Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 28, 2022 24 tweets 9 min read Read on X
Some advice to Ukrainians:

1. Ukrainian hackers post Russian casualty numbers on Russian official websites and social media accounts. That's not bad. A better idea - post instructions for sabotage. For example, if you burn trackside relay cabinets, it will lead to huge delays🧵 Image
Russia is heavily reliant on railways. Russian autoroutes have always been of low quality (with few exceptions) and thanks to sanctions Russia will face difficulties with producing and repairing trucks. Railways sabotage will heavily undermine logistics and supply of Z-operation Image
Railways sabotage in Belarus is already so widespread that it's severely undermining supply of a northern Russian Z-army. In Russia it's less common. And yet, that's exactly what's happened yesterday - someone attempted to blow up a relay cabinet with a handmade bomb near Kaluga Image
Railway sabotage is great idea. First, it's small scale action which a regular guy can do. Just go and burn a relay cabinet. Second, it can inflict enormous damage. Third, railways are so long, it's just impossible to properly guard them all. Which makes them easy to attack Image
Consider that Russian military industry is very heavily concentrated in a few clusters. For example, MLRS systems like Grad are produced on Motovilihinskiye Zavody plant in Perm. Just one major production center in entire Russia - makes it easy to sabotage Image
Ofc this MLRS plant uses imported instruments. Their technologist mentioned Seco, Sandvick, Walter, Iscar, Mitsubishi, Ghuring, Botek and Tungaloy. He mentioned only one Russian plant which produces instruments of high enough quality - KZTS in Kirov. It's apparently a bottleneck Image
Btw: this also shows how important it is not to allow technological import into Russia. Polish activists did a great job blocking the trucks leaving to Belarus. Belarus has been the main hub for Russian smuggling since 2014. Now as it's blocked, they'll try to use Georgia I think
Transsiberian railway is a highly vulnerable communication line. It's the only viable way connecting European Russia with Siberia and with China. Thus it'll be highly important for smuggling and technological import Russia can't do without Image
On July 23, 2021 flood damaged a railroad bridge on the Transsiberian. As a result, 500 trains were delayed. Trade flows were disrupted: companies had to reduce their shipments by the railway by 50% between July 26-28. They didn't restore the normal schedule till mid August. Image
That shows how vulnerable is the critical infrastructure in Russia. My advice - make concise instructions with sabotage, especially railway sabotage, and post them on Russian official websites and social media accounts. It's way more efficient than posting casualty numbers Image
Not everyone in Russia agrees with Z-campaign. Here you see people in St Petersburg beating up a truck driver who put Z onto his truck
A guy in Voronezh tried burn down a military commissariat (recruiting station). He failed - they put the fire down, but his choice of aim was emotionally motivated and inefficient. Infrastructure sabotage is much better. Make instructions with visuals and post on official media Image
2. If possible, target Russian military and National Guard on social media and send them standard instructions on how to avoid being sent to Ukraine. Which pretexts you can use, what instruments you have. No moral preaching, just - you can tell them A, B, C and they'll fuck off
3. Make public pressure on Western companies that refuse to leave the Russian market. French supermarket chain Auchan, and German Globus told they aren't leaving. Pressure them publicly, make it impossible for them to remain. That's important for increasing the systemic shock Image
4. Make pressure on European governments to stop railway shipments from Europe to China through Russia. Yeah, they're still going, though their number decreased. And I strongly suspect they'll be used for smuggling vital European components for Russian military industry Image
5. It's time to start talking with minority POWs, check their views and recruit those who could potentially change sides. Russian army heavily relies on minorities as cannon fodder. You know which region drafted the most people in Central Military District in 2021? Bashkortostan Image
In 2021 when they lacked few hundred recruits to meet the quota, local ruler (a Kremlin man) ordered not to break "old traditions of military draft". They'd broke the law in every way forcing recruits into the army. That's how Moscow is getting cannon fodder for its imperial wars Image
Moscow is using quite a wide range of minorities in Ukraine. Some examples of soldiers who are either KIA or captured, I'm not always sure. This guy is either a Tatar or a Bashkir from Bashkortostan Image
This one is a Kazakh from Astrakhan. Despite being just 14% of Astrakhan Oblast population, ethnic Kazakhs comprise 86% of Astrakhan casualties in Ukraine. Being a poor rural minority they naturally become a cannon fodder Image
A soldier from Tuva KIA ImageImage
A captured Crimean Tatar serving in the Russian army. Crimean Tatars are heavily oppressed in Russia. After annexation new authorities started destroying their houses, disappearing their activists and random people. Their position is way worse than that of Kazan Tatars Image
My advice - approach minority POW and check their views. Then choose those who can change sides and train them in special companies/batallions. With Russia spiralling to chaos, their impact can be huge. Remember, without Czechoslovak Legion there would be no Civil War in Russia Image
Apart from recruiting minorities according to ethnic principle, it might make sense to use regional one. Identify critical regions in Russia that are weak links in a chain and create companies out of their recruits. My advice - Far East and South (Krasnodar, Rostov, Stavropol) Image
Let me quote Guicciardini

"I often noticed during the wars that people didn't carry out necessary actions thinking it's too late. And yet, later it would turn out, it was the high time for it. Things go much slower than we expect. That should serve as a warning"

End of 🧵 Image

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More from @kamilkazani

Apr 12
There is a common argument that due process belongs only to citizens

Citizens deserve it, non citizens don’t

And, therefore, can be dealt with extrajudicially

That is a perfectly logical, internally consistent position

Now let’s think through its implications
IF citizens have the due process, and non-citizens don’t

THEN we have two parallel systems of justice

One slow, cumbersome, subject to open discussion and to appeal (due process)

Another swift, expedient, and subject neither to a discussion nor to an appeal (extrajudicial)
And the second one already encompasses tens of millions of non citizens living in the United States, legal and illegal, residents or not.

Now the question would be:

Which system is more convenient for those in power?

Well, the answer is obvious
Read 10 tweets
Apr 5
I have recently read someone comparing Trump’s tariffs with collectivisation in the USSR. I think it is an interesting comparison. I don’t think it is exactly the same thing of course. But I indeed think that Stalin’s collectivisation offers an interesting metaphor, a perspective to think aboutImage
But let’s make a crash intro first

1. The thing you need to understand about the 1920s USSR is that it was an oligarchic regime. It was not strictly speaking, an autocracy. It was a power of few grandees, of the roughly equal rank.
2. Although Joseph Stalin established himself as the single most influential grandee by 1925, that did not make him a dictator. He was simply the most important guy out there. Otherwise, he was just one of a few. He was not yet the God Emperor he would become later.
Read 30 tweets
Mar 16
The great delusion about popular revolts is that they are provoked by bad conditions of life, and burst out when they exacerbate. Nothing can be further from truth. For the most part, popular revolts do not happen when things get worse. They occur when things turn for the better
This may sound paradoxical and yet, may be easy to explain. When the things had been really, really, really bad, the masses were too weak, to scared and too depressed to even think of raising their head. If they beared any grudges and grievances, they beared them in silence.
When things turn for the better, that is when the people see a chance to restore their pride and agency, and to take revenge for all the past grudges, and all the past fear. As a result, a turn for the better not so much pacifies the population as emboldens and radicalises it.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 1
Three years of the war have passed

So, let’s recall what has happened so far

The first thing to understand about the Russian-Ukrainian war is that Russia did not plan a war. And it, most certainly, did not plan the protracted hostilities of the kind we are seeing today Image
This entire war is the regime change gone wrong.

Russia did not want a protracted war (no one does). It wanted to replace the government in Kyiv, put Ukraine under control and closely integrate it with Russia

(Operation Danube style) Image
One thing to understand is that Russia viewed Ukraine as a considerable asset. From the Russian perspective, it was a large and populous country populated by what was (again, from the Russian perspective) effectively the same people. Assimilatable, integratable, recruitable Image
Read 32 tweets
Feb 8
Why does Russia attack?

In 1991, Moscow faced two disobedient ethnic republics: Chechnya and Tatarstan. Both were the Muslim majority autonomies that refused to sign the Federation Treaty (1992), insisting on full sovereignty. In both cases, Moscow was determined to quell them. Image
Still, the final outcome could not be more different. Chechnya was invaded, its towns razed to the ground, its leader assassinated. Tatarstan, on the other hand, managed to sign a favourable agreement with Moscow that lasted until Putin’s era.

The question is - why. Image
Retrospectively, this course of events (obliterate Chechnya, negotiate with Tatarstan) may seem predetermined. But it was not considered as such back then. For many, including many of Yeltsin’s own partisans it came as a surprise, or perhaps even as a betrayal.

Let's see why Image
Read 24 tweets
Feb 2
On the origins of Napoleon

The single most important thing to understand regarding the background of Napoleon Bonaparte, is that he was born in the Mediterranean. And the Mediterranean, in the words of Braudel, is a sea ringed round by mountains Image
We like to slice the space horizontally, in our imagination. But what we also need to do is to slice it vertically. Until very recently, projection of power (of culture, of institutions) up had been incomparably more difficult than in literally any horizontal direction. Image
Mountains were harsh, impenetrable. They formed a sort of “internal Siberia” in this mild region. Just a few miles away, in the coastal lowland, you had olives and vineyards. Up in the highland, you could have blizzards, and many feet of snow blocking connections with the world. Image
Read 7 tweets

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