By Paul Goble
Vladimir Putin’s push for the
federalization of Ukraine is now echoing in Russian regions, nowhere more
powerfully than in the exclave of Kaliningrad, where support for independence
has declined in recent years from 7 percent to 4 percent. But, at the same
time, calls by its residents for the oblast to be given “special status”—and
that is what most Russians understand by “federalization”—have increased to 53
percent.
According to Russian analyst Pavel
Pryannikov, who blogs at Ttolk.ru, “the ‘Russian spring’ in Crimea and in the
eastern portion of Ukraine has shown the ordinary Russian that from now on the
norm in his region and in his country could become” something very different
than it has been in the past (ttolk.ru/?p=20658).
Indeed, he suggests, ordinary Russians
now increasingly feel that in pursuit of what they believe is Kremlin-approved
“federalization,” they might choose to seize government buildings, carry
weapons, nationalize the property of the oligarchs, and decide the most
important questions via referendum.
That is a lesson Moscow certainly does
not want its own population to learn or even more to see manifested in the
event of inter-ethnic conflicts or the next round of cutbacks in company towns.
And it is one that would be especially worrisome in Kaliningrad, which has
always been considered “one of the most separatist regions in Russia.”
In a poll conducted in 2003, “fewer
than a quarter of Kaliningraders” did not want any significant political or
economic changes in the status of their oblast, with about 7 percent calling
for independence, 12 percent for its joint subordination to the European Union
and Russia, 37 percent for a special economic status within Russia, and 11
percent for a special political one (ttolk.ru/?p=20658).
Support for any such fundamental shifts
in the status of Kaliningrad fell until recently, almost certainly because
Moscow did send more money to the region and because Vladimir Putin made it
clear that his government would crack down hard on any calls for independence
or joint subordination to the European Union.
But a poll taken in April, that is
after the Crimean anschluss, shows that Kaliningraders are once again thinking
about the status of their oblast and how it might or should be changed (ewkaliningrad.ru/news/community/3586277-opros-uroven-separatistskikh-nastroeniy-v-kaliningradskoy-oblasti-stremitsya-k-nulyu.html). On the one hand, Moscow certainly took pleasure in the
fact that the percentage of Kaliningraders calling for independence fell by
almost half to 4 percent. But on the
other, the Russian government can hardly be pleased that “the number of
Kaliningraders who consider that their region should have a special status—that
is, [be a beneficiary of real] ‘federalization’”—is up sharply to 53 percent.
In commenting on the results, the New
Kaliningrad portal said that “the level of so-called separatist attitudes in
Kaliningrad oblast today is in fact falling toward zero,” a reflection of what
it suggested “was a consolidation of the regional community around the notion
that separation from Russia is an impermissible thought.” But at the same time, as Pryannikov points
out, Kaliningraders do not want to be a region like any other but “a special
region.” And as Putin and his ruling team have implied in Ukraine, that could
open the way for independence or joining a neighboring country at some point in
the future.
Consequently, while the face of
Kaliningrad is changing under the impact of the Crimean annexation, the
challenges that this non-contiguous Baltic region poses for Moscow are likely
to grow. This is all the more so because, having taken the position it has
pushed in Ukraine, the Putin regime is likely to be far less capable of
preventing the growth of this new set of attitudes not only in Kaliningrad but
in other predominantly ethnic-Russian regions of the country.