Despite What Kremlin Thinks, Moscow Shifted Crimea From RSFSR To Ukrainian SSR In 1954 For Economic Rather Than Political Reasons – OpEd

Locations of Ukraine, Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Credit: VOA

 June 29, 2025  By Paul Goble

Despite what Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky says, Moscow transferred Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 not to gain votes for Nikita Khrushchev or other political reasons but rather for economic ones concerning the recovery of that region from the results of World War II, Dmitry Kolezyov says.

On his telegram channel, the Russian journalist says that Medinsky’s falsification of history on this point raises broader questions about how reliable the history textbooks he is overseeing the rewriting of. But this Crimean question is important in its own right (t.me/kolezev/16356 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/krym-i-mify-medinskogo).

In the course of a conversation with Putin, Medinsky made two points about that historical event. On the one hand, he said that Khrushchev transferred Crimea to win votes from Ukrainian comrades because of the power struggle in Moscow. And on the other, he suggested that the party leader did so because he was a died in the wool Ukrainophile.

Neither of these arguments is true, Kolezov says. Khrushchev didn’t need the votes of Ukrainian party members as there was no party congress even scheduled at which their support might have been needed. They amounted to only 15 percent of Central Committee members. And no one accused Khrushchev of Ukrainophilia until after he was dead and rarely before 1991.

The reason that Moscow agreed to the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was economic rather than political, Kolezyov says. Kyiv was far better positioned to help Crimea recover from the destruction of World War II than was the RSFSR government in Moscow. And indeed, he adds, that calculation proved to be correct.

Moreover, pace Medinsky, shifting territory from one republic to another was hardly rare in the USSR, the journalist continues. This was constantly happening for various reasons “from the ethnic composition of the population to the flourishing of pasture land.” (On that reality, see kommersant.ru/doc/2640080 windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/borders-in-post-soviet-space-were.html which contains my 1990 article for RFE/RL Report on the USSR “Can Republican Borders be Changed?”

 

Putin’s War Against Ukraine Increasing Corruption In Russia – Analysis

 June 28, 2025 

By Paul Goble

Corruption has long been a problem in Russia, even under its most authoritarian leaders. Many senior Russian officials suggest that it can never be rooted out (Window on Eurasia, September 9, 2021, December 6, 2022; RBC, May 20).

Even before his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin has wielded corruption to make his beneficiaries reliant on his regime and supportive of its goals (Window on Eurasia, September 9, 2021). Corruption is historically worse in wartime because people are willing to pay bribes to evade service or avoid being sent to the front lines (Prodolzhenie Sleduet, August 31, 2023; see EDM, October 10, 2024; Versia, June 25).

Wartime also sees governments funneling money into military industries, creating new opportunities for businessmen and politicians to make vast and elaborate criminal schemes to siphon off money intended for military use (Vazhnie Istorii, February 17; RBC, June 16; Radio Svoboda, June 23).

Putin’s war in Ukraine is no exception. The longer it has continued, the worse corruption in Russia has become. The Kremlin has attempted to hide worsening corruption by hyping selected anti-corruption legal cases, though it seldom punishes those close to the Kremlin or willing to fight in Ukraine. Moscow has obscured worsening overall corruption by limiting the kinds of bribes ordinary Russians have to pay for government services such as getting a passport or medical care (Kholod, August 16, 2023; Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, December 9, 2024;The Insider, March 25; Radio Svoboda, June 23).

The Kremlin does not want to call attention to how the Putin regime facilitated the increase of corruption to ensure that those who profit will support the system and its war against Ukraine (Versia, April 1, 2024). Moscow is especially wary of backlash to corruption because it helped power the popularity of the late opposition figure Aleksei Navalny, Putin’s most serious domestic challenge to date (see EDM, February 20, 21, 2024).

In response to the threat posed by anger about corruption, Moscow has acknowledged it in limited terms. The Kremlin released extensive new data showing just how serious the problem of corruption has become since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Vazhnie Istorii, February 17; RBC, June 16; Radio Svoboda, June 23).

Because independent research, which tracks the rise of corruption—including individual trials and other data—indicates that the Kremlin’s data understates the problem, their release may seem risky. The Kremlin has likely calculated that many Russians will accept official corruption figures as more accurate than independent assessments because they are perceived as being imbued with government authority. The Kremlin’s acknowledgment of some degree of corruption is confirmation of the dramatic increase in wartime corruption in Russia.

The official figures released by the Prosecutor General’s Office last week call attention to a disturbing trend (TASS, December 9, 2024; RBC, June 19; Prosecutor Data RBC, accessed June 25).

Russian authorities identified 15,438 crimes classed as corruption during the first three months of 2025. This figure is 24 percent higher than the same period a year ago, much higher before 2022, and represents a greater rate of increase than between 2023 and 2024, when such crimes rose by only 5.7 percent. Corruption crimes also increased as a share of all crimes. In the first quarter of this year, corruption crimes accounted for 3.2 percent of all crimes, up from 2.6 percent in the same quarter of 2024.

Moreover, bribe charges between January and March rose from 7,300 in 2024 to 9,418 in 2025. The Prosecutor General’s Office claimed that the share of corruption charges involving small bribes has decreased, although it did not provide statistics to support this point. This claim suggests that the number of other crimes classified as corruption, including large bribes, has increased relative to small bribes over the past year. Large bribes typically involve senior officials or major businessmen, rather than ordinary Russians. Russian prosecutors, however, have only secured convictions in 5,478 of these cases (Prosecutor Data RBC, accessed June 25).

Bribery cases continue to attract the most attention, especially cases concerning bribes paid to evade military service or improve a soldier’s circumstances. Some Russian soldiers in Ukraine are paying bribes to commanders for leave or to avoid being sent to the front (Vazhnie Istorii, February 17).

These crimes, however, pale in comparison to those committed by higher-ups in business, the military, and government, who siphon off government spending intended for the military or other regime purposes, according to experts such as Alyona Vandysheva from Transparency International Russia (Radio Svoboda, June 23). These forms of corruption involve significantly more money, causing greater harm to the government and the Russian people (Kommersant, June 9).

The government seizing businesses and then handing control of those companies to those in Putin’s inner circle is another growing form of corruption. Between 2022 and March 17, 2025, the Kremlin seized companies with assets worth more than two percent of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, approximately $32.7 billion (Novaya Gazeta, March 25).

In the first 2.5 months of 2025, Moscow nationalized companies with assets worth two-thirds of what it seized in all of 2024, a figure that is likely to continue increasing as Russia’s war against Ukraine demands more resources (Novaya Gazeta, March 25). This “new form of corruption” is not reflected in the Prosecutor General’s statistics, but it is more significant than crimes such as bribery because it affects a far greater number of Russians. The Russian people are often unaware of corruption schemes at the federal government level unless the Kremlin decides to make an example of some of those involved (The Insider, March 25).

Some observers suggest that the precipitous increase in corruption in Russia because of its war against Ukraine means Moscow cannot win, or even that the Putin regime cannot survive regardless of the war’s outcome. Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian analyst based in London, has argued that “the Putin regime is not capable of standing up to the tensions a long war will produce” because it relies so heavily on corruption to prevent it from having to employ even greater amounts of repression than Stalin to keep its elites in line (Telegram/@v_pastukhov, January 10, 2024;Kasparov.ru, January 11, 2024).

Despite this prediction potentially being overstated, Moscow’s recent publication of data on the explosive growth of corruption in Russia suggests another trajectory. Putin may conclude that he must reduce corruption or face disaster, but that he can only do so by increasing repression to compensate. 

• This article was published at The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 22 Issue

Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .

 

Can The World Fix How It Finances Development Before It’s Too Late? – Analysis

 June 29, 2025

By Ramesh Jaura

At a time when global temperatures are breaking records, wars are straining budgets, and economic inequality is on the rise, the world is also facing a quieter crisis: a massive shortfall in funding the very goals meant to safeguard humanity’s future.

According to the United Nations, the world needs an additional $4 trillion every year to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a sweeping set of 17 targets agreed upon a decade ago by nearly every country to tackle poverty, hunger, inequality, and climate change by 2030.

But halfway to that deadline, progress has stalled. In some areas, it has reversed.

The core problem, say experts, is money—not just the lack of it, but the way the international financial system is structured. Developing nations face high borrowing costs, debt traps, and economic rules written primarily without their input. Meanwhile, donor assistance is shrinking, and global trade policies often benefit the powerful at the expense of the poor.

Now, the world has a rare chance to change course.

Leaders from around the globe will convene from June 30 to July 2 in the Spanish city of Sevilla for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development—a once-in-a-decade gathering billed as a critical moment to rethink the rules of global finance and how they intersect with sustainable development.

“This conference presents a unique opportunity to reform an international financial system that is outdated, dysfunctional, and unfair,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said ahead of the event. “We need big ideas and bold reforms.”

Why the SDGs Are Falling Behind

When the SDGs were adopted in 2015, they represented an ambitious vision: to eradicate extreme poverty, ensure universal access to healthcare and education, promote gender equality, and respond to climate change—all by 2030.

But many of these targets are now out of reach. The COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, inflation, and a growing debt crisis have all taken a toll.

If current trends continue, more than 600 million people will still be living in extreme poverty by the end of the decade. Nearly 3.3 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt servicing than on health or education.

“These are not just numbers. They represent lives curtailed by broken promises,” said Shari Spiegel, Director of Financing for Sustainable Development at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). “Financing for development is about changing the way the system works so that countries can invest in their futures.”

What Is Financing for Development?

At its essence, financing for development seeks to answer a fundamental question: How can the world pay for a fairer, more sustainable future?

Over the years, global agreements have aimed to create a system that mobilises every part of the international financial architecture—tax policy, trade, subsidies, private capital, and aid—to serve development goals. The idea is to create a funding ecosystem that’s as inclusive as possible, giving countries the means to meet their citizens’ basic needs while investing in long-term resilience.

Multilateral development banks offer concessional loans and technical support. Official Development Assistance (ODA) channels aid from wealthy nations to low-income countries. Revised tax and trade frameworks can incentivise green growth and equitable investment.

But the system isn’t working.

Trade barriers are rising. ODA is declining. Private capital is flowing to safer, richer markets. Meanwhile, the costs of borrowing for developing countries remain astronomically high, two to four times higher than those for wealthier nations.

“Faced with sky-high debt burdens and cost of capital, developing countries have limited prospects of financing the Sustainable Development Goals,” Guterres noted.

The Debt Trap

Perhaps the most devastating aspect of the current system is debt. Many low- and middle-income countries allocate a greater proportion of their budget to interest payments than to public services. As crises erupt—from pandemics to climate disasters—these countries are often compelled to borrow even more, trapping them in a vicious cycle that leaves little room for investment in infrastructure, education, or clean energy.

“These costs tend to spike during or after crises,” Spiegel explained. “That creates a feedback loop where countries can’t afford to build the very systems—healthcare, transport, climate resilience—that would make them more stable and self-reliant.”

One stark statistic from the UN: by 2030, unless there is radical change, the SDGs will remain decades away from realisation.

The Sevilla conference offers a pivotal chance to change direction. For the first time in years, the global community is preparing to agree on a comprehensive reform package that could reshape the development finance landscape.

The conference will bring together governments, international institutions, economists, and civil society actors to negotiate new approaches and commit to shared goals. Developing countries, often excluded from key financial decision-making processes, will be at the table.

“This is not just about pledges,” said Spiegel. “It’s about restructuring the system to make it fairer, more inclusive, and more responsive to today’s challenges.”

Proposals under discussion include:

· Restructuring unsustainable debt and improving access to affordable credit.

· Reforming global tax systems to prevent illicit financial flows and tax evasion.

· Redirecting public subsidies—such as those for fossil fuels—toward sustainable development.

· Lowering the cost of capital for developing nations through international guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms.

· Enhancing multilateralism to ensure that global institutions better reflect the realities of a multipolar world.

However, the road to consensus is a rocky one. In a late-stage setback, the United States withdrew from the negotiation process, citing objections to the proposed language in the outcome document.

Still, the UN insists that momentum remains strong and that the conference can mark the beginning of a new era.

A Moment of Reckoning

In many ways, Sevilla is less a finish line than a starting point. What emerges from the conference—both the agreements reached and the political will to implement them—will determine whether the world can still achieve its development goals.

“The question is no longer, can we afford it?” said Guterres. “Can we afford not to?“

For the billions of people living without access to education, healthcare, clean water, or economic opportunity, the stakes could not be higher.

“We need to match ambition with action,” Spiegel added. “The world has waited long enough.”

Ramesh Jaura

Ramesh Jaura is a Journalist, Author, Publicist, Moderator, and Public Speaker. A journalist with more than 60 years of experience, he was also the founder-editor of IDN-InDepthNews.