I've already posted a few videos, often cropped and hard subbed on Twitter. And yet, it may be difficult to navigate through them or to verify their sources. Thus I created a Telegram channel where I will be posting them adding descriptions and links
So far I've only posted 10 videos there, but I'll be adding more. The ones I would recommend the most:
1. Interview with Russian Wagner Mercenary from Feb 26 2. Zhirinovsky speech on Jan 18 on the goals of Z-war 3. TV program on Zvezda channel 4. Sermon by Artemy Vladimirov
February 26, 2022. Wagner mercenary questions the experience that the Russian military got in Syria and predicts that Z-invasion of Ukraine won’t turn out to be a victorious march. He implies that circumstances have changed since 2014 and that the Ukrainian army has changed, too
January 18, 2022. Zhirinovsky’s speech on the future Z-war and its goals. Many of late Zhirinovsky's “hot takes” probably reflected the official position of Kremlin. Zhirinovsky, as a court jester, presented it in a “foolish” manner to test the ground on how they will be accepted
How Russian military are treated by their own higher-ups. TV host Alexey Gudoshnikov yells at a veteran who suggested a minute of silence for “our boys dying in Ukraine”. TV program Открытый эфир, channel Звезда. Notice that it's a channel of the Russian Ministry of Defence
Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov is reading a sermon on the Z-war and its goals. That sermon doesn't necessarily represent the position of the Kremlin but probably reflects the feelings of the Russian nationalist masses and, broadly speaking, the Russian imperialist ideology
Russia appropriated foreign planes leased to Russian air companies. Сompanies ask Minister of transport Savelyev if they'll be ever able to do maintenance abroad. "No, we won't, because we confiscated the other's property". Russia gonna have huge transport problems very soon
Police launched an operation to arrest a sugar dealer. Undercover cops videotaped how they bought a 50 kgs sugar sack "at the above market price" and he openly told he can bring more
Russian TikTok video. This is apparently a truck driver who bought some snacks for his 1000 km trip and is shocked by skyrocketing food prices
Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry points out to the cultural roots of this war. Ukrainians tried to appropriate the exclusive rights on borsch, denying it to Russians and wouldn't compromise. Such Nazism made the war inevitable
Dialogue between Putin and Naryshkin, the chief of Foreign Intelligence Service on what to do in Ukraine. Counterintuitively, Putin's regime is way more personalist than the Soviet one. Politburo debated on policy decisions, while Putin's henchmen are not allowed to question him
On the Day 13 of the Special Operation Russian TV propagandist Solovyov and military expert Kedmi had a pretty depressive discussion on the course of this war. Solovyov argued that this war can't meet the set goals, because it will lead to the destruction of Russia itself
Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Yevkyrov decorated a wounded soldier who lost his leg and wishes him to "get back to his feet again"
A glimpse into the popular Z-mindset. It's not only about Putin or his personal goals, it's about a certain culture, tradition, system of values. Z-war is systemic rather than accidental and the logic that stands behind it is well-rooted in the Russian imperial culture
1991. Sobchak, mayor of St Petersburg and boss of Putin discusses the Ukrainian problem. Sobchak was a well-known liberal and a founder of the Movement for the Democratic Reform. Notice how he weaponises liberal rhetorics in order to delegitimize supposedly too Communist Ukraine
Anton Krasovsky from Russia Today clarifies his position on Ukraine, promising to burn their constitution on Maidan
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@shaunwalker7 American tank mechanic here. Some advice.
Tanks are bad at urban combat. They need infantry support. Without boots on ground they're just big targets with poor visibility. Rifles should aim for the periscopes, but most importantly the sight unit on top of the turret.
@shaunwalker7 Take down street signs. Don't let the enemy know where they are. Move signs to the wrong streets. Tanks are super heavy, so try to direct them to streets that can't hold their weight. They can't move if they break through to the sewer.
@shaunwalker7 Break the tracks if you have explosives. Tracks are also terrible for catching stuff like barbed wire/concertina wire. Line the streets with anything that can get sucked in and tangle up.
1/ Ukrainian TVD, Day 89-97. Intense combat has continued in the Donbas over the past 9 days. Russian forces continue to expand on their breakthrough around Popasna & have captured large parts of Severodonetsk. Ukraine counterattacks in Kherson. #UkraineWar#UkraineRussianWar
2/ Weather Outlook. Forecast for the next ten-days will see periods of thunderstorms and temps between 25-32 C. Russian & Ukrainian forces will likely fight through these periods of poor weather to maintain operational momentum in their favor.
3/ Kharkiv OD. Ukrainian offensive activity in this area has been focused on liberating Ternova while resuming its advance in the direction of Vovchansk via assaults to retake Starytsya & Rubizhne. Activity from Kozacha Lopan to Vesele has been limited to exchanges of artillery.
THREAD Let's start a long thread about how Russian book market prepared Russians for a full-scale war against Ukraine, NATO, the West, and promoted stalinism and nazism, and how this was ignored by the West. Keep seat belts fasten, you will see a lot of nasty things here.
One of the first indicators of Russia preparing for a full-scale turn to dictatorship and a global war was the mass production of books about cool sides of Stalin and Stalinism and about upcoming war against the West. These books appeared on Russian bookshelves in early 2010s /2
The appearance was so massive that it could not be a coincidence on a book market which was under a strict control of secret police FSB. "Be proud, not sorry! Truth about Stalin Age" "Stalinist's Handbook", "Stalin's Repressions: A Great Lie" and "Beria: Best XX Cent Manager" /3
Chinese-Russian alignment is much like Schroedinger's cat. It's alive and dead at the same time. Let me illustrate this on example of the Russian military industry, which contrary to the popular opinion is *not* backed by China. It's backed by Europe🧵
Consider this great article by Vershinin. The West largely lost its industrial warfare capabilities, but Russia did not. Its military strategy is based on capacities to produce lots of missiles and shells. Way more than the US is able to produce
Russian missile and artillery centric strategy is possible only due to the superior capacity to mass production. Russia can afford firing so many missiles and shells, because it produces many of them, way more than the US can make
- 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