This was Russia today, Tuesday, October 22, 2024 The Gospel of Alexey Navalny, Sberbank raises interest rates and down payments for mortgage programs, and Washington formally accuses Russian influence actors of targeting Tim Walz
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Today’s main story: The Gospel of Alexey Navalny
Alexey Navalny won’t be “the political leader for future generations of Russians,” writes Mikhail Zygar for Vanity Fair in a review of the late dissident’s posthumously published autobiography, “but he might be the moral example — some kind of Russian messiah.” The memoir Patriot “begins lightly and humorously,” says Zygar, focusing on Navalny’s childhood and how he met his wife, Yulia.
Next, the book becomes a prison diary that features “a completely different kind of literature and a completely different Navalny.” Zygar says these chapters show how multiple hunger strikes and Russia’s prisons reduced a fearless intellectual to a starving man obsessed with “food, food, food.” At the same time, however, Zygar says Navalny remained “unfailingly radiant, always joking humorously.”
A “Russian messiah”: Navalny then shifts to “philosophical reflections” about his own likely death, writing a new one every few months. He talks about missing out on his family’s future and starts treating Jesus “as a sort of senior cellmate,” says Zygar. The book ends abruptly, its author dead, but not before “Navalny explains clearly why he died,” argues Zygar.
- 📺 Yulia Navalnaya went on Stephen Colbert's television show to discuss her late husband's autobiography. (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube)
(2) Russia is putting pressure on women to boost the birth rate — but demographers say the main problem is too many people dying
Russia’s population of around 146 million could shrink by 20 million by the end of the century. Worst-case estimates predict a dramatic decline of nearly 60 million people.
What’s a Kremlin to do? The Putin administration has rolled out various initiatives to tackle the “demographic problem,” from promoting “family values” in schools to restricting access to abortion, but demographers say Russia’s mortality rate is the real cause.
Cardiovascular diseases are Russia’s leading cause of death, but the war in Ukraine and economic inequality aren’t doing the population any favors. It may sound like an unfair stereotype, but roughly 30–40 percent of Russians live in poverty, many of whom continue to smoke, drink heavily, and are more likely to be involved in or affected by crime.
All stick, no stork: The Russian government has now officially incorporated patriarchal “family values” into its strategy to boost birth rates, but these policies run the risk of driving modern women to forgo children for fear of sabotaging their own careers. Meanwhile, a crackdown on immigration following the March 2024 terrorist attack at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall is only aggravating Russia’s population woes.
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(3) Meanwhile, in Russia
💳 The chip security certificates in some Visa and Mastercard cards issued in Russia will begin expiring by the end of the year — the first time this has happened since the payment systems left the country in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The change could cause problems for a small number of clients attempting delayed transactions, such as offline purchases. (RBC)
📈 A new poll conducted by telephone shows that most Russians who say they support Vladimir Putin also endorse a political agenda that contradicts the president’s current policies in two key areas: 83 percent of Putin’s supporters advocated more focus on domestic socioeconomic issues, and 61 percent favored a peace treaty with Ukraine involving mutual concessions. (Khroniki Research Project)
🏦 Sberbank more than doubled its down payment requirements for issuing mortgages under Russia’s current preferential programs to buy apartments in new buildings — from 20.1 percent to 50.1 percent. The bank attributed the higher down payment requirements to Russia’s “monetary policy context” and rising “macroprudential regulator surcharges.”
- Additionally, Sberbank raised the interest rates for its market mortgage programs by three percent, bumping the minimum rate for loans on newly constructed housing to 24.9 percent and for existing housing to 24.6 percent. Base rates, without discounts, will rise to 27.2 percent and 27.5 percent, respectively. (RBC)
💰 Jailed former Federation Council member Rauf Arashukov will face new felony charges for allegedly bribing a Federal Penitentiary Service worker, supposedly to get “more favorable conditions” in prison. Arashukov is suspected of acting through a lawyer to pay a guard 3 million rubles ($31,300), but the recipient reported him to federal investigators. (Interfax)
- On October 17, Arashukov’s Instagram page posted a public appeal to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov with a vague request to help his family “in the current situation.”
- Arashukov is currently serving life in prison for ordering multiple contract killings and leading an organized crime group.
🐐 There’ll be no more goat roaming allowed to a retired man in Moscow’s Yuzhnoye Butovo District following a court ruling on Tuesday. Valery Anikeev’s wanderin’ goats have been a viral hit thanks to videos showing the animals turning up unexpectedly and grazing in city settings. A judge reportedly ordered Anikeev to install a fence at his property and give the goats “special antibacterial baths.” (Moscow Courts Press Service)
⚖️ An 18-year-old rapper has been sentenced to a year and eight months in prison for allegedly inciting violence and “negative attitudes” against ethnic Russians. At one moment during a rap battle in November 2023, Islam “Recidiv” Zakirov described attacking a pregnant Russian woman as a “preemptive strike.” The Moscow bar that hosted the event has since shut down. (Meduza)
💌 A public support campaign backing Senator Suleyman Kerimov amid a blood feud against him by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is now part of the conflict between these two top North Caucasian figures. Sources told RFE/RL that dozens of recent online videos showing ordinary people expressing support for Kerimov won’t likely change matters, but they are an effort to document (to Kadyrov and perhaps Kerimov himself) the billionaire senator’s popular appeal and (to the Kremlin) his commitment to resolution through “civil means.” (Meduza)
(4) The Ukraine war
👋 Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin stepped down on Tuesday after President Zelensky criticized state officials for obtaining “fraudulent disabilities.” Kostin said he supports Zelensky and took personal responsibility for abuses within the Ukrainian prosecution system.
- Earlier on Tuesday, Zelensky met with Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and announced a mass audit of exemptions from mobilization issued on “obviously false” medical grounds.
👋 The mayor of Morshansk, a town in Russia’s Tambov region, has resigned after a months-long political fight following his controversial remarks to the sister of a soldier killed in Ukraine. In late June, Alexey Bannikov told the mourning relative that her brother “died for all of us” and then listed the reasons for his sacrifice, which he said included renovations to the town’s bridge. Critics, including the region’s governor, said the comments were insensitive, though Bannikov claimed the soldier had expressed love for the local bridge. (68 News)
🪖 The head of Primorsky Krai wants to give apartments to the children of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. Speaking in Vladivostok on Tuesday, Governor Oleg Kozhemyako reasoned that such a housing program would “instill a sense of patriotism in the children,” cultivating the following thought process: “Yes, my father performed a heroic deed and died, but thanks to his heroism, I have an apartment. I have a place to live.” (Argumenty i Fakty)
- Last year, Governor Kozhemyako spearheaded regional legislation instituting cash payments for housing purchases to the children of killed or disabled soldiers.
(5) As the world turns
🕊️ A three-day BRICS summit chaired by Russia kicked off in Kazan on Tuesday. Representatives from member states India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Brazil (but not its president) are attending the conference, making it the largest gathering of world leaders in Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (Meduza)
- While Putin has tried to expand the intergovernmental organization to bolster Russia in its confrontation with the West, new and aspiring BRICS members seek economic development wherever they can get it and “non-ideological and pragmatic” global engagement, an expert told CNN.
🇺🇸 In its latest election security update, the U.S. intelligence community accused Russia, China, and Iran of “fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system.” The report claims that “Russian influence actors” targeted Democratic Party VP candidate Tim Walz with “manufactured and amplified inauthentic content claiming illegal activity” — a story reported a day earlier by WIRED. (U.S. National Intelligence Director’s Office)
🇰🇷 The South Korean government is reportedly “considering” sending a team of personnel from its military intelligence units to Ukraine to analyze North Korean battlefield tactics or take part in interrogations of captured North Koreans. (Yonhap News Agency)
- This follows an assessment by Seoul's spy agency that Pyongyang has already deployed some 1,500 special forces to Russia and plans to send a total of “12,000 elite special forces unit troops.”
⚖️ The European Court of Human Rights awarded compensation to more than 100 individuals and organizations labeled as “foreign agents” in Russia, finding that the country’s relevant law and enforcement practices violate people’s rights to free expression, free association, and privacy. However, Russia does not comply with any of the European Court’s rulings that entered force after March 15, 2022. (ECHR)
🇵🇱 Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is closing Russia’s consulate in Poznan in response to a nearby “sabotage attempt orchestrated by foreign intelligence services.” The ministry also accused Russia of “waging a hybrid war against Poland,” including “cyberattacks and assaults at Poland’s eastern frontier.” (Poland’s Foreign Affairs Ministry)
- Russia retains an embassy in Warsaw and consulates in Gdansk and Krakow.
☦️ A formerly high-ranking clergy member of the Russian Orthodox Church owns a three-story waterfront apartment in eastern France, according to city records reviewed by journalists. Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) says he bought the place with royalties earned from his books and films. This summer, the church suspended his clergy activities following sexual harassment allegations from a former assistant. (Novaya Gazeta Europe)
- Until July 2024, Hilarion headed the Diocese of Budapest and Hungary. For many years before that, he acted as the church’s spokesman, leading to rumors that he could be a possible successor to Patriarch Kirill.
- Journalists have also tied Hilarion to real estate outside Budapest, a penthouse in Spain’s Alicante province, and property in Moscow.
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