Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 20, 2022 30 tweets 11 min read Read on X
Military casualties in Ukraine and the end of Russia as we know it

Let's look on the list of killed Russian generals:

Major-General Suhovetsky
Major-General Gerasimov
Major-General Kolesnikov
Major-General Mityayev
Lieutenant-General Mordvichev
Major-General Tushaev (Chechen)🧵 Image
Not counting a Chechen general Tushaev, who's an officer of Kadyrov's personal army, Mordvichev was the highest ranked Russian general killed so far. He was a commander of 8th Guard Army of the Southern Military District (=close to Ukraine) Image
Groups of Russian military in social media look like a never-ending list of necrologies. Consider this group of Russian airborne VDV. A captain, a colonel-lieutenant, first lieutenant, general-major are all dead. Notice they're listing only officers, including high ranked ones ImageImageImageImage
Let's go to comments. A deputy commander of an airborne regiment is killed. The first comment with Z avatar:

"My God 😭😭 Are they gonna bring us half of the regiment in coffins. Every day we see regiment 331. Condolescences 🙏 to family and friends. Eternal memory and glory" Image
Notice Z: its author fully supports Z-operation. And yet, she's shocked by the scale of casualties. Apparently even for Z-folk the endless stream of coffins from Ukraine looks disheartening. That's why trucks with dead and wounded Russian soldiers typically show up only at night
Consider that this all is happening in a quickly depopulating country which is growing old. Russia has few youths to send to Ukraine. Russia is now a pensionary country and it's fasicsm is pensionary fascism. Specifically babushka fascism - there aren't so may grampas around Image
They're urgently trying to lure whomever to the army. These are listings on Avito. Avito is a classified advertisements website, kinda Craigslist. There you can find jobs, real estate, cars and whatever for sale, services, etc. They're using every channel to boost recruitment Image
Some advertisments are aimed at imbeciles. A recruitment station is inviting people to join "reserve". They'll be paid only for manouvers: Officers - up to 10 000 roubles for 3 days, sergeants and soldiers - up to 5 000 rubles. Broke idiots who join gonna be sent to Ukraine Image
For 30 days of maneovers they're offering 30-75 000 rubles to officers. Before the war it was 500-1000 usd. Sergeants and soldiers would get 150-400 usd. Russian army is luring the brokes paying them almost nothing. That's important to keep in mind
There are also unconfirmed news that Russia will send to Ukraine adolescents from Юнармия - the Youth Army. That's a patriotic paramilitary organisation. I can't confirm that's true but with situation worsening they might. Sending there conscripts is illegal and they still do Image
Z-war heavily relies on minorities. That's understandable. First of all, there are not so many young Russian males to send, so you need to target minorities with higher fertility. Second, affluent will dodge so you send broke ones. Here you Siberian natives killed in Ukraine
Participation of North Caucasians is even higher than that. This cafe in Dagestan feeds families of Z-soldiers for free. Reportedly, Samilksy District of Dagestan with population of 29868 people sent 500 guys to fight to Ukraine. Soldiers, cops, National Guard whomever
That's quite ironic. Russian nationalist expansion in Ukraine heavily relies on people who are not considered fully human from the Russia perspectives. They are called хачи, чурки, обезьяны (apes) and yet they provide a huge share of recruits for Z-war Image
We must distinguish Chechnya from the rest of Caucasus. Dagestan or Ingush serve in Russian army like everyone else. In military terms they're regulars. But Chechnya is a kingdom of Kadyrov and Chechen army, police, FSB etc are his personal army. Watch this video, feel the vibe
When you look at Kadyrov's forces in Ukraine, you can see how clean they are, how fresh, not tired at all. They're heavily burdened with equipment. Why? Because they're terror and PR troops who try to skip the fighting. They're to police, torture, keep control, not to fight
Compare those Kadyrov's cyborgs with Chechen mujahideen of the First Chechen War. You clearly see a difference. Men who actually fought tried to dress lightly, take less burden and equipment. They were also quite dirty from the fight, unlike shining show-off troops of Kadyrov Image
Strelkov confirms it:

"In Mariupol Chechens didn't enter the battle. Why?

- Chechens are too darling to our commanders
- Someone has to pose for the victory photos. Chechens are fresh, masculine, jacked, gonna look great
- Commanders fear Kadyrov's anger for Chechen casualties" Image
Kadyrov's troops are not for fighting. They'd rather skip it. They're for keeping control, making PR and ofc torturing. Have a look at this video how Kadyrov's soldier makes a captured Ukrainian shout "Ахмат - сила" (Ahmad strong). Ahmad - is the name of Kadyrov's father
How will these casualties impact Russian society? Well, Russian fascism is pensionary, babushka fascism. Media are crying how sanctions will hurt poor babushkas forgetting that babushkas are *the* main electorate of Putin. This demographic group supports Z most enthusiastically
Watch this video endorsing Z-invasion. It issued by an organisation called "Putin's troops" - отряды Путина. It gives you a good glimpse of Putin's electoral base. People imagine Russia as a "bear", hard, determined, bestial power. In fact Russia is insane warmongering babushka
There is however a problem. First, insane warmongering babushkas who comprise the bulk of electorate support Z. But it's not them who's gonna fight and die. It's the youth who are much less enthusiastic. Compare this anti-war protest demographics with that of "Putin's troops"
There's another problem. Look at these funerals in regional capital of Vladimir. They're burying the entire leadership of Vladimir SOBR, all four their lieutenant colonels. SOBR is a branch of National Guard dealing with the organised crime. And they're being massacred in Ukraine Image
This may be a huge consequence of this war. Ukrainian War may provide a final solution of the Siloviki question. Siloviki are police, state security, intelligence and other paramilitary. This "new nobility" as their chief called them are the real source of Putin's power Image
Ask yourself, why elites do even obey Putin? Why barons submit to the courtiers? Well, because if they disobey Putin gonna "send a doctor". Here Moscow siloviki are arresting Khabarovsk governor Furgal who didn't forge the election in Putin's favor Image
Russia is a vast and very unequal country. Socio-economic and other parameters of its regions vary greatly. Putin enforced obedience, but enforced it by brutal violence. Russian siloviki whom he directly subordinated to Moscow terrorised barons, making them obey to Kremlin Image
Putin's reign of terror was largely motivated by objective limitations. Here you see Russia divided into three zones, red, blue & white, with almost equal population - 48,9 million. Which means key economic regions of Siberia are unthinkably remote from Russian population centres Image
That's why Putin had to use rely on sheer force so heavily. In a country like Russia courtiers have to use a lot of force to keep barons at check, there's no other way. And these siloviki guys were the main tool of Kremlin: arms of the courtiers used to control the barons Image
And here they go. This is not a funeral of Russian soldiers nor of the SOBR leadership. It's the funerals of Putin's regime and of Russia as we know it. Very soon barons will have almost no reason for obedience. Balance of power within elites gonna be renegotiated. End of 🧵 Image
If you like to read my long reads, you can subscribe to my Substack kamilkazani.substack.com
PS recording of "Putin's troops" didn't upload. So I do it now. This message endorsing Z-invasion and Putin gives a good idea on Putin's electoral base. Russian warmongering is not youthful ferocity, it's rather geriatric insanity

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More from @kamilkazani

Jun 28
Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani’s victory

Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc

Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one Image
1. Public outrage does not work anymore

If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while

For a while, this tactics worked

Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
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Jun 28
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
Theory: X -> Y

Reality:

There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.

Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation

And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
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Jun 26
Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani's victory:

1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.

In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings

Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
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Jun 21
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.Image
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain

According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her Image
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.

Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important. Image
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Jun 19
On the impending war with Iran

One thing you need to understand about wars is that very few engage into the long, protracted warfare on purpose. Almost every war of attrition was planned and designed as a short victorious blitzkrieg

And then everything went wrong
Consider the Russian war in Ukraine. It was not planned as a war. It was not thought of as a war. It was planned as a (swift!) regime change allowing to score a few points in the Russian domestic politics. And then everything went wrong
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planning a short victorious war optimised for the purposes of domestic politics is how you *usually* end up in a deadlock. That is the most common scenario of how it happens, practically speaking
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Jun 18
Hard to swallow pill

Global politics are usually framed in terms of kindergarten discourse (“good guys” vs “bad guys”) with an implication that you must provide “good guys” with boundless and unconditional support

BUT

Unconditional support is extremely corrupting, and turns the best of the best into the really nasty guys, and relatively fast
Part of the reason is that neither “bad” nor “good” guys are in fact homogenous, and present a spectrum of opinions and personalities. Which means that all of your designated “good guys” include a fair share of really, really nasty guys, almost by definition.

Purely good movements do not really exist
That is a major reason why limitless, unconditional, unquestioning support causes such a profound corrupting effect upon the very best movement. First, because that movement is not all
that purely good as you imagine (neither movement is),
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