Kyrgyz-Tajik Border Accord Not Universally Popular in Kyrgyz Political Elite

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 7 --  At the end of February, Bishkek and Dushanbe announced the conclusion of an agreement about the disputed border between them. The accord was based don a 50-50 exchange of territories in disputed areas and the establishemnt of several neutral and demilitarized areas along their state borders.

    The governments of the two countries are firmly behind the agreement which they say will remove the threat of further violence, but there are signs that the accord is not universally popular and that disputes about the border may continue to create problems for both of these Central Asian countries.  

    On March 5, Sultanbay Ayzhigitov, a Kyrgyz deputy, denounced the accord even though other members of the national parliament had voted for it. He said it was "unequal" and was giving Tajikistan villagers where the ancestors of today's Kyrgyz had lived. The parliament's speaker denounced him, and his party expelled him from its ranks, an action that will cost him his mandate because he was elected by party list (ru.kabar.kg/news/spornye-territorii-na-granice-byli-resheny-5050-spiker/ and vesti.kg/politika/item/136487-lishitsya-li-deputatskogo-mandata-sultanbaj-ajzhigitov.html).

    Ayzhigitov's criticism shows both how difficult solving border disputes invariably is and remains a clear sign that current celebrations about the border accord are almost certainly premature.  

Yabloko Deputies in St. Petersburg Assembly Protest Plans to Set Up CCTV to Track Residents by Ethnicity

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar 5 -- The Yabloko fraction in the St. Petersburg legislative assembly has sent a letter to the vice governor of that federal district denouncing plans to set up a CCTV system in the northern capital that will identify and track people there according to their ethnicity. The letter says that such a move would violate the Russian constitution.     

    This action described at spb.yabloko.ru/2025/03/04/peterburgskoe-yablokoschitaet-antikonstitucionnoj-sistemu-raspoznavaniya-etnicheskoj-prinadlezhnosti/ and nazaccent.ru/content/43631-v-peterburge-prizvali-ne-ustanavlivat-kamery-dlya-opredeleniya-etnicheskoj-prinadlezhnosti/.  For background on the CCTV plan, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/02/another-move-toward-new-totalitarianism.html. 

    Officials called for such a system in order to help the authorities track members of ethnic communities they believe may form criminal groups. The idea of doing so has been roundly criticized by human rights activists. The Yabloko letter however is the first expression of opposition by elected representatives. 

Russian Interior Ministry Maintaining Data Base of All Opposed to Putin's War, Tatarstan Supreme Court Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Human rights experts have long assumed that the Russian force structures have been keeping particularly close track of Russians who do or say anything against Putin's expanded war in Ukriane. But because such a list would violate Russian law, Moscow officials have not mentioned its existence.

    Now, however, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan has pointed out that someone charged with a crime there is on such a list of anti-war Russians, thereby providing official confirmation of the existence of this kind of data base (idelreal.org/a/kormovaya-baza-v-tatarstane-siloviki-priznali-suschestvovanie-kartoteki-s-dose-na-antivoennyh-rossiyan/33329785.html).

    Lawyers in Tatarstan say that the list, which apparently includes not only those who take part in protests against the war but also those involved in other acts of protest against the Putin regime help the interior ministry identify those it can charge whenever it needs to boost its arrest statistics and standing with the Kremlin. 

Dagestan Judge Says Officials Falsifying Elections in Almost Every Possible Way

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Voting rights activists have long reported that Russian officials have regularly falsified elections in the North Caucasus to allow the region's leaders to report that Vladimir Putin and his allies have won 95 percent or more of the vote. But these reports have often been dismissed as anecdotal or because the activists supposedly have their own agendas.

    Now, in what is an almost unprecedented development, a judge in Dagestan has declared from the bench that officials in a local district there have engaged in all the kinds of falsifications that activists have  pointed to and his words have been reported in the local court record.

    Although Judge Musin's findings concern only one district in only one election, they deserve to be noted and remembered because Moscow or the regional government take them down because they are so damning.  Here is what he said:

"Some voters voted at several polling stations. There were cases of voting by citizens not registered in the Kaka-Shurinsky village council district. The number of ballots found in hte ballot boxes exceeded the number of ballots issued to voters. The procedure for tabulating the voting results was violated, including when drawing up the protocols on the voting results at all polling stations."

    Musin's statement can be found at karabudahkentskiy--dag.sudrf.ru/modules.php?name=sud_delo&srv_num=1&name_op=doc&number=138809890&delo_id=41&new=0&text_number=1; it has been reproduced at golosinfo.org/articles/153449 and echofm.online/stories/rossijskij-sud-priznal-chto-v-rossii-sistematicheski-falsificziruyut-vybory-no-poka-lish-na-primere-odnogo-dagestanskogo-sela..

    Following his declaration, the judge cancelled the election and ordred a new one in which different candidates took part. 

Moscow Using 'Technical Breakdown' rather than Formal Blocking of Internet to Isolate Non-Russian Republics and Restive Russian Regions, Experts Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Increasingly, instead of formally blocking the Internet in non-Russian republics and more restive Russian regions, Moscow is orchestrating 'technical breakdowns," an arrangement even better from Moscow's point of view because it allows the center to escape criticism and prevents people from using VPNs.

     It is able to do so because in these federal subjects, there are relatively few internet providers, they are branches of all-Russian companies, and thus, the Internet there is "more vulnerable to centralized control" via this mechanism, Kseniya Yermoshina, a sociologist says (verstka.media/pobochnyi-effekt-czenzury-sboi-runeta-proishodyat-vse-chashhe-pochemu-oni-opasnee-blokirovk).

    In essence, she an d other Russian experts on this field say, using "technical breakdowns" rather than blocking is "the continuation of the colonization" of the country in the virtual world.

    Leonid Yudashev, another expert, agrees and adds that "it is not so convenient to conduct such experiments in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  There are more providers in those cities, their equipment is newer, and local IT specialists can easily determine what has happened, tell others, and work around orchestrated "breakdowns."

    Moreover, taking such actions in the capitals or other major cities risks adverse reaction from Russian businesses or even officials whose activities may be affected. That is far less of a problem in areas far beyond the ring road, Denis Yagodin, a third Russian expert says. 

Current Global Conflict Less between Nations than within Them, El Murid Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- "The current global conflict does not lie along national borders,"  Anatoly Nesmiyan who logs under the screen name El Murid says. "In fact, it is a clash of two diametrically opposed projects of the future," between those who want to reduce the power of individual states and those who want to make some some states stronger and more imperialistic.

    Both of these ideas are a response to problems with the existing global order, the blogger says; but neither  "promises anything good for the world. Instead, they reflect "the emerging and uncontrollable complexity of the world" no one has been able to deal with (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-03-04/anatoliy-nesmiyan-mir-razdelitsya-nadvoe-5337799).

    In important respects, he suggests, this debate is like the one that took place in the Soviet Union in the 1920s between the supporters of world revolution and the backers of socialism in one country;  and it also resembles that one that took place in the USSR at its end when the rulers of that country "proved unable to manage the complex social object they had created."

    Essentially, El Murid continues, this situation is true in ever more countries because "the highly developed world has lost control over people who remain in earlier and more archaic phases of development. The elites are divided over what to do but are in fact choosing among contrasting pasts rather than articulating and selling something new.

    "Nation states are instruments in this struggle," he says; but they are not its source. And so it is a mistake "to miss the essential nature of this ongoing conflict," because the existing governments are having choose sides in what is a larger and more significant contradiction.  

     

Some but Not All of 700,000 Russians who've Fought in Ukraine Will Display Aggression on Returning Home, St. Petersburg Psychiatrist Says

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 5 -- Approximately 700,000 Russians have fought in Putin's war in Ukraine (rbc.ru/politics/14/06/2024/666c77789a79475d712a5c27), almost 100,000 more than fought in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 (hro.org/editions/karta/nr24-25/victim.htm). And the way the Afgantsy behaved on returning home is speaking fears about how the Ukraintsy will. 

    Andrey Kamenyushkin, a St. Petersburg clinical psychiatrist, says that there are compelling reasons for such fears; but he suggests that they should not be over blown because many veteran returning now or in the future won't behave aggressively either because they do not suffer from PTSD or because they will  receive treatment (paperpaper.ru/posle-okonchaniya-vojny-v-peterburg-ver/).

    That does not mean, he argues, in the course of an interview on the Bumaga portal that there won't be serious problems: the numbers involved are so large and increasing that even if only a small percentage engage in violence, that will threaten the social order. But more is being done to help them, and so the threat may not prove to be as serious as it was with the Afgantsy.

    In the course of his interview, Kamenyushkin makes five major points:

First, only 16 to 20 percent of the veterans of the current war in Ukraine suffer from PTSD.

Second, PTSD does not always lead to violence against others.

Third, more is being done to help these people although there are many problems with such services and veterans do slip through the cracks.

Fourth, many military people don't get the treatment they need because they consider psychiatric help a manifestation of weakness.

And fifth, veterans suffering from PTSD are a danger in their first instance to themselves either because they will turn to drug and alcohol or because they will commit suicide.