November 2:
Pro-Kremlin forces are stoking pan-Russian nationalism in neighboring Belarus. In his Window on Eurasia blog, Russia expert Paul Goble writes that "the Russian Orthodox Church is training young people in that country in special 'military-patriotic' clubs for young people to be fighters for Russia and the Russian world." Goble, citing the Belarusian journal Nasha Niva, details that there are now some "14 clubs and organizations that exist near or in all major Belarusian cities," which "operate under the patronage of the Orthodox Church in Belarus and are making out of [Belarusian] school children 'black berets' and 'true children of the Holy Russian Orthodox Church.'"
The effort, Goble notes, is intended to build a cadre of sympathetic forces that might be mobilized in the event of renewed fighting in Ukraine, with the camps serving as training grounds where "young people are taught to handle weapons, to be loyal to Russia and to support the Donbas militants." But the phenomenon also has domestic implications for Belarus. That's because, Goble notes, "[t]hose instructing the young people treat Belarus as an artificial creation, openly call for dividing it up, and treat the Belarusian language with contempt" - making pro-Russian irredentism more probable, and more accepted.
November 4:
Russia's military offensive against Ukraine may have slowed in recent weeks, but Europe remains on edge about the possibility of future Russian aggression. New Europe reports that, at a recent gathering in Bucharest, the heads of nine Central European, Eastern European and Baltic nations issued a joint statement expressing concern about Moscow's "continuing aggressive posturing" and called for continued NATO attention and investment in their security. "We will stand firm on the need for Russia to return to respect of international law as well as of its international obligations, responsibilities and commitments as a pre-condition for a NATO-Russia relationship based on trust and confidence," a joint statement of the leaders said.
November 5:
As part of its deepening military involvement in Syria, Moscow is shipping high-tech air defense equipment to the Assad regime. Sputnik reports Russian Aerospace Forces commander Viktor Bondarev as confirming to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that the Kremlin has provided "missile defense" systems to Syria, in addition to deliveries of fighters, bombers and helicopters.
A new OpenDemocracy interview with a Russian internet provider has offered up some important details about how the Kremlin goes about censoring the World Wide Web. "Since 2012, Russia has operated a register of banned websites," the provider - speaking on condition of anonymity - tells the pro-democracy web portal. "According to the law, internet providers should contact [state media watchdog] Roskomnadzor on a daily basis, but people usually get in touch every three days. Each provider has a 'curator' from the FSB,” Russia's internal security service, who "sits with a list of providers to monitor." By contrast, the Russian State Prosecutor’s Office takes a more invasive stance. "Unlike the FSB, the prosecutor's office checks to see if blocked websites can still be accessed," the interviewee says. "According to the prosecutor's logic, every provider who isn't aware that some site has been banned should be taken to court."
The result is an extensive system of regulation - and self-censorship. "The system of implementing black lists varies widely - from the wholesale blocking of an entire website, which is what the big operators do, to blocking specific links," which is done by smaller companies in order not to run afoul of the blacklist, which contains opposition websites such as Grani.ru and Kasparov.ru, as well as religious sites.