Putin Putting Survival of Russian Federation at Risk by Exploitation of Regions, Kachalov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Apr. 1 – The Kremlin wants to rule an eternal empire and believes its control over the federal subjects is “unshakeable,” Konstantin Kachalov says; but in fact, the center is putting the survival of the Russian Federation at risk by its colonial policy of harsh exploitation of the regions and republics.
    According to the Russian analyst, Moscow views the federal subjects only as “a resource for its imperial ambitions.” Indeed, it has been guided by that vision to the point that the question now is only “how soon will they turn against the center” and seek independence (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67EC0B1814472).
    As a result, Kachalov concludes, “the Kremlin itself is creating the conditions of its own” and the country’s “collapse,” outcomes that are increasingly likely in the next five to ten years unless the regime changes course, something under Putin at least, it gives absolutely no signs of doing.
    In 2023, Moscow took 70 percent of the tax revenues from the entire country, spending most of that on war but also on the city itself and leaving regions with less than a third of the taxes they had paid to spend on local needs. That left the governments of the federal subjects in deficit and meant that their GDPs dropped three to five percent, while Moscow grew 2.1 percent.
    People in the regions and republics are angry, and the governors “whose job is to serve the center not the residents” have used force to prevent protests. But, Kachalov continues, “this is not governance but a colonial policy with the regions turning into controlled territories without the right to protest.”
    Not surprisingly, “centrifugal forces are already gaining strength,” he says. Both in Moscow and in the federal subjects should recall what happened to the USSR in 1991, when the center lost the ability to support the periphery, and parts of the periphery then left. Unfortunately, the Kremlin is “ignoring” this precedent and believes “repression will save ‘the vertical.’”
    Kachalov is blunt: “Moscow is preparing its own end by building a system where the regions are just fuel for the imperial machine.” That is “unsustainable” because “economic plunder, political oppression and growing protests are opening fault lines that can no longer be repaired” by force alone.
    “In five to ten years, these forces could tear the Russian Federation apart unless the Kremlin changes course. But it won’t do that because it is incapable of operating in any other way,” Kalachev continues. And the regions, “from Sakha to Krasnodar are increasingly recognizing that their future is not with Moscow but outside of its control.”

Russians Worried about Rise of ‘Closed Migrant Enclaves’ but Don't Want to Call Them Ghettos

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Aleksandr Grebenkin, deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, says that in several regions, “closed migrant enclaves” are appearing, places “where Russian laws do not operate.” But he adds that provisions of the Kremlin’s new migration policy will eliminate this threat.
    “In a number of regions in urban and rural settlements are forming plases of compact resident of mono-ethnic groups, the formation of which as a rule is connected with sites of the employment of foreign citizens,” the Kremlin official says (nazaccent.ru/content/43751-v-sovbeze-zayavili-o-riskah-poyavleniya-v-rossii-zamknutyh-migrantskih-anklavov/).
    This trend, he says, create “additional risks of the rise of stable closed enclaves where in fact often Russian laws do not operate, where radical religious trends and anti-social ideas are propagandized” and where members of these communities hide out after their permitted stay in the Russian Federation has run out.
    Countering their existence is especially important because “unfriendly governments continue to try to use the migration factor to harm the interests of Russia,” Grebenkin says. These states try to stir up protest activity and encourage people living in these enclaves to ignore Russia law.
    Independent experts like Yury Krupnov, a Moscow demographer, and Natalya Voronina, a legal specialist at the Institute of State and Law, agree that this is a problem; but they point out that the government has known about this for two decades and that solutions are not that difficult (nakanune.ru/articles/123335/ and mk.ru/social/2025/03/31/etnicheskie-anklavy-predstavlyayushhie-riski-i-ugrozy-dlya-obshhestva-uzhe-sushhestvuyut-v-rossii.html).
    They suggest that the authorities restore something like the registration system that existed in Soviet times and not allow more than a certain small percentage of people of different nationality or religion to live in it. But taking that step would hit far more than these minorities and likely infuriate many residents of Russia.
    One thing both Russian officials and Russian experts do agree on is that it is inappropriate to call these closed ethnic enclaves ghettos, an approach that continues Soviet practice and is both true and false (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/there-are-no-ghettos-in-russia-moscow.html).
    It is true because most of these enclaves form around a particular employer and do not have a complete social hierarchy as traditional ghettos elsewhere do; but it is wrong because the longer such enclaves exist – and many in Russia are more than 25 years old – the more characteristics of ghettos they share.

Covid Still Killing Russians and Kremlin Still Using Covid Restrictions to Ban Public Protests, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – The number of people falling ill with covid fell sharply after Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine and the pandemic ceased to be the focus of intense interest. But despite that, Russians continue to die from the disease, and 21 federal subjects use restrictions imposed during the pandemic to ban protests, Horizontal Russia reports.
    The latter is the more important “survival,” the news agency suggests. Infections and deaths are down significantly across the country. Only 225 Russians died of covid during the first quarter of 2025. But officials have retained the restrictions because that is a convenient way to ban public meetings (semnasem.org/articles/2025/03/31/kovid).
    And just as was the case during the worst times of the pandemic, officials apply these restrictions selectively. Pro-government actions aren’t interfered with, but anti-government ones are suppressed, with blame invariably placed on the danger of the spread of covid infections rather than anything else.
    Another legacy of the covid pandemic in Russia involves doctors and other medical personnel who led the fight against it. They were promised bonuses for their dangerous but essential work. In many cases, the Putin regime has not paid them; and a large number have gone to court to try to get the money they are owed.

Departure of Immigrant Workers Not Leading to More Jobs and Higher Pay for Russians, ‘Versiya’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Moscow officials say that Russia currently suffers from a shortage of five million workers. The departure of many migrant workers has intensified this problem; but despite expectations, this trend has not led to more jobs and higher pay for Russian residents, according to the Versiya news agency.  
    Because changes in the ruble exchange rate make working in Russia less profitable than before and because hostility to migrants has intensified over the last year, the number of migrant workers in Russia has fallen by a million in the past 12 months and will fall even more in the next, Versiya says (versia.ru/gastarbajtery-massovo-pokidayut-rossiyu--rabochie-mesta-i-vysokie-zarplaty-dostanutsya-mestnym).
    But this has not been the boon for Russian residents that many had expected. The migrants often do jobs Russians don’t want or aren’t qualified for, and consequently, the work simply doesn’t get done at the same rate. And at the same time, these shortages aren’t pushing up wages elsewhere because of how segmented the Russian labor market it.
    In it, where migrant workers leave, employers may offer more money to try to retain them or attract others. But those are jobs Russians don’t want or can’t qualify for. And such increases in pay in those sectors do not have much of an impact on other sectors where Russians are employed or seek work.  Any increases in jobs and pay there are driven by other factors.  

In March 2025, Russian Forces Gained Less Ground in Ukraine than in Any Month Since June 2024, the Agentstvo News Agency Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Moscow’s claims that Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine and that Ukrainian ones are retreating have been so widely broadcast that many fail to recognize the reality that Russia’s invasion gained only 130 square kilometers in the last month, down from a high of 725 last November and the least since June 2024 when Russia seized 114.
    Those figures, originally gathered by the Deep State analysts, are presented in a charge published by the Agentstvo news agency, a group of independent journalists in the Russian Federation (agents.media/v-marte-rossiya-zahvatila-v-ukraine-samuyu-malenkuyu-territoriyu-s-iyunya-proshlogo-goda-vopreki-zayavleniyam-putina/).
    The numbers from the past month parallel those from March 2024 and suggest that Ukraine is holding its own despite Russian claims and despite a reduction in the amount of arms transferred to Kyiv by Western powers. If this seasonal pattern holds, so should Ukraine’s front lines until at least August.  
    Moreover, at the current rate, it would take Russian forces many years before occupying all of its neighbor

Russians Attracted to Pro-Regime Media Outlets in Part Because They Offer More Positive Messages, CEDAR Study Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Telegram channels are today one of the main platforms for political information in Russia, with half of Russians every day and nearly three out of four every month using them. Moreover, according to surveys, 55 percent of the top 100 telegram channels deal one way or another with current events or political news.
    Indeed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has declared that telegram channels are “the main source for receiving information” in Russia, a remarkable rise over just the last several years (https://t.me/kommersant/79903; and for data on this remarkable development, see mediascope.net/upload/iblock/2ee/bdbcymunn4gcxjwcgjgjzsw74nrqtmz6/Mediascope_%D0%9D%D0%A0%D0%A4_Telegram.pdf).
    But despite this growth and influence, Russia’s telegram channels have remained relatively little studied up to now. But research by the Center for Data and Research on Russia (CEDAR) has gone a long way to fill this gap and to explain why some telegram channels attract more visitors than others (cedarus.io/research/what-do-russians-read?lang=ru).
    Using content analysis, surveys, and focus groups, CEDAR draws the following conclusions about why some telegram channels attract more readers than others and what those now lagging might do to catch up. Specifically, it says
•    Forty-four percent of those reading telegram channels in Russia read pro-government outlets, while only 14 percent read those associated with the opposition.
•    In addition to these two categories, there are also “neutral” channels which focus on the economy, emergencies, health news, food and science.
•    Opposition media covers a narrower range of issues than do the other two.
•    Channels which have more positive content tend to be more popular not among these groups but within them. Pro-government channels present Russia more positively and that is an attraction.
•    Popularity is not a function of the emotional tone of the channels nor is the share of coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Drawing on these findings, CEDAR recommends that those neutral and opposition outlets which want to attract more people need to cover more different topics, focus on “everyday issues” like the economy, emergencies and health. And they need to play up positive content rather than always be negative. 

For First Time Ever, More Muslims Marked End of Ramadan in St. Petersburg than Did in the Russian Capital, Statistics Show

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – Muslims in the Russian Federation usually celebrate Id al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the holy month of Ramadan, by assembling in and around mosques. Until this year, Moscow, the city where the largest number of Muslims in that country live, has led these statistics; but this year, the northern capital St. Petersburg surpassed it.
    In Moscow. statistics gathered by Muslim organizations show, some 235,000 Muslims assembled at the city’s five mosques, including 80,000 at the Central Cathedral Mosque; but in St. Petersburg, where the number of Muslims is far smaller, more than 300,000 came out (ng.ru/faith/2025-03-30/3_9223_muslims.html).
    The number of Muslims in Moscow visiting mosques on this holiday in fact rose from 205,000 last year; but the figure for Muslims in St. Petersburg rose more rapidly. In reporting these statistics, Nezavisimaya Gazeta suggested that they may reflect greater anti-immigrant actions by the police in Moscow than in St. Petersburg.
    That is likely a part of the explanation, but this pattern highlights the fact that an increasing share of Muslims arriving in major Russian cities is going to St. Petersburg rather than to Moscow where anti-immigrant feelings have been more regularly whipped up by the authorities and that the northern capital is on its way to becoming a major center of Muslim life.
    That in turn means that the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) both based in the northern capital and represented there are going to be ever more important and deserve at least as much attention as is routinely given to their counterparts in Moscow because in Islam, the number of participants in holiday celebrations is perhaps the best indication of influence.