Medium, Oct 18, 2022
Secession? Bakhoshtan
Things are happening within the Federation. There is an air of resistance that is starting to take shape. First, I have raised the issue of Dagestan, in the northern Caucasus. Now we have stirrings in Bashkiria:
Gabbasov told Layout that after the announcement of mobilization, many former activists of the banned Bashkort left Russia for Kazakhstan. Those who stayed decided to hide.
“They don’t want to fight for the empire. They believe that this is not our war,” says Gabbasov. — Why should the Bashkirs die for the “Russian world” somewhere in Ukraine? The Ukrainians did nothing wrong to us, and the empire always pressed us. They pressed our Bashkir language, they planted our leaders. Why should we fight for them now?”
Bashkortostan is the leader in the Volga Federal District in terms of the number of local residents killed in Ukraine.
The Bashkir authorities manage to recruit volunteers to regional detachments and fulfill the mobilization plan, because they “use the credulity of the Bashkir people and play on “patriotic strings”, Gabbasov believes. In his opinion, it also plays into the hands of the authorities that the Bashkirs are a historically paramilitary people and participated in all wars on the side of the empire.
This is a part of a much larger piece in a regional paper. It points to trouble within a second region. It matters because this points to more signals of trouble within the Federation.
Added to the war on the rails, there is now open resistance. Through Rospartizan, I have tracked the burning of military offices, including those in Bashkiria. So we know there is unrest.
There are also elections for the presidency in 2024, and the unofficial campaign may be underway. Read this in both the unrest that is already happening and the politics of a presidential campaign.
Though this is hardly an American election. With all our worries and problems, we are not arresting opponents or poisoning them:
The head of the Russian government in 1999, and now the president of the Russian Book Union, Sergei Stepashin, in an interview with the state agency RIA Novosti, announced the need to support the candidacy of Vladimir Putin for a new presidential term. At the same time, he compared the current situation in Russia with what happened in the country in 1917, when the protracted First World War led to revolutions and the overthrow of the ruling Romanov dynasty.
Quote: “We must not repeat 1917, when Nicholas II’s inner circle essentially betrayed him. I believe that Putin, whether he wants to or not, will have to bear his cross before we can really make real peace,” Stepashin said.
▪️According to the ex-premier, “it is now quite obvious that there can be no replacement, especially in a situation of partial mobilization, in fact, active hostilities against NATO and the Americans.”
Context: Stepashin’s statement may indicate that a campaign for Putin’s re-election for a new term is tacitly beginning in Russia. The updated constitution allows the incumbent president to remain in power until 2036.
Notice what he said about both revolution and betrayal. That reference is to the February 1917 Revolution, not the October Revolution. My read is that he sees the same dynamics the rest of us see with those cracks into the Russian street through Telegram or YouTube.
Speaking of YouTube. I will share the wealth. I found an interesting channel run by a young man. He is doing interviews in the street, mostly near Moscow University. These are fascinating looks into how people think.
It will provide a real-time view of things like war, politics, and mobilization. They are subtitled and will give you somewhat of a different look into the core of the empire.
The others that I highly recommend are the two channels run by Vlad Vexler. Yes, we often agree, which is funny. But his are worth watching to understand a very different worldview. Now I need to read Gogol because of his observations. Or rather, re-read it.
