Inside 2024 Russia: Repressive Laws, Tax Changes and Uncertainty before Another Election Day [VIDEO]

Researcher and historian Veronika Susova-Salminen, who is also co-host of Cross-Border Talks, answers Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat’s questions about 2024 Russia – a state on war, a state forging or strengthening alliances in the Global South, a state transforming itself in the internal dimension. Veronika Susova-Salminen comments on two diplomatic visits: the rather fruitless one of Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, and the very intensive one of Indian leader Narendra Modi, suggesting even stronger cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi. She also sums up the new laws introduced by State Duma in the recently closed session, mentioning the newest repressive measures against NGO-ses and opposition, but also a tax change which suggests both Kremlin’s need to replenish the state treasury and a readiness to adjust the neoliberal flat tax policy to the current situation. Veronika also explains the importance of Election Day, scheduled this September, when Russians from a dozen of regions will elect their local governments. Although it is quite certain that the elections would hardly meet European-styled liberal democracy standards, they are still the only moment when citizens of Russia can endorse Kremlin’s policy or refrain from doing so, and the Russian leaders know this too.

The entire transcription of the talk is available below the video.

Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat: Hello everyone listening to cross-border talks or watching cross-border talks. Together with Veronika Susova-Salminen, who is one of the permanent authors of our media project, we are going to discuss transformations inside Russia today.

Russia is making headlines nowadays because of the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk region, but military history is something you’d rather follow on other channels. We are going to look into political situation, a bit of social situation, political prospects for Russia, because Russians are going to go vote in another elections this year, and we will explain why this is important. And we will ask also questions about peace initiatives of Viktor Orban and Narendra Modi, how valuable they are and how important they are. Are we close to finishing the war with them or not really?

And as I said, my guest or rather my partner in this talk today will be Veronika Susova-Salminen, our permanent co-author, a specialist on Russia, researcher, anthropologist based in Finland currently. My name is Małgorzata Kurbaczewska-Figat, I am joining you this time from Wrocław, Southern Poland.

And in this moment perhaps I’d only remind you that Cross Border Talks is present on all the biggest social media platforms, so not to miss any of the talks – just subscribe.

Veronika, while indeed Russia is discussed today mainly in the context of the sudden turn in the Ukrainian war, which is the entrance of Ukrainian army within Russian territory, I wanted to go a little bit back in time, namely to the beginnings of July, when first there was the closure of the state’s Dumas period, and then Narendra Modi visited Moscow for a historical or at least very important visit.

And at the same time the world media discussed two issues: how repressive system Russia is becoming with the new repressive laws, making even bigger problems for independent organizations and independently thinking people inside Russia, and in connections to Modi’s visit, to how Putin’s government, how Putin’s regime is gaining more stability through expanding links to the global south. So I would like you to start with these two issues, but just not to go too complex, let’s sum up what did the Russian parliament prepare for the citizens, what new laws were accepted, were voted through this period of work that is what got closed in July.

Veronika Susova-Salminen: Yes, actually in the end of July ended the so-called session of state Duma, which is the Russian parliament, or more precisely – part of the Russian parliament, the first chamber. And actually it’s interesting because the end of the session, meaning during the July, where we would suspect that people go, you know, to more holidays, normal Russians go, but parliament didn’t. They were accepting several important laws, which we can connect with process called usually as securitization.

Securitization is a trend in Russia since 2012, I would say very strong one, with the sovereignization of politics in Russia and with so-called conservative turn. It is the return of President Putin to the power. And since that time, the things are getting more towards the conservative and authoritarian tendency or trend. So this is the continuation. And now we have to realize that Russia is in the mental state of war, which is, of course, supporting the securitization process. And securitization process means that you are seeing and perceiving in defining several aspects of the social and political life in terms of security.

You usually don’t do it in the situation when you have no war or no fear for the stability of regime. But this is what is going on in Russia a long time. And we can observe that this trend is intensifying and the war is intensifying it.

So there is the tension. You have there always tension between the sovereignty as a kind of autonomy of the great power, which is important for every great power to be autonomous in its decision making, and the protection of the regime, meaning the status quo within the regime, the way how things are done. Those who are by power stay by power, which is not only Mr. Putin, but several oligarchs, you know, factions within the Russian ruling class, let’s put it like this. So this is why these securitization laws are very important. Several were basically put in motion during this sixth session. Some of them made it to the Western outlets, of course, to the Western media.

But I would like to add here that it is not definitely true if you see the statistic of Duma work that only the repressive securitization laws would be accepted. I found a statistic, it’s something up between 20-23% of all laws, which were accepted during the sixth session. So it’s not a majority of laws which are repressive.

But the most important of them was probably in July accepted law, which is again changing the situation of NGOs in Russia, specifically those organizations which are now already related to the governments of different countries. So also these organizations which are sponsored or they were established by the governments of other countries can be this time in Russia seen as “undesirable”, in Russian terminology. For Russia does not have enemies, but non-friendly countries. They don’t have war, they have anti-terrorist operation now or they have special military operation and so on.

So the first one, most important, is this one, which was accepted in July. But you can see all over the track of this sixth session that there are several laws which were related to the securitization repression. Another was, for example, the confiscation of property for so-called fakes about army. So if you are criticizing the performance of Russian army in Ukraine in any way, you can end without property in Russia.

And several other laws which are related to the securitization. I would mainly speak maybe about other one, which is not so politically charged, but still it’s very important. And it’s the changes in immigration law. These changes in immigration law are showing the next conflict within Russia these days. On the one hand, Russia needs labor from other countries. We know the demography of Russia, I was writing about it. It is very problematic, with no very good prospects for Russia for the future. So they need labor of migrants on one hand.

How demographics is haunting Russia

On the other hand, there is the strong tendency to securitize migration. And it’s not just because the regime would be so hysterical about it, but it’s also because there are real problems with terrorism and extremism in Russia. The regime is seeing this problem and it is torn between these two processes. One process, they need people, they need labor force because of the demography. On the other hand, they need to have security, internal security. You remember maybe what happened in March of this year, the Krokus city hall terrorist attack related to people which were migrants in Russia. So there is the trend to securitize it, to make tougher laws, including the possibility to send away those migrants who were seen as illegal. But this is not only one issue. They are also trying to regulate the organizations which are bringing the labor migrants to Russia, including advertisement in the Internet, for example.

And the next issue is that they also changed, renewed the law about the citizenship in Russia, about the position of foreigners in Russia, which includes also pressure on those people who are living in Russia, who have residence permit. Basically, there is a strong tendency towards that these people must prove to be loyal to the current regime, let’s put it, to the things which regime considers as important. One of them is traditional values. Also, as a foreigner, you shouldn’t speak a different way than the Kremlin about the Great Patriotic War, for example. This is really in this law.

On one hand, they realize they need migration. On the other hand, they realize that it is a security problem. And the third aspect, which was many years going on and never with any conclusion, which is interesting. There was a change in law for compatriots, meaning, among others, the Russians living in the Baltics. So this law was again changed, тhere was done some kind of liberalization, on the other hand, of permits for stay in Russia for these people who are compatriots. This is how Russia’s leadership is trying to level up because they would, of course, prefer that Russians from near abroad, so-called, would come back. On the other hand, they realize that there is a lot of red tape still in Russia about this. So they are trying to support it.

So that was the second trend. And you can see really that in immigration law, the securitization is also very important. And finally, maybe one law, which is, again, speaking that not all laws are repressive, but it is super important law, is the law which was changing the taxation in Russia.

Because Russia was for many years having the tax, which was equal. You know, the tax for everybody was 15 percent, if I remember correctly. So many people, many countries in the Central East Europe are having this system.

The flat tax.

Yes. So they changed basically the scale for more progressive in Russia, which is saying that they actually need money for the state budget and they have to get it now from the population. Not from export of, you know, of the weaponry or oil and gas, because this is not working anymore so well for them. And this is important.

If you notice these changes, the taxation is not a very popular measure. And I would like to hear specialists say that when it happened in the summer and very, very the proposal and the thing that happened happened very soon after the election of president, new elections of president. This is absolutely typical that the most unpopular steps which are done by Russian government are done immediately after the re-election of president, because they don’t want to do these unpopular steps. It was same with pension reform.

By the way, the next thing which they did during the July was slowing down and closing YouTube. This is next very unpopular thing to do.

So in some this securitization trend is very clear, but it’s not only that. There is also quite normal laws which were done during the season, but the securitization is definitely continuing, unfortunately. And as I said, there are the processes which are contributing to it.

So this September the Russians are going to vote again. They are going to elect the governors in more than 15 regions, if I remember well. They are also going to vote for the state Duma for the next period.

And in 13 regions, they are going to choose regional parliament, not to mention more elections on municipal level. In this context of securitization and invigilation of the society, and also putting everybody in submission to the official military identity of Russia, military or militarized, given the importance of the concept of the Great Patriotic War in the overall identity of the society that you also spoke of. So in this context, what do you see as a perspective for these elections?

And why are those elections important? Because we can say with certitude they are not going to be democratic in the Western sense of the word. They are not going to be democratic in the European liberal understanding. So why they are important and what can we expect from them?

We were talking about it in Cross-Border Talks episode after the last election. In Russia, elections are important because it is the only legitimization instrument which the regime has in hands. I know that in the West, we like to talk about Putin, that he’s a tsar, but he really has no divine rule over Russia. He needs every six years to go and try some kind of election which would look enough trustworthy, at least for some part of the population.

It doesn’t mean that these elections are democratic. It very much doesn’t mean they are fair. It doesn’t mean that there is enough competition, because Russia of today really has an authoritarian system, where the election process is very strictly controlled and very, which is interesting, marketized by the Kremlin itself. There is a lot of political marketization behind it, and it’s really about managing everything, not even the classical democratic political way. There is a high level of depoliticization.

It’s a very interesting phenomenon. But still, they need these elections to make themselves look that they have legitimacy to perform and govern Russia somehow. Now, it’s called officially single election day. Russia is an extremely complex machine, which has several layers of governance. Not just Kremlin in the center, but over 80 regions of different levels of autonomy. Russia is asymmetric federation with a lot of different nuances within the system.

At the moment, we expect 63 different election campaigns on different levels. You said governors, which is the executive branch, and it is going to be in 21 regions of Russia. From these three elections are going to be undirected, that the governor will be elected by the local parliament, the regional parliament, and the remaining are going to be direct.Because, as I said, it’s so complex that some regions have this kind of system, others have this kind of system. The idea is that in one single day, the election goes on all levels, it’s organized in one way, which is giving, of course, bigger control over the process. That’s logical.

One thing is control, other thing is, of course, organization can go together. And we have three elections to Duma, which are so-called by-elections, because there are three deputies which died or left the office, and they are by-elections, of one single mandate or one single seat by-elections. And then you have the municipal elections and the regional parliament elections. A really huge amount of different campaigns. Of course, the result will be not any surprise, most likely. There will be nuances between regions, because you have regions with different levels of how things are controlled by the Kremlin.

There are some regions which are having higher level of so-called protest potential, where the voter will more select the protest parties, these which are allowed, of course, because this is how Russia is working. And there are some which are really absolutely organized and controlled in such a way that you can expect that there will be no any huge challenge to the United Russia and the current regime. So it will be differently nuanced, but the results are most probably, of course, support for the United Russia.

But what we heard here from experts and from the couloirs of Kremlin, there is, from the curators of the internal politics, there is demand that these elections at least should be perceived as competitive. Which means that now we have, now with the registration of candidates for these different elections, which was done in July, we know that all 23 political parties which are allowed in Russia, in Russia at the moment there is 23 political parties which are registered and can compete. So all these 23 political parties will compete.

But we have to realize that they will compete in different type of elections. You know, some will be only on the municipal level, some will be only on regional level. Only those who are the strongest position can compete for the gubernator positions, because there is filters, so-called municipal filter, for how you get the candidate through. And this filter is quite strong. So we can expect that even when the three political parties is going to compete, there will be, of course, not equal field for the competition. But it looks, of course, on the paper that all 23 political parties are participating.

And one small notice, they must, because if you don’t participate in some kind of election, they will abolish you as a political party. So it’s not only that they won’t, but if you want to continue as political party, you must be active. There are strict laws for the political parties in Russia.

So these elections are important for the legitimization of regime. And I would like to only say one important maybe moment, which is just current development. We know that at the moment the Ukrainian army is on offense or was able to bridge to Russia.

And there is some kind of military conflict going on, which was brought to Russian territory. And here we know that there should be election 8th of September in Kursk region of gubernator. So this is one of the things which I think in Kremlin are not very happy about.

Because at the situation when this re-election should happen, you have the conflict within the Russia, which was basically placed from the Ukrainian side internally to Russia. At the moment when this, and this is important, every political analyst will tell you this, that for the system like in Russia, the elections are the weakest moment for the regime. They are most worried about, that’s why they control it so much.

That’s why they do all the possible managerial, electronic elections to keep control of it. And what we know, Kursk region itself, it’s considered to be region with the middle level of protests. So it’s not most loyal region in Russia, like most loyal regions are usually in the south or in Siberia. Kursk region is not. And I would also say that the next issue we will see is in Bryansk region, which is the neighboring region from Kursk. Which is also, it’s these three regions which are ‘problematic’. Belgorod, then Bryansk and then Kursk. These three are recently all the time under the attack from the Ukrainian side. There is the security situation is bad.

So there in Bryansk is going to be election of the federal deputy. Which is again, not very pleasant message. Not very pleasant message for the Kremlin, for the people who are managing this election. It can create problems for the all election approaches. But it’s needed to say, I’m skeptical that it would destabilize all Russia because of it. But it is definitely not looking good and it is definitely, in my opinion, a problem for them at least.

Yes, this is definitely a problem and a very bad news for anybody being in the Kremlin, for Putin and for all his team. And now let us have a look at international relations of Russia a bit. Because, as I said in the beginning, in July, Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, visited Moscow.

The visit was very closely followed by the media from all over the world. Because the prospects of an alliance between Russia and one of the most powerful countries of the Global South is really something that can change the balance in international relations. So could you give us a bit of introduction into Russia-India relations as they are right now?

And also tell us what are the most important results of Modi’s visit?

Yes, I will try to be short and clear about this visit. So, of course, it was an important visit. We have to realize that Modi went to Russia as a first foreigner visit after the parliamentary election in India when his party got the next win in the elections. This is in itself very interesting, because this happened with the Chinese president also. So you can see that this triple alliance, in a way, even it’s asymmetric and not anything ideal, is somehow working.

We can maybe talk about it later, I will just say it very quickly. Recent months, recent two years, plus minus, Russia is trying to pivot to Asia in general. There is a huge diplomatic rush about making more stronger alliances all over Asia. It’s not just Central Asia, it’s not just China. It’s all possible countries, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, India and others, as well as ASEAN, the regional organization. This is very consciousness strategy, in my opinion. Russia knows they need to balance China – they do realize they are becoming more and more dependent on China. And I don’t think that they are going straight forward with the dependence on China. So partners in Asia are increasingly important for Russia in terms of trade, in terms of international relations, in terms of security.

India plays an important role in this. Besides, Russia and India have a specific relation. Officially, they have special and privileged strategical partnerships, so-called, which is the highest level of these diplomatically set relations. And Modi, despite all the opinions which are coming from the Western side of the world, he made clear that India is interested in intensifying these relations. Of course, not in such a way that they would want to fight against the sanctions of the United States of America. There is enough pragmatism behind it. But where it is possible, it is possible to see that India is going through its own decisions. And they are among these countries which are winning on these sanctions because they are, for example, maybe you know that India became an important importer of Russian oil for very good prices.

And this is good news for India. It is also telling us that in a non-Western world, the perception of Russia and Ukrainian war is totally different than in the West. And it is also, by the way, telling us that our ideas about how the international system should be run and how the rules should function is not accepted everywhere the same way.

So Modi made it clear that he does own policy, own strategy, and that India and Russia are going to formulate and define relations between themselves according to their own sovereign decision. And everybody does this with Russia. All big countries are doing this. And this is a message to the West clearly. Besides, there are traditional relations with the Soviet Union, India and Soviet Union for years. One of the very important part of the cooperation between Soviet Union and now Russia was always military sector, specifically weapons.

India is important importer of Russian weapons and used to be always. And Russian weapons, modern weaponry system helped to, let’s say, create the autonomous position of India as a great power in Asia. It’s an independent, you know, on the West.

They search also this independence on the West. So this is the next point. And again, the visit was clearly saying it, that this cooperation continues under the sanction in different way, because Russia and India have several years program called Made in India, which is basically nothing less than localization of Russian production of weapons for the Indian army, which cannot be put under the sanctions because they are making them in India. Besides that, Russia is clearly interested in expanding this trade relations.

There is new set goal, which will be 100 billion dollars. I think it was to 2030 year on trade, how it’s called, in trading together, basically. So this is important thing.

And then there is the agenda, which is interestingly very important for India and Russia, which is terrorism and fight against terrorism. You would be surprised how many paragraphs of this common declaration between Modi and Putin were dedicated to fight against terrorism. So they are sharing this. That’s why also India is today in Shanghai organization for cooperation. And that’s why there is ongoing the security consultation between India and Russia these days. So that was the next very important part of the discussion and of the of the declaration.

What was a bit surprising, considering that India is a part of BRICS and BRICS is also a group of countries, which is increasingly showing their own, let’s say, autonomous position in many things and clearly have, if not anti-Western, like Russia and China can be maybe seen anti-Western, then non-Western seeing of things. India is among these who have non-Western view. They are not anti-Western, same like Brazil, for example.

It’s not true that these governments are anti-Western in the sense like China and Russia. But there is clear different vision of things. So what was interesting that compared with China, with the declaration with China, Modi declaration was definitely not, Modi and Putin declaration was not too much speaking about the new, you know, new sovereignization, this democratization of international relations and so on.

So compared with China, where it was clearly this polycentrism and this idea, it was nothing like this there, which is probably a compromise, which was reached on the diplomatic level, because as we know, India is non-Western, but it is cooperating in security issues with West. And the reason is China, because we know what issues India and China are having. And we know that Russia is trying to mediate, but the issues are still continuing and the security issues related to Asia are continuing.

So China is an important factor to understand there. And it’s not always totally negative, but it is often also negative for the Indian side, not so negative for Russia. But as I said, they both need to balance against China. So they need each other. And the balancing can be on trade level, economic level or military level. It can be all this. It’s pretty complex.

The last thing, quickly only, there was Ukraine an issue, but I couldn’t notice there would be any huge breakthrough or change. Basically, India was keeping the typical definition that it should be resolved by the political measures. Everybody says so. Russia is understanding it and keep going the war. So in the Ukrainian direction, there was no any particular development, at least what we see on the official level.

Of course, unofficially, I cannot say. And the last thing, Russian side and also Indian most probably were very careful about how the visit was offered to public in both countries. So there was a lot of this personal level meeting, you know, presented to people that Modi visited Putin privately in his residence.

And they were spending three hours together, you know, like friends, friendship. So this was very important. It’s showing how much the visit was important for the Russian side.

And how much this kind of like special relations was, you know, was shown to the to the Russian public.

OK, and as our conversation must near to an end, the time is running. But there was one more visit in Moscow that perhaps got even more attention in the European media than the Narendra Modi’s coming to Russian capital. And I am speaking of Viktor Orban’s visit to Moscow, which was met with many European leaders with, I don’t know, surprise, very negative surprise.

And even this content just let me just remind how Borrell rushed to explain that Orban represented in Moscow, no one else but only Hungary. And that the European Union has nothing to do with his talks with Putin and with the comments he made on the necessity of reaching a peace treaty as soon as possible through negotiations. So is there was this Hungarian visit in Moscow really something insignificant compared to Narendra Modi’s visit?

Or is it just only an empty gesture or there is something more behind you behind this in your view?

Well, I would say it was much less important visit than Modi’s visit. Also for Moscow, considering the potential of the development of relations with India, economic force, the position in India, the relations in BRICS and all these things. We shouldn’t flatter ourselves. No EU country is now equally important for Russia because they really moved toward Asia and Africa.

But it was, of course, not insignificant. I would say that what was important there was the fact that Moscow could show that somebody from Europe came, that Putin is not isolated.

This is a message of every foreign visit in Russia, any Putin’s visit in Asian countries these days only. And this was helping, of course, to this kind of PR inside Russia. But what was really interesting, and it was when I was reading all this documentation of the visit of Viktor Orban in Moscow, all these, what they were answering the journalists, what were in briefing, what they were talking there officially, all these official records.

And when you saw the reaction of the European Union politicians and media and everything, there was such huge conflict between it. Because if you read correctly what Putin was saying in Moscow, you see clearly that he saw Orban as a representative of the European Union and as somebody who represents absolutely European Union mainstream in relation to conflict to Ukraine. And he made clear already before the negotiation started that he will not yield from his last so-called peace initiative Putin put in motion in June.

And that this which European Union, all leaders, USA, everybody said is unacceptable, it’s a lie, and we will not negotiate about it. He repeated it there. So, at that moment, you could see that there is no any yielding.

And he said, we can speak with Mr. Orban about nuances, about details, maybe. But I am not going to change my position because Mr. Orban came. And after the negotiation, and it was interesting, Mr. Orban admitted that there was absolutely no any breakout in anything, that they didn’t. And he admitted that the situation is such that the political positions of the Ukrainian and European side and Russian are so different that nothing can be, you know, nothing can be done about it or there is no any nearing to each other or finding compromise. That he admitted. But what Mr. Putin said openly, and this goes absolutely, you know, against this European interpretation, is really that Mr. Orban was for him just the representative of the European Union. And that Mr. Orban didn’t bring anything new to Russia. This is important. He didn’t propose anything new.

It was clear from all, if you read it, it’s on Kremlin site, you can find it there. He didn’t offer anything. So my opinion is that this was much more PR visit for Orban, because you have to realize other nuances.

Orban is a politician which is at the moment building its reputation on the speaking about peace with Ukraine. And it came to visit, Hungary became to be the president country of the European Council. That was the first thing.

But it was very, very quickly after Orban and others created this Patriots of Europe fraction in the European Parliament. And I think this was one of the things which was helping to create the PR for the audiences which are, you know, supporting Orban and these Patriots of Europe that he is trying at least. Here you see, I go there to Moscow and I try to negotiate and I try to do something.

But he admitted and his foreign minister admitted that they didn’t have any new ideas and they didn’t believe they can succeed in anything. That’s also interesting. It was also after the visit.

What is important is that he was following them in other countries. If you realize, he went to China also to speak about the peace initiative. And he also went and negotiated with Turkish President Erdogan.

So that was like he was trying to get in this in this several, you know, triangle of countries which could cooperate. And finally, the last drop was the visit of Mr. Donald Trump in the United States of America. So I see it as a kind of PR, diplomatic PR, with the fact that Hungary and Mr. Orban have no such position to really negotiate any peace. And you could see that Russia doesn’t see Orban despite everything. And you can see whatever in the Russian newspaper they are writing about Mr. Orban as a hero of sovereignty in the European Union. And they were using the visit and specifically they were using the reaction in Europe for the visit as showing, have a look how he is heroic and how he tries. And, you know, this was there. Still, there was no any breakout. There was no any change.

It was really, in my opinion, kind of diplomatic PR for Mr. Orban more than anything really substantial. And there is, of course, this you can discuss who would be the best negotiator. And during July, besides China, also, by the way, Mr. Modi from India, that India could be maybe the best solution for the mediation of this conflict because of its position in the international system. It’s specific relation to the Anglo-Saxon world, this non-aligned, non-alignment mentality and so on. But this is everything on the speculation, because as you can see, we don’t see any changes since Orban was in Moscow, since Modi was on Moscow. I mean, in the Ukrainian direction.

And now we have this attack. So let’s see how this will develop.

Yes, I believe that if any negotiations are going to start to end the Russian-Ukrainian war, they will depend largely on what happens in the battlefield. And what is going on in the battlefields right now when we are recording these episodes is perhaps not a breakthrough, but in this one of the game changers during this war. Most probably.

We are not military experts, but definitely it’s important development. We will see what will come out of it, because there is also a lot of speculation. What does it mean? But we can return to it next month, maybe.

Yeah, possibly. And as we will be certainly returning to Russia in future episodes, for example, to comment on the elections that are scheduled to take place in September after they actually take place. So stay with us. Subscribe to Cross Border Talks not to miss any episodes. You can also share your thoughts, ideas, comments in the comment section. We are very interested to hear from you.

You can also write what topics you would like to see covered in future Cross Border Talks. And thank you very much for your attention today. This conversation was brought to you by Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat and Weronika Susowa-Salminen.

Thank you very much.

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