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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
7h 14 tweets 8 min read
Regarding the video with a castration of a Ukrainian POW, comments from the Russian ДШРГ Русич may give some context to the story:

"I have seen up to ten such clips. They're usually published 1-2 years after the events though to make perpetrators more difficult to identify" ImageImage
Русич (Rusich) is a Russian Neonazi group fighting in Ukraine. They're reportedly closely associated with the Wagner mercenary company Image
A Rusich fighter who told he had seen "up to ten such clips" is Evgeny Rasskazov (Topaz). Here you see his post commemorating Hitler's birthday:

"Today is birthday of out comrade who became example for many of us... his Word and Deed inspires us to beat the Ukro-Bolshevik scum" Image
That's Topaz with Egor Prosvirnin, the editor of *the* most important Russian nationalist media Sputnik and Pogrom which played an important role in setting the ideology of this war. When Putin made his speech, ppl described it as "Putin repeating Prosvirnin's talking points" Image
Weirdly enough, Western media make very, very few mentions of the main Russian nationalist media, Sputnik and Pogrom when discussing this war. That leads to either intentional or unintentional massive representation of the Russian internal debates. Which led to what we have now Image
The cultural influence of Sputnik and Pogrom (Спутник и Погром) in Russia is massive. It's so noticeable that the careful omission of them in almost any debate on this war looks almost intentional. Why would they avoid talking about them so carefully?

sputnikipogrom.com Image
Because Prosvirnin was an integral part of the Moscow political and media establishment. Once you bring him and the Sputnik and Pogrom up, too many important people get associated. Here you see Prosvirnin hugging Ksenia Sobchak and political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky Image
Random photos with other media personalities. Nationalist leader Belov, internet guru Nosik, writer Akunin. Regarding the first two, they might share lots of common agenda, I doubt about the third guy. I post this photos to show associations and a level of his connections ImageImageImage
Few key media personalities of the "Russian spring". They are little known in the West but very well - in Russia. Some commenters from Russia may deny it, but they 100% heard about them. Prosvirnin, Olshansky, Kholmogorov. They all stand for the war and escalation of violence ImageImage
I follow pro-war media personalities with great interest, because they're very talkative. For example, in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist Gordon Khodorkovsky @mbk_center wept on camera very persuasively, begging forgiveness. Forgiveness for what?
Perhaps Russian nationalist Kholmogorov may shed some light

Feb 28, 2022

"... we both know you're not pro-Ukrainian. We discussed this in Brussels long after the Crimea. We have no big disagreements except for your conviction that it's you and not Putin who should be in charge" Image
Any comments from @mbk_center on that would be helpful. Kholmogorov's testimony seems to fit well to what we know about Khodorkovsky. In his interview to @albats he openly proclaimed himself a nationalist. But then she *deleted* this statement from the printed version. Why? Image
My answer: Moscow media establishment like @albats is systematically whitewashing the figures like @mbk_center or @navalny . She knows that much of what they say isn't gonna be accepted well in the West. So she cuts it out or as I'll show later helps them to avoid responsibility Image
The theme of Sputnik and Pogrom is avoided so carefully, because once it's brought up, one may wonder in which way Moscow "liberal" opposition is different from Kremlin and how was their positive image constructed. I'll cover it in next material on the Russian liberals. The end Image

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More from @kamilkazani

Jul 27
Die Fürstenstadt

There was a Soviet joke:

- 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"
Read 26 tweets
Jul 25
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
Read 14 tweets
Jul 24
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
Read 22 tweets
Jul 23
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
Read 19 tweets
Jul 23
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
Read 35 tweets
Jul 21
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

volgasib.ru/virtual/skanda…
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 Image
Read 8 tweets

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