This was Russia today, Monday, October 14, 2024 Dagestan’s governor vows support for senator targeted by Kadyrov’s ‘blood feud,’ Zelensky says North Korea sending troops to Russian army, and Navalny’s daughter joins Team Kamala
Howdy, readers! Putin was hard at work signing laws today. He approved seven new pieces of legislation in total, including one that lets police suspend a driver’s license for concealing their car’s plate numbers and another that grants the president the ability to extend the tenure of Russia’s Investigative Committee chairman past the current age limit of 70. (Alexander Bastrykin, who’s held the position since 2011, is 71 years young.)
Today’s newsletter is 1,616 words — an eight-minute read.
Today’s main story: How the Kremlin is using a former Donetsk ‘separatist’ to show that military men can climb the government ranks
From militia commander to presidential envoy: Two weeks ago, Putin appointed former military commander Artem Zhoga as presidential plenipotentiary envoy to Russia’s Ural Federal District. Zhoga was born in eastern Russia but moved to Ukraine’s Donetsk region in the 1990s, and after the war in Donbas broke out in 2014, he and his son joined the pro-Russian separatists. When his son was killed in combat in 2016, Artem replaced him as commander of the Sparta Battalion. His political career began in 2023, when he became “parliamentary speaker” in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Now, the Kremlin hopes to use his new post to signal that it’s serious about making veterans into the country’s “new elites.”
Where have I heard that name before? You might recall that while the Kremlin’s political team wanted the president to announce his most recent reelection bid at the opening of the Rossiya expo last November, Putin ultimately opted to break the “news” at a military award ceremony. It was Artem Zhoga who asked him to run (in what was surely a scripted exchange). From this point on, Zhoga “quickly became absorbed in the presidential campaign” and devoted little time to “governing” in the occupied Donetsk region, according to Meduza’s sources.
How is state media spinning Zhoga’s new post? The Putin administration has instructed Russia’s propagandists to talk up Zhoga’s “combat experience,” frame it as a key asset in helping him “effectively manage his new role in the strategically important federal district,” and emphasize that the new envoy is “capable of tackling any challenge.” In reality, all of Meduza’s sources said Zhoga’s new role is to serve as “more of a figurehead,” which should make it a good fit since he has little in the way of civilian governing experience.
2) A first look at Navalny’s prison memoir
In his own words: This weekend, The New Yorker, Der Spiegel, El Pais, and The Times published excerpts from Alexey Navalny’s posthumous memoir “Patriot,” which is set to be published in English and Russian later this month. The snippets provide new insights into the late opposition figure’s thinking about his imprisonment and attest to how clear-sighted he was about the risks he was taking in deciding to return to Russia in January 2021.
What events does the book cover? In the published excerpts, Navalny recounts his 24-day hunger strike in 2021, the period when prison officials forced him to live across from a constantly-screaming “psycho” in 2023, the experience of marking birthdays and holidays alone behind bars, and his conversation with his wife Yulia during her extended visit to his prison, among other things. He also describes his mental strategies for coping with the knowledge that he may well die in prison.
Sounds like a depressing read. These diary entries are indeed dark, but they’re also laced with Navalny’s trademark gallows humor. Speculating about the royalties he hopes his family will get from the book if the Russian authorities “whack” him, for example, Navalny writes: “The book’s author has been murdered by a villainous president. What more could the marketing department ask for?”
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3) The war against Ukraine
🪖 North Korea is supplying troops to Russia as well as equipment, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday. “We see the growing alliance between Russia and regimes such as North Korea,” he wrote on Telegram. “It’s not just about the transfer of weapons; it’s actually about the transfer of people from North Korea to the armed forces of the occupier.” To respond to this partnership, Zelensky said, Ukraine needs more support from its own allies, including authorization to use Western-supplies weapons to strike targets further inside Russia. (Meduza)
⛓️ Forcing more migrants to fight: The Russian authorities are forcing prisoners from Central Asia to choose between either renouncing their home citizenship and joining the war in Ukraine or enduring inhumane prison conditions, including solitary confinement and physical abuse from other inmates, according to a new report from Current Time. A group of prisoners from a facility in the Moscow region told the outlet in a letter that their prison contains about 400 inmates from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan who are routinely abused and insulted on religious grounds as prison officials try to pressure them into joining the army. One inmate said many of his fellow prisoners are in a “critical situation” and that some see suicide as their best option. (Current Time)
🪖 Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova claimed in an interview published Monday that Ukrainian troops have forcibly “removed” more than 1,000 residents of Russia’s Kursk region and that their whereabouts are currently unknown. “I’ve received requests regarding more than 1,000 of these people from relatives trying to find them,” she told state media. Moskalkova also said she’s asked Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets for information about the civilians in question and that she plans to discuss the issue with him at an upcoming meeting. Ukraine has not responded publicly to Moskalkova’s allegations, which have not been independently verified. (Meduza)
🪖 A glimpse of front-line life between battles: Russian troops have been attempting to advance in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region since early May. The battle for Vovchansk rages on, but the Russian army still hasn’t managed to capture the city, which lies in ruins. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are holding the line across other parts of the Kharkiv front. Meduza shares photos taken in the region on October 2, offering a glimpse into life for Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.
4) Meanwhile, in Russia
🤝 Dagestan’s governor vows support for Kerimov: Two days after Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov declared a “blood feud” against Dagestani Senator Suleiman Kerimov, Dagestan Governor Sergey Melikov said on Saturday that the republic will “always support” the senator “in difficult times.” Speaking at the ribbon cutting ceremony for a new park in Makhachkala, Melikov heaped praise upon the senator, calling the park’s creation “one of [his] many good deeds.” Relations between Kadyrov and Kerimov appear to have reached an all-time low in recent weeks amid a merger between the Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries and the advertising operator Russ Group; the latter is reportedly backed by Kerimov, while the former is owned by Tatyana Kim, whose estranged ex-husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, opposes the deal and is close friends with Kadyrov. (Meduza)
⛓️ Teen’s health deteriorating in prison: Arseny Turbin, a Russian 16-year-old who was sentenced to five years in a juvenile prison on terrorism charges this summer, has lost 17 kilograms (37 pounds) in pre-trial detention, a Telegram channel run by his supporters reported on Saturday. Last week, the channel shared a letter Turbin wrote to his mother in which he described physical abuse from his cell mates and said he was “probably going to die soon.” According to his mother, however, the main inmate who was targeting him has now been moved to solitary confinement. (Meduza)
🏚️ A deadly cave-in: The floor between two stories of a psychiatric clinic in Russia’s Krasnodar region collapsed on Sunday, according to local emergency services officials. State investigators have launched a criminal negligence case over the incident, which left at least one person dead. (Meduza)
🚔 Moscow police raided two gay clubs on Friday, purportedly in search of drugs, local media reported. The Telegram channel Mash wrote that officers forced about 200 people to lie face-down on the floor. According to the outlet Msk1, several clubgoers who didn’t have ID documents with them were taken to the police station. Both clubs were holding events to celebrate International Coming Out Day. (Msk1)
5) As the world turns
⛔ Poland will temporarily stop granting asylum to migrants, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday. The suspension is part of a new long-term strategy intended to combat the migration crisis that Warsaw says Russia and Belarus deliberately caused by luring migrants from the Middle East and Africa to the Polish border. “This right to asylum is used against the essence of the right to asylum,” Tusk said, adding that he will “demand recognition” of the decision from European officials. (Politico)
⚙️ India has become Russia’s second-biggest supplier of dual-use goods like microchips and machine tools, Bloomberg reports, citing U.S. and European officials. According to the latest available data, “almost a fifth of the sensitive technology” fueling Russia’s military-industrial complex traveled through India to get there; only China provides more. The officials said the shift is largely due to the fact that Moscow has amassed a large quantity of rupees as India has become one of Russia’s main buyers of oil. (Bloomberg)
🎓 The end of an era: Moscow State University’s (MGU) branch in Koper, Slovenia, has closed, rector Viktor Sadovnichiy said on Saturday. According to him, the school was informed of the closure by its Slovenian partner institution, the University of Primorska. “The [Russian Education] Ministry had nothing to do with this [decision], nor did MGU,” he told state media. The campus was MGU’s only one in Europe; the University of Primorska didn’t give an official reason for the closure. (Meduza)
📣 Dasha Navalnaya joins Team Kamala: Alexey Navalny’s daughter, Dasha Navalnaya, has begun working for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile. Navalnaya graduated from Stanford University in June. (Meduza)
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