‘Cold Schism’ in Orthodox World Likely to Become ‘Hot’ if Moscow Church Continues to Back Kremlin and Its War at Home and Abroad, Chapnin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – The Moscow Patriarchate’s unqualified support for Putin’s aggression abroad and repression at home has already led to the isolation of the Russian church in world Orthodoxy and the beginning of what may be called “a cold schism” between the ROC MP and Ecumenical Patriarchate and its supporters, Sergey Chapnin says.

            The researcher at Fordham University’s Center for Orthodox Studies says that despite Moscow’ s provocations, both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its supporters in other ancient Orthodox churches have been restrained up to now (okno.group/?p=978&preview=true reposted at sibreal.org/a/rpts-kak-korporatsiya-na-sluzhbe-u-kremlya/32933279.html).

            But Chapnin, a former publications official at the Moscow Patriarchate, says that the situation is deteriorating and that other patriarchates may soon be prepared to attack the Moscow church more directly and turn what has been a “cold” war between them in the past to a “hot” one in the future.

            The potential for such a development is critical because “the ROC MP is not the whole Church” in the Russian Federation, Chapnin continues. “There are also Orthodox communities which are formally part of that Church but ideologically oppose it. They are small, but they persist and everyone hopes that the future lies with them.”

            That is because the ROC MP “in the form in which it has emerged as an ideological institution of a totalitarian state will become of no use to anyone after the regime falls.” Whether it will find the strength to change or simply split and be replaced by others remains to be seen. ROC MP leaders will likely fight to keep things as they are, but they aren’t the only player.

            But it is certainly and unfortunately the case, that “there is no magic wand” and that until the departure of Putin from power “and possibly until the death of Patriarch Kirill, no reforms [in the ROC MP] are possible.” But moves by the Ecumenical Patriarchate could give rise to the emergence of an alternative Orthodox Church in Russia far closer to the Christian tradition.

            (For background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/russian-orthodox-finding-ways-to-break.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/roc-mps-repression-now-means-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/kirills-support-for-putins-war-has.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/07/orthodoxy-even-more-divided-in-russia.html.)

To Form Dnepr River Flotilla, Moscow Taking Units and Equipment from Caspian Flotilla, Black Sea Fleet and Baltic Fleet

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – To form the Dnepr River Flotilla that will be used against Ukraine, the Kremlin has had to take units and equipment from the Caspian Flotilla, the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet, actions that highlight how hard-pressed the Russian military is and weaken Russia’s presence in those three places.

            On March 20, Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu announced the revival of the Dnepr River Flotilla. That announcement and subsequent reports that the new military grouping would be provided with its own air and marine support have attracted a great deal of media coverage in Russia.

            But what is actually going on may be less than meets the eye because it is now being reported by Vzglyad that the Dnepr Flotilla is at least initially going to consist primarily of ships and men taken from the Caspian Flotilla, the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet rather than raised specifically for it (vz.ru/society/2024/4/28/1265661.html).

Tehran wants to Expand Its Influence in Central Asia and Use Tajikistan to Help It Do So, Tomsk Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Over the last two years, Tehran has sought to increase its influence in Central Asia, convinced that changes in the region and more broadly make that an important goal; and it views Tajikistan, a country with which it shares some but far from all cultural characteristics, as a key player who can help it to do so, Yevgeny Troitsky says.

            According to the senior scholar at the Center for Eurasian Research at Tomsk State University, Tehran has six reasons for expanding its attention to Central Asia and compelling ones to believe that Dushanbe can be an important ally in pursuit of that goal (ia-centr.ru/experts/ia-centr-ru/politika-irana-v-tsentralnoy-azii-v-novykh-usloviyakh/).

            The six reasons behind Iran’s expanded focus on Central Asia are as follows:

·       First, Tehran is worried about the weakening of the position of Russia in that region because of Moscow’s concentration on Ukraine.

·       Second, it is also disturbed by the increasing influence of Turkey on the region especially via Azerbaijan but also in Turkmenistan.

·       Third, it is worried that destabilization in Afghanistan will lead to destabilization in Central Asia more generally and that could lead to clashes on the Iranian border and the flood of refugees into Iran.

·       Fourth, it is concerned about the increasingly pro-Western stance of the Pakistan government.

·       Fifth, Tehran believes that having joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it is now in a better position to reach out to Central Asian countries.

·       And sixth, Tehran has concluded that having normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, it will be able to refocus attention from the south to the north and thus be better able to influence Central Asian countries.

While the Iranian government in the first instance wants to ensure that Central Asian countries do not become allies of Turkey but instead remain neutral and is prepared to expand trade relations with all the countries in the region, it is devoting particular attention to work with Tajikistan, Troitsky says.

The Tomsk scholar points out that “among all the countries of Central Asia, Tajikistan is closer to Iran in a cultural sense,” with a closely related language but with two important differences: Tajiks are primarily Sunni Muslims rather than Shiite, and they were far more secularized by the Soviet authorities than Iran has been for more than a generation.

But despite those limiting factors, Troitsky continues, “over the last several years, the two countries have been developing political, economic and even military-technical cooperation,” including the opening of an Iranian drone factory in Tajikistan and the announcement of plans to agree to a radical expansion in relations over the course of this decade.

Among the steps Tehran and Dushanbe have agreed to already are the renewal of direct flights between the two countries, the formation of a joint investment council, and a dramatic expansion in Iranian investment in Tajikistan, first and foremost in the petroleum sector but also for infrastructure projects like the completion of the Andzob tunnel.

No Real Evidence for Notion that a KGB Conspiracy Brought Putin to Power, Mitrokhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – The idea that some kind of KGB conspiracy was behind Vladimir Putin’s rise to power is almost two decades old and has gained new followers in recent times, Nikolay Mitrokhin says; “but in reality, we have no evidence for the existence of such a conspiracy” – beyond the insistence that the fact that we don’t shows that it does.

            Moreover, the Russian scholar at Bremen University says, those who promote this idea can’s explain why their supposedly grand conspiracy advanced to the presidency “an insignificant representative of one of its regional departments rather than ‘a heavyweight’ like [Yevgeny] Primakov (t.me/NMitrokhinPublicTalk/3392).

            “In fact,” Mitrokhin continues, “Putin at the time of the rapid advancement of his career represented not ‘the clan of the Leningrad KGB’ but first of all and no matter how trite it may seem, Sobchak and his team as well as his own mafia clan, represented by ‘the Ozero cooperative,’ one of the numerous such groups in the Russian political elite of that time.”

            According to the Russian scholar, “were it not for Yeltsin’s naïve belief … that his ‘successor’ should be ‘young,’ then the leader of Russia’s largest and richest clan, the gas clan, Chernomyrdin, would have become president – or the mayor of Moscow and leader of his own clan, the Luzhkov clan, or the real political head of the special services community, Primakov.”

Two Senior Armenian Cartographers Say 1991 Soviet Borders Were Illegitimate

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Two Armenian ethnographers say the 1991 administrative borders of the former union republics of the USSR which the successor states and the international community agreed would be the basis for international borders are illegitimate because Moscow drew them without the participation or agreement of the republics involved.

            Their challenge, if it were to be accepted and that is unlikely because the position they take is opposed by both Yerevan and Baku, would make the delimitation of borders in the region far more difficult than it now is and could trigger more conflicts within and between them   (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/399647).

            But their comments are important because Rouben Galichian, a senior Armenian scholar now living in the United Kingdom, and Hranish Kharutian, a former deputy mayor of Yerevan, provide new details on the way in which the Soviet government drew and redrew the borders of the union republics without giving all the republics most immediately involved a say.

            Galichian, who has written numerous books about cartography in the South Caucasus, focuses on the eight villages along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border that are now subject to dispute (jamestown.org/program/armenian-protests-over-return-of-four-villages-to-azerbaijan-threaten-peace-process/).

            He says that Moscow transferred these villages from Armenian to Azerbaijani control between 1936 and 1939 without the involvement of Yerevan and that “Azerbaijan cannot offer a single document about the transfer of these territories to it” as “neither in Armenia nor in Azerbaijan are there any archival documents confirming the transfer.”

            “In those years,” he continues, the USSR General Staff on its military maps marked these territories and designated them as exclaves so as to “put Armenian roads” under the control of the Kremlin rather than for any other purpose.

            Khartyan, for her part, notes that “border issues which were discovered during the period of the Trans-Caucasian Federation up to 1936, according to archival materials of stenographic records of meetings, featured arguments that nomadic herdsmen needed a legal basis for crossing administrative borders.”

            “When nomads drove cattle to pastures in Armenian villages, conflicts arose,” she says. “The issue seemed to be an economic one, but the conflict over land and pasture issues turned into an interethnic one. Enclaves were created so that nomads had the opportunity to move to territories belonging to other republics. This was Soviet policy."

            Kharatyan has a copy of one such decision dated February 18, 1929. At that time, the Trans-Caucasus Federation executive committee voted for changing borders at Armenia’s expense, something it was able to do only by taking a decision when the Armenian representative was no longer present.

            At the present time, the Yerevan ethnographer says, the relevant documents aren’t in Yerevan or Baku or Moscow but only in Georgia. Unfortunately, however, Georgian officials now are denying Armenian scholars like herself access to these materials, something that further complicates the situation and a precise compilation of the historical record.

            (For a broader discussion of just how frequently Moscow changed union republic borders in Soviet times, see my article, “Can Republic Borders be Changed?” RFE/RL Report on the USSR, September 28, 1990, pp. 20-21, at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/borders-in-post-soviet-space-were.html.)

Moscow Now Set to Selectively Enlarge Municipalities, Experts Predict

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Specialists on urban and regional policy tell Stavropol’s Center for the Support of Social and Civic Initiatives that after Putin’s inauguration, Moscow will selectively support the enlargement of municipalities to help governors boost their control over major cities and to improve economic figures if not reality by combining poorer areas with wealthier ones.

            According to journalist Anton Chablin, the experts in what was an anonymous poll say that the first cities to be subject to this policy change will be in the Yamalo-Nenets AD and in Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Pskov and Novosibirsk oblasts. Others will be spared lest any change undermine rather than strengthen governors (akcent.site/eksklyuziv/31315).

            Proposals to expand urban centers administratively has been controversial for the last decade, with Putin rejecting it in 2017 apparently because he did not come up with the idea himself (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/04/putin-rejects-agglomerations-as-focus.html). But talk about such amalgamation continues, and some Moscow officials still back it (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/04/deputy-prime-minister-wants-to-replace.html).

            It is unclear whether the Stavropol survey marks a resolution of this debate or whether it is simply part of that debate and that the fate of settlements near large cities and possibly of republics as well remains open (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/08/agglomerations-not-step-toward-regional.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/agglomerations-not-rest-of-russia-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/06/moscow-counting-on-growth-of-urban.html).

Dugin Not ‘Conservative Russian Traditionalist’ He and Others Insist He Is, Pushchayev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Aleksandr Dugin is not the Russian traditionalist many believe but someone who denies there is a Russian philosophical tradition worth saving and approaches the task of creating one by importing from the West not Marxism as Trotsky did but the ideas of Martin Heidegger and European right of the 1920s and 1930s, Yury Pushchayev says.

            The Moscow State University instructor in philosophy says that “many talk about Aleksandr Dugin but few read him and thus mistakenly accept the way journalists and commentators characterize him as accurate (politconservatism.ru/articles/yavlyaetsya-li-dugin-russkim-traditsionalistom).

            If one does read Dugin’s books, Pushchayev says, one sees that the sources of his ideas are to be found in “the European conservative revolution” of a century ago and that they have “practically no relationship to Russian history.” Indeed, he continues, many of these ideas are in open conflict with that history.

            Not only that but Dugin himself is openly hostile to most Russian philosophers, arguing that there is as yet no such thing as “Russian philosophy” and that after what people call that is “swept away as trash,” it is up to him and his young acolytes to finally form one based on these imports and to do so in a revolutionary rather than evolutionary way.

            In his article, Pushchayev cites numerous examples of Dugin’s reliance on the European right and his open contempt for Russian philosophers and ideologues including the Eurasianists with whom he is incorrectly associated. And he stresses that Dugin’s nihilism with regard to Russian ideas and especially the traditional Russian focus on justice will be his downfall.