Harmony or Discord
Harmony or Discord
Russia blocks social media platform Discord
Hello from the Bear Market Brief.
This week in the news:
Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor blocked Discord, a U.S.-based social media messaging platform.
Regions continue to experience difficulties recruiting contract soldiers and labor shortages in the defense industrial complex.
Russian legislators proposed banning several Western-based subcultures, as well as the promotion of childfree lifestyles.
The UK sanctioned Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense unit and its commander for the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.
— Sara Ashbaugh, Editor in Chief
Roskomnadzor blocks Discord
Discord, a San Francisco-based social media messaging platform, became the latest website to be blocked by Russian authorities. On Tuesday, Roskomnadzor announced that access to Discord would be restricted in order to “prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes.” According to the media regulator, Discord did not comply with an order issued on October 1 to remove nearly 1,000 items of illegal content from the site. Additionally, in July 2023, Discord was fined 6 million rubles ($62,000) for failing to remove illegal content, a fine that Roskomnadzor says the website ignored. The ban did not come as a total surprise—at the end of September, Kommersant reported that Roskomnadzor issued a flurry of decisions about Discord, signaling that the site may be blocked soon. Prior to the ban, Discord users in Russia experienced frequent problems with the messenger, with at least four outages in the past two months.
Although Discord was originally created for gamers, its popularity has spread beyond gaming communities. According to estimates by Kommersant, Discord has up to 40 million Russian users, including many in the crypto and corporate IT sectors. Additionally, pro-war military bloggers report that Russian troops use the messenger service to communicate on the frontlines. Discord was also a way for Russians to bypass the massive YouTube slowdown that began earlier this year. Over the summer, YouTube’s approximately 95 million Russian users started noticing an abrupt decline in YouTube loading speeds, in addition to frequent outages of the site. In late July, State Duma Deputy Aleksandr Khinshteyn told YouTube users to expect loading speeds on desktop browsers to decrease by up to 70%. Although authorities blame the slowdown on “technical problems,” it is more likely related to YouTube’s failure to comply with Roskomnadzor’s demand to restore hundreds of channels operated by pro-Kremlin Russian media.
Blocking Discord is the latest step in Russia’s ongoing efforts to crack down on alternative sources of information on the internet. In addition to Discord, Roskomnadzor has also banned the social media platforms X, Facebook, and Instagram, although many Russians still access these sites using a VPN. Authorities encourage citizens to use domestic platforms instead, like Russian video-sharing site Rutube. However, some Russians are skeptical that domestic platforms can make up the difference. “In terms of functionality, [Discord] cannot be adequately replaced by any domestic product. At this rate, there will soon be no social networks and services available in the country without a VPN. I am preparing an appeal to Roskomnadzor,” State Duma Deputy Vladislav Davankov said.
— Sara Ashbaugh
Vladimir Putin celebrated his 72nd birthday on Monday. He received well wishes from around the country, including flash mobs and letters from schoolchildren. His supporters also put up posters to mark the occasion, featuring pictures of Putin with various captions. This one reads, “If the fight is inevitable, be the first to give a blow!” State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin posted on Telegram to congratulate the President on his birthday. “With [Putin], our country will overcome all challenges and threats. With Putin, we will win! Happy birthday, Vladimir Vladimirovich!” he said. (photo: Reuters / Alexander Ermochenko)
Wartime labor crunch intensifies
The authorities of the Belgorod Region raised the region’s military signing bonus for contract soldiers to 2.2 million rubles ($23,000). Together with federal and municipal bonuses, contract soldiers in the region can now expect to receive 3 million rubles ($31,000) just for signing up for military service. This is a new record among Russian regions, but it is likely that it will be surpassed soon. Signup bonuses have been steeply rising over the current year, which suggests that regional governments are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit contract soldiers for the war. Just a year ago, Belgorod paid a mere 100,000 rubles ($1,000) from the regional budget to contract soldiers. It is especially notable that the Belgorod Region has experienced shelling and incursions by Ukraine-aligned groups over the past few years, yet exposure to the war first-hand is apparently not resulting in a high enough number of volunteers signing up.
There is also an increasing manpower shortage in the defense industrial complex in spite of rapidly growing salaries. This week, Omsk Governor Vitaly Khotsenko mentioned to the federal government that there are 12,000 vacancies in the defense plants of the Siberian Federal District alone, and the number is still growing (albeit according to the Governor’s data, his own region has managed to increase the number of people trained to work in the industry—at the expense of the regional budget). Labor shortages, however, may very well mean that in spite of growing federal expenditures on defense production, the sector’s productivity will be difficult or impossible to raise next year.
Despite the labor market crunch, authorities are set on restricting access to Russia’s labor market for migrant workers—a process triggered by this year’s terrorist attacks—albeit the number of incoming workers has been low ever since the COVID pandemic. Along with planned federal-level restrictions, a growing number of regions have been restricting the number of professions in which migrants can legally work, in spite of adverse effects on public services (which rely on migrant labor in many cities). There have also been increased raids on enterprises employing migrants. At the same time, according to surveys by employers and the hh.ru job portal, 53% of Russian companies would like to employ more migrant labor, especially in manufacturing and construction.
In an uncharacteristic move, Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, chimed in on the migration policy debate this week. On his Telegram channel, he warned against the current “disgusting” means of restricting inward migration, which, he added, “pits Russia against neighboring regions.” Kadyrov has long styled himself as the protector of Russia’s Muslims, which is likely one reason for his Telegram post. He may also suspect that the pending restrictions will increase the clout of the domestic security services, with which he has a fraught relationship.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
Duma yelling at clouds
Tatarstan’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights recommended to the State Duma to recognize quadrobers, furries, and therianthropes (three subcultures mixing human and animal-like features) as “LGBT propaganda” and thus effectively ban them. The reasoning of the suggestion is that the Western-based subcultures are alien to Russia and corrupt Russian children. Earlier, Duma Deputies Sergey Kolunov and Yana Lantratova supported holding parents who allow their children to engage in quadrobics to account, while the “Veterans of Russia” movement suggested banning quadrobics outright. Supporters of quadrobics, which involves imitating animal movements by running or crawling on all fours, say that it is a type of athletic workout. In schools across Russia, officials and priests have been reportedly speaking to children about the dangers of the subculture. Quadrobics has apparently conquered the imagination of Russian decisionmakers so much that it even found its way into the small talk that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had with his Armenian counterpart in Moscow.
The move against a relatively niche subculture is just the latest in a series of attacks on similar ideas over the past months. Over the summer, deputies started working on banning “childfree” ideology and recognizing it as “extremism.” In September, Duma Deputy Tatyana Butskaya suggested that employers should “monitor” fertility rates among their employees. Her colleague, Defense Committee Deputy Chair Andrei Gurulyov, proposed a new tax on childlessness this week. Additionally, a possible restriction of abortion rights has been on the political agenda since fall 2023, albeit, due to widespread opposition, only individual regions have limited access to it so far.
The banning and labeling of various subcultures provides Russian authorities with more excuses to crack down on any kind of dissent within the country and support the image of a hostile and dangerously decadent West. At the same time, the topic of demographic decline has also been a preoccupation of the Kremlin, with Vladimir Putin repeatedly instructing officials to raise birth rates. There is little that officials can actually do about this under the current circumstances, with budgets prioritizing the war and recruitment of men above all else. In any case, even sensible policies to address demographic decline would play out over a longer period of time. Deputies can, however, signal to the Kremlin that they are preoccupied with the problem themselves, resulting in absurd proposals such as the above.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
Last week, the trial began for several Russian journalists associated with Alexei Navalny. On October 2, Konstantin Gabov, Antonina Favorskaya, Artem Kriger, and Sergei Karelin appeared for a court hearing at the Nagatinsky District Court in Moscow. They are accused of extremist activities for their involvement with Navalny’s organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). The four journalists were arrested earlier this year, and they face up to six years in prison if convicted. Shortly after court proceedings began, the judge granted the prosecution’s request to close the remainder of the trial to spectators and the press. (photo: Associated Press)
UK sanctions Russians for using chemical weapons
On Tuesday, the UK announced new sanctions against Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense unit and its commander, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, for the alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. In May, the U.S. accused Russia of using chloropicrin, a type of tear gas, to “dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions.” The use of chloropicrin is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which Russia has signed and ratified. The Kremlin denied the accusations, calling them “completely baseless and unsubstantiated.” This week, the UK issued sanctions against Kirillov and his unit for the use of chloropicrin, as well as two Russian Defense Ministry laboratories involved in developing and deploying the chemical agent. Sanctioned individuals and entities are subject to an asset freeze and travel ban in the UK. “The UK will not sit idly by whilst Putin and his mafia state ride roughshod over international law, including the Chemical Weapons Convention,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.
The same day, the EU approved a new sanctions framework that allows it to target individuals and entities involved in “Russia’s destabilizing actions abroad.” These actions include “hybrid threats,” such as undermining electoral processes, sabotaging critical infrastructure, using coordinated disinformation, weaponizing migrants, and other destabilizing activities. Those sanctioned under the new framework will be subject to an asset freeze and travel ban in the EU. The EU’s press release notes that the decision “is part of the EU’s response to the continued campaign of hybrid activities by Russia, which has recently increased through new operations on European soil.”
The EU introduced its 14th sanctions package against Russia in June, targeting 116 individuals and entities in “high-value” sectors of the Russian economy. It also aimed to crack down on the circumvention of existing sanctions. In total, the EU has sanctioned more than 2,200 Russian individuals and entities.
— Sara Ashbaugh
On the podcast
Kyiv-based journalist Fabrice Deprez returns to the Brief for another update on the mood in Ukraine, including a report on his recent trip to the frontline city of Pokrovsk.
Quickfire: Regions
Several articles about the state of Russia’s coal industry over the past week warned that the industry is facing a significant crisis as a result of Western sanctions, which are exacerbating existing problems. The U.S. introduced and later tightened sanctions against Russian coal companies this year, adding Raspadskaya, Mechel-Mining, Yuzhny Kuzbass, Yakutugol, SDS-Ugol, and Stroyservis to the SDN list in August. This has led coal exporters, already struggling with high transportation costs due to the loss of European markets and a lack of transit capacity in the Eastern direction, to face additional difficulties with payments, as Asian buyers are wary of secondary sanctions. This, in turn, has led to a drop in demand from Asian buyers. As a result, coal mining in the Kuzbass, Russia’s main coal producing region, fell by 5.6% this year, and the outlook, according to the International Energy Agency, is negative. Sanctions overcompliance also endangers planned extraction and infrastructure projects that rely on Chinese investments and that could increase transit capacity. At the same time, the Russian government is working under the assumption of constantly growing coal production in the coming years. The widening gap between expectations and reality is significant both because of the lobbying power of the coal industry—Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov is a former governor of the Kuzbass—as well as its role in regional budgets and several single-industry towns.
The ongoing conflict around the ownership of the Wildberries e-commerce platform escalated further over the past week. Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov threatened senators and Duma deputies from other North Caucasian regions with a “blood feud,” accusing them of plotting to murder him. Kadyrov had earlier taken the side of Vladislav Bakalchuk, the soon-to-be ex-husband of Wildberries majority owner Tatiana Kim. Chechen heavies were also involved in a recent shootout at Wildberries’ offices in Moscow that left two people dead. (Bakalchuk, who was let off the hook as a witness, is also suing Wildberries for 350 billion rubles.) One of the people threatened by Kadyrov was Suleiman Kerimov, one of Russia’s richest people and a senator representing the Republic of Dagestan. Kerimov is on Kim’s side in the conflict and reportedly orchestrated the merger of Wildberries with the Russ Outdoor group, which led to the conflict. Kadyrov also called out Deputies Rizvan Kurbanov and Bekhan Barakhoev. The escalation is significant, as it suggests that the Kremlin is likely going to have to arbitrate a conflict between two influential people in a volatile region over a deal that received Putin’s seal of approval.
Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko called on regions to “move away from [financing] megaprojects” in the coming years, as the federal government is planning to reduce interbudgetary transfers to regions. Matvienko spoke to the representatives of regions at parliamentary hearings on the recently-introduced draft federal budget. According to these plans, transfers will be cut by 10% in nominal terms next year. Transfers have already seen a significant drop in the first half of this year, according to the Audit Chamber, and regions on the whole have had trouble increasing expenditures on headings such as social policy and housing even to the level of inflation. In 2025, this will mostly affect subsidies, which typically represent federal cofinancing on specific projects, rather than grants that regions use to balance their budgets. At the same time, the federal government expects regions to invest more into infrastructure, as it is gradually forgiving two-thirds of regional debt accumulated from budgetary loans, and to prioritize both military recruitment and mitigating the domestic economic effects of the war.
— Andras Toth-Czifra