Putin’s Federal Districts at 25 – Important but Not the Transformative Institutions Many Expected

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 14 – Twenty-five years ago this week, in one of his first actions directed against existing federal arrangements in the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin created federal districts to oversee the existing federal subjects for the Kremlin and resolve problems both among them and between them and Moscow.

            When they were established and in the years since, many have suggested that Putin intended these to replace the existing federal subjects and become the new basic components of the Russian Federation. But that hasn’t happened, and now, especially since he has not extended them to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, many see them as a fifth wheel in his system.

            But in fact, as an article in Vedomosti makes clear, they are an important administrative structure, simplifying Moscow’s rule over the rest of the country both by weakening the existing federal subjects and by reducing the number of officials the Presidential Administration has to deal with on a regular basis (vedomosti.ru/spravka/polpredi-prezidenta).

            Originally, there were seven federal districts, but since 2010, they have undergone several changes. In that year, the North Caucasus District was carve out of the Southern FD by Dmitry Medvedev and many expected that to be the first of many such moves, but that hasn’t happened (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-israeli-expert.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/moscows-curatorial-appointments-in.html.

            Then in 2014, Moscow formed the Crimean FD after its Anschluss of that Ukrainian peninsula; but two years later, the center combined the Crimean FD with the pre-existing Southern Federal District (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/putins-liquidation-of-crimean-federal.html).

            In 2018, Moscow transferred Buryatia and the TransBaikal Kray from the Siberian FD to the Far Eastern FD, the only case in which the borders of pre-existing FDs were changed without a change in their number (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/many-in-buryatia-transbaikal-fear.html).

And since 2022, when Russian forces occupied the Donetsk and Luhansk oblast of Ukraine, many including their own leaders have expected Moscow either to create a new FD or to include them in an existing FD but the center hasn’t done so (ria.ru/20240606/okrug-1951056374.html).

Russia Risks Losing More than 100 Billion US Dollars in Infrastructure as Result of Melting of Permafrost

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – Global warming is rapidly melting the permafrost layer which underlies much of the Russian North and that in turn is leading to the collapse of infrastructure including housing, factories, pipelines and railways across that region. Such losses are expected to rise to 10 trillion rubles (100 billion US dollars) by mid-century.

            The size of this risk is so great that there is a premium on the collection and sharing of information gathered both by the Russian government and by Russian companies operating in the permafrost zone (eastrussia.ru/material/merzlota-pod-ugrozoy-a-dannye-pod-zamkom-kak-spasat-severnuyu-infrastrukturu/).

            But unfortunately, there are problems with this very imperfect system: it doesn’t cover all the region, there is no agreed-upon standard and thus comparing the data from one place to that from another is problematic, and both the government and the companies are often reluctant to share information, often treating it as a corporate secret.

            Officials in both Moscow and the federal subjects involved are pressing for new legislation that will address these problems; but up to now, progress toward that end has been slow. And many fear that nothing will be done until the melting gets still worse, something that will only increase the costs of addressing this problem.

Veterans Returning from Ukraine War Already Sparking Ethnic Clashes in North Caucasus

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 15 – Many in the Russian Federation are already worried about what will happen with veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine return home. Many expect serious problems as veterans seek jobs and housing or turn to a life of violent crime. But the situation may become especially dire in the North Caucasus where such returnees are already sparking ethnic clashes.

     A bellwether for such a trend came in a portion of Dagestan last November when returnees from one ethnic group, the Avars, were given land, while those of another ethnic group, weren’t, something that led Grozny to intervene (kavkazr.com/a/geroi-svo-i-zemeljnyy-konflikt-v-dagestane-protiv-chego-protestuyut-chechentsy-akkintsy/33201086.html).

    Because the clash between Avars and Chechens in that location has been longstanding, the particular role of returning veterans in intensifying the conflict attracted less attention. But now there is a development in Ingushetia, the smallest federal subject by territory, that suggests conflicts over land arising from returning veterans may be about to become more serious.

    Ingush head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov says that his government has distributed land to more than 550 veterans of the war in Ukraine, allowing them to jump a queue consisting of several tens of thousands of residents to do so (fortanga.org/2025/05/zhdut-desyatki-tysyach-kalimatov-priznalsya-v-prioritetnom-vydelenii-zemel-uchastnikam-vojny/ and kavkazr.com/a/v-ingushetii-zayavili-o-prioritetnoy-razdache-zemelj-uchastnikam-voyny-v-ocheredi-na-ljgotu-desyatki-tysyach-semey/33414886.html).

    Because land is in such short supply in Ingushetia, disputes over who gets an allocation of land and who does not have often turned violent, and at least some of these clashes have been intensified when those who do and those who do not are members of different nationalities or clans (t.me/fortangaorg/15356 and t.me/sunzha_rayon/6897).  

    Adding the returning veterans who often across the North Caucasus consist of local minorities will only exacerbate the problem and mean that any accords that allow significant number of veterans of the Russian armed forces to return from the war in Ukraine may soon trigger a new outbreak of war in the North Caucasus. 

Future Transport Network in Siberia will Depend On Whether It has Its Own Center and Produces Finished Goods or Remains a Source of Raw Materials, Verkhoturov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 14 – Current discussions of transportation network plans for Siberia and the Russian Far East fail to address an underlying issue that will both depend on and shape whether these enormous regions will become producers of finished goods or remain as now primarily suppliers of raw materials, Dmitry Verkhoturov says.

    For more than a century, Russia has developed its transport network west of the Urals depending on which of these models was chosen. Where the regions involved were to become producers of finished goods, it chose a radial pattern; otherwise it did not. And such a radial pattern depended on establishing a center, the Siberian economic commentator says.

    So far, Verkhoturov says, Moscow and Russian political planners more generally have failed to make that decision for Siberia and as a result, they have not come up with plans that serve either one or the other or that can be realized in a generation or two. And that will remain true unless a decision is made (sibmix.com/?doc=16492).

    Consequently, he suggests, all those concerned about the development of Siberia and the Russian Far East need to make a decision on this point before they choose one or another kind of transport network – and people in
the region have a compelling need to decide on where the center of their macro-regions is going to be.

    Unless that happens, Verkhoturov says, Siberia and the Russian Far East will remain economic backwaters, suppliers of raw materials to others rather than become regions with their own production of finished products both for consumption by their own populations and for export earnings.  

Young Russians Want Politicians to Meet Them Face to Face Rather than On Line, Urals Study Finds

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 14 – Many Russian politicians assume that because social media are so important for young people, young Russians want their political leaders to “meet” them virtually rather than face to face. But a new study at the Urals Federal University jointly with Yekaterinburg’s Politsovet agency finds that just the reverse is true.

    Young Russians want politicians to meet with them personally during business hours, to dress professionally rather than dress down, to not use slang and to address issues of immediate concern rather than long-term projects, the study, based on a series of focus groups (politsovet.ru/84213-deputaty-i-molodezh-kak-nayti-obschiy-yazyk.html).

    How much of an impact this study will have on the behavior of politicians is uncertain, but the fact that it was carried out at all suggests that at least some in the Russian political universe are concerned that the assumptions they have made about reaching out to younger Russians are incorrect and need to be changed.

    The complete set of the conclusions of the study is available at politsovet.ru/uploads/deputaty_i_molodezh.pdf.

Caspian Sea Dying and Alreading Threatening Offshore Oil Platforms, Transit and Existing Ports, Experts Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 14 – The Caspian Sea is dying as a result of rising pollution and falling water levels, and it is more immediately threatening the ability of many ports along its coast line to operate, according to a survey of expert opinion carried out by Maria Alekseyeva of The Insider.

    Far larger than the former Aral Sea which has already almost completely disappeared, what is happening in the Caspian is far more serious. Untreated sewage is flowing into the sea, contamination from oil and gas drilling, and declining water levels and circulation is killing off the animals and plants that it had supported, experts say (theins.ru/obshestvo/281241).

    Despite past denials, many Russian specialists on the sea now say it will be biologically dead soon and may disappear as a single sea by the end of this century. But precisely because the former doesn’t both some and the latter is beyond the lifetime of many, these disasters aren’t rattling the governments of the littoral states.

    But in addition to provide detailed information on both trends, Alekseyeva points to a third trend that may soon do so: the dying of the Caspian is already having a serious and negative impact on the major ports on its littoral, threatening the transit trade on which the countries both those countries and others depend.

    Falling water levels on the Caspian mean that many offshore oil platforms are no longer accessible by water and that pipelines which had passed along the bottom of the sea are now exposed and at risk of failing, experts on the region say. But more than that, the decline in water levels means that shipping lanes that had been open are now at risk of being closed.

    Ports, especially in the northern segment of the sea, are seeing their water areas and approaches dry up, forcing them to cut back by as much as 20 percent the amount of cargo carried by ships so that they can pass through the shallower water. And in some places, even dredging may not prevent such restrictions from increasing.

    And because these problems are far greater in the northern part of the Caspian than in the southern, that will make shipping via Russian and Kazakhstan ports less attractive and possible that that via Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran more so, shifting the balance of economic and hence political power away from the north and toward the south.  

Gap Between Number of Children Russians Would Like and the Number They Expect to be Able to Have Growing, VTsIOM Poll Finds

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 13 – Since 2005, the number of children Russians would like to have has grown from 2.4 to 3.2 but the gap between those figures and the number of children Russians expect to have has grown from -0.5 to -0.8, according to a new VTsIOM survey on families in the Russian Federation.

    If the first figure is one that the Putin regime is certain to celebrate because it suggests the Kremlin’s efforts to promote larger families as a generally accepted norm, the second is not because it shows that while Russians want more children, they don’t expect that conditions make that possible (wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/semja-i-brak-v-rossii-xxi-veka).

    Unless the Russian economy improves and confidence among Russians in the future improves along with it, this means that there will be a rising tide of frustration among Russians and that a major reason for that is the combination of the pro-natalist propaganda of the regime and the conditions that regime has created that limit Russians ability to achieve those goals.

    Among other key findings of this survey are the following:

•    Young people are far more likely to live together or enter into marriage without any plans to have children.

•    Across almost all age groups except the oldest, there is a growing disconnect between marriage and the idea that it involves having children.

•    Russian men have both higher estimates of how many children they’ll have and of how many they would like than do Russian women.

•    Nearly half of all Russians believe that women who give birth should stay at home until children reach the age of three.

•    Over the last two decades, Russians have become three times as likely to say that they will get married “in correspondence with religious and national traditions,” that is, “because it is what is done.”