Взлёт Лантратовой. КПРФ ждёт судьба структур Навального**. Кынева* снова перевели/ Шульман*

Summary

Political scientist Ekaterina Shulman answered viewers’ questions about Russian politics, institutions, and political prisoners.

Gleb Pavlovsky’s legacy

Shulman said she knew Pavlovsky but never worked with him. She described him as an influential political thinker and “designer” of political meanings, but said it would overstate his role to call him the architect of the current system: bureaucracies and security agencies, rather than public commentators, are its foundations.

She recommended his book The RF System and said his later writing showed serious reflection on his past and on the consequences of the war.

Yana Lantratova and humanitarian diplomacy

Shulman stressed that Russia’s federal ombudsman is a parliamentary office, not simply a presidential representative. The role has become especially important during wartime because it can facilitate public contact with Ukrainian and foreign officials.

She could not explain why Lantratova did not speak at a White House event involving Melania Trump and Russian representative Kirill Dmitriev. Shulman speculated about protocol and suggested that a peace award for Melania Trump would only be justified by concrete results, such as the release of political prisoners.

Political prisoners and public attention

Shulman said attention and publicity likely helped political scientist Alexander Kynev move from a severely overcrowded cell to better conditions, though she could not say whether a businessman’s public statement was decisive.

She described prison procedures as a separate, often arbitrary bureaucracy and argued that letters, public pressure, and monitoring visits can matter because officials need to see that a prisoner is being watched. Kynev still faced practical problems, including delays in receiving food.

Pressure on the Communist Party

Shulman expected that arrests could continue around Communist Party commemorations, potentially justified by claims that participants formed an unauthorized procession after an approved rally. She said historical commemorations had become vulnerable to repression and that security services—notably the FSB—were taking a more direct role.

She also warned that the Communist Party’s regional organization could become a target despite its current leadership’s cooperation with the authorities. The party has a functioning network that could mobilize voters if political conditions changed.

Federalism and the regions

Shulman argued that meaningful federalism would be necessary if Russia were to remain within something like its current borders. Centralizing revenue in Moscow and making regions depend on transfers is increasingly unsustainable, she said, while regional grievances and wartime mobilization add to the pressure.

She did not think Moscow’s survival depended on extracting such a disproportionate share of resources from the regions.

Institutions and repression

Shulman said organizations are often targeted precisely because they can outlast individual leaders and operate according to stable rules. She cited the destruction of Navalny’s structures and the pressure on Memorial and OVD-Info, and viewed the closure of Novaya Gazeta as an attack on an institution, not just a newsroom.

The Communist Party, she argued, collects protest votes and has often failed to challenge their reassignment to the ruling party. Nevertheless, its local network could matter in a future political transition.

“This is not forever”

Shulman said the phrase reflects the fact that political regimes eventually change, though political time moves slowly compared with an individual life. Rather than treating it as reassurance, she urged people to build personal resources and resilience so they can endure adverse periods.

Russian nationalist organizations

Shulman warned that Russian nationalist groups have often been created or controlled by security services and later used, repressed, or abandoned. She advised nationalists not to assume that cooperation with officials reflects shared patriotism or interests.

Which state institutions remain functional

Shulman judged the civilian bureaucracy, regional administrations, and financial-economic officials to be relatively capable and stable. By contrast, she described the FSB as both powerful and poor at administration, with internal divisions serving as one of the few remaining checks on its influence.

She said the military continues to function in the limited sense that it remains organized and carries out orders, while also describing its management as brutal and criminalized. She called for a fuller discussion with specialists about the armed forces and other institutions that might matter in a future transition.

Presenters and contributors

• Evgeniya Rodionova — host
• Ekaterina Shulman — guest, political scientist
• Andrei Melikov — broadcast director accompanying the program