Central Asia has Just 250 Think Tanks, Most of Which are Small and Don’t Issue Many Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – The five countries of post-Soviet Central Asia have a total of approximately 250 think tanks, they are small, averaging no more than 12 people each, prepare only about 17 reports a year, and only one of them, KISI.kz, is in the top ranks of the Global Go-To Think Tank listing.

            That means, the Stanradar.Com portal says, that most Central Asians who want analysis have to turn either to think tanks abroad, few of which cover their region adequately, or to Central Asia media. Often such people have to rely on often problematic social media alone (stanradar.com/news/full/57582-stanradarcom-sozdaet-smysly-dlja-tsentralnoj-azii.html).

            This is a serious problem not only for experts and officials in these countries but for experts elsewhere who seek to understand what is taking place in these five increasingly important countries at the crossroads of east-west and north-south trade and communication corridors. 

Moscow Must Do More to Save Company Towns Because They’re Where Many Defense Plants are Located, ‘Profile’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – As Russian has shifted to a war economy, the country’s monogorods as cities built around a single major industry are known have become more important because they are where a large share of Russia’s military industry plants are located. To attract enough workers, these plants want to save the company towns despite Moscow having largely given up.

            The factories are opening schools, medical points, and other infrastructure that had disappeared over the last several decades in order to try to keep younger residents from fleeing to the cities. That has helped some, Pyotr Sergeyev says, but there are some things only the government can do (profile.ru/dk/ugmk/prityazhenie-maloj-rodiny-kak-promyshlennye-predpriyatiya-borjutsya-s-ottokom-trudovyh-resursov-iz-monogorodov-1713742/).

            And he warns that unless Moscow changes course and begins to pay more attention to the problems of company towns and invests more money in infrastructure there, either the plants in these cities will have to recruit more workers from abroad or go under, either of which could make it impossible to meet military industry goals.

            The Putin regime has assumed that if it gives these companies more contracts, they will be able to raise wages enough to hold local Russians and attract more to these towns. But studies have shown, Sergeyev continues, that such an approach won’t work: Unless the company towns develop infrastructure and comfortable housing, young people will continue to flee.

            Failure to make such investments, Sergeyev says, will make it impossible to meet defense industry goals. Indeed, that sector may soon collapse unless the Kremlin recognizes that higher pay will not solve the problem and that it must devote more resources to infrastructure -- or revive the hated Soviet system of assigning graduates to their first work places.

Soldiers in Russian Army in Ukraine Involved in Protests at Home Even Before Demobilizing – and Some are Sparking Ethnic Conflicts in the Ranks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – Russian commanders have tried without success to confiscate smartphones from their subordinates because the latter are not only getting news from home but sending video clips back home not only to keep their families up to date but also to put take pressure on officials at all levels.

            The soldiers protest about all the issues that agitate their families and friends at home and often appear in military fatigues with guns, implicitly or not so implicitly threatening to use force on their return to force officials to act. Because they are soldiers, commanders are reluctant to punish them; and officials at home are more likely to make concessions to them.

            Aleksandr Leonidovich, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta, says that such protests by soldiers in Putin’s invasion force are one of the last places where Russians can protest with the expectation that they won’t be punished for their effort and may even succeed in achieving their goals (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/06/07/urbanisty-s-avtomatami).

            He provides numerous examples of what the soldiers have protested, where they are from, and how successful they have been. But one event he recounts should shake the Kremlin even if it does not appear to have succeed, given that a Bashkortostan protest by soldiers from there generated a counterprotest by other soldiers.  

            The full text of Leonidov’s coverage of this event is below:

“In Bashkortostan, environmental protests are closely intertwined with national ones. In January 2024, clashes between citizens and the police occurred in the region, caused by the trial of local oppositionist and environmentalist Fail Alsynov. The "Baimak case" appeared, under which 82 people were subjected to criminal prosecution.

“On January 17, the second day of protests in the Bashkir city of Baymak, a video appeared on YouTube: a group of masked men with machine guns, the letter "Z" carved into the butt of one of them, read a text in Bashkir in support of Alsynov. (youtube.com/watch?v=dvR_hLPFQ3M&t=9s).

“The video is preceded by a threat in Russian: ‘if you do not stop going against our people, our fathers and mothers, we are leaving our positions and coming to you. If you want war, you will get it!"

“On the same day, an alternative video appeared online. A large group of armed people calling themselves "SVO" fighters from Bashkortostan fires machine guns into the air and delivers a speech condemning "extremists from banned organizations who are intoxicating, deceiving our residents and trying to get them to rally" in support of Alsynov. The armed men offer to send Bashkir nationalists to their unit so that they can "re-educate them and teach them to love their homeland."

“The head of the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad, Ruslan Gabbasov, told Novaya Gazeta Evropa that the Bashkortostan authorities are not panicking from the demands and even threats of armed men. On the contrary, in some cases they are being forced to publicly apologize.

“’Just recently there was a similar story. Now in the Abzelilovsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan there are unrests of local residents regarding the upcoming development of the Kyrktytau ridge and the construction of a mining and processing plant there. Fighters from this district, fighting in the "SVO", recorded a video message asking not to touch Kyrktytau. A few days passed and a new video message appeared where they apologized and said that they were misled” (https://t.me/rg_bashkort/7256).

Pro-War Bloggers Tolerated Now but Won't Be Once War Ends, Filippov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – Russian bloggers who support the war in Ukraine routinely make statements that would get them in deep trouble if they opposed the war, Ivan Filippov says; but while they are tolerated now, they will be among the most promptly repressed once the war ends because the Putin regime will then have no room for such people.

            According to Filippov, a Russian writer who studies the Z community, the reason for both is simple: Their statements now help control the military and remind Russians things could be worse if others were in charge, and their continuing existence after the war ends is incompatible with the regime’s nature (holod.media/2025/06/10/poche (u-vlast-terpit-z-blogerov/).

            No authoritarian regime – and Putin’s is unquestionably that – can long tolerate those who act independently and at odds with it for very long unless there is a compelling reason to do so. The war in Ukraine gives the Kremlin leader one such reason; but when that is removed, those who have benefited from his tolerance no longer will be able to do so.

Russian Community Only Allows People of ‘Slavic Appearance’ Enter Yekaterinburg Agency without Having to Wait in Line

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – Exactly a year ago, members of the Russian Community organization marched through Yekaterinburg declaring that the city should be “only for the Slavs.” On the same date this year, they did not just march but blocked the entrance to the city’s migration agency and allowed in without standing in line only those of Slavic appearance.

            This is yet another indication that the Russian Community vigilantes now feel that they can act with impunity and may even enjoy the support of the authorities given the anti-immigrant messages the powers that be have been sending (t.me/itsmycity/43717 and sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2025/06/d51739/).

            But this action highlights something else as well which may be even more fateful: the Russian Community doesn’t distinguish between non-citizen immigrants and citizens of non-Slavic nationality. This group has thus crossed the line that threatens to deepen the divide between Russians and non-Russians, a dangerous development indeed.

            That is all the more so because the Russian Community now has branches in almost every federal subject and city in the country and under Putin at least can be counted on to spread this poison not just the Urals but across the Russian Federation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/russian-community-now-country-wide.html).

Putin’s War in Ukraine Threatens Survival of Soyots who were Beginning to Recover from Soviet Repression

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – Between 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated and 2022 when Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the Soyots, a numerically small Turkic people in Buryatia, acquired a written language, resumed the reindeer herding that they had practiced for centuries, and looked to the future with confidence.

            But from the very first day of Putin’s expanded war, those hopes were crushed as ever more young Soyot men were dragooned or attracted into service in Russian forces fighting in Ukraine only to die there (sibreal.org/a/nas-vsego-gorstka-kak-voyna-v-ukraine-unichtozhaet-soyotov-iskonnyh-zhiteley-sayan/32975796.html).

            The 2021 Russian census counted just over 4,000 Soyots and so the deaths in Ukraine have hit the community hard because as they say, one Soyot is not six degrees of separation from another but one and so every loss affects the entire community, especially given that those who have died were expected to be the fathers of the next generation.

            Other nationalities in the Russian Federation have suffered more deaths and perhaps even a higher percentage of those than the Soyots, but the facts that this nation consists of such tightly interrelated people and that it was staging a remarkable recovery from past oppression means that the Soyots have lost something especially precious: their hopes for a national rebirth.

            For that reason if for no other, the Soyots and the reasons they have lost hope deserve to be remembered.

Russian Cities Want to Introduce Robotic Bureaucrats Because They Work Faster and Never Asks for Pay

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – As artificial intelligence and robotics have advanced in recent years, ever more Russian cities have been focusing on whether they can do away with a sizeable portion of their large and expensive staffs and use robot-bureaucrats instead. Now one of their number, Blagoveshchensk in the Far East, has become the first to do so.

            According to officials there, the robot bureaucrats work “48 times more rapidly” than the human ones they have replaced and, while expensive to begin with, cost little to operate and save money over time (nemoskva.net/2025/06/09/rabotaet-v-48-raz-bystree-deneg-ne-prosit-v-blagoveshhenske-zapushhen-pervyj-robot-chinovnik/).

            Similar programs are being discussed in a variety of cities across the Russian Federation, programs that currently enjoy the support of the Kremlin (fontanka.ru/2025/04/17/75352451/) although they are likely to anger those made redundant by this change. Indeed, such robot bureaucrats may spark another round of labor unrest in some places.

Drying Up of Caspian Hitting Kazakhstan Hardest among Caspian Littoral States, Astana Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – The drying up of the Caspian Sea is already hitting Kazakhstan hardest among the five Caspian littoral states – who also include Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan – forcing Astana to strengthen its navy, dredge access routes to its ports, and deal with new land that the sea has receded from.

            And that trend is likely to continue, Kazakhstan ecologists and government experts say, because the northern portion of the sea will likely continue to see its water level decline faster and its seabeds silt up more quickly than the southern portions of the sea (casp-geo.ru/obmelenie-kaspiya-kazahstan-mozhet-postradat-bolshe-vseh/).

            These differences in the rate of the drying up of the Caspian also are certain to force both Russia and China to change their plans for trade routes both north and south and east and west on that body of water and thus have an outside influence on the world beyond the borders of the littoral states.

              For background on the steps Astana has already taken to cope with the drying up of the Caspian, see jamestown.org/program/caspian-sea-drying-up-forcing-coastal-countries-to-respond/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/caspian-seas-declining-water-levels.html; windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/07/northern-sections-of-caspian-sea.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/10/declining-water-levels-in-caspian-plus.html.

And for details on the way in which these steps and others have changed the naval balance on its surface, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/kazakhstan-navy-demonstrates-growing.html, jamestown.org/program/kazakhstan-rapidly-moving-to-become-dominant-naval-power-on-the-caspian, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/kazakhstan-conducts-major-naval.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/06/kazakhstans-navy-takes-delivery-of-36th.html.

Crimson Wedge in Kuban, Despite Russian Acts of Genocide, has a Ukrainian Future if Kyiv Helps, Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – Yevhen Bursanidis-Seletsky, a co-founder of the movement for the independence of Kuban, says that despite Russian acts of genocide, the Crimson Wedge as Ukrainians refer to that region, very much has a Ukrainian future if Kyiv will devote more attention to the situation there.

            And there are compelling reasons for the Ukrainian state to do so, he continues because “if a Ukraine without Crimea is like a car without headlights, then a Ukraine without Kuban whether as part of the Ukrainian state or as a confederal ally is like being a car without doors” (abn.org.ua/en/history/malynovyi-klyn-past-present-and-future/).

            Russians acts of genocide and repression against ethnic Ukrainians in the Kuban have reduced the number of people there who identify as Ukrainians, but these moves by Moscow and Russian society as a whole have not extinguished the sense most people in the Kuban have of being linked to Ukraine.

            Kyiv was not able to do much in Soviet times and chose not to take action in support of Kuban Ukrainians and other wedges in the current borders of the Russian Federation because it wanted to show itself as a good international citizen that could not be accused of interfering in what Moscow viewed as its internal affairs.

            But Putin’s attack on Ukraine in 2014 and his expanded invasion of that country launched in 2022 and continuing to this day have changed the situation. Kyiv is now paying more attention to the Ukrainian wedges within the borders of the Russian Federation. If it follows this up with action, Bursanidis-Seletsky says, both those regions and Ukraine as a whole will benefit. 

Support of Ukrainian Churchmen Major Reason Kirill Became Moscow Patriarch, New Book Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – A new book on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church from Gorbachev’s time to the present says that the support of Ukrainian churchmen who viewed Kirill as more liberal regarding Ukrainian autocephaly was a major reason that he was chosen to be patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

            The book, With the Best of Intentions. The Russian Church and the Authorities from Gorbachev to Putin (in Russian; Moscow: 2025) by Kseniya Luchenko, thus calls attention to the paradox that Kirill’s initial success may very well have led to his most serious defeat and may cause him even more trouble in the future.

            Novaya Gazeta, which jointly sponsored the book with the Straightforward Foundation, publishes an excerpt that makes this clear (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/06/08/kak-kirill-stal-patriarkhom-i-kakuiu-rol-v-etom-sygrala-ukraina). The paper promises to publish more, potentially equally revelatory excerpts in the future.

            According to the book, Kirill had the reputation of being pro-Ukrainian, even making what proved to be a failed effort to learn that language and suggesting that he would be quite ready to become head of a possibly autocephalous Ukrainian church, something anathema to his opponents in the election.

            In the 2009 election, of the 198 church hierarchs, 55 were from Ukraine and another 46 from other countries. They thus formed more than half. And of the 711 participants in the broader Local Council, only 44.8 percent were citizens of the Russian Federation (web.archive.org/web/20141209172152/http:/sobor09.ru/participants/297/).

            The Ukrainian hierarchs and the non-Russian participants voted overwhelmingly for Kirill given the Russo-centric position of his opponent. As a result, he was elected to head the Russian church, where he subsequently adopted a Russo-centric position himself, a shift that some of his supporters considered a betrayal.

            The chapter published by Novaya Gazeta traces the back and forth before and during the election not only among the hierarchs but also among Council participants in detail, with the votes in each. But the message is clear: Kirill won because he was viewed as pro-Ukrainian, something that Putin and his regime have not forgotten or forgiven.

 

Biggest Problem with Rosstat Economic Data Not Falsification but Failure to Collect Representative Samples in Key Sectors, Rybakova Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – That the Russian government’s statistical arm engages in outright lies is no surprise, but the biggest problem with Rosstat data is not so much falsification as the failure to collect representative samples in key sectors, a pattern that distorts its data sets on prices and on employment among others, Tatyana Rybakova says.

            The Russian economic commentator points out that “Rosstat gathers data from across Russia, but it only receives information from relatively large companies. Smaller firms often lack the capacity to complete the agency’s extensive questionnaires; and they face no real penalties for failing to do so” (theins.ru/ekonomika/281573).

            That skews inflation and employment figures because smaller firms typically are forced to raise prices more than larger ones whose size allows them greater ability to negotiate and fix prices and because smaller firms suffering from the impact of inflation are more likely to let workers go than are larger ones where such action would be more politically sensitive.

            Thus Rosstat reports less inflation and less unemployment that ordinary Russians experience, again not because it is falsifying the data but because it isn’t making a good faith effort to collect all the data needed to make accurate reporting about these sensitive figures possible.

Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia Denounces Putin’s Re-Stalinization Policies

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) has denounced recent changes in Russian government policy regarding the victims of Soviet-era political repressions and moves to rehabilitate Stalin, a denunciation that strains the status of ROCOR as an autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

            In a statement posted on its website, the ROCOR synod denounced the re-Stalinization of Russia being carried out under Putin’s orders – on that policy, see svoboda.org/a/ochenj-podlaya-istoriya-v-rf-stirayut-pamyatj-o-massovyh-repressiyah/33117449.html – and warned that it could lead to disaster (synod.com/synod/2025/20250605_synodstatement.html).

            The synod explicitly criticized the erection of monuments to Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, “whose inhuman and anti-Christian crimes can be counted among the gravest of the 20^th century and the revocation of the rehabilitation of victims of Stalin’s repressions over the last several years.

            "We are well aware of the paths of the church people thrown abroad by the revolution and then by the war. They are our ancestors,” the statement continued. “We know the complexity and tragedy of those times, of that century. For decades we experienced the slander of the godless regime on ourselves.”

            And it concluded that if Moscow’s current policy continues, Russia “instead of being a bright beacon of Orthodox truth … will become a dark spot among the nations of the world,” words that call into question ROCOR’s relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate as well as with the Kremlin.

            ROCOR was created after the Bolshevik revolution and stood against the Soviet state and the Moscow Patriarchate after the latter was restored in 1943. With the collapse of communism, the Moscow Patriarchate sought to bring ROCOR back into its fold, something that the leadership of ROCOR agreed to with the right of autonomy in 2007.

            Even that was too much for many in ROCOR and that émigré church suffered a schism. But this latest declaration may mean that ROCOR as a whole will denounce the 2007 agreement. At the very least, it is yet another loss for the Moscow Patriarchate and its efforts to expand its influence abroad.   

Moscow Behind Regions Giving Bonuses to Teenage Russians who have Babies, Head of Duma Committee on Defense of the Family Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – Among 42 steps Russia’s labor ministry has proposed regions use to boost their birthrates as Putin has demanded, Nina Ostankina says, is the notion that they should pay teenage Russian girls a special bonus if they get pregnant. Some of the girls are now getting pregnant for the money, leading to single-parent households rather than strong families.

            At least five federal subjects have launched such programs, the KPRF chairman of the Duma’s committee on the defense of the family says; and the results are anything but encouraging given that many of the girls getting money are physically but not psychologically ready to be mothers (nakanune.ru/articles/123555/).

            Many will not marry the fathers of their children, leading to single-parent households or an increase in the number of orphans if as seems likely many of these young women choose to abandon their children. The Russian government should support new mothers from all age groups rather than focusing on the young.

            Boosting birthrates among the very young in the hopes that having their first child early will lead Russian women to have large numbers of children, a trend that would help the governors meet Putin’s demands is just one of the negative consequences of this Moscow policy being carried out by the regions.

            Another that has drawn criticism is that promoting early motherhood with cash is likely to boost birthrates first and foremost among poorer non-Russian groups and thus further shift the demographic balance in the Russian Federation away from ethnic Russians (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/rf-regions-promoting-teenage.html).

Putin’s War, Nominally Fought to Defend Traditional Values like Marriage, Sparking Even More Divorces in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 5 – Last year for the first time ever, there were more divorces than marriages in the Russian Federation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/for-first-time-ever-number-of-divorces.html). Part of the reason for that is that 68 percent of such unioins in which one partner is serving in the Russian invasion force in Ukraine now end with divorce.

            Among the reasons the war has pushed numbers up is that many married just in advance of deployments, couples disagreed over whether to leave Russia to avoid serving there, and the feeling on the part of one of the partners had betrayed the other while the latter was absent (takiedela.ru/2024/09/budushhie-byvshie/).

            This trend seems set to continue; and Russian officials are alarmed because fewer marriages almost certainly mean fewer children, something that will push the Russian birthrate, already below replacement levels, down further, and add to the Kremlin’s problems in staffing its industry and fielding its army.

            One trend within this general one, the NeMoskva portal says, that the share of marriages ending in divorce is “approximately the same in both progressive capital cities and patriarchal provinces,” even though in the latter such increases are more radical than in cities where divorce has long been more common (nemoskva.net/2025/06/05/neboevye-poteri-nesmirenie/).

Putin Proposes Giving Non-Russian Languages Their Own ‘Day’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 5 – Moscow has marked the Day of the Russian Language on June 6 since 2010. Now, Putin has now proposed creating another holiday, the Day of the Languages of the Peoples of Russia on September 8. His proposal isn’t the change of heart it might appear but rather consistent with a further reduction in the use of these languages.

            At a session of the Council for Realization of State Policy in Support of Russian and the Languages of the Peoples of Russia, the Kremlin leader devoted most of his attention to Russian and prevent unwanted borrowings from other languages that threaten it (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77104).

            But in the course of his remarks, Putin said that “besides this, I propose creating a Day of the Languages of the Peoples of Russia to be marked each years on September 8, the birthday of Rasul Gamzatov, author of the legendary ‘Zhurvali’ (stoletie.ru/lenta/putin_predlozhil_otmechat_8_sentabra_den_jazykov_narodov_rossii_290.htm).

            According to Putin, the Dagestani poet (1923-2003) considered two languages as native to him: Avar in which he wrote and Russian, thanks to which his works acquired world-wide glory,” clearly exactly the message Putin has promoted among non-Russians since he came to power.

            In Putin’s vision, the new holiday will undoubtedly promote much the same notion that non-Russians can hope to reach a broader world only via Russian and that September 8 will be yet another step to reduce the use of non-Russian languages to festivals pushing that ideal (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/06/putin-working-to-reduce-nations-within.html).    

Kremlin Again Refers to Monument on Red Square as 'Mausoleum of Lenin and Stalin'

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – The mausoleum on Red Square is now scheduled to be closed for renovations set to take two years. Many think that this may finally be the time when that monument to Lenin is torn down and the body of founder of the Bolshevik state buried near the Kremlin wall. But there is another and more disturbing possibility.

            The Russian government’s announcement of the contract for the repair work describes the site as “an object of cultural heritage of federal importance, ‘the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin” even though Stalin’s body was removed more than half a century ago (zakupki.gov.ru/epz/contract/contractCard/common-info.html?reestrNumber=1770585133125000076).

            In calling attention to this, journalist Oleg Pshenichny notes that “in the centuries’ long traditoins of the Russian bureaucracy not only each word but even each letter plays a fateful legal and practical role” (moscowtimes.ru/2025/06/06/s-chego-nachinaetsya-rodina-ili-o-odna-strochka-v-kartochke-goszakupok-a165482).

            Thanks to this announcement, the journalist says, “we have once again become convinced that the mausoleum of the Bolshevik pharaoh is not only carefully looked after under any state system …  but also that two bloody dictators are quietly registered there, one simply remains at the place of registration while the other has been moved nearby.”

            Indeed, Pshenichny says, “let’s not forget about the all-powerful legal bureaucracy because according to quiet and silent Russian documents, Stalin never left the mausoleum.” That opens the door to the possibility that Putin plans more steps to return Stalin to more places, including quite possibly the mausoleum on Red Square.

            How far he will go and especially how fast will depend to a large degree on how much he thinks he can get away with in that direction, and that in turn will depend on how Russians and others respond. So far, negative reaction to the return of Stalin in the regions and in the Moscow metro has been limited; and Putin seems prepared to test the waters for yet another.   

Kremlin Jailing Some Russians to Intimidate All of Them, Sadovskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 5 – Despite the fears of many, the Kremlin has no interest in jailing the majority of Russians, Olga Sadovskaya says. Instead, it jails just enough of them to intimidate everyone in the population, a much more efficient use of its police powers because it gets people to do what it wants without the state having to bear the costs of a massive GULAG.

            The vice president of the Committee Against Torture says that one of the indications of this is the harshening of laws since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, with actions that had earlier been viewed as no threat to anyone now being criminalized and carrying with them the threat of lengthy prison terms (cherta.media/interview/repressii-zhestokost-i-politzeki-v-rossii/).

            At present, the number of those in prison for such political crimes has reached about 1500 and it seems clear that this number can and will grow, Sadovskaya says. But at the same time, it is worth noting that the total number of prisoners in Russia has fallen from a million to about 300,000 over the past decade, a trend that has saved the Kremlin money.

            She calls attention to what she sees as a growing tendency: “People are beginning to deny that they are political prisoners because they fear additional pressure will be applied to them already in prison.” There have been such cases already, and there is every reason to think that they will increase in number.

            This is all happening because Russia despite everything “remains a legalist state.” That is the reason the government adopts ever more new laws rather than just acts as it wants as was the case under Stalin. And that means following the laws that the state adopts is the best way to know who is likely to be charged in the future.

What is already obvious, Sadovskaya says, “is that the authorities are trying to select victims from various social categories in order to frighten everyone,” first within those categories and then in society as a whole. That strategy is working, the activist lawyer says; but it must be resisted, even though victories will be fewer and smaller than one would like.

When Putin’s War in Ukraine Ends, Impact on Russia Could be Economically and Politically Explosive, Rybakova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 5 – Russian economists are now suggesting that if and when Putin’s war in Ukraine ends, the consequences for Russia both economically and politically could be explosive and that managing the transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime one will be difficult and last at least a year, Tatyana Rybakova says.

            Many of them fear, the economic observer for The Insider says, that the current money overhang in Russia could “flood the market, sparking hyperinflation” and that the Kremlin might respond by freezing deposits or carrying out mass privatization schemes “aimed at fueling savings into the stock market” (theins.ru/ekonomika/281573).

            That is not to say that there are not more optimistic forecasts being offered. Clearly, a reduction in military spending would have a positive impact on other sectors of the economy especially if some sanctions are lifted leading to an increase in imports which would hold prices down and ease pressure on the money supply.

            But Rybakova continues, there is widespread agreement that “returning the economy to a peacetime footing won’t be easy.” Reducing production in factories producing for the military will mean that “at least a third of their workforces will be out of a job” and they will join “hundreds of thousands” of veterans who will be returning home.

            It took the Kremlin “more than a year” to put Russia on a war footing, she says; and “the reverse process will likely take just as long.” In that process, “the biggest casualties” will be “men returning from the front with psychological trauma and recent experience wielding deadly weapons.”

            According to Rybakova, the Kremlin “clearly recognizes this threat which is why officials continually offer various incentives” to veterans. But “so far, these programs have been poorly executed; and observers are already noting friction between the veterans and their families, on one side, and the rest of the population, on the other.”

            The more the authorities try to appease those with combat experience, she concludes, the more they risk alienating the broader public;” and “given that both will compete over jobs and incomes, the situation could deteriorate into serious social unrest,” posing a new and larger challenge to the Putin regime.

 

Russian School Facilities Remain in Disastrous Shape

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 5 – More than a quarter of Russia’s schools of immediate capital repairs, and almost a quarter of these are in such bad shape that they are a threat to the pupils and teachers that use them, according to data gathered by the To Be Precise portal. And those are all-Russian averages. In some federal subjects, the situation is even worse.   

            In Murmansk Oblast, for example, 77 percent of the schools need repairs; and in Kirov Oblast, Kareliya and Kabardino-Balkaria, more than 50 percent do (t.me/tochno_st/535 and nemoskva.net/2025/06/05/kazhdoj-chetvertoj-shkole-v-rossii-nuzhen-kapitalnyj-remont/). But even that is just the tip of the iceberg of this disaster.

            Thirty-nine hundred schools do not have sewage plumbing, 3400 don’t have water, and 3500 don’t have central heating. Among the worse in this regard are Tyva, Dagestan and Sakha, where such amenities are well above a third and in some cases even above 50 percent of the total (ehorussia.com/new/node/32788).

            In many places, the authorities are doing little or nothing to address these shortcomings. In Sakha, for example, the republic government has not invested any money over the last decade to build indoor toilets. And in the Transbaikal, more than 300 schools still force their children to go to outhouses.

            That is not the only problem Russia’s schools face: They also are having ever more difficulty finding enough teachers especially in the STEM subjects (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/06/05/posle-shkoly-komu-ty-nuzhen), and Moscow now wants to “optimize,” a euphemism for “close” libraries (t.me/tochno_st/535ticles/148406.html).

            At the same time, the absence of indoor toilets, plumbing and heating continues to hit the Russian population as a whole: Every fourth family, some 35 million people lives in a home without an indoor toilet, 29 million don’t have running water, and 27 million don’t have heat except from stoves (rosstat.gov.ru/bgd/regl/b12_04/isswww.exe/stg/d06/2-00.htm).

Short of Cash, Russia’s Federal Subjects Begin Cutting Back Bonuses to Get Men to Sign Up for Service in Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 5 – Bashkortostan has become the first federal subject to do what others are expected to copy: it has cut back the amount of money it offers men who agree to sign up for military service in Ukraine from 1.2 million rubles (12,000 US dollars) to 600,000 rubles (6,000 US dollars).

            The republic has done so because it can’t afford to do otherwise – its own budget is overstretched and its access to federal reserves limited; but such a cutback, especially if it is copied by other federal subjects  means the Russian military will have more difficulty in getting the men it needs (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=683FFF581FB1A).

            That point is made explicitly by the Economics telegram channel which says that the UFA  case is “not simply a regional measure but a symbol of a broader economic trend” reflecting “the exhaustion of reserves, limited budget resources and a gradual transition to a regime of strict savings.”

            And that in turn is “a signal that the country’s financial stability increasingly depends not on savings but on reducing obligations to citizens,” a shift that means the war is going to come home to Russians in ever more serious ways and thus put pressure on the Kremlin to end the war as soon as possible or at least not to engage in new aggression anytime soon.