Here is a reprint of the piece for "Russian Election Monitor" by me. I think it is an important to ephasise such tectonical shifts inside russian society. I didn’t use a word imperialism here, but it is an imperialism in economic (at least) sense. Enjoy

Russia’s municipal reform goes beyond administrative adjustment or center–region tensions. It is part of a broader restructuring of governance aimed at reducing transaction costs for political and economic elites. From waste management to healthcare and education, reforms follow a similar logic of monopolisation, optimisation, and responsibility-shifting. Former municipal deputy from Saint Petersburg and participant of the “Radical Democracy” project, Vitaly Bovar, analyses how these processes intersect, and why municipal, labor, and environmental protests should be understood as parts of the same socio-economic transformation.

Starting with the 2020 constitutional amendments, discussions about municipal reform took place within the ruling class. In spring 2025, these discussions were brought to a close — Vladimir Putin signed the law “On the General Principles of Local Self-Government (LSG) in a Unified System of Public Authority”. A previous REM article on this topic provided an excellent analysis of how this reform and the protests against it have become a focal point for identity formation among local communities. “We are those who stand for our city/republic against the Varangians (a colonial administration sent from Moscow)” — this summarizes the protesters’ core thesis. Looking at photographs of protests in Altai and Krasnoyarsk Krai, we can observe a strong element of ethnic and local identity, manifested in participants’ self-representation (e.g., national costumes and rhetoric).

However, I would like to turn to another aspect of the reform and emphasize its political-economic meaning. The reform fits into a broader trend of economic “optimization” unfolding in the country and goes hand in hand with neoliberal reforms in healthcare, waste management, and education. The country is being covered by a network of MFCs (digital government access points), while residents are forced to transfer their interactions with public administration to the electronic portal called Gosuslugi. In addition, Russia is increasingly becoming a country of large financial monopolies — it appears divided among major retail chains, developers, and delivery service networks. This optimization is highly convenient for these major players, as they possess leverage over decision-makers. They effectively shape the “rails” along which the economy develops, in close alignment with state policy priorities. 

THE CHALLENGE OF THE WASTE REFORM 

The waste reform — an ongoing attempt to reform state waste management policy — is an illustrative example of broader social dynamics in Russia. Launched in 2019, the set of measures, intended as a strategic transformation of the country’s waste management system, did not prioritize creating flexible incentives to support a shift toward more environmentally friendly and resource-efficient models. Instead, it divided regional waste markets into zones of responsibility assigned to commercial companies. The essence of the reform was the introduction of “regional operators” — private companies selected through tenders and typically holding regional monopolies — to handle waste management services. These operators were tasked with bringing the sector’s technological processes up to a minimally acceptable standard. At the most basic level, this meant eliminating open, “temporary” waste landfills — in other words, dumps (for a detailed analysis of the reform, read Kedr media: Pochemu Rossiya tonet v musore).

Neoliberal in essence, the waste reform proved very comprehensible within Russian realities. What would constitute an official crime for a bureaucrat becomes, for a company, an economic issue (the size of a waste collection fee for residents), an administrative matter (fines and sanctions for failing to meet contractual obligations), and only in the most egregious cases a criminal offense (fraud).

However, Russia is a country where officials have long and successfully learned to embezzle budget funds through the public procurement system. Complex grey schemes, buried under piles of documents and contracts, may create problems for individual citizens. At the national level, though, they function as a mechanism that shifts responsibility from incompetent authorities to unscrupulous private entrepreneurs, benefiting both sides.

It is hard not to smile when Federation Council senator and former governor of Saint Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko, expresses outrage at the reform’s implementation: “Some regional operators are just ‘horns and hooves’: no garbage trucks, no staff. Nothing. <…> Do you know how much has been collected nationwide [for household waste removal in a year]? Almost 280 billion rubles. Directly to regional operators. Nobody controls anything at all”. This was precisely the plan, one wants to reply. The reform was designed to create regional monopolies that receive their “patent” (contract) through agreements at the level of regional governors, replacing the previous patchwork of small firms and municipal institutions.

It is noteworthy that environmental protests in general, and protests against landfills in particular — a problem that has not been resolved — are among the most common protests in the country. Being social in nature, they are effectively almost permitted, as Russian authorities behave far more leniently toward them than toward protests with explicitly political demands.

HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION

No less illustrative, though more longstanding, are the core spheres of public goods — healthcare and education. Neoliberal transition processes in these sectors began earlier than in waste management, followed their own dynamics, and produced outcomes that are less relevant in the present context. What truly matters here is the nature of responsibility and optimization that lies at the heart of these reforms.

Large-scale reform of the Soviet-inherited system of hospitals and clinics began in 2010, although funding for the sector had been steadily declining since the late 1980s. A significant change affected the mandatory health insurance system: private enterprises acted as insurance agents, partially assuming oversight functions and committing to protect insured individuals’ rights in cases of medical errors.

Through these reforms, the neoliberal “money follows the patient” model was introduced, enabling the government to identify medical institutions it deemed inefficient and close them. Rhetorically, this was presented as a way to concentrate resources in “efficient” facilities, raise staff salaries, and improve infrastructure. The effort was reinforced by the “May decrees” — presidential orders requiring doctors’ salaries to reach 200 percent of the regional average. Importantly, responsibility for implementing these decrees rested with regional leaders, not the federal authorities who issued them.

Ironically, when Tatyana Golikova, one of the reform’s authors, acknowledged its overall failure in 2019, she did so only after being promoted to deputy prime minister. Placing responsibility, among others, on regional authorities, she once again lamented from the capital the rigidity and sluggishness of actors with far less influence over decision-making, who were simply unable to keep up with the “grand plans” of the federal authorities.

Similar processes unfolded in school education. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of schools declined from 68,000 to 48,400, i.e., by approximately 1.4 times. The introduction of the “money follows the student” principle was accompanied by constant reforms of educational standards (FGOS — Federal State Educational Standards) and an increased workload for school staff without expanding personnel. This was compensated by the inclusion of teachers, like doctors, in the “May decrees, ” with their salaries rising accordingly.

At the same time, school closures led to a steady increase in the number of children who fundamentally lack access to education. According to the Ministry of Education’s statistics, in 2025, there were 66,000 such children, excluding the most disenfranchised group of Russia’s residents — migrants. Including migrants, the number may reach around 350,000.

It is important to emphasize that both healthcare and education fall under municipal authority, with most schools and hospitals funded by municipal budgets. Accordingly, municipalities should have been the federal government’s counterparts in reforms in these areas — yet this was not the case. Instead, regional authorities were compelled to assume responsibility for the reforms. This was pretty logical given the sheer number of municipalities (around 20,000). From the perspective of Kremlin-driven, authoritarian reforms demanding rapid results, managing so many stakeholders was simply unfeasible.

Expanding municipal budgets or enhancing the political role of local self-government was never part of the authorities’ plans, not even in their declarations. Throughout the 2010s, federal authorities repeatedly found the existing administrative system incompatible with their governance style, which emphasizes consolidation and optimization (monopolization) over increasing the number of autonomous actors.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN LABOR, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND MUNICIPAL PROTESTS

No matter how different the spheres examined in this article may be, it is essential to demonstrate their interconnection. Municipal reform is, in essence, a territorial-administrative reform. Because it affects elected bodies of power — despite all the problems associated with these elections — it possesses a strong political component. Access to power resources changes, political alignments shift, and rules governing access to corruption rents are altered. However, from the perspective of civil society, the outcome is uniform — a reduction in the scope of political rights and a narrowing of the repertoire of civic strategies available to defend them.

Perhaps the most widespread protests in Russia are labor-related and environmental. By 2025, protests against municipal reform likely rank third in frequency. All three types of protests intersect in important ways. The protests in Bashkortostan between 2020 and 2025, for example, combined all three agendas. The initial trigger was the Bashkir Soda Company’s plans to develop the Kushtau shikhan (environmental issue) and the Russian Copper Company’s plans for the Kryktytau ridge. The settlement of Baymak, at the heart of the unrest, had long been strained by unemployment conflicts.

Many slogans of the 2024 Baymak protests can be defined as demands for genuine self-governance. Deconstructing what happened in Bashkortostan is pretty straightforward: people demanded that the head of the republic should not be able to make deals with major corporations that directly affect their lives — especially while they themselves live in dire conditions — without their participation.

Therefore, I advance the somewhat radical thesis that for political analysis of what is happening in Russia as a whole, it is essential not to typologically separate these protests from one another — although, of course, each case deserves detailed individual analysis.

LOCAL BUSINESS AND PROTESTS AGAINST MUNICIPAL REFORM

Municipal protests are strongly associated with another region — the Altai Republic. In an interview with Meduza, a local activist named Sergey said: “Turzcak made Prokopyev from an oligarch family his right-hand man. We understand that their business is tied to natural resources, so they view Mountain Altai as a tasty morsel. And how do they behave? Just remember how German Gref (CEO of Sberbank — REM) humiliated taxi drivers at the airport. We’ve got people like this, who act as if they are gods, while we are nothing”.

The Prokopyev mentioned by Sergey is Alexander Prokopyev, son of the founder of the pharmaceutical company Evalar from neighboring Altai Krai. Andrey Turchak has been the head of the republic since summer 2024 — a “Varangian” from Moscow, i.e., an official without direct biographical ties to the region. In this quote, we see how environmental and economic concerns intertwine, related to fears that appointed (rather than elected) officials and significant capital will divide the region among themselves.

It is essential to highlight the significant economic dimension of these events. For instance, one of the prominent figures in the protests, activist Aruna Arna (currently in pretrial detention on criminal charges for alleged calls for terrorism), explicitly framed her activism as opposition to major capital — specifically Sberbank — involved in the construction of tourist complexes in the region.

Let us recall that one compromise offered by the federal authorities was to assign responsibility for municipal reform to regional parliaments. This simultaneously served two purposes: (1) presenting the federal government as a benevolent arbiter that does not impose unpopular reforms but merely expands political opportunities, and (2) shifting reputational costs onto regional authorities. Considering the other reforms discussed in this article, this appears to be a general pattern of all Kremlin reform attempts.

As a result, we observe different dynamics across regions: from street protests (Bashkortostan, Altai Republic) to more institutionalized opposition in Krasnoyarsk Krai, where the LDPR and CPRF oppose the reform, though occasional street actions remain. At the regional leadership level, reactions also form a spectrum: from the use of veto power by the head of Khakassia against the relevant law, to gradual, “quiet” mergers of municipalities in Novosibirsk Oblast. Nevertheless, federal authorities demand the adoption of the law, leaving exceptions only in certain particularly problematic regions such as Dagestan and Bashkortostan.

Business interests are not always as visible as in the Altai Republic, which is understandable. For instance, identifying a limited number of stakeholders in Russia’s most significant federal subject, Krasnoyarsk Krai, is extremely difficult. However, as regional political technologist Andrey Shalimov noted, “Why waste effort arguing with local deputies and residents about where to place some harmful production facility, landfill, or cemetery? The fewer heads and district councils there are, the easier it is”.

Strictly speaking, this is the essence of the municipal reform — to reduce transaction costs for major stakeholders, both political and economic (if they can meaningfully be distinguished at all), when managing deposits, markets, and territories. Unsurprisingly, the main body of protesters are regional residents who have either already borne the brunt of Russia’s version of capitalism or run small businesses, without any meaningful lobbying power. Thus, the municipal reform should be viewed as an instrument for reducing transaction costs for capital and power at the expense of citizens.