Paul Goble
Staunton, November 6 – Apparently operating on the principle that if there is a problem, there should be a government structure responsible for it, President Vladimir Putin is moving to recreate in fact if not in name a ministry to oversee the Russian Federation’s increasingly intense nationality problems.
But for the same reasons that such a structure failed at the start of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, this move is likely to come up short as well. That is because unless it is given the powers of a super ministry, something that unlikely to happen, it won’t be able to address ethnic issues now affecting and within the purview of other ministries and state structures.
Consequently, as some Moscow critics are already pointing out, this latest institutional return to the past only highlights the extent to which Putin in his third term currently lacks any new ideas on how to deal ...
