Many admired bravery of Kadyrov who personally went to Ukraine and posted a lot of cool photos from the frontline. Consider this: Kadyrov is praying having put his gun lays nearby. It's a shame we see a Pulsar gas station nearby. So it's not Ukraine. It's Russia🧵
Pulsar gas stations belong to the Russian oil company Rosneft (Роснефть) which is led by Igor Sechin, Putin's close aide. Russia has lots of these gas stations but there are none in Ukraine. Kadyrov took tough-guy-photos in Russia and claimed he did it in Ukraine
So is Kadyrov lying? Consider Peskov's answers on a press conference. When asked if Kremlin knows about Kadyrov's visit to Ukraine, Peskov responded:
- No, we don't have such data (=he didn't go there)
Peskov also clarified that Kadyrov "didn't directly say he went to Ukraine"
Russian TV host Tina Kandelaki wrote a post praising Kadyrov and he reposted it his channel. I'll quote it because it might give an insight into how Russia works:
"Ramzan confidently entered the social media space and immediately realised it is the modern battlefield"
"Kadyrov's Telegram grew unprecedentedly: at the start of Special operation it had 60 thousand subscribers and now it has 1 250 thousand. The Head of Chechnya became an absolute headliner in covering the current events - many my journalist colleagues have a lot to learn from him"
"Kadyrov's reports are much more interesting, lively, better than those produced by our TV channels. Showing his readers the very frontline, Kadyrov created the best military blog in Telegram. That's amazing. We are a country of content producers, too. We can do it, too"
"Elon Musk and Pavel Durov are responding to Ramzan. We are literally in one step from Biden himself starting to publicly react to Kadyrov's Telegram - that's a unique case in political technologies"
"The key factor are the endless memes [about Kadyrov], modern folklore. Stars - bloggers, tiktokers, macro and micro influencers exist for few days, being lost in terabytes of new content. But folklore puts you beyond the time & circumstances. That's how true success looks like"
Kadyrov shared this post and commented:
"Thank you, Tina. I didn't know I'm so famous 😂🤷🏻"
Tina Kandelaki's post with praising Kadyrov's PR skills was considered important enough to make an article about it in a Chechen official media Chechnya Today
(also notice the headline on the left they want to show you "Ramzan Kadyrov became the most quoted governor in Russia)
Naive Westerners perceive Kadyrov as a premodern person. A true, authentic spirit. In reality he's very postmodern. He's a PRmaxer, attention seeker obsessed with likes and dreaming that one day not only Elon Musk, but also Joe Biden will react to him. That's what defines success
Now why is he doing it? Well, because it works. Kadyrov is pursuing a thorough PRmaxing strategy which is entirely based on assumption that you guys are dumb. That you see no difference between the phenomena and noumena, what is perceived and what truly is
Kadyrov's troops are very tough. How do we know it? Just watch endless videos they are posting "from the frontline". We see strong, heavily armed and equipped bearded men. What do they do on these videos? Mostly interviewing civilians about and forcing them to shout "Ahmat Sila!"
Kadyrov's henchman is interviewing civilians who are fleeing from Mariupol:
- Tell me boys, how did those Bandera criminals torture you? They didn't allow you to leave, yeah? And who did help you out?
- You did
Only after making them yell "Ahmat Sila!" he allows them to leave
Kadyrov's TikTok troops seem to be "real fighters". Meanwhile these lightly equipped, tired and soiled guys don't look that tough. And yet, these Chechen mujahideen smashed Russia in the First Chechen War. A particular case of @nntaleb rule: real warriors don't look like warriors
Why do Kadyrov's soldiers take so much stuff to the "battlefield"? Why are the always so fresh, their uniforms so clean, without even a little bit of dirt? Well, because they don't fight. They are TikTok troops of a TikTok warlord. Watch him reading a poem with threats to Ukraine
And you know what? This TikTok warlord has a very high place in Russian dominance hierarchy. Watch this video with the commander of 8th army:
- Ahmat is really strong!
- That's what our commander says, the best commander!
The body language is telling. You see who's a boss here
Technically Kadyrov and 8th army commander Mordvichev have the same army rank: they're both lieutenant generals. And yet, during their meeting a (somewhat) professional military Mordvichev will be reporting to this TikTok warlord Kadyrov as if he were his superior. Because he is
What does incredibly high status of a TikTok warlord Kadyrov in Russian dominance hierarchy tell us about modern Russia? It reflects a general tendency of Russian ruling class to PRmaxing. If Soviet Union was the Evil Empire, than Russian Federation is Bullshit Empire. End of🧵
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
As I have already pointed out, general audience, analysts, strategists & decision makers included holds unrealistic notions of how the global economy is organised. Now that is because they never see the back end of industrial civilisation
So let me show you some
There is a major delusion of seeing Europe as a sort of retired continent that "lags in tech" or even "doesn't produce anything". To some extent, it is just American hubris.
But there is more in there than just hubris. There is also some honest, sincere ignorance. The thing with most people is that they see only facade of industrial civilisation. They never ever had a chance to look behind the curtains
Tu-160M, the "White Swan" is the largest, the heaviest and the fastest bomber in the world. Originally a Soviet design, the plane you see today has limited continuity with the USSR. It was created in late 2010s, as a combined project of Putin's Russia and Siemens Digital Factory
Original Tu-160 was created as a domesday weapon of the Cold War. Designed in the 1970s, it was officially launched into production in 1984. And yet, with the collapse of the Soviet Union the project was aborted. In 1992, their production ceased.
No Nuclear War, no White Swans.
With the fall of USSR, Russia suffered a catastrophic drop in military expenditures. As the state was buying little weaponry (and paying for it highly erratically), entire production chains were wiped out. That included some ultra expensive projects such as strategic bombers.
I have repeatedly pointed out that the modern Russian military industry has little continuity with the Soviet one. Destroyed in the 1990s, it was effectively created anew in the Putin's era. Still, it may sound too abstract, so I will zoom in on one specific example:
Stankomash
Located in Chelyabink, Stankomash industrial park hosts major producers for the nuclear, shipbuilding, oil & gas and energy industries. It also produces weaponry, including mine trawls and artillery ammunition (based on the open sources)
All under the umbrella of Konar company
Some examples of the Stankomash manufacture. These photos well illustrate the philosophy of Soviet/Russian dual use industry. In the peace time, you focus primarily on civilian products, in the war time you convert it all to the production of weaponry.
No offence, but this is a completely imbecile, ignorant, ridiculous framing. I have no explanation for all this debate except for a complete & determined ignorance of the foreign policy making class, and their refusal to learn literally anything about the material world.
"Components" framing makes sense when we are discussing drones. Why? Because drones are literally made from the imported components. You buy like 90% of them in China, and may be you make like 10% domestically. For the most part, you just assemble what you bought in China.
Not the case with missiles. Most of what the missile consists of, including its most critical, hard to make parts is produced domestically. Why? Because you cannot buy it abroad. More often than not, you cannot buy it in China. You can only make it yourself, domestically.
Contrary to the popular opinion, Andrey Belousov's appointment as a Minister of Defense makes perfect sense. From the Kremlin's perspective, war is primarily about industry & economy. Now Belousov is the central economic & industrial thinker (and planner) in the Russian gov.
Born into a Soviet Brahmin economist family, Belousov is an exceedingly rare case of an academician making a successful career in the Russian gov. Even more noteworthy, he rose to the position of power through his academic work and publications.
This is unique, ultra rare.
Belousov's career track:
1976-1981 Moscow State University ("economic cybernetics"). Basically, economics, but with the heavy use of then new computers.
1981-1986 Central Economic Mathematical Institute
1986-2006 Instutute of Economic Forecasting
2006-2024 Government
If you want to imagine Russia, imagine a depressive, depopulating town. Now on the outskirts of a town, there is an outrageously over-equipped, overfunded strategic enterprise that has literally everything money can buy in the world. It feels like a spaceship from another planet
Strategic industry is extremely generously equipped. Western companies look scoundrels in comparison. That’s why I am so sceptical about the whole “corruption” narrative. Not that it’s wrong. It’s just that it is the perspective of a little, envious bitch.
What needs to be funded, will be funded. It will actually be overfunded and most literally drowned in money. Obviously, overfunding the strategic sector comes at the cost of underfunding almost everything else (like urban infrastructure). That’s why the town looks so grim.