On 20 August, information appeared that the Russian Ministry of Defence had created three new military groups – named after Russian cities: “Belgorod,” “Bryansk,” and “Kursk.”
This is an unprecedented fact in modern history. Over the past 10 years, propaganda has taught Russians that some regional problems can only arise in other countries. For example, in Ukraine, Crimea, and then the Donetsk and Lugansk “people’s republics.” Russia is “one and indivisible.”
But after two years of full-scale war, it suddenly turned out that Russia itself needs to defend the border regions. Or maybe not only the border regions? If the pendulum of war has gone in the opposite direction, then perhaps the Russian Ministry of Defence will soon create the military groups “Khabarovsk” and “Vladivostok” – to hold the territory of the historical Green Wedge.
Today, Ukraine claims that it controls dozens of settlements and more than a thousand square kilometres in the Kursk region. This is also an unprecedented fact in post-Soviet history. Of course, the aggressor state must realize that it will eventually receive a “response”, like Germany in two world wars. Many simply did not expect events to move so quickly.
I am not a military expert. As a long-time researcher of regionalism, I am interested in the political dimension of these events. In my opinion, if the Ukrainian government puts forward the idea of an independent Kursk republic, this could change all the political contexts to which we are accustomed.
This would be not just an alternative to the “DPR” and “LPR”, but the liquidation of the Russian imperial principle as such. But so far there is no clear articulation of this idea. There are flags of the “Kursk People’s Republic”, but this is perceived more as an informal creative idea than a strategy of the Ukrainian authorities.
“How else can we find out what’s going on there?” Journalists in Kursk Oblast
Ukrainian political expert Yuriy Shulipa believes that “Ukraine has come to Kursk Oblast forever .” But if this is really so, it is necessary to change the consciousness of the regional community, otherwise it will remain Russian.
If the Kursk Republic declares itself independent from Moscow, it will break a lot of stereotypes
While Ukraine officially explains its actions by the need to “create a buffer against Russia.” It is impossible to advance one’s position based only on purely negative, reactive slogans “against.” The slogan “against Russia” among the Kursk people produces only the opposite effect, forcing them to unite around the Kremlin leader and his local appointees.
To break this imperial scheme, an active, positive project is needed that sets the task of liberating the regions, and involving their citizens in their own self-government. This is a very difficult task, and the post-Soviet Russian government has never solved it.
In essence, Russia has never been a real federation like the USA and Germany. There, all states and lands enjoy high regional self-government and elect their own authorities. In Russia, the president removes and appoints governors – no American colleague can afford to do that.
Post-Soviet Russia followed the communist, pseudo-federalist model of the RSFSR, which was built not on an equal-regional, but on an ethnic principle. Of course, no one is against multiple national republics in Russia, but their entire population (both non-Russian and Russian), according to the recent census (2021), makes up only about 20 percent of the country’s population. The remaining 80 percent (both Russian and non-Russian) live in regions, territories and “federal cities” that do not have republican status.
The asymmetry of this federation – and, in addition, Moscow’s political and economic hypercentralism – effectively deprives it of a truly federal character, turning residents of different regions into some kind of second-rate “provincials.” Residents of Hamburg or Los Angeles can hardly be called “provincials.” And today’s Kursk residents actually are: they cannot freely elect either their governor or their regional parliament (regional political parties are banned in Russia).
Let me remind you of one half-forgotten, but instructive historical fact. In 1993, the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Eduard Rossel, and the local council of people’s deputies proclaimed the Ural Republic. Their goal was not at all to “leave the Russian Federation”, but only to raise regional political and economic self-government to the level of neighbouring republics – Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. However, President Yeltsin (although he was a Uralian by birth) banned this republic – fired the governor and dissolved the local parliament.
As the Ural and now Californian journalist Ksenia Kirillova believes, “the president’s entourage believed that the acquisition of republican status by a region with a predominantly Russian population was a step toward the disintegration of Russia.” Perhaps this is where Kashcheev’s game of empire is buried? At one time, George Washington and his associates proclaimed an independent American republic – and this became the beginning of the end of the British Empire. Although they spoke the same language. Today, Moscow’s imperial propaganda broadcasts on behalf of “all Russians,” but if the Kursk Republic, independent from Moscow, declares itself, it will break a lot of stereotypes. This does not mean that it will isolate itself from neighbouring regions, on the contrary, it will build equal relations with them, only without any imperial “vertical.”
Yes, someone might say that “the Kursk Republic never existed” and therefore it is a complete phantom. But everything in this world once started from scratch. The United States also once did not exist. And it is useful to remember that most of the current EU countries were created by those who were once called “separatists”.
Vadim Shtepa is a journalist and political scientist, and editor-in-chief of the magazine Region.Expert
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