Government domination of the "NGO" sphere

First, they kicked out the Peace Corps. The excuse given for foreign consumption was the environment of "changing economic and social tasks facing our country." For domestic consumption, the Kremlin relied on reasoning more along the lines of Soviet propaganda, sowing paranoid suspicions among anyone who had ever had a pleasant interaction with a Peace Corps volunteer by suggesting that they "were collecting information on the social, political and economic situation in Russian regions, on officials of governmental bodies and departments, on the course of elections and so on" (that's CNN's sound bite from Patrushev on the occasion).

Then they unceremoniously threw Mikhail Khodorkovsky in jail, in no small part because of his support for various political causes and civil society initiatives.

Then Putin infamously shed unjustified suspicion on and engendered fear among the NGOs hard at work in Russia in his State of the Union address.

Now, there's a bill in the Duma to make donations tax-deductible only if they are made to state-funded organizations.

And the Duma (and odious Deputy Viktor Alksnis of the Rodina party) is going after the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, and at least part of the basis for their attack seems to be that this organization accepts relatively small grants from foreign grant-making organizations.

The situation is similar to the rejection of foreign aid in the Kursk submarine tragedy - the public spin was that the foreigners needed to be kept out because they might see something secret (and the insinuation was made for some time that maybe "they" were even responsible for the tragedy in the first place), but the authorities' actual reasons for refusing assistance were more likely a mix of shame at the situation; pride and false certainty in their own ability to solve the problem; and genuine suspicion, left over from the Cold War, of the motives of those foreigners proffering assistance.

Blaming outsiders and refusing assistance is the logical course of action for a government which wants to be seen as the sole source of strength and salvation for the Russian people - if only that government were up to the lofty goals which it sets for itself.

Does anyone think that the Russian government will solve the coming demographic crisis without the assistance of international NGOs? Maybe the solution proposed recently by Patriarch Alexey - make more babies - will somehow prove to be a brilliant low-cost solution? Somehow, I think not.

Russians are right to be proud of their nation; I don't begrudge them their pride and have a healthy respect for the historical strength, ingenuity, and endurance of the Russian people. However, it becomes difficult to understand and respect a country when its people allow the supposedly democratically elected government to act as irresponsibly as the Russian government has acted with respect to foreign assistance.