How is the war in Ukraine going? Today they confirmed the death of Russian General Major Suhovetsky. He's unsurprisingly a paratrooper. So let's discuss the role of paratroopers in Russian military doctrine. That'll shed a light on the course of this war and why Russia lost it🧵
Paratroopers hold more legendary status than any other troops in Russia. They are elite force comprising the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. They are supposed to lead the offensive, being dropped behind the enemy lines and holding the ground before the rest of the army comes
Except they aren't used this way. If you look at this picture you'll understand why. It's just to easy to shoot them all in the air before they reach the ground. That's why in pretty much every conflict - Afghanistan, Karabakh, Georgia, Chechnya they were used as regular infantry
Since WWII there were only three cases when Russian paratroopers were actually dropped on the enemy from the air:
Hungary 1956
Czechoslovakia 1968
Ukraine 2022
Ergo, paratroopers act as paratroopers only when they don't expect resistance from another regular army
Paratroopers aren't that strong. The firepower of an "elite" paratrooper regiment is way weaker than that of regular, "non-elite" infantry regiment. They can't defeat an army. But they aren't supposed to fight against an army. They are supposed to suppress mutinies and rebellions
The entire concept of VDV, Russian paratroopers makes total sense if we consider that they are not so much soldiers as the riot police. They don't need to fight other regular armies, they need to suppress disorganised mutinies and protests
Since paratroopers are the shock troops of regime, they absolutely need to look scary to scare off any mutineers. Their entire legendary status is one huge psyop. That's not a secret, really well-trained forces such as those of GRU consider these guys to be fraudsters
For this reason paratroopers absolutely need to be very tall. Physical fitness is not enough, you need to be very big. Why? Because they need to be scary. Because their main weaponry is purely psychological. People should see these big guys and realise resistance is meaningless
Hence the entire "legendary" status, well-developed mythology and iconography. There's no other troops with so developed symbolics, such as paratroopers. Consider this one where Elia the Prophet gets a blue paratrooper beret
Tons of songs, visuals etc are dedicated to paratroopers, more than to any other troops. Why? Again, because VDV are psyop troops and they are powerless without a thoroughly developed mythology. Thus government heavily invests in building this mythology
2nd of August is the VDV day. So every year ex-paratroopers (or whoever decided to west the light blue vest and beret) jump into the public fountains
... harass civilians
.. and the police. Regular people (or soldiers) would get long prison terms for beating up the cops. But not the paratroopers. They are shock troops of the regime and the regime gonna maintain their badass status. They are so badass because they have full support of the state
That's why "elite" paratroopers comprise the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. It's not a reserve for a big war. Nope. It's a reserve for suppressing mutinies within Russia or in neighbouring countries. And that's largely done through psyops. Thus they work hard to seem scary
When Russia decided to suppress the insurrection in Kazakstan last year, it sent there its glorified riot police - the paratroopers. See the light blue stripes on their vests? Only VDV wears it
Let's be honest, Kremlin sees Ukraine as a rebel province. The very existence of this country is mutiny. And if you need to suppress a riot, you send the riot police. So Putin sent there paratroopers and they were completely routed. Because they didn't expect organised resistance
Russian paratroopers were used as paratroopers only during the suppression of "fascist revolt" in Hungary 1956 and in Czechoslovakia 1968. Why? Because they knew they're not gonna face another regular army there. So they can unleash their psyop without fearing any consequences
When Putin invaded Ukraine he thought he's suppressiing yet another Eastern European mutiny. And sent his riot police expecting Ukrainian army to run or surrender. But it didn't. And once it didn't his entire special operation modelled after Whirlwind 1956 or Danube 1968, failed
Paratroopers were supposed to take control of the main cities and logistical clusters, so the occupation of the country by the army would go smoothly. But Ukrainian army opened fire and they failed. And after that initial failure the entire plan was broken
The most dramatic example of this failure were Russian vehicles stuck in the early spring mud. You see they are trying to put tree logs under its wheels to get it out. Sounds good, doesn't work
Putin expected Ukrainian army to surrender. Unexpectedly not only the army but even regular civilians whom government gave guns started attacking Russian supply lines. Russia didn't plan for war and simply pushed forward with just one army echelon, so supply lines are unguarded
As a results those columns that pushed forward run out of fuel and simply get stuck on the roads and in the fields. That's the most plausible explanation for this Russian column simply staying in the field and being filmed by civilians
Putin's Blitzkrieg failed because it wasn't a Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg is a war operation against an enemy who fights. But Russia launched a special operation expecting Ukrainians to surrender. That's why they sent forward their glorified riot police. Of course, they were beaten
They sent only one echelon of troops by land. They wanted to occupy a defenceless country and didn't care about covering their supply lines. Of course they were cut off and now thousands of Russian vehicles are stuck with no fuel
Putin's plan failed and that's why he started escalating the violence. Here you see a student dormitory of Kharkiv university after a Russian bombardment
Or residential districts of Kyiv
The only question is whether Ukrainians will be able to stand their ground until the imminent economic collapse of Russia. It will happen much sooner than most expect, gonna write about it tomorrow in a more detailed way. In any case, Putin's plan of a special operation failed
It failed for two reasons. Firstly, after 2014 Ukrainians rebuilt their army and state for the imminent clash with Russia. Secondly, when Russia finally attacked, Ukrainians didn't fall for an empty psyop and didn't get scared. And if you don't fear, psyop doesn't work. End of🧵
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
- What is long, green and smells with sausage?
- Moscow-Tver train
Why? Well, under the USSR provincials had to go shopping to Moscow. Their shops had no food, often very literally. Today we'll learn an expression "supply category"🧵
Under the centrally planned economy it was the state which supplied food to the localities. It would assign each city one of four "supply categories" determining how much food there will be on shelves. Moscow was supplied far better than anyone while cities like Tver - horribly
Provincial Soviet cities of the lower supply categories might have no food on the shelves at all. Sometimes very literally. Sometimes they would have only the scraps from the table of the higher status city: like some algae, or the disgusting paste "Ocean"
I find this line of argumentation illustrative of the general state of Russian discourse, whether "patriotic" or "liberal". Everything Turkic occupies the same place in the Russian debates as everything Irish in the Imperial British. The Inner Other and the source of all the evil
Reading the Russian-Ukrainian debates with both sides accusing each other of racial impurity and having too many Steppe admixtures or influences, I noticed that their argumentation is mirroring each other. See this Russian nationalist material for example sputnikipogrom.com/history/15934/…
This mutuality and almost exact symmetry of Russian-Ukrainian accusations reminds me of a brilliant
thread on the British rule over the Ionian Isles. Bach then the discourse was similar. Brits and Greeks were constantly accusing each other of Irishness
Russian bureaucracy is *massive*. It's also diverse. Judging from my observations, it's less integrated than let's say the apparatus of the U.S. federal bureaucracy. Different agencies have different cultures and operate by different rules. Avoid sweeping generalisations (not🧵)
I see a very common attitude among the Russian pro-war community. It can be summarised this way:
"We expected dumb and incompetent bureaucrats to destroy our economy. But our glorious army would prevail against all odds. It turned out we were wrong. It's the other way around"
Now much of the Z-community argues that they greatly overestimated the Russian army (and the military apparatus). It's very, very much worse than anyone thought before. But they underestimated the economic bureaucracy. Which is very much better than they could have thought
No. Describing Russian regime as "kleptocracy" is misrepresentation. It's not technically false, just absurdly reductionist. Let's be honest, if Putinism was *entirely* about stealing it would not be able to wage wars or produce armaments. And it produces hella lots of them
Keep in mind that public rhetorics work according to the rhetorical logic. Public position doesn't have to be factually accurate, it has to be rhetorically advantageous for it to work. They talk about "corruption" so much because it's rhetorically advantageous. That's it
When you don't have a positive agenda/vision of future or it's too hideous, you talk about "corruption". Examples - Lukashenko or Yeltsin. "Anti-corruption fight" is an ideal topic for a power hungry politician. Because talking about corruption = avoiding the actual conversation
Kremlin may not have a grey cardinal. But it has a bald engineer. The Kinder Egg is a major architect of Putinism. In 1998 he made Putin the FSB Chief. In 2000s he dismantled the regional autonomy imposing the centralised rule. Now he manages Putin's domestic policy and Ukraine🧵
Sergey Kirienko was born as Sergey Israitel in a mixed Russian-Jewish family. After the divorce his mother changed his surname from father's "Israitel" to her own "Kirienko". That could be a pragmatic decision. A boy with a Slavic name would have better career chances in the USSR
In childhood Kirienko lived with his mom in subtropical Sochi. Here he started the bureaucrat career as a Komsomol manager (комсорг) of his high school class. NB: the role of Komsomol in Soviet to post-Soviet transition is underrated. Komsomol management were its main benefactors
Last time I discussed Volgograd - the poorest large city in Russia. Today I read a news about relatives of a Volgograd corporal KIA in Ukraine who are fighting over 12 million rubles of compensation. His aunt illegally appropriated all the money, so other relatives are suing her
That's something that misses from most of discussions. Compensations for soldiers KIA in Ukraine are huge. They are absolutely enormous by the standards of poor Russian province. 12 million rubles is the entire fortune for Volgograd
Average salary in the Volgograd oblast is about 38 000 rubles. So 12 million is 315 average monthly salaries (median is lower). In other words, the coffin money amount to 26 average yearly salaries in Volgograd region. Average guy will never ever earn that much money in his life