Every Tuesday, The Ukrainian Week/Tyzhden publishes an overview of the political, social and economic situation in Russia and Belarus in partnership with the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”. The Council’s Russian and Belarusian Studies Programme presents a new weekly #aggressoranalysis, in which Iaroslav Chornogor and Anton Oksentiuk analyse the latest news in Russian domestic and foreign policy.
This week’s highlights: the Kremlin is trying to initiate negotiations on a “ceasefire” by “allowing” Ukraine to join NATO, Russian presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin is in the final stretch to run for election, and the Russian government is facing potential protests among the nations enslaved by Russia.
Domestic policy takeaways:
- Boris Nadezhdin, a presidential candidate, has managed to gather enough signatures to run for election for the Civic Platform party. He will reportedly submit them to the Russian Central Election Commission on January 31. Ukrainian Prism analysed the candidacy of this Russian “politician” last week. Most likely, the Kremlin intended to use him as a media representative of the “liberal” side to create the impression of “democratic” procedures and the possibility for opposition-minded citizens to run their own candidates in the presidential election. Nadezhdin was allowed to participate in the process of collecting signatures, even though he publicly expressed an “anti-military” position, which the Russian authorities typically do not permit. We’ve seen this in the case of journalist Yekaterina Duntsova, who was not allowed to participate in the election as a self-nominated candidate. It is likely that the Kremlin was counting on Nadezhdin not being able to gather the required 100,000 signatures. At the same time, over the past 2 weeks, we have seen a certain consolidation of the Russian “liberal opposition”, while a large number of media figures have called on citizens to join the process of collecting the necessary signatures. We can assert that the Kremlin did not foresee such a scenario. Moreover, state authorities have not taken any open action against Nadezhdin yet. At the same time, over the last week, the Russian information space witnessed indications that the Russian Central Election Commission has been preparing to ‘find mistakes’ and shortcomings in the collected signatures, thereby preventing Nadezhdin from participating in the elections. Such a scenario is now quite plausible, as in recent months, the Russian authorities have been systematically preparing for full political and media control of the upcoming presidential election, primarily by excluding potentially uncontrolled and famous candidates.
- This is why, last week, Igor Strelkov-Girkin, a well-known Russian terrorist and a critic of Putin as well as the Russian government in general, was sentenced to four years in prison for extremism. Over the past year and until his imprisonment, he had been systematically and indirectly shaping the information landscape to potentially participate in the next presidential election. Already during his stay in the pre-trial detention centre, Girkin tried to participate in the elections as a self-nominated candidate but faced political pressure on his supporters and was bureaucratically prevented from doing so. Regardless of the presidential elections, the Kremlin faced the task of maximising control over the media environment in Russia. Girkin was too well-known and respected among the so-called “patriotic-minded” groups, and his open antagonism against Putin could have potentially created a background that the Kremlin did not need. Currently, the Russian authorities have almost completely purged the political arena, and in reality, there are no known “opposition” politicians left in Russia.
- The Russian State Duma quickly initiated work to adopt the so-called law on the confiscation of property from Russians accused of “publishing fake news against the Russian army”. The bill was only introduced on January 22, and on January 24, Russian MPs passed it in the first reading. Presently, there has been information that the bill may be finally adopted on January 30-31. Such agility demonstrates that the Kremlin itself has authorised the law. A similar opinion has also been shared in the Russian media space. There are a number of practical reasons to adopt this law. Clearly, the Russian authorities intend to demonstrate the consequences for Russian citizens who may publicly denounce the Russian army’s crimes; the bill would also allow for more tools and methods to exercise pressure on individual opposition-minded Russians. Moreover, similar radical decisions seem to be fully in line with Putin’s election “campaign,” which focuses on “patriotism,” military hysteria, and the so-called “defence of sovereignty.” Based on his perception, such law is probably a true reflection of the desires of the majority of Russian people.
- Last week in Yakutsk, dozens of local residents organised spontaneous protests over the murder of a local man by a Tajik national. Although it was an extremely localised incident, it led to a response from the Yakutians, and the news itself was widely shared on Russian media. This reveals the real tensions that exist among the many nations subjugated and oppressed by Russia. Recently, we have already witnessed spontaneous protests organised in Bashkortostan. In both cases, the social situation in certain Russian regions is highly volatile. The Kremlin’s policy of facilitating uncontrolled migration from a number of Central Asian nations led to conflicts with the natives in the towns and villages where the former arrived. The situation in Yakutsk has once again confirmed the analysis by Ukrainian Prism, indicating that the potential for protest against the Kremlin lies not in political opposition but rather in the issues directly affecting local citizens’ daily routine, such as economic, social, infrastructural, and environmental problems.
- The local deputy of the Perm City Duma from the Communist Party of Russia, Sergei Medvedev, was prematurely dismissed and deprived of his mandate. Medvedev is known for the fact that on December 31, 2023, he published an anti-military publication on his page on the Vkontakte social platform containing direct criticism of Putin. This prompted a wave of discontent from both the “patriotic” circle and his local party members. On January 13, the MP was reportedly able to fly out to Kazakhstan; later, he arrived in Georgia. It is interesting that he was allowed to do so. It is likely that the Russian bureaucratic machine simply did not have time to issue the necessary orders regarding Medvedev. At the same time, on January 15, it became known that he had been put on the wanted list. It is likely that he will conduct public opposition activities against the Russian authorities.
Foreign policy takeaways:
- We are once again witnessing the Russian authorities’ efforts to organise a so-called “ceasefire”. Last week, Bloomberg, citing two sources close to the Kremlin, published material that the Kremlin, using unofficial channels, made it clear to the United States that Putin is “open to discussions, including possibly future security measures for Ukraine.” More importantly, and most relevantly, it is stated that “the Kremlin is ready to consider dropping the insistence on Ukraine’s neutral status and even eventually stop opposing its potential NATO membership.” The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Zakharova, commented on this information saying that “Russia has never refused to negotiate with Ukraine.” Ukrainian Prism keeps pointing out that, in recent months, the Kremlin has been pursuing a strategy that aims to lay the groundwork for possible negotiations on a “ceasefire”, with no mention of ending the war. The Kremlin wants to use these steps of “ending the war” to effectively reorganise its army and to prepare for another, more devastating, attack on Ukraine in the future. Until now, Russian authorities have only used the “willingness to negotiate” argument. It is likely that the Kremlin realised the ineffectiveness of this strategy and decided to move on to offering more benefits, creating a “temptation” for Western leaders to enter into these negotiations. The potential of “allowing” Ukraine to join NATO would be presented as the greatest perk. It is important to understand that the Russian invasion itself was declared publicly as a reaction to Ukraine’s “integration” into the Alliance, so such proposals are completely false.
- The Russian authorities decided to use the fact of the IL-76 crash last week to aggressively promote a disinformation campaign against Ukraine, accusing it of shooting down the plane. The Kremlin claimed that there were Ukrainian prisoners of war on board. Such fakes began to spread almost immediately. Numerous contradicting issues, such as the fact that the list of alleged Ukrainian POWs on the plane, which Russian propagandists distributed, included already exchanged Ukrainian soldiers, were ignored. Russia even tried to call an urgent UN session to spread these fakes, even though UN representatives themselves stated that they “could not verify the information regarding the circumstances of the downing of the Russian military transport plane.”
- On January 23, it was reported that Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev met in Moscow with the Secretary of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Ahmadian. It has been claimed that they’ve allegedly discussed “a wide range of Russian-Iranian security cooperation.” Clearly, the real reason for this meeting was to prepare a so-called agreement on long-term cooperation between Iran and Russia. Also, on the eve of this meeting, the Iranian and Russian Foreign Ministers Lavrov and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met in New York. These steps continue a policy of cooperation between these two authoritarian states. During all these negotiations, the future supply of Iranian weapons and potential deliveries of Russian SU-35 aircraft to Iran were also likely discussed. Generally, these meetings are a follow-up to the negotiations between Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi held on December 7.
