Fewer Russians Vaccinated against Childhood Diseases in 2025 than in Any Year of the Last Decade, Increasing Risks of Epidemics, ‘Takiye Dela’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 30 – “The numbers of Russian children being vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, viral hepatitis and pneumococcal infections in 2025 were the lowest in the last decade,” according to Rosstat data investigated by Aleksey Semyonov of the Takiye Dela portal; and that increases the risk of future epidemics of these diseases.

            According to Russian government figures, the declines have been very small, the journalist says; but if one bases the declines on the total numbers of children not being vaccinated, then these falloffs have been much larger, not one percent or less but two or three times that figure (takiedela.ru/notes/detey-plokho-privivayut/).

            The actual declines, Semyonov says, reflect the decision of parents who missed such shots during the covid epidemic not to get them, the unavailability of vaccines produced in the west and distrust among Russians for domestic ones, and the rise of anti-vaxxer sentiments not only among the population as a whole but among doctors in particular.

            Anti-vaxxer sentiment is playing an especially harmful role. Approximately a third of all Russian doctors say they have colleagues who oppose giving vaccinations; and a VTsIOM poll found that 54 percent of Russian parents are prepared to have their children receive “only ‘the most necessary’” vaccines.

            In general, they judge those to be about diseases that still circulate like measles rather than polio which is largely under control. As a result, explosive growth in measles is probably unlikely; but there is a real danger that diseases like polio could return and spread like wildfire through a population that could have been vaccinated but chose not to.

            Medical experts with whom Semyonov spoke were unanimous in agreeing that declines in the number of young people being vaccinated represent a serious threat to the health of Russia in the future. 

Russian Soldiers Injured in Combat in Ukraine Far More Likely to Die than Their Predecessors or Combatants Elsewhere, Kyiv’s ‘Come Back Alive Initiative’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 30 – The ration of killed to wounded has always been “a key indicator of an army’s viability,” Ukrainian commentator Yury Fedorenko says. In the distant past, armies typically suffered far more wounded than dead; in World War II, the ratio was three wounded to every death; and in Afghanistan, ten wounded for each death.

            And because of this trend, the Ukrainian writer says, most people assumed that in modern war, with advances in medicine, better transportation an logistics, even more of the wounded would survive and fight again. But in the case of Putin’s war in Ukraine, that has not been happening (charter97.org/ru/news/2026/1/30/671817/).

            Instead, he says, as Ukraine’s “Come Back Alive Initiative” has documented, slightly more than half of all Russians wounded in combat in Ukraine are dying, the result of the strategy and tactics of both armies and the failure of the Russian command to evacuate and provide medical treatment to the wounded in an effective way.

            “More than half” of Russian losses are thus “irreversible;” and Moscow has to send a disproportionately larger number of men to the front each month just to keep the size of its forces at the current level. “Every month,” this task gets “harder and harder,” the Ukrainian commentator says.

More than half of the losses are irreversible. This can only mean one thing: the human resource of the enemy is being wiped out at an unprecedented speed. Russia needs to bring more than 35,000 new creatures to the frontline just to keep the numbers on the frontline every month. Every month it gets harder and harder.

            That Russian losses are mounting has been frequently and well documented (e.g., bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/russia-s-war-death-tally-spurs-european-scrutiny-on-recruitment), but there is as yet no independent confirmation of the Return Alive figures, although they are quite plausible given reports of rising deaths among Russian troops.

            Kyiv, of course, has a vested interest in promoting such statistics given that they will only add to fears among Russians that being called or bribed into service in Ukraine is likely to be a death sentence; but Moscow has if anything even more compelling reasons for not releasing such data lest it face even more difficulties in meeting its military manpower needs.

Moscow Patriarchate Diverges from Kremlin on Traditional Values, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 29 – The Moscow Patriarchate so often slavishly follows the Kremlin line on issues like Putin’s war in Ukraine that it is sometimes ignored that the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church diverges from the Putin regime on key issues – and that this divergence may even lead to heightened tensions between the two.

            According to the editors of Nezavimaya Gazeta, “the Russian Orthodox Church and the state do not fully agree on the issue of traditional values,” with the Moscow Patriarchate insisting that Orthodoxy must dominate them while Putin insists on a much broader and more secular approach (ng.ru/editorial/2026-01-29/2_9426_red.html).

            This difference has been thrown into high relief at a conference of religious leaders where Patriarch Kirill spoke and where a message from President Putin was read out to the delegates, the editors say. Kirill said any efforts to “introduce young people to traditional Russian spiritual and moral values without recourse to the Orthodox faith and culture are untenable.”

            And he called for Russian priests to play a more active role at all levels of the Russian educational pyramid from pre-schools to universities. For Kirill, the paper said, Russian traditional values come from “only one Christian denomination” – Orthodoxy – which although the largest is not the only “traditional” religion in Russia.

            Putin in contrast emphasized that “Russian traditions are formed at the intersection of these spiritual systems” and that the worldview he and his government want to promote is “crowned by civic virtues, primarily patriotism,” rather than coming from a single religious center.

            “The country’s leadership and its multi-ethnic society are interested in maintaining interreligious harmony,” the editors write. The ROC MP “takes part in this dialogue of religions, but recently, they continue, the Patriarchate like some in the government and society have exhibited “a certain bias towards promoting the hegemony of the main confession.”

            The ROC MP wants to go further than the regime in this regard and clearly hopes that by taking a tough line on this issue while remaining loyal on almost all others it will be able to push Putin into adopting an even more Russian nationalist position, something that have serious consequences given the rising share of non-Russians and non-Orthodox in the population.

Kremlin Advisor Says Russians Quite Happy to Trade Freedom for Effective Rule

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 29 – The third issue of Gosudarstvo, which is rapidly assuming the role that Kommunist performed in Soviet times, carries an article by Kremlin advisor Gleb Kuznetsov which argues that Russians are quite prepared to give up privacy, competitive elections and other freedoms that would prevent the state from ruling effectively.

            (The article is available online at https://runivers.ru/bookreader/book164337, pp. 14-18 and has been reviewed by Andrey Pertsev at meduza.io/feature/2026/01/28/konsultant-kremlya-gleb-kuznetsov-v-novoy-statie-otkryto-hvalit-rossiyu-i-kitay-za-totalnyy-kontrol-nad-zhiznyu-lyudey.)

            By “illiberal” systems which he says have advantages, Kuznetsov identifies cities in Russia and in China. He doesn’t list countries in the West where legitimacy is “based on procedures like competitive elections, separation of powers and the illusion of public ‘oversight.’”

            According to him as summarized by Pertsev, “’illiberal’ regimes outperform their “liberal” counterparts. In such systems, power is legitimate ‘not because it’s reelected every four years by promising everything to everyone amid real political competition, but because it works for voters on a daily basis.’”

            The digitalization of life, Kuznetsov continues, means that actions by the government as far as citizens are concerned are “visible and measurable,” something that is far more important for the populace than are “abstract discussions of procedural democracy’” because they deliver what people need and don’t need to “manipulate public opinion.”

            That is, these illiberal states work “thanks to rather than in spite of the concentration of power;” and that is why people welcome them and are ready to put up with things like state oversight because it gives them what they want most immediately and is something they would miss were it to disappear.

            Not only does these features of “illiberal” regimes allow them to respond to problems more quickly, but they free these societies from electoral cycles, allowing for the carrying out of long-term projects without the risk that these will be reversed or at least interrupted after the next round of voting.

            According to Kuznetsov, “modern illiberal systems know how to create institutional stability without liberal procedures — through elite rotation, meritocratic selection, and built-in feedback mechanisms – and they thus represent a new type of political order, in which traditional liberal procedures are replaced by technocratic governance legitimized by effectiveness.”

Traditional Way of Life No Longer Ensures Survival of Native Language for Non-Russians Living Outside Their National Republics, New Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 29 – New field research reported by Marina Kutsayeva of the Moscow Institute of Linguistics challenges the widely held view that members of nations who maintain a traditional way of life are far more likely to retain their native language even if they reside outside their non-Russian federal subjects.

            In a new article, she summarizes socio-linguistic studies of members of the Mari nation who live outside Mari El (mariuver.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Kucajeva_M_V-Marijcy_i_ih_jazyk_za_predelami_Respubliki_Marij_El_2024-2025.pdf, discussed at https://mariuver.eu/2026/01/28/kak-zhivet-mariiskj-jazyk-za-predelami-marij-el/).

            This is a critical issue for the Mari because almost half of that Finno-Ugric people live outside the borders of their titular republic. What the latest studies show, she says is that “assimilation is occurring in various federal subjects in an extremely uneven manner and that “a traditional way of life no longer guarantees the preservation of the language.”

            Globalization and digitalization, Kutsayeva says, “are penetrating into the most distance villages through smartphones and the internet, and as a result, native language is beginning to be viewed by the young as an instrument exclusively for communicating with elderly relatives” than as a language of common use.

            She organizes her report around the situation in the federal subjects where Maris are most numerous. Their situation is “most favorable” in Bashkortostan, she says, because the diaspora is large and concentrated in a few regions. And the Mari language continues to be used by middle aged and older Maris.

            But younger Maris have largely stopped using their native language, and in most rural schools, even in kindergartens, it is ceasing to be the language of instruction. The only factor keeping young Maris in their national linguistic fold is religion. Those who follow the Mari traditional faith retain the language far more than do others.

            In Tatarstan, the situation of the Maris and their language is relatively good. In contrast to most other federal subjects, Mari remains a language of instruction and in others, it is taught up to three hours a week, not a lot it would seem but more than most places and something that is helping to keep the language alive.

            Indeed, Kutsayeva says, schools in Tatarstan are helping the Maris in many ways, even becoming centers of cultural “revitalization.” One result of this is that Mari parents when given the choice as to the language of instruction for their children choose Mari rather than Russian, a sharp contrast with what happens elsewhere.

            In Sverdlovsk Oblast, a primarily ethnic Russian region, the situation of the Mari language is generating “serious concern.” Most Maris under 35 do not use their native language regularly except in conversations with older relatives. The treatment of the Mari language in schools depends heavily on the attitudes of the local school directors.

            But in another predominantly ethnic Russian region, Kirov Oblast, the situation of the Mari language has become “most critical.” There, Maris under the age of 50 to 55 do not use it, most Maris have fled to the cities where they speak Russian exclusively, and young Maris have a tendency to view the Mari language as “foreign.”

            In that predominantly ethnic Russian region, Kutsayeva says, Mari is treated by many as “a secret language” spoken only by the elderly. This situation is so dire that linguists are now calling for the documentation of Mari dialects before they completely disappear and cannot be recorded.

Kyrgyzstan Requires Countries Receiving Its Water to Pay for It

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 29 – For more than two decades, Bishkek has urged the countries of Central Asia to pay for water entering their territories as the best means of promoting conservation and eliminating negotiations about amounts or balancing these amounts with deals for electric power.

            But while all the Central Asian countries have moved away from the Soviet-era practice that water is free good, none of the other has gone as far as Kyrgyzstan in seeking to extend that principle to water flowing from one country to another, declaring that from now on, those who get its water will have to pay (asia24.media/news/besplatno-bolshe-ne-budet-s-1-yanvarya-2026-goda-kyrgyzstan-vystavlyaet-scheta-stranam-tsentralnoy-a/).

            Kyrgyzstan, which along with Tajikistan, has long been considered a water surplus region which supplies water to the other countries of the region which are all downstream, understandably is more prepared to make that demand; but now the question arise as to how prices will be set and how they will be collected.

            With regard to the first, there are likely to be lively diplomatic debates regarding price and even the possibility that other countries will respond to Kyrgyzstan’s action by raising prices on goods they export to Bishkek. And with regard to the second, Kyrgyzstan is likely to find it difficult to block water from flowing downstream and thus not able to force others to pay.

            But despite that, what Kyrgyzstan has done appears likely to transform water debates in Central Asia from being about amounts of water to be shared to being about what prices those who have water will charge and how they will collect it. Given the impact that has had within these countries, Bishkek’s decision may prove a real turning point in the region. 

Declines in Number of Repressive Cases in Belarus Should Not Fool Anyone, Sociologist Says; They Reflect that Lukashenka has Already Repressed Most Possible Targets

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 29 – Some observers and foreign governments have been encouraged by the fact that the number of political cases the Lukashenka regime brought against its opponents this year is smaller than the number brought a year ago. But they shouldn’t be, Genadz Korshunau says.

            The head of the Belarusian Sociological Group and former director of the Minsk Institute of Sociology says that this trend does not represent anything positive but rather shows that the Belarusian dictator has been so effective at repression that there simply aren’t that many structures left the country to oppress (ng.ru/cis/2026-01-29/1_9426_belorussia.html).

            The supposedly “positive” figures from Belarus include the fact that the number of political prisoners fell from 593 in 2024 to 448 in 2025 and that the number of NGOs newly banned from 385 in 2024 to 107 in 2025 and that most of the NGOs banned in the more recent year were branches of NGOs earlier.

            By his repressive moves over many years, Genadz Korshunau says, Lukashenka has “exhausted the possibilities” for growth in repression because those opposed to his rule have either fled abroad, are already behind bars, or are too cowed by his repressive machine to take action. Thus, these supposedly encouraging figures in fact are very discouraging indeed.