Paul Goble
Vienna, December 18 – The Russian Far East is “drifting away” from the rest of the country, according to an investigation carried out by Nezavisimaya gazeta – Regiony, and the Kremlin’s much-ballyhooed program intended to reverse that process may in fact be making it worse.
At present, Igor’ Naumov writes in the current issue of the Moscow journal, only four percent of the economy of the Russian Far East is “connected” to that of the rest of Russia, with an overwhelming share – some 75 percent – tied to Pacific rim countries instead (http://www.ng.ru/ngregions/2007-12-17/13_rubezh.html).
In addition, over the past fifteen years, as the Russian Federation has moved away from state financing of government-identified projects to private enterprises whose decisions are not necessarily linked to the national interest, “the economic and humanitarian ties of the federal center” to this region “have been constantly falling.”
And finally, there has been a net outmigration from this enormous Russian region of 1.7 million people during the same period, leaving it with a total population of only a few more than three million, which means that much of the Russian Far East is virtually uninhabited.
In order to counter these trends, President Vladimir Putin in January 2007 announced plans for a major investment program in the region, but so far, it has not had much impact, Naumov says, and there are even reasons to think that it may exacerbate the situation.
There are three reasons for that. First, almost all of the funds that have been allocated to it have gone to the city of Vladivostok to spruce it up for regional summit meetings. That makes Russia’s largest city on the Pacific look better, but it does nothing for the interior.
Second, as even Regional Development Minister Dmitriy Kozak acknowledges, the current “methodology for distribution and expenditure of budget means” in these regions is “at its roots incorrect.” As a result, what government money there may be is not going where it is most needed and could do the most good.
And third – and this is likely to prove the most politically problematic for Moscow – because the center has provided too few funds for the region’s future development, leaders there have an incentive to use Chinese guestworkers rather than Russian laborers.
Moscow officials estimate that in the next several years, the Russian Far East will need at least three million additional workers, but the center’s aid package for development does not provide any money for the construction of apartments and other infrastructure that might attract and support Russians from other parts of the country.
In the absence of such funds, regional leaders are planning to make use of Chinese guest workers, who, unlike Russian specialists will “agree to live in barracks and don’t need apartments and schools” for themselves and their families. And with the arrival of the Chinese, even more Russians are likely to leave.
At the very least, such shifts will cause some Russian nationalists to charge that the Kremlin is “selling out” the region to overpopulated China next door. But even if those emotional charges are untrue, what Putin is doing will almost certainly lead more leaders in the Far East to look abroad rather than to Moscow to build up their homeland.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Muslims Begin Talking about a ‘Muslim Russia’
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 18 – Russia’s Muslims are beginning to change the way they talk about the relationship between their religious community and their country, a shift that reflects their own growing self-confidence but one that frightens many ethnic Russians who see it as a threat to their own status.
Until recently, Daniyal Isayev writes in a commentary on the Islam.ru portal, the Muslims of Russia, like most analysts who discuss their community, typically spoke “about ‘Islam and Russia,’ ‘Islam in Russia,’ and even ‘[non-ethnic] Russian Islam.” But they “never” referred to “’Muslim Russia.’”
Now, he writes, ever more of the faithful there are doing just that, a reflection of “how much is changing both in the world and in Russia itself” -- and “especially in the consciousness, self-conception and position of Muslims” living in that country (http://www.islam.rupressclub/analitika/bumora/?print_page).
This shift does not represent a split in Russian society, the Muslim commentator insists, but rather represents an affirmation that Islam is “an inalienable part of Russia” and that “Russia as a state and civilization could not exist without Islam and the Muslims.”
The Islamic community emerged “on the territory of contemporary Russia not only centuries earlier than in many other regions of the world which today are considered traditionally Islamic but centuries before the appearance of the [ethnic] Russian people and [ethnic] Russian and [non-ethnic] Russian statehood.”
“Muslim Russia,” he writes, “is Derbent, Kazan, Astrakhan, Ufa, Tyumen, Orenburg and so on. Today, this is also Moscow and St. Petersburg. {It] is the creativity of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tolstoy, … an enormous territory and peoples of Northern Eurasia who were drawn together by the Golden Horde.”
Moreover, “Muslim Russia is [also] the victories on the fronts of the First and Second World Wars, gold medals at the Olympics and scientific achievements of recent years.” And the future of Muslim Russia, Isayev suggests, is certain to be even richer and more beneficial to the country.
That is because “Muslim Russia is not a finished or finally completed phenomenon. [It] is a dynamically developing present and a magnificent future of our country,” one in which Russia’s Muslims “every day acquire ever greater certainty in their own strength, in their own goals, and their own future.”
In many ways, Muslims today are playing in Russia the role of the creative minority that the English historian Arnold Toynbee suggested every country needs. And by doing so, they are thus helping others in Russia to overcome the “deep crisis” that many have been experiencing.
Of course, Isayev concedes, “Muslims of Russia are a religious minority,” but that should not disturb them at all. “In this there is nothing strange or out of the ordinary. The entire history of Islam was written by Muslims who were [at one point] minorities in their own motherland,” whether that was in Mecca or somewhere else.
And precisely because Russia’s Muslims live today “not only on the borders with non-Muslim societies but also on the borders of a new, post-industrial world, which puts before Islam ever new challenges,” they may have a special role to play not only for Russia itself but for the entire Muslim world.
Indeed, in this, the 21st century, it is entirely possible that “Muslim Russia can become the advance guard of the development of Islam in Northern Eurasia” and even of the development of the Islamic community of the entire world. “Only Allah knows,” Isayev concludes, just what role in the future Muslim Russia is fated to play.”
But there is one role that “Muslim Russia” is already playing: as a bogeyman to many non-Muslim Russians who feel that the rapid growth of the Islamic community in their country at the present time represents a threat not only to their way of life but even to the existence of the Russian state itself.
Indeed, in the words of one Russian nationalist writer, Russians today “no longer feel themselves masters in their own house” but rather like unwelcome and even temporary guests in a country that they had always assumed to be theirs alone and certainly not a Muslim one (http://www.apn.ru/column/article18631.htm ).
Many other Russian commentators feel the same. One suggests that that the Russian government is increasingly opposed to ethnic Russians either to curry favor with the West, avoid violence or win support from the significantly more pliant non-Russian communities (http://www.apn.ru.opinions/print18645.htm).
Another suggests that non-Russians are allowed to attack Russians in ways that Russians are not, something that not only drives many Russians out of non-Russian regions but fuels the anger of even those Russians who live in still predominantly Russian rgions (http://rus-proekt.ru/people/2652.html).
And yet a third uses openly racist language to insist that ethnic Russians are being overwhelmed by what he calls “hot southern blood” and are now reduced to identifying themselves as ethnic Russians when they seek housing in a country that is named after them (http://www.gazetanv.ru/article/?iod=5143).
The existence of these two sets of attitudes, the increasingly self-confident Muslim one, on the one hand, and the increasingly defensive ethnic Russian one, on the other, points to more conflicts ahead, unless the authorities and cooler heads on both sides pull back a little and reflect on just how dangerous such clashes could be.
Vienna, December 18 – Russia’s Muslims are beginning to change the way they talk about the relationship between their religious community and their country, a shift that reflects their own growing self-confidence but one that frightens many ethnic Russians who see it as a threat to their own status.
Until recently, Daniyal Isayev writes in a commentary on the Islam.ru portal, the Muslims of Russia, like most analysts who discuss their community, typically spoke “about ‘Islam and Russia,’ ‘Islam in Russia,’ and even ‘[non-ethnic] Russian Islam.” But they “never” referred to “’Muslim Russia.’”
Now, he writes, ever more of the faithful there are doing just that, a reflection of “how much is changing both in the world and in Russia itself” -- and “especially in the consciousness, self-conception and position of Muslims” living in that country (http://www.islam.rupressclub/analitika/bumora/?print_page).
This shift does not represent a split in Russian society, the Muslim commentator insists, but rather represents an affirmation that Islam is “an inalienable part of Russia” and that “Russia as a state and civilization could not exist without Islam and the Muslims.”
The Islamic community emerged “on the territory of contemporary Russia not only centuries earlier than in many other regions of the world which today are considered traditionally Islamic but centuries before the appearance of the [ethnic] Russian people and [ethnic] Russian and [non-ethnic] Russian statehood.”
“Muslim Russia,” he writes, “is Derbent, Kazan, Astrakhan, Ufa, Tyumen, Orenburg and so on. Today, this is also Moscow and St. Petersburg. {It] is the creativity of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tolstoy, … an enormous territory and peoples of Northern Eurasia who were drawn together by the Golden Horde.”
Moreover, “Muslim Russia is [also] the victories on the fronts of the First and Second World Wars, gold medals at the Olympics and scientific achievements of recent years.” And the future of Muslim Russia, Isayev suggests, is certain to be even richer and more beneficial to the country.
That is because “Muslim Russia is not a finished or finally completed phenomenon. [It] is a dynamically developing present and a magnificent future of our country,” one in which Russia’s Muslims “every day acquire ever greater certainty in their own strength, in their own goals, and their own future.”
In many ways, Muslims today are playing in Russia the role of the creative minority that the English historian Arnold Toynbee suggested every country needs. And by doing so, they are thus helping others in Russia to overcome the “deep crisis” that many have been experiencing.
Of course, Isayev concedes, “Muslims of Russia are a religious minority,” but that should not disturb them at all. “In this there is nothing strange or out of the ordinary. The entire history of Islam was written by Muslims who were [at one point] minorities in their own motherland,” whether that was in Mecca or somewhere else.
And precisely because Russia’s Muslims live today “not only on the borders with non-Muslim societies but also on the borders of a new, post-industrial world, which puts before Islam ever new challenges,” they may have a special role to play not only for Russia itself but for the entire Muslim world.
Indeed, in this, the 21st century, it is entirely possible that “Muslim Russia can become the advance guard of the development of Islam in Northern Eurasia” and even of the development of the Islamic community of the entire world. “Only Allah knows,” Isayev concludes, just what role in the future Muslim Russia is fated to play.”
But there is one role that “Muslim Russia” is already playing: as a bogeyman to many non-Muslim Russians who feel that the rapid growth of the Islamic community in their country at the present time represents a threat not only to their way of life but even to the existence of the Russian state itself.
Indeed, in the words of one Russian nationalist writer, Russians today “no longer feel themselves masters in their own house” but rather like unwelcome and even temporary guests in a country that they had always assumed to be theirs alone and certainly not a Muslim one (http://www.apn.ru/column/article18631.htm ).
Many other Russian commentators feel the same. One suggests that that the Russian government is increasingly opposed to ethnic Russians either to curry favor with the West, avoid violence or win support from the significantly more pliant non-Russian communities (http://www.apn.ru.opinions/print18645.htm).
Another suggests that non-Russians are allowed to attack Russians in ways that Russians are not, something that not only drives many Russians out of non-Russian regions but fuels the anger of even those Russians who live in still predominantly Russian rgions (http://rus-proekt.ru/people/2652.html).
And yet a third uses openly racist language to insist that ethnic Russians are being overwhelmed by what he calls “hot southern blood” and are now reduced to identifying themselves as ethnic Russians when they seek housing in a country that is named after them (http://www.gazetanv.ru/article/?iod=5143).
The existence of these two sets of attitudes, the increasingly self-confident Muslim one, on the one hand, and the increasingly defensive ethnic Russian one, on the other, points to more conflicts ahead, unless the authorities and cooler heads on both sides pull back a little and reflect on just how dangerous such clashes could be.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Faces Obstacles to Creating a Civic Nation -- But Dangers If It Doesn’t
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 17 -- In addition to pressure from nationalist groups that want “a Russia for the Russians,” the Kremlin currently faces at least six major obstacles to the realization of its announced plans to create a non-ethnic, super-ethnic Russian political nation, according to a leading Moscow specialist on ethno-politics.
But if the Kremlin fails to overcome them and soon, a leader of the Russian Federation’s rapidly growing Muslim community has warned, the country’s Muslims and other minorities are likely to turn on Vladimir Putin however much support they have given him up to now.
In an essay posted online Friday, Natalia Kharitonova, a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Social-Political Processes in the Post-Soviet States at Moscow State University, gives one of the most thoughtful discussions yet of the differences between a “political” nation and an “ethnic” one and the problems Moscow faces in dealing with each.
She notes that an “ethnic” nation gives preference to the state-forming nationality and thus elevates the rights of this community over those of the individual, an arrangement she suggests has been accepted in many of the post-Soviet states, albeit in various degrees of severity (http://russkie.org/index.php?module=fullitem&id=11547).
A “political” nation, in contrast, is one in which the rights of individuals who identify with the country regardless of their ethnic background are paramount. And this kind of nation, Kharitonova says, is the one the current Russian government is committed to creating for the Russian Federation.
But she points out that Moscow faces an enormous range of difficulties, some of them inherited from the tsarist and Soviet pasts, some from the attitudes of ethnic Russians who want to formalize their elevated status, and six others that seldom are discussed but may prove the greatest obstacles of all.
At the end of the tsarist period, the Moscow analyst points out, many writers and officials spoke out against any ethnic particularism or autonomy lest that become the basis for secessionist challenges. Instead, the subjects of the empire were to be united by a single political loyalty to the tsar and his regime.
In Soviet times, the government went even further, she notes. “Having offered autonomous status” to ethnic territories, the Soviet government “attempted and to quite great lengths succeeded in moving along the path of the construction of a Soviet socialist super-nation” and the establishment of “’Soviet citizen’” as the primary identity for all its citizens.
Despite all the problems with that identity, Kharitonova says, its continuing influence among all Russian Federation residents over the age of 25 has led “the current Russian authorities” to try to make “use it for the formation of a civic nation of [non-ethnic] Russians.”
Not surprisingly, however, they have faced difficulties. On the one hand, many ethnic Russians believe that they should have a special and predominant place in the political order of the Russian Federation just as other titular nationalities have assumed in the other post-Soviet states.
And on the other, the Kremlin faces in addition six major obstacles that seldom attract as much attention as the “Russia for the Russians” sloganeering of the nationalists does, but that individually and collectively may pose even more difficulties for the regime in doing what it needs to do given the multi-ethnic nature of Russian society.
Briefly stated -- and Kharitonova provides significantly more details for each -- these include: First, “the construction of a single Soviet people was not completed, thus reducing the ability of the current regime to be able to use it. Many Soviet citizens viewed other narrower identities as far more important.
Second, the view that the state should give primacy to civic rights relative to those of ethnic and religious groups has remained almost entirely “alien” in Russia, thus undercutting what the Kremlin says it wants to do. Third, in many regions, ethnic and religious identities are strengthening rather than declining and thus compete with civic one.
Fourth, the very notion of a civic nation is difficult to apply to Russia because it arose in countries with a tradition of the melting pot, something that Russia did not have at any point in its history. Fifth, the role of ethnic Russians in the history of the state is so enormous that not acknowledging it is offensive to many members of this largest group.
And sixth -- and it is clear from her comments that Kharitonova believes this is the place which offers the greatest chance for a breakthrough, “in Russia today there is lacking a well-articulated national idea, capable of uniting the population of Russia as a single whole and mobilizing it for the achievement of these goals.”
“After the collapse of the USSR,” the Moscow State University scholar says, “the politicization of ethnicity became the … most powerful means of mobilizing society in the process of construction of national statehood on the post-Soviet space.” Other countries have used it, but Russia by virtue of its demography cannot if it is to remain both united and open.
The pressures toward dictatorship are all too obvious. Indeed, they are so obvious that Kharitonova does not even mention them. But the threats to the country’s unity are less so to many, especially after Vladimir Putin’s repeated insistence that the construction of his power vertical has guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
However, the situation may not be as the Russian president has suggested. In an article in “Medina al’-Islam” published last week, that journal’s editor Damir Mukhetdinov says that Russia’s Muslims are currently united behind Putin and the Russian government but that this happy situation could end quickly.
Mukhetdinov, who is one of the most influential of Russia’s Muslim intellectuals, notes that “the unity of all [non-ethnic] Russians -- the people, the power, and the organs of spiritual power had allowed them to push the country forward” during the first years of the 21st century (http://www.islamrf.ru/articles.php?razdel=1&sid=1130).
But all that progress, he suggests, could be at risk if “the voices of those calling for a unitary state” and for the recognition of a special position for ethnic Russians as “the state-forming nationality” are not stilled and the policies of Russian officials at all levels are not immunized against their influence.
The rhetoric of many nationalists, he points out, contradicts the Russian Constitution which holds that “We are a multi-national people.” That must be insisted upon, he says because “the national composition of the country is changing daily and in various regions the national and religious majority is different.”
“In certain regions,” the Muslim editor notes, “Buddhists form the majority, and in others, Muslims do.” Arguing that ethnic Russians are the state-forming nationality there or even in the country as a whole, thus is contradictory And in case anyone mistakes just how dangerous this could be, he draws the following analogies:
“The attempts of the Soviet regime to assimilate non-Russian peoples led only to the collapse of the USSR, the 85th anniversary of which we should have been marking in December of this year In post-Soviet Georgia, the struggle with the national self-consciousness of the Abkhaz and Osetians in fact led to the splitting of the country.”
“Happily,” Mukhetdinov concludes, the situation in Russia has not deteriorated to that extent. But if it has not yet done so, the Muslim editor’s words clearly imply, there is a very real risk that it could, especially if the Kremlin retreats from its commitment to creating, despite all the obstacles, a genuine civic nation.
Vienna, December 17 -- In addition to pressure from nationalist groups that want “a Russia for the Russians,” the Kremlin currently faces at least six major obstacles to the realization of its announced plans to create a non-ethnic, super-ethnic Russian political nation, according to a leading Moscow specialist on ethno-politics.
But if the Kremlin fails to overcome them and soon, a leader of the Russian Federation’s rapidly growing Muslim community has warned, the country’s Muslims and other minorities are likely to turn on Vladimir Putin however much support they have given him up to now.
In an essay posted online Friday, Natalia Kharitonova, a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Social-Political Processes in the Post-Soviet States at Moscow State University, gives one of the most thoughtful discussions yet of the differences between a “political” nation and an “ethnic” one and the problems Moscow faces in dealing with each.
She notes that an “ethnic” nation gives preference to the state-forming nationality and thus elevates the rights of this community over those of the individual, an arrangement she suggests has been accepted in many of the post-Soviet states, albeit in various degrees of severity (http://russkie.org/index.php?module=fullitem&id=11547).
A “political” nation, in contrast, is one in which the rights of individuals who identify with the country regardless of their ethnic background are paramount. And this kind of nation, Kharitonova says, is the one the current Russian government is committed to creating for the Russian Federation.
But she points out that Moscow faces an enormous range of difficulties, some of them inherited from the tsarist and Soviet pasts, some from the attitudes of ethnic Russians who want to formalize their elevated status, and six others that seldom are discussed but may prove the greatest obstacles of all.
At the end of the tsarist period, the Moscow analyst points out, many writers and officials spoke out against any ethnic particularism or autonomy lest that become the basis for secessionist challenges. Instead, the subjects of the empire were to be united by a single political loyalty to the tsar and his regime.
In Soviet times, the government went even further, she notes. “Having offered autonomous status” to ethnic territories, the Soviet government “attempted and to quite great lengths succeeded in moving along the path of the construction of a Soviet socialist super-nation” and the establishment of “’Soviet citizen’” as the primary identity for all its citizens.
Despite all the problems with that identity, Kharitonova says, its continuing influence among all Russian Federation residents over the age of 25 has led “the current Russian authorities” to try to make “use it for the formation of a civic nation of [non-ethnic] Russians.”
Not surprisingly, however, they have faced difficulties. On the one hand, many ethnic Russians believe that they should have a special and predominant place in the political order of the Russian Federation just as other titular nationalities have assumed in the other post-Soviet states.
And on the other, the Kremlin faces in addition six major obstacles that seldom attract as much attention as the “Russia for the Russians” sloganeering of the nationalists does, but that individually and collectively may pose even more difficulties for the regime in doing what it needs to do given the multi-ethnic nature of Russian society.
Briefly stated -- and Kharitonova provides significantly more details for each -- these include: First, “the construction of a single Soviet people was not completed, thus reducing the ability of the current regime to be able to use it. Many Soviet citizens viewed other narrower identities as far more important.
Second, the view that the state should give primacy to civic rights relative to those of ethnic and religious groups has remained almost entirely “alien” in Russia, thus undercutting what the Kremlin says it wants to do. Third, in many regions, ethnic and religious identities are strengthening rather than declining and thus compete with civic one.
Fourth, the very notion of a civic nation is difficult to apply to Russia because it arose in countries with a tradition of the melting pot, something that Russia did not have at any point in its history. Fifth, the role of ethnic Russians in the history of the state is so enormous that not acknowledging it is offensive to many members of this largest group.
And sixth -- and it is clear from her comments that Kharitonova believes this is the place which offers the greatest chance for a breakthrough, “in Russia today there is lacking a well-articulated national idea, capable of uniting the population of Russia as a single whole and mobilizing it for the achievement of these goals.”
“After the collapse of the USSR,” the Moscow State University scholar says, “the politicization of ethnicity became the … most powerful means of mobilizing society in the process of construction of national statehood on the post-Soviet space.” Other countries have used it, but Russia by virtue of its demography cannot if it is to remain both united and open.
The pressures toward dictatorship are all too obvious. Indeed, they are so obvious that Kharitonova does not even mention them. But the threats to the country’s unity are less so to many, especially after Vladimir Putin’s repeated insistence that the construction of his power vertical has guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
However, the situation may not be as the Russian president has suggested. In an article in “Medina al’-Islam” published last week, that journal’s editor Damir Mukhetdinov says that Russia’s Muslims are currently united behind Putin and the Russian government but that this happy situation could end quickly.
Mukhetdinov, who is one of the most influential of Russia’s Muslim intellectuals, notes that “the unity of all [non-ethnic] Russians -- the people, the power, and the organs of spiritual power had allowed them to push the country forward” during the first years of the 21st century (http://www.islamrf.ru/articles.php?razdel=1&sid=1130).
But all that progress, he suggests, could be at risk if “the voices of those calling for a unitary state” and for the recognition of a special position for ethnic Russians as “the state-forming nationality” are not stilled and the policies of Russian officials at all levels are not immunized against their influence.
The rhetoric of many nationalists, he points out, contradicts the Russian Constitution which holds that “We are a multi-national people.” That must be insisted upon, he says because “the national composition of the country is changing daily and in various regions the national and religious majority is different.”
“In certain regions,” the Muslim editor notes, “Buddhists form the majority, and in others, Muslims do.” Arguing that ethnic Russians are the state-forming nationality there or even in the country as a whole, thus is contradictory And in case anyone mistakes just how dangerous this could be, he draws the following analogies:
“The attempts of the Soviet regime to assimilate non-Russian peoples led only to the collapse of the USSR, the 85th anniversary of which we should have been marking in December of this year In post-Soviet Georgia, the struggle with the national self-consciousness of the Abkhaz and Osetians in fact led to the splitting of the country.”
“Happily,” Mukhetdinov concludes, the situation in Russia has not deteriorated to that extent. But if it has not yet done so, the Muslim editor’s words clearly imply, there is a very real risk that it could, especially if the Kremlin retreats from its commitment to creating, despite all the obstacles, a genuine civic nation.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Independent Ingushetia Web Site Parries Official Pressure
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 16 -- Ingushetia.ru, an independent news portal that the authorities in that republic have long sought to close down, has successfully parried the latest move of the government there -- a death threat to the father of the owner of this Internet operation.
After launching denial of service attacks against Ingushetia.ru, hacking it to redirect visitors to a pornographic site, and opening criminal cases against the site’s owner, the Ingush government thought it had found the perfect way to close this site, which often reports news about conditions there that the authorities do not want covered.
The government sent a group of people to visit Yakhu Yevloyev, the 64-year-old father of the owner of the site, and told him to tell his lawyer son, Magomed, to close it down. Given that in Ingush society, a father’s word is law, the son agreed, especially since the advice to the father was accompanied by a death threat.
In reporting this threat on December 12, Ingushetia.ru said that the father told the son that the latter had to act because as a result of the site’s news coverage, he now had “so many enemies” that he “could be killed at any moment.” (See also, the broader discussion of such pressure at http://www.novagazeta.ru/data/2007/95/24.html.)
But to muddy the waters and make it appear that Magomed had done a deal with the authorities on this point, the Ingushetia government at the same time dropped one of two charges against Magomed, although they have left one in place presumably to be in a position to use it against him if he has not done what they want.
That may soon turn out to be the case: Although Magomed Yevloyev himself gave up editorial control of the site this week, he transferred the operation of Ingushetia.ru to a group of activists who pledge to continue the site’s operation, hard-hitting reporting and editorial line (http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Regions/p.131183.html).
So far as one can judge from stories on the site this week, they appear to be doing so, although Yevloyev has expressed concern that none of those now involved is a professional journalist and that there is thus a danger that the officials may be able to manipulate them in other ways now that the threat officials hoped would work has not.
In covering this case of official pressure, Kommersant suggested that there may be an additional reason for what is going on. Journalists at the Moscow paper noted that Yevloyev uses an internet service provider based abroad, in this case, the United States (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=835254&print=true).
If that is the case, then a significant number of other independent news sites in the Russian Federation, with IP services based abroad and thus generally beyond Moscow’s reach, may see the authorities try a similarly brutal approach to intimidate or close them down.
That should disturb everyone concerned about media freedom and freedom more generally in the Russian Federation, but the clever moves of the Ingushetia.ru site’s operators suggest that in conflicts of this type, there are some steps journalists and activists can take that will allow them to continue to operate.
The question, of course, is how long these courageous people will be able to do so before the Russian authorities try something new and possibly even more nasty against them than issuing death threats to the father of a site owner as pro-Kremlin officials have done in this particular case.
Vienna, December 16 -- Ingushetia.ru, an independent news portal that the authorities in that republic have long sought to close down, has successfully parried the latest move of the government there -- a death threat to the father of the owner of this Internet operation.
After launching denial of service attacks against Ingushetia.ru, hacking it to redirect visitors to a pornographic site, and opening criminal cases against the site’s owner, the Ingush government thought it had found the perfect way to close this site, which often reports news about conditions there that the authorities do not want covered.
The government sent a group of people to visit Yakhu Yevloyev, the 64-year-old father of the owner of the site, and told him to tell his lawyer son, Magomed, to close it down. Given that in Ingush society, a father’s word is law, the son agreed, especially since the advice to the father was accompanied by a death threat.
In reporting this threat on December 12, Ingushetia.ru said that the father told the son that the latter had to act because as a result of the site’s news coverage, he now had “so many enemies” that he “could be killed at any moment.” (See also, the broader discussion of such pressure at http://www.novagazeta.ru/data/2007/95/24.html.)
But to muddy the waters and make it appear that Magomed had done a deal with the authorities on this point, the Ingushetia government at the same time dropped one of two charges against Magomed, although they have left one in place presumably to be in a position to use it against him if he has not done what they want.
That may soon turn out to be the case: Although Magomed Yevloyev himself gave up editorial control of the site this week, he transferred the operation of Ingushetia.ru to a group of activists who pledge to continue the site’s operation, hard-hitting reporting and editorial line (http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Regions/p.131183.html).
So far as one can judge from stories on the site this week, they appear to be doing so, although Yevloyev has expressed concern that none of those now involved is a professional journalist and that there is thus a danger that the officials may be able to manipulate them in other ways now that the threat officials hoped would work has not.
In covering this case of official pressure, Kommersant suggested that there may be an additional reason for what is going on. Journalists at the Moscow paper noted that Yevloyev uses an internet service provider based abroad, in this case, the United States (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=835254&print=true).
If that is the case, then a significant number of other independent news sites in the Russian Federation, with IP services based abroad and thus generally beyond Moscow’s reach, may see the authorities try a similarly brutal approach to intimidate or close them down.
That should disturb everyone concerned about media freedom and freedom more generally in the Russian Federation, but the clever moves of the Ingushetia.ru site’s operators suggest that in conflicts of this type, there are some steps journalists and activists can take that will allow them to continue to operate.
The question, of course, is how long these courageous people will be able to do so before the Russian authorities try something new and possibly even more nasty against them than issuing death threats to the father of a site owner as pro-Kremlin officials have done in this particular case.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Demography May Force Moscow to Reduce Size of Russian Military
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 15 -- Even though Vladimir Putin’s designated successor says few senior officials even know what demography is, changes in the number of 18-year-olds over the next few years will impose severe constraints on the Russian government and may force it to reduce the size of its armed forces.
According to an article in the latest Nezavizimoye voennoye obozreniye, declines in the size of the draft-age cohort are so large that Moscow will have to increase the share of that group drafted, take in more older men, or increase the length of military obligation to 18 months if it wants to maintain the current size of its army --1,131,000.
But each of these options would create serious difficulties not only for the Kremlin but for the country’s economy, Vladimir Yevleyev, a senior researcher at the Moscow Institute of International Economics and International Relations (IMEMO), argues, and consequently, the government may have to cut the size of the draft and hence of the military.
Given that Russia has the fourth largest military in the world and that all three country’s that have larger armed services -- the U.S., China, and India -- have significantly larger populations, this scholar argues, such cuts would seem the government’s most reasonable choice (http://nvo.ng.ru/forces/2007-12-14/1_prizyv.html).
Dmitriy Medvedev, Putin’s choice to be the next president, said that nine out of ten ministers do not even know what demography is, a striking comment given both the amount of time Putin has spent talking about it and the impact population changes are already having on the government (http://www.izvestia.ru/Russia/article3111233/?print).
If many government ministers in the Russian Federation do not pay much attention to demographic issues, Russia’s military commanders have been focusing on their implications for country’s national defense posture for some time and will, Yevleyev suggests, have to do so even more over the next several years.
Until very recently, the IMEMO scholar says, the number of young men reaching the prime draft age of 18 has not been fewer than one million, of whom approximately 20 percent have been drafted with the remainder receiving deferments or exemptions of one kind or another.
But because some of those receiving deferments have been drafted at slightly older ages, the percentage of men called to the colors has been about 30 percent of the draft-age cohort during the period 1996-2004. Because more than two out of three men never served, the impact of the draft on the economy was relatively small.
In the last several years, the number of Russian men reaching the age of 18 has declined and will decline even more over the next few years. (Because these people have already been born, the figures Yevleyev gives are not projections but a count of currently existing people.
Next year, he reports, the number of 18 year olds will fall to 935,000, and in the out years, it will decline even more. Consequently, if the military is to remain at its current size, a greater percentage of this age group will have to serve with the obvious economic and political consequences.
The Russian government has already begun to address this problem. It has reduced the number of reasons for deferment and as of January, it will significantly reduce the number of draftees sent to the internal forces of the Interior Ministry and end the use of draftees in the FSB’s border guards.
The cutback in the number of reasons for deferment, Yevleyev calculates, will increase the draft pool by approximately 90,000 men next year, but this increase will decline thereafter to 81,000 in 2009, and 72,000 in 2010.
And the reduction or end of use of draftees outside the military will boost the number of men available for service in the armed forces by 100,000 next year and thereafter as well, the MGIMO scholar concludes.
But even with these changes, the pool from which the military can draw draftees -- after all deferments are taken into account will fall from 464,000 in 2008 to only 388,000 in 2010. And those numbers put the service in a real bind, one that commanders and their political masters will have to address.
One solution would be to increase the percentage of the total 18-year-old cohort serving, something that would likely have a negative impact on educational attainment, the economy, and on the country’s birthrate, because soldiers would be marrying and having children significantly later.
Another would be to take in more older men, but that too would have not only the same negative consequences as taking in a greater share of 18 year olds but would likely lead to more political problems because these older people would see their lives either as students or as beginning employees disrupted.
And consequently, Yevleyev says, the Russian government is left with two other options, each of which entails some serious political risks and problems. It could increase the length of service to 18 months, something that would be extremely unpopular among potential soldiers and their parents.
Or it could reduce the size of the military and thus its needs for more men. Yevleyev clearly sees this as the best way out, but taking that step would be resented by commanders and could make it more difficult for Moscow to control the country or project power in neighboring states.
It is worth noting that Yevleyev does not even mention another demographic trend that is affecting the Russian military -- the ever increasing share of the draft pool consisting of men from traditional Islamic nationalities, a group many ethnic Russian officers find it difficult to manage.
Consequently, while many Russian ministers may be as oblivious to demographic trends as Medvedev says, the defense minister is certainly not among them. And the problems demography is creating for his area of responsibility will soon be assuming an equally large role for other ministries as well.
Vienna, December 15 -- Even though Vladimir Putin’s designated successor says few senior officials even know what demography is, changes in the number of 18-year-olds over the next few years will impose severe constraints on the Russian government and may force it to reduce the size of its armed forces.
According to an article in the latest Nezavizimoye voennoye obozreniye, declines in the size of the draft-age cohort are so large that Moscow will have to increase the share of that group drafted, take in more older men, or increase the length of military obligation to 18 months if it wants to maintain the current size of its army --1,131,000.
But each of these options would create serious difficulties not only for the Kremlin but for the country’s economy, Vladimir Yevleyev, a senior researcher at the Moscow Institute of International Economics and International Relations (IMEMO), argues, and consequently, the government may have to cut the size of the draft and hence of the military.
Given that Russia has the fourth largest military in the world and that all three country’s that have larger armed services -- the U.S., China, and India -- have significantly larger populations, this scholar argues, such cuts would seem the government’s most reasonable choice (http://nvo.ng.ru/forces/2007-12-14/1_prizyv.html).
Dmitriy Medvedev, Putin’s choice to be the next president, said that nine out of ten ministers do not even know what demography is, a striking comment given both the amount of time Putin has spent talking about it and the impact population changes are already having on the government (http://www.izvestia.ru/Russia/article3111233/?print).
If many government ministers in the Russian Federation do not pay much attention to demographic issues, Russia’s military commanders have been focusing on their implications for country’s national defense posture for some time and will, Yevleyev suggests, have to do so even more over the next several years.
Until very recently, the IMEMO scholar says, the number of young men reaching the prime draft age of 18 has not been fewer than one million, of whom approximately 20 percent have been drafted with the remainder receiving deferments or exemptions of one kind or another.
But because some of those receiving deferments have been drafted at slightly older ages, the percentage of men called to the colors has been about 30 percent of the draft-age cohort during the period 1996-2004. Because more than two out of three men never served, the impact of the draft on the economy was relatively small.
In the last several years, the number of Russian men reaching the age of 18 has declined and will decline even more over the next few years. (Because these people have already been born, the figures Yevleyev gives are not projections but a count of currently existing people.
Next year, he reports, the number of 18 year olds will fall to 935,000, and in the out years, it will decline even more. Consequently, if the military is to remain at its current size, a greater percentage of this age group will have to serve with the obvious economic and political consequences.
The Russian government has already begun to address this problem. It has reduced the number of reasons for deferment and as of January, it will significantly reduce the number of draftees sent to the internal forces of the Interior Ministry and end the use of draftees in the FSB’s border guards.
The cutback in the number of reasons for deferment, Yevleyev calculates, will increase the draft pool by approximately 90,000 men next year, but this increase will decline thereafter to 81,000 in 2009, and 72,000 in 2010.
And the reduction or end of use of draftees outside the military will boost the number of men available for service in the armed forces by 100,000 next year and thereafter as well, the MGIMO scholar concludes.
But even with these changes, the pool from which the military can draw draftees -- after all deferments are taken into account will fall from 464,000 in 2008 to only 388,000 in 2010. And those numbers put the service in a real bind, one that commanders and their political masters will have to address.
One solution would be to increase the percentage of the total 18-year-old cohort serving, something that would likely have a negative impact on educational attainment, the economy, and on the country’s birthrate, because soldiers would be marrying and having children significantly later.
Another would be to take in more older men, but that too would have not only the same negative consequences as taking in a greater share of 18 year olds but would likely lead to more political problems because these older people would see their lives either as students or as beginning employees disrupted.
And consequently, Yevleyev says, the Russian government is left with two other options, each of which entails some serious political risks and problems. It could increase the length of service to 18 months, something that would be extremely unpopular among potential soldiers and their parents.
Or it could reduce the size of the military and thus its needs for more men. Yevleyev clearly sees this as the best way out, but taking that step would be resented by commanders and could make it more difficult for Moscow to control the country or project power in neighboring states.
It is worth noting that Yevleyev does not even mention another demographic trend that is affecting the Russian military -- the ever increasing share of the draft pool consisting of men from traditional Islamic nationalities, a group many ethnic Russian officers find it difficult to manage.
Consequently, while many Russian ministers may be as oblivious to demographic trends as Medvedev says, the defense minister is certainly not among them. And the problems demography is creating for his area of responsibility will soon be assuming an equally large role for other ministries as well.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Window on Eurasia: FSB Likely Behind Killing of Chechens in Azerbaijan, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 14 -- Andrei Soldatov, one of Moscow’s most respected commentators on the Russian security services, says that it is likely that the FSB is responsible for a series of murders, kidnappings, and disappearances of Chechen activists in Azerbaijan over the last several months.
Soldatov, who both leads the intelligence monitoring site Agentura.ru and writes for Moscow’s Novaya gazeta, argued yesterday that the recent murder of Imran Gaziyev, deputy head of the Chechen representation office in Baku, has all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence service hit (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2007/95/19.html).
The gun used to kill Gaziyev, he pointed out, not only was of a type long employed by the FSB and the KGB before it, but it had a PSM Baikal silencer attached and was left at the scene to send a message to others as to just who was responsible for the hit, clear marks of a security service operation.
And while it may be “premature” to reach any final judgment about the FSB’s role in this case, “it must not be excluded that the FSB organized this murder as well as other attacks against Chechen activists and officials, not only in Azerbaijan but elsewhere in the Caucasus as well.
In addition to the obvious motive of the FSB and the forensic evidence which points to a professional operation, Soldatov argues that there are three other compelling reasons for assuming that the Russian security services were involved.
First, since June 2006, the Kremlin has authorized the FSB and other Russian special services to “liquidate” Chechen militants abroad, much as some other governments have done against their opponents in the past. And in both cases, these regimes have acted in the knowledge that they are unlikely to be held accountable for killing their own citizen
Second, Soldatov says, “sources in the FSB confirm that they have an agreement with the force structures of Azerbaijan about the activities of Russian special operation groups [there] and on an open corridor across the border” between the two countries through which these groups can pass.
Given that the Azerbaijani security services have closely tracked Chechens there for the past 15 years, it is unlikely that Baku would not have been able to prevent attacks against them by anyone -- except by the security services of a state like the Russian Federation.
And third, Soldatov concludes, these attacks on Chechen activists in Azerbaijan fully confirm to the informal rules that some other governments have developed for fighting so-called “dirty wars” against those of their political opponents that are prepared to use violence against them.
Citing the actions of Spain’s anti-Basque Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberation in the 1980s and the conclusions of Irish journalist Paddy Woodworth about the struggles between the British and the IRA, Soldatov says there are three such rules that security services normally follow and that the Russian services appear to have followed in Azerbaijan.
First of all, such serves typically hire others to do their work in order to maintain plausible deniability. Then, they organize these attacks not simply to eliminate specific opponents but to intimidate others who support them, whether fellow citizens or foreign governments.
And finally, Soldatov says, the intelligence services engaged in such activities often do not tell their nominal political masters what they are planning or have done, operating on the basis of the principle that politicians have “’no need to know’” and even welcome being kept in the dark.
Soldatov’s case, as he himself admits, is largely circumstantial. But it is certainly suggestive, and if it is true as seems likely, such FSB activities point to a dangerous development not only in the Kremlin’s dealings both with its own opponents but also in its relationship with foreign governments as well.
Vienna, December 14 -- Andrei Soldatov, one of Moscow’s most respected commentators on the Russian security services, says that it is likely that the FSB is responsible for a series of murders, kidnappings, and disappearances of Chechen activists in Azerbaijan over the last several months.
Soldatov, who both leads the intelligence monitoring site Agentura.ru and writes for Moscow’s Novaya gazeta, argued yesterday that the recent murder of Imran Gaziyev, deputy head of the Chechen representation office in Baku, has all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence service hit (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2007/95/19.html).
The gun used to kill Gaziyev, he pointed out, not only was of a type long employed by the FSB and the KGB before it, but it had a PSM Baikal silencer attached and was left at the scene to send a message to others as to just who was responsible for the hit, clear marks of a security service operation.
And while it may be “premature” to reach any final judgment about the FSB’s role in this case, “it must not be excluded that the FSB organized this murder as well as other attacks against Chechen activists and officials, not only in Azerbaijan but elsewhere in the Caucasus as well.
In addition to the obvious motive of the FSB and the forensic evidence which points to a professional operation, Soldatov argues that there are three other compelling reasons for assuming that the Russian security services were involved.
First, since June 2006, the Kremlin has authorized the FSB and other Russian special services to “liquidate” Chechen militants abroad, much as some other governments have done against their opponents in the past. And in both cases, these regimes have acted in the knowledge that they are unlikely to be held accountable for killing their own citizen
Second, Soldatov says, “sources in the FSB confirm that they have an agreement with the force structures of Azerbaijan about the activities of Russian special operation groups [there] and on an open corridor across the border” between the two countries through which these groups can pass.
Given that the Azerbaijani security services have closely tracked Chechens there for the past 15 years, it is unlikely that Baku would not have been able to prevent attacks against them by anyone -- except by the security services of a state like the Russian Federation.
And third, Soldatov concludes, these attacks on Chechen activists in Azerbaijan fully confirm to the informal rules that some other governments have developed for fighting so-called “dirty wars” against those of their political opponents that are prepared to use violence against them.
Citing the actions of Spain’s anti-Basque Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberation in the 1980s and the conclusions of Irish journalist Paddy Woodworth about the struggles between the British and the IRA, Soldatov says there are three such rules that security services normally follow and that the Russian services appear to have followed in Azerbaijan.
First of all, such serves typically hire others to do their work in order to maintain plausible deniability. Then, they organize these attacks not simply to eliminate specific opponents but to intimidate others who support them, whether fellow citizens or foreign governments.
And finally, Soldatov says, the intelligence services engaged in such activities often do not tell their nominal political masters what they are planning or have done, operating on the basis of the principle that politicians have “’no need to know’” and even welcome being kept in the dark.
Soldatov’s case, as he himself admits, is largely circumstantial. But it is certainly suggestive, and if it is true as seems likely, such FSB activities point to a dangerous development not only in the Kremlin’s dealings both with its own opponents but also in its relationship with foreign governments as well.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Window on Russia: Is Putin in Fact Planning to Divide Russia into 50 States?
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 13 – President Vladimir Putin’s comment at the end of last month that Moscow may modify the borders of some of the seven federal districts he created either reflects or has sparked speculation that the Kremlin plans to re-divide the administration structures of the Russian Federation in more radical ways.
This week, the RBK news agency reported that the Russian government in fact has drawn up plans to transform the seven federal districts into seven “meta-regions” with slightly different borders than the existing ones have and to reduce the number of federal subjects to “no more than 50” (http://www.apn.ru/news/article18680.htm).
According to that agency, the Kremlin plans to begin by combining Moscow and Moscow oblast, a move Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has long sought, to unite St. Petersburg and Leningrad oblast, something the city authorities there desire, and to recombine Chechnya and Ingushetia, which Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has urged.
But if each of these steps has its supporters, all have serious opponents. Neither Moscow nor Leningrad oblast leaders want to cede their power to a combined entity, and Ingush officials, even those who are the most pro-Moscow, have been openly skeptical about the desirability of recombining the two republics that split apart 15 years ago.
In the past, such opposition of regional leaders in places like Adygeia and the Altai has been sufficient to slow if not completely stop whatever plans Moscow may have, but now there is another factor that APN analysts suggest may put a hold on this idea at least over the electoral season.
However much the leaders of the newly combined units might feel they owe the Kremlin and its leader, they would control far more assets and thus be in a better position to contest what the federal center might want. Indeed, the APN analysts say, such a combination could lead to significant conflicts between Moscow and the regions.
Why then did this report appear and appear now? There are at least three possible explanations, none of which can be immediately excluded. First, the RBK news item may simply be a complete fabrication, imputing to a comment Putin made on November 30 about the boundaries of the federal districts far more than is in fact there.
Second, this report may constitute a testing of the waters, an effort by the central authorities to see just how regional and other leaders might react to such a move. If so, then the lack of reaction to it over the last few days indicates that most of them are pursuing a cautious wait and see approach.
Or third, it could be completely accurate. In that event, Putin may be planning a kind of “big bang” approach to administrative reform, one that would allow him to introduce a number of very radical changes quickly at the end of his presidency and thus position him to form new alliances with new leaders.
If the last possibility is correct, then this move may be part of a far larger game intended to increase Putin’s freedom of action not only with respect to the regions but also in Moscow itself. Obviously, some of the regional leaders who would be losers at home could find themselves elevated to Moscow as newly minted Putin allies.
But there is one detail about this report that suggests the journalists who prepared it may be guessing or alternatively that the officials who put this idea into their heads were making something up out of more or less whole cloth: the number 50. Ever since at least 1825, Russians have been fascinated by the number of American states.
The chief ideologue of the Decembrists, Pavel Pestel, wrote that he and his fellow conspirators hoped to divide the new Russia into 13 states, just like the United States at the beginning of its history at the end of the eighteenth century and a number that he thought would promote a free and democratic Russia.
And in December 1991 -- indeed on the very day that the presidents of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus were meeting to eliminate his position and the country over which he ruled -- Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told journalists that he hoped to divide the USSR into 50 states, just like the United States now.
By making reference to this number, RBK joins a long tradition of superficial copying of American arrangements by Russian leaders, but given Putin’s current political course, it seems extremely unlikely that he in fact would be prepared to settle on exactly the same number.
And thus it may very well be that the radicalism of this proposal, if indeed it is real, is intended to allow him to take several smaller moves, thereby winning more friends among Russian nationalist groups without creating the kind of threat to the central authorities that a smaller number of larger federal units might pose.
Vienna, December 13 – President Vladimir Putin’s comment at the end of last month that Moscow may modify the borders of some of the seven federal districts he created either reflects or has sparked speculation that the Kremlin plans to re-divide the administration structures of the Russian Federation in more radical ways.
This week, the RBK news agency reported that the Russian government in fact has drawn up plans to transform the seven federal districts into seven “meta-regions” with slightly different borders than the existing ones have and to reduce the number of federal subjects to “no more than 50” (http://www.apn.ru/news/article18680.htm).
According to that agency, the Kremlin plans to begin by combining Moscow and Moscow oblast, a move Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has long sought, to unite St. Petersburg and Leningrad oblast, something the city authorities there desire, and to recombine Chechnya and Ingushetia, which Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has urged.
But if each of these steps has its supporters, all have serious opponents. Neither Moscow nor Leningrad oblast leaders want to cede their power to a combined entity, and Ingush officials, even those who are the most pro-Moscow, have been openly skeptical about the desirability of recombining the two republics that split apart 15 years ago.
In the past, such opposition of regional leaders in places like Adygeia and the Altai has been sufficient to slow if not completely stop whatever plans Moscow may have, but now there is another factor that APN analysts suggest may put a hold on this idea at least over the electoral season.
However much the leaders of the newly combined units might feel they owe the Kremlin and its leader, they would control far more assets and thus be in a better position to contest what the federal center might want. Indeed, the APN analysts say, such a combination could lead to significant conflicts between Moscow and the regions.
Why then did this report appear and appear now? There are at least three possible explanations, none of which can be immediately excluded. First, the RBK news item may simply be a complete fabrication, imputing to a comment Putin made on November 30 about the boundaries of the federal districts far more than is in fact there.
Second, this report may constitute a testing of the waters, an effort by the central authorities to see just how regional and other leaders might react to such a move. If so, then the lack of reaction to it over the last few days indicates that most of them are pursuing a cautious wait and see approach.
Or third, it could be completely accurate. In that event, Putin may be planning a kind of “big bang” approach to administrative reform, one that would allow him to introduce a number of very radical changes quickly at the end of his presidency and thus position him to form new alliances with new leaders.
If the last possibility is correct, then this move may be part of a far larger game intended to increase Putin’s freedom of action not only with respect to the regions but also in Moscow itself. Obviously, some of the regional leaders who would be losers at home could find themselves elevated to Moscow as newly minted Putin allies.
But there is one detail about this report that suggests the journalists who prepared it may be guessing or alternatively that the officials who put this idea into their heads were making something up out of more or less whole cloth: the number 50. Ever since at least 1825, Russians have been fascinated by the number of American states.
The chief ideologue of the Decembrists, Pavel Pestel, wrote that he and his fellow conspirators hoped to divide the new Russia into 13 states, just like the United States at the beginning of its history at the end of the eighteenth century and a number that he thought would promote a free and democratic Russia.
And in December 1991 -- indeed on the very day that the presidents of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus were meeting to eliminate his position and the country over which he ruled -- Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told journalists that he hoped to divide the USSR into 50 states, just like the United States now.
By making reference to this number, RBK joins a long tradition of superficial copying of American arrangements by Russian leaders, but given Putin’s current political course, it seems extremely unlikely that he in fact would be prepared to settle on exactly the same number.
And thus it may very well be that the radicalism of this proposal, if indeed it is real, is intended to allow him to take several smaller moves, thereby winning more friends among Russian nationalist groups without creating the kind of threat to the central authorities that a smaller number of larger federal units might pose.
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