbors and Europe.”

            The looming defeat of Russia in Ukraine will only intensify such feelings within Russia and around the world. “It is difficult for me to imagine that defeat will not lead to any changes,” Shtepa continues. But the history of 1917 and 1991 suggests that change will come both quickly and unexpectedly.

            The emigration can play a role in all this, he says. But it must escape from the unitarist and personalist attitudes that inform the current Moscow elite. Otherwise, those who see themselves as the future leaders of the country will be marginalized by those on the ground who can actually win elections when they take place.

 

Russian Elite Increasingly Dominated by People who Don’t Think Climate Change is an Immediate Challenge, Tananayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – Russian elites, both political and academic, are not focusing on the threat of climate change because an increasing number of them believe that there will be a cooling trend over the next decade and so policy makers can forget about any longer term consequences, Nikita Tananayev says.

            The head of the laboratory studying climate change in the North-East University in Yakutsk says that this point of view exists “among decision makers” and therefore “Russia is not devoting sufficient attention to the struggle with climate change” (kedr.media/podcast/izmeneniya-klimata-dlya-narodov-yakutii-neblagopriyatny-uchenyj-o-globalnom-poteplenii-v-sibiri-5272).

            Tananayev makes this point in the course of a discussion about the situation in Sakha. That republic, he points out, “is not only the coldest and biggest region in the world; it is also the place where climate changes be they rising temperatures or the melting of the eternal permafrost is felt most clearly.”

            He says that global warming is hitting the indigenous population there especially hard and that if nothing is done quickly, their way of life and survival as distinct peoples will be at risk in the near future. 

Non-Russian Republics among Leaders of Federal Subjects as Source of Professional Soldiers, Russian Defense Ministry Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – Nikolay Pankov, a Russian deputy defense minister, says that Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Bashkortostan, the Komi Republic, and the Tyva Republic are among the leading federal subjects in terms of fulfilling Moscow’s plans for recruitment of professional soldiers (tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/17981377).

            To be sure, Pankov listed some predominantly Russian regions in this regard and did not provide any exact numbers, but his words are certain to alarm some in the traditionally xenophobic Russian army officer corps because even more than the flood of draftees from non-Russian areas, those joining to serve as professionals will change the face of the Russian Army.

            The overrepresentation of non-Russians in the military relative to their share in the population has attracted attention as Putin has ramped up the army for his war in Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/non-russians-overrepresented-in-russian.html). But most of these men signing up for a single tour will serve only a relatively short time.

            Those signing up to be professional soldiers will typically serve much longer and as such Pankov’s words are likely to disturb many not only because the highlight continuing demographic problems of the ethnic Russians but also because they mean that the Kremlin will increasingly be relying on non-Russians to enforce its will on Russians.

            That is likely to be problematic not only for the Russians who won’t like such an arrangement but also for non-Russians and especially Muslims who are likely to view their new role as entitling them to better treatment and a seat at the political table as well, two things the Putin regime has so far proved reluctant to offer.

‘Bombing Voronezh’ No Longer a Laughing Matter, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 12 – Fifteen years ago, Russians began to joke, often bitterly, that whenever foreign countries did anything to Moscow that the Kremlin didn’t like, the Putin regime would take it out on Russians by “bombing Voronezh.” That is no longer a laughing matter, however, the editors of the Verstka news service say.

            The number of people dying in Ukraine has reached the point that the monthly toll is equal to the population of a mid-sized Russian city, one perhaps smaller than Voronezh but a loss that is in a certain sense irreplaceable. And as a result, the meme has resurfaced but now is the source of popular anger.

            The news that Voronezh was subjected to a drone attack on June 9 and reports about Russian losses in the war in Ukraine have led some Russians to revive the meme about “bombing” that city (verstka.media/pochemu-shutka-o-tom-kak-budut-bombit-voronezh-ne-takaya-uzh-i-smeshnaya).

            The phrase first appeared almost 15 years ago when “immediately after the end of the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008,” the Russian government promised that “the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinval, would be restored with funds from the Russian budget,” a commitment that meant that North Caucasus city would be given twice as much as Voronezh.

            According to stories circulating on social media, a deputy in the Voronezh city council proposed attacking Moscow as a way of getting more from the center; but with the appearance of the meme, it was redefined to mean that whenever foreigners did something bad to Russia and its friends, Moscow would make sure that in the first instance Russians suffer.

Will Russian Consulate and Listening Post on Aaland Islands be Shuttered Now that Finland is in NATO?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 13 – Now that Finland is a member of NATO, a growing number of Finns are demanding that the Russian consulate on the Aaland Islands be closed. Helsinki has not responded officially but even the discussion of this possibility has infuriated Moscow  (euractiv.com/section/politics/news/growing-number-of-finns-want-russian-consulate-in-aland-closed/ and ritmeurasia.org/news--2023-06-13--sudba-konsulstva-rossii-na-alandah-visit-na-voloske-mogut-vydvorit-66910).

            On the one hand, this back and forth is simply a continuation of a trend that saw Russia in May freezing the bank accounts of the Finnish embassy in Moscow and closing Finnish consulates in Murmansk and Petrozavodsk. But on the other, it reflects both the special status of the Aaland Islands and Helsinki’s wish not to violate international law even if Moscow does.

            The Aaland Islands, it will be recalled, are the most prominent surviving success of the League of Nations which settled a conflict between Finland and Sweden in the 1920s by decreeing that the islands were under Finnish sovereignty but were to have broad autonomy reflecting their overwhelmingly Swedish population.

            Any closure of the Russian consulate on the Aaland Islands threatens to raise questions about the broader 1947 treaty between Finland and the USSR and also about relations between Finland and Sweden. NATO examined this issue before Finland became a member and did not identify the Russian consulate at Marieham as a problem.

            But the problem isn’t about to go away, not least of all because the Russian consulate on the Aaland Islands is clearly involved in non-diplomatic activities. In October 2014, Moscow demanded and Helsinki agreed to hand over to the consulate a 1.78 hectare of land in Mariehamn (yle.fi/uutiset/kantselyariya_prezidenta_rf_vladyeet_zemelnym_uchastkom_na_alandskikh_ostrovakh/7527422).

            This land, some former Finnish officials suggested, was far larger than the consulate needed for its work; and the real reason Moscow wanted the parcel was to have land next to military and other strategic sites in Finland, according to Estonia’s Postimees newspaper (postimees.ee/2952947/venelased-ostavad-soomes-strateegiliste-objektide-lahedusse-maad).

            The Tallinn paper said that the Russians involved in the purchase of this kind of Finnish property have links to the Russian security services and to Vladimir Putin personally, an indication that what is really at Mariehamn now almost certainly is a Russian listening post masquerading as a consulate and directed against NATO (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/10/window-on-eurasia-moscow-takes-some.html).

            What Helsinki and the Finnish people may have felt compelled to accept before the country became part of the Western alliance is now something ever fewer of them are likely to be willing to do. Consequently, once again, the Aaland Islands which typically exist as a historical footnote are likely to become a cockpit of East-West diplomatic conflict.

Ingush Seven’s Zarifa Sautiyeva in Failing Health Needs Immediate Medical Care, Memorial Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 13 – Zarifa Sautiyeva, the only woman among the Ingush Seven that the Russian authorities have now kept behind bars for four years, is in failing health and needs immediate medical attention, something the authorities have not permitted despite the provisions of Russian law.

            Sautiyeva, for many the face of the Ingush Seven, was arrested in 2019, convicted of extremism for her role in protests against the transfer of Ingush land to Chechnya, and sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, has been in failing health for some time, the independent Fortanga news agency says (fortanga.org/2023/06/sostoyanie-zdorovya-zarify-sautievoj-uhudshilos-v-zaklyuchenii/).

            The Ingush Seven have appealed their case, and it is now being heard by an appellate court. But Sautiyeva’s condition has become so dire that the Memorial human rights organization is calling for an international effort to pressure the authorities to allow doctors to see her (t.me/polniypc/4465 and fortanga.org/2023/06/pravozashhitniki-byut-trevogu-iz-za-sostoyaniya-zarify-sautievoj/).

            For background on Sautiyeva and her persecution by Russian officials, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/zarifa-sautiyeva-from-student-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/send-us-to-prison-but-dont-keep.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/few-russians-speaking-up-for-ingush.html.

Moscow Court Declares Biblical Commandment ‘Do Not Kill’ a Violation of Russian Criminal Code, Some Russians are Saying

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – According to an anecdote circulating in Moscow, a court in the Russian capital has declared that the sixth commandment – “Thou shalt not kill” – doesn’t correspond to the Russian criminal code and that all copies of Bibles containing those words must be seized and destroyed by October.

            While not true, at least not yet, the idea that a Russian court in the Putin era might do such a thing is sufficiently plausible for many Russians to make this claim the subject of a story people in that country are how telling one another as they struggle to make sese of the world around them.

            This particular anecdote is among the latest that Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled and posted online (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46027/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       If the Chinese come to help Russia fight in Ukraine, who will liberate us from the Chinese?

·       Dmitry Medvedev has been declared a Hero of Russia for demolishing two Leopards in one evening. To be sure, these weren’t tanks but Polish vodka of that name.

·       Announcement on a Rublyovka wall: ‘Owing to problems with the law enforcement agencies, I’m selling a house on Rublyovskoye highway, a Putin-class Aurus car, a set of golden bathroom fixtures, and two Duma deputies, one from United Russia and the other from the KPRF.

·       Russia is entering its period of collapse just as the Roman one did: with all the official reports noting that everything is going according to plan.

·       The collapse of the USSR is a tragedy, but the declaration of Russian state sovereignty which killed off the USSR is a holiday. Don’t look for logic here: it hasn’t been in Russia for a long time.

·       A patient who had been a coma for three months tried to escape from the hospital because he couldn’t stand listening to state television which is never turned off in the wards.

·       The Duma is defending national traditions by preparing a law allowing the security forces to imprison the innocent. What kind of country would Russia be if its rulers can’t do that? If we lose such traditions, we will lose our identity; and if we lose that, we will lose Russia!

·       A sign of the times: one governor is wearing a green jacket, clearly imitating the Ukrainian president. If things get worse, others will join him first wearing camouflage and then embroidered shirts.