Thread by @kamilkazani

It's time to update the list of introductory threads

1. By February 27, I concluded that Russia would lose this war. Russian army was overrated, Ukrainian - underrated, while Russian political goals misunderstood. They planned for 1968-style pacification

2. Avocado economy: Why Russia cannot manufacture anything?

An industry's level of complexity negatively correlates with the rank of interest groups controlling it in the Russian hierarchy. The more mafia-like, the more dominant, the simpler the industry

3. Russian military industry completely depends upon technological import from the West, not from China. Whereas Kremlin closed their eyes on importing European equipment and pretending it's Russian, it jailed those who tried to do the same with Chinese

4. Russia is primarily the natural resources exporter. This created two problems. First, sources of cheap-to-extract resources are depleting. Second, it can't compensate for losses on Western markets in China. It just doesn't pay off

5. Crisis and Jubilee

Russia's spiralling into a deep crisis. It was visible before the war but now it's rapidly accelerating. And every major crisis entails mass redistribution of power, property and status. Because crisis is essentially a Jubilee

6. A crash introduction into Chechnya

7. How to hack the system. On the procedurality of bureaucracy and thus of state, etc.

8. Vladislav Surkov and Putin's rise to power

9. Stalin's industrialisation. Mostly based on Sonia Melnikova-Raich's research which I absolutely recommend

10. The motivation behind Z-war is not "security", "alliances" or even political affiliation. It's the need to extinguish wrong cultural memes and impose correct ones. That's why the war has wide popular support and why Russians so easily agreed for it

11. Parliamentarism in Russia. What should you know about the Communist Party (TL;DR Communists = Russian GOP)

12. TDZ Turn -> Kr Prom -> Krasmash

Case study on supply chains of the Russian nuclear delivery systems producing industry. Krasmash is the only* liquid propellant ICMB producing plant in the country

* MAAZ may be doing it too, but I'll cover it later

13. Die Fürstenstadt

Moscow is the city built around a princely court and living off prince's expenses. Its prosperity results from its central status in the imperial system. Moscow is uniquely expensive to feed. That's why its colonies are so destitute

14. Why mass mobilisation in Russia won't work?

TL;DR Mass Soviet style mobilisation requires expensive infrastructure and cadres being maintained for it even in the peace time, just in case. In the post-Soviet era these inefficient expenses were cut

15. Elon Musk

Innovators create wealth. And yet, they're greenhouse flowers who flourish only in *very* safe societies. They prosper because they've outsourced their security. If they don't get it, ignore their opinion on security and foreign policy

16. Fall of Kazan

or deescalation: the limits of applicability

17. Poverty of Realism



On the fallacies and intellectual dishonesty of Mearsheimer's analysis which is instrumental in legitimising the appeasement advocacy

18. National Divorce

Every Russian setback in Ukraine increases the chance of imperial collapse. Still, debates about Russian breakup are mostly based upon the Wilsonian axiom (ethnolinguistic differences -> nation building). But that's not how it works

19. National Divorce: Q and A

There's a major misconception about Russia "being 77% Russian". This view is incorrect as it ignores:

1. Massive census fraud
2. Suppression of regional "Russian" identities
3. Ethnic balance depending upon ethnic hierarchy

20. @navalny



TL;DR Started independent political career with hate propaganda. Repeatedly confirmed his ultranationalist platform has not changed, never apologised (except for a few slurs). Enjoyed thorough whitewashing by the Moscow and Western media

@navalny 21. Disintegration of Russia: a plausible scenario

TL;DR It's not some cartoonish regime fighters raising arms. It's moneyed interest groups integrated into the previous regime, deciding that

a) Costs >>> benefits
b) No "doctors" will come from Moscow

22. Why Navalny's succession is not an answer

TL;DR Westerners are often astonished to see many Ukrainians/Russian minorities being rather unenthusiastic about the @navany's succession to the Russian throne. In this thread I will try to show why

23. Why Russian elite is "acting mad"?



TL;DR. They are not acting mad, they are playing mad to show Putin they are not dangerous:

😛 You are playing mad-> 🐷Reputation destroyed -> 👁️Putin sees you can't betray him now-> He lets you live 😊