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Russia’s Failed Federalization Marches and the Simulation of Regional Politics

Russia’s Failed Federalization Marches and the Simulation of Regional Politics

Author(s): J. Paul Goode
Editor(s): Stephen Aris, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder, Aglaya Snetkov
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 156
Pages: 11-14
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen; Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University
Publication Year: 2014

Inspired by Russia’s insistence on federalization for Ukraine, activists in Novosibirsk attempted to organize a protest march in August 2014 to call for greater regional autonomy in Siberia. Authorities squelched the march almost as soon as the protest threatened to spread. Yet even as organizers were arrested and press reports censored, opposition leaders in Moscow and activists in Ukraine seized upon the news of the planned federalization marches and even invented new ones. The resulting spectacle revealed the Kremlin’s ongoing fear of decentralizing power, the weak ties between central and regional opposition, and the boomerang effect of Russia’s intervention in Eastern Ukraine.

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