Moscow Readying New Moves to Further Restrict Ethnic Diasporas

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 12 – At the end of last month, Russia's Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs submitted draft legislation that would significantly restrict the ability of diaspora organizations in the Russian Federation to accept any foreign funding (nazaccent.ru/content/43877-fadn-vneslo-v-pravitelstvo-zakonoproekt-ob-ogranichenii-finansirovaniya-nacionalnyh-nko-iz-za-rubezha/).

    Because that is a government proposal, it is virtually certain to pass and become law. Now, the LDPR has proposed also preventing anyone who has been declared a foreign agent to serve in a leadership position in any diaspora organization (nazaccent.ru/content/43932-v-gosdume-predlozhili-zapretit-inoagentam-rukovodit-ili-finansirovat-diaspory/).

    The fate of that proposal is less certain, although in the current environment, it too is likely to pass and become part of what is an expanded Kremlin effort to restrict the activities of diaspora groups inside the Russian Federation. The most likely to be hit first are those whose diasporas are large and especially active.

    Among the first to be targeted in this new campaign are groups like the Circassians which Moscow has been trying to take total control of and those like the numerically small peoples of the North and Siberia who are so small in numbers that they are unlikely to be able to form diaspora organizations unless they have outside help.