Thread by @kamilkazani

How to sabotage Russian war efforts?

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 🧵

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