There are ways to sabotage Russian war capacities by focusing on its three major bottlenecks: demographic, economic & institutional. Let's start with demography. Russian started this war suffering from the shortage of young draftable males🧵
That's a very underrated fact. Many argue that the demographic pressure of growing population (Africa, Middle East) increases a risk of war/revolution. But Russia doesn't have this pressure. Compare it's demographic pyramid with Syria: Russia's quickly depopulating. It grew old
In fact, Russian-Ukrainian war is may be the first major war between two quickly depopulating nations. For this reason it can't be directly compared to Iran-Iraq or other conventional wars between relatively big but young powers. Russia, Ukraine are both old. Few youngsters there
Russian performance in this war will be different from the past. Yes, before WWII Russia would fight real wars all the time. But back then Russia was younger. Its demographic pyramid of 1927 looks more like Syria than like modern Russia
Today an average age in Russia 40 years. In 1914 in the age of huge families and no family planning it was 16 years old. Russia was a country of adolescents much like Black Africa is today. This demographic pressure might explain excesses of revolution and civil war of 1917-1921
Before the revolution birth control was virtually unknown, almost all of Russian population rural, people were subsistence farmers and their families tend to be very big. Thus Russia had a constant excess of youth which its emperors could utilise for their imperial delusions
XX century put end to this. Death toll of collectivisation, purges, and the WWII was devastating. Consider this photo of public street dances in late 1940s. Girls are dancing together, cuz boys are dead. From the high school class of 1941 only 3% were alive by the end of the war
Even more important factors were industrialisation and urbanisation. In 1900 majority were substinence farmers living in their own houses. By 1960s they were waged workers living in small urban dorms. Both mom and dad had to work, birth control was available. Fertility dropped
That's what believers in based invincible Russia which always wins miss completely. Back then Russia was a country with Syria-style population pyramid and produced enough young males to sacrifice in endless conflicts. Young men were not a bottleneck. Now they are
That partially explains why Putin attacked Ukraine with such a small army and didn't immediately start mobilisation. There are not so many males to mobilise in the first place. Meanwhile Ukrainian-published videos of captured conscripts will damage the Putin's spring draft a lot
Now who fights in Putin's army? Well, that's pretty easy to answer. Most of file and rank of the Russian army are either current or former conscripts. They are young guys from small towns and usually underprivileged background. Richer, more privileged ones would dodge the draft
In a good Moscow school where I studied almost everyone dodged the draft. Those who were drafted were considered very unlucky or not that smart. Nobody would ever view those going to the army with respect. Draft was a misfortune, a bad accident, you should avoid
Those who get into the army are usually from poor families & small towns. Because richer/smarter/educated ones dodge it. Then these conscripts who don't know their rights will be persuaded, pressured or just forced to sign a contract and become контрактники professional soldier
So in the social dimension, Russian army is the army of poor guys from small towns. Their recruitment was conducted either by sheer force (призывники) or by a certain combination of force and persuasion (контрактники). Sometimes they just force conscripts to sign the contract
In the ethnic dimension it's even more interesting than that. With ethnic Russians quickly depopulating, minorities provide disproportionally high share of young draftable males. And I'm not talking about Kadyrov's troops
Chechnya is a vassal kingdom of Kadyrov in personal union with Russia. It's not an integral part of Russia and its troops are not part of Russian army.Chechen conscript don't go to Russian army, they go to its "Chechen regiments" which are led by and personally loyal to Kadyrov
Once again - Kadyrov's troops can have whatever BS bureaucratic labels - "army", "police", "FSB", etc. But being classified as parts of these branches of Russian regulars they're obedient only to their warlord. I described it here in more detailed way
I'm talking about normal Russian regulars. While Chechen conscripts go to "Russian regiments quartered in Chechnya" = private army of Kadyrov, Dagestani, Ingush, Kabarda and other minority conscripts go to regular Russian army and comprise every growing part of it
Consider this random list of wounded Russian soldiers in a hospital in Rostov Oblast (=wounded in Ukraine). Dagestani names comprise about a half of the list. Russian army is quickly becoming the army of minorities
Furthermore, I'm now getting a lot of messages from Central Asians whom authorities try to persuade/force into the army. It's not some sort of ideological decision. In a quickly depopulating country you have no choice but to impress immigrants there to keep the war going
Let's sum up. In the past, Russia launched huge continental wars and finished them at whatever cost. But it could pay this cost because in a country of huge peasant families and constant excess of youth they could easily sacrifice that youth for the sake of imperial grandeur
Now Russia is a low fertility depopulating country which accidentally started a major war. It didn't plan a war, it planned a nice and easy occupation. Much of early Russian losses are explained by Russian columns simply entering into the cities and being immediately destroyed
Unlike any major war Russia launched before, now it will have to proceed with a shortage of youth. Young males are a major bottleneck now. That's why Russian regular army is much less Russian than in any previous epoch since 16th c. It's an army of minorities & provincial poor
Hence policy recommendation. Open the green corridor. Many Russian soldiers would actively look for the ways out but they don't want to sit in Ukrainian prison СИЗО which happens if they just surrender. So, open the corridor abroad to any poor warm country
Tourist industry of Turkey, Egypt, etc is now suffering for the lack of Russian tourists. Thus:
1. Rent cheap hostels, cheap hotels, whatever 2. Ship their those who surrendered till the end of the war. Give them bed + food 3. Take photos with them there, distribute in Telegram
That would have huge impact on the troops morale which you probably underestimate it. Human behaviour is much more situation specific than we'd like to admit. Russian soldiers stood to death at Borodino but they deserted away en masse in France. Cuz they had the way out
We very much overestimate human (and our own) "integrity" and "consistency". In fact our behaviour is very situation specific and depends on circumstances. We do what we like (and can do) and then make up justifications why this was right, limited only by our verbal intelligence
NB it shouldn't be a "good" way out. It shouldn't be a way out with clear understanding what to do next and other irrelevant BS. Situation this guys are facing looks like this. The way out shouldn't be perfect, it just has to exist and they should know it does
Furthermore, apart from bad & food for surrender give them cash for destroying the equipment and documenting it. Like you put the wrong oil to the truck engine and destroyed it? 2 thousand bucks. 2% of active hustlers are enough to inflict enormous damage on the fighting capacity
We also underestimate how many of our social mechanisms work only because of mutual trust. Only because almost nobody of those engaged will seek to disrupt them for its own sake. 2% of saboteurs is very, very much and inflicts enormous damage. Equipment destroyed, trust destroyed
Ofc you can invest money into destroying Russian army. That works. But paying Russian soldiers to destroy Russian army is way more cost-effective. They know how to do it, also they're poor and value money more. Besides, many of them have very low motivation
Additional benefit would be: if desertion from the Russian army increases, Russian commandment will be much more reluctant to send any low morale (=almost any) troops to Ukraine. If you know significant number defect to the enemy, you vet them harder and recruit less soldiers
Many imagine Russian army being proud, exhilarated and very well respected. Not quite. Russian army has no respect at all. Just look how this TV host yells on a veteran who suggests making a minute of silence for "our boys in Ukraine"
You can read a more detailed account of Russian army with mafia racketeering Syrian veterans and nuclear rockets bases, with conscripts being forced into gay prostitution here
Russian fighting capacity will hugely deteriorate if you give a way out to the closest warm countries with bed, food, and cash payments for proven sabotage. Done ASAP that would be very detrimental for Russian fighting capacity, manpower being its major bottleneck. End of 🧵
It is 11 July, the 138th day of Russia's illegal war in Ukraine.
My last 🧵on the war was 20 June (below), written when it appeared to me the tide was beginning to shift. Today it's time for an update, with some additional predictions for the next few weeks. 1/18
As always, I'll provide two caveats:
-this assessment is based on open-source intel, some friends in the theater of war, experiences as a commander in combat & an understanding of the RU and UA way of war.
-I'll use other's maps & reporting in this assessment. 2/
There's also less "kinetic" activity on the battle lines in the last week...
RU claims:
-They're in their latest "operational pause" (by my count, this is their 4th).
-They're "consolidating" in newly "secured" territory (use of "s due to those claims being questionable). 3/
Over the past few days, the Twittersphere has been expounding on the impact that several #HIMARS rocket artillery systems are having in #Ukraine. And they are awesome! But some perspective is required before expectations for their impact get too overblown. 1/17 🧵
2/ HIMARS is a lighter, more deployable version of an older tracked launcher that used the same rockets. And because it is mobile, it can shoot and move quickly, making it a very survivable platform in an era of short times between detection and destruction.
3/ HIMARS, because of its range and accuracy, is a weapon that is designed to attack targets deep in the enemy’s rear. It is used to destroy critical communications nodes, command posts, airfields, and important logistics facilities.
Putin's next (and final) battle.
(This thread went viral in Russian so I decided to publish an English version as well)
A long thread about what, in my opinion, is Putin's strategy right now, and the last gamble he is making to break Ukraine's resistance.
1/26
As we remember, XXI century warfare consists of more than just field battles. On the battlefield, Putin's army has shown everything it can do. And it didn’t impress. The only tactic Russia now has left at its disposal is the scorched earth tactic, based on artillery superiority
An AFU fortified area gets subjected to destructive shelling. Then Russian MoD sends in "Wagnerians" or "DPR militia", whom they do not consider people and do not include in casualty count; if there is return fire, they retreat and the shelling continues until AFU has to leave.
- 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