The Rhodus Story
On a sunny spring day of 2022 someone transferred me 10 Ethereums. That was a lot of money. With this money I could do something big
So, I decided to do something interesting 🧵
Not long before that, I wandered into an article «Germany and Czechia help Russia to build ballistic missiles Sarmat and Sineva with the nuclear warheads» (2017). A case study on the Krasmash missile producing plant, it posed some questions that analysts seldom ask:
🤔
What was the article about?
The Krasnoyarsk Machine Building Plant (Krasmash) is one of two key intercontinental ballistic missile manufacturers in Russia. Krasmash produces and maintains the liquid-propellant missiles such as the ICBM Sarmat and SLBM Bulava
In 2016, a Krasnoyarsk regional TV channel "Yenisei" broadcasted a program on the modernization of Krasmash
It had some interesting visuals.
That was a VLC 4000 ATC + C1 vertical lathe produced by a Czech company TDZ Turn
Source: (p.1). tdz-turn.com/contentBox/dow…
How did this European machine end up on Krasmash?
That was surprisingly easy to track. Back then, TDZ Turn listed a Krasnoyarsk-based company KR Prom (КР Пром) as their official distributor in Russia
TDZ Turn -> KR Prom -> Krasmash
*there is more documental evidence available
What did I learn from this article?
1. The most highly classified & strategically important military producers in Russia operate with Western machine tools
2. I can investigate this based on the most mundane publicly available sources
3. And track the entire supply chain
What did I *not* learn from this article?
1. How import dependent is the Russian military industry?
2. Who is it import dependent upon?
3. Why?
As I could not find the answers in literature, I had to produce them myself. If I do not have a credible picture of how Russia produces weaponry, I will construct it bit by a bit. As I cannot do it alone, I will build a team
And that's how the @rhodusinc was born
@rhodusinc One year later, we have...
@rhodusinc Some of our materials will be posted on our @Rhodusinc Twitter page. This is a short thread with selected visuals on a Russian strategic missiles producer - the Votkinsk Plant
Paywalled materials will be posted in our newsletter. Here we outline the case study of Votkinsk Plant in more detail
rhodus.substack.com/p/how-to-make-…
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