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 🧵
In August 1999, President Yeltsin appointed his FSB Chief Putin as the new Prime Minister. Same day, he named him as the official successor. Yet, there was a problem. To become a president, Putin had to go through elections which he could not win.
He was completely obscure.
Today, Putin is the top rank global celebrity. But in August 1999, nobody knew him. He was just an obscure official of Yeltsin's administration, made a PM by the arbitrary will of the sovereign. This noname clerk had like 2-3% of popular support
Soon, he was to face elections
By the time of Putin's appointment, Russia already had its most favoured candidate. It was Primakov. A former Yeltsin's Prime Minister who broke with Yeltsin to contest for power. The most popular politician in Russia with massive support both in masses and in the establishment.
In Russia, the supreme power has never ever changed as a result of elections. That simply never happened in history. Now that is because Russia is a (non hereditary) monarchy. Consequently, it doesn't have any elections. It has only acclamations of a sitting ruler
Obviously, there has been no elections of Putin in any meaningful sense. There have been only acclamations. And that is normal. His predecessor was successfully acclaimed with an approval rate of about 6%. Once you got the power, you will get your acclamation one way or another
Contrary to the popular opinion, Russia doesn't have any acclamation ("election") problem. It has a transition of power problem. Like Putin can get acclaimed again, and again, and again. But sooner or later, he dies. What next?
My team has documented the entire Russian missile manufacturing base. That is 28 key ballistic, cruise, hypersonic and air defence missile producing plants associated with four corporations of Roscosmos, Almaz-Antey, Tactical Missiles and Rostec
The link is in the first comment
Our report How Does Russia Make Missiles? is already available for download
By the next weekend, we will be publishing the first OSINT sample, illustrating our methodology & approach. The rest of our materials will be made available laterrhodus.com
Key takeaways:
1. Missile production is mostly about machining 2. You cannot produce components of tight precision and convoluted geometry otherwise 3. Soviet missiles industry performed most of its machining manually
That was extremely laborious and skill-intensive process
No one gets famous by accident. If Alexey @Navalny rose as the unalternative leader of Russian opposition, recognised as such both in Moscow and in DC, this indicates he had something that others lacked. Today we will discuss what it was and why it did not suffice 🧵
Let's start with the public image. What was so special about the (mature) @navalny is that his public image represented normality. And by normality I mean first and foremost the American, Hollywood normality
Look at this photo. He represents himself as American politicians do
For an American politician, it is very important to present himself as a good family man (or woman). Exceptions do only corroborate the rule. Notice how McCain defends @BarackObama
Should Putin just suddenly die, @MedvedevRussiaE is the most likely compromise candidate for the supreme political power. He is the inaugurated President for God's sake. Which means, the anointed King.
"Not a real king", "Figurehead", "Nobody takes him seriously" is just intangible verbalism. Nothing of that matters. What matters is that he is the inaugurated President, consecrated by God. Opinions are subjective, anointment is objective
It is the fact
Medvedev may be one single person in the entire Russian establishment with a decent chance to keep power, should Putin go. For this reason, he may not even need to fight for power. The power will very probably be handed to him
On Friday, @navalny died (most probably killed) in prison. This is a good time to discuss the prospects of Russian opposition and the future transition of political power, once Putin is gone. This is also a good occasion to debunk some pervasive myths on the mechanics of power🧵
First, getting rid of @navalny was probably a correct decision on behalf of Kremlin. Execution of this murder may have been suboptimal (unprofessional, etc.). But the very idea to eliminate him was reasonable and makes total sense. There is nothing crazy or irrational about it
This remark may sound as cynical or paradoxical. So let me present you another paradox, which is yet to be fully processed by the political theorists. And the paradox is:
Bloody tyrants rule longer
The Russian history may possibly demonstrate this better than any other