Thread by @kamilkazani

A military recruitment station in the very centre of St Petersburg, on the Palace Square. Inflatable Strelkov is inviting passerbys to sign an army contract. What is important here is that it is happening in the second largest city. Which means Russia is running off of manpower🧵

The Palace Square is located between the Winter Palace and the General Staff HQ (yellow). That's the very heart of St Petersburg, the second largest and most important city in the country. Moscow and St Petersburg are viewed as two capitals and have special place within Russia

Since the start of the war, the Russian authorities tried to expend provincials, most importantly South Siberians (Buryatia, Tuva) and Dagestanis, but saving the people from Moscow and St Petersburg. That explains a heavy imbalance in the casualties in Ukraine by region

Here you can see the casualty figures in Ukraine by region (collected by Mediazona) per capita. Some accuse the West of being ready to fight "till the last Ukrainian". As you see, Russian metropoly is willing to fight till the last provincial

I expected that Putin might declare general mobilisation on May 9. I also expected that if he would, that would be a really dumb decision. It would lead to tons of armed unwilling recruited stuck in the major logistical hubs, especially in Moscow. That's a revolutionary scenario

For this or for another reason, Putin didn't declare a mobilisation. Instead he's doing what many called a limited "silent mobilisation" trying to lure or press into army as many people as possible to send them to Ukraine immediately instead of keeping them in barracks at home

Until this year, Russian citizens could sign a contract for the military service till 40 and foreigners till 30 y.o. On May 20 MPs introduced a bill cancelling the age limit. It means they're running out of the volunteers

It's important to understand that even before the Z-operation the military salaries were viewed as very generous by provincial standards:

"How do you think, why so many soldiers from Buryatiya died? - says the sister of a KIA, - there's no job so they sign the contracts"

Consider cases from Buryatia, a Mongol Buddhist republic. Mikhail was installing signal systems for 15-20 000 rubles a month. Then he signed a contract. Amgalan worked as a teacher for 7 000. After he got a child he enlisted and started earning 40-50 000

newtimes.ru/articles/detai…

Even before the war, the army paid a lot by provincial standards. Amgalan for example increased his salary by 6-7 times after he stopped being a teacher and became a soldier. Once the war started, the salaries skyrocketed. Now they're luring ppl with 200-300 thousand salaries

Since February, compensations for new recruits skyrocketed, often by 5-10 times. They're desperate to lure ppl to Ukraine by any means possible. Still, there's not much enthusiasm. Reportedly, in Dagestan there are cases of press-ganging on the streets

When I say "reportedly" I mean that some people from Dagestan are confirming it and some are denying. Which means it's most probably happening but not on the mass scale. What is interesting here, is that Dagestan has been a major recruiting base for Putin's army for years

The Instagram post I quoted is surprised not so much by the press-ganging happening but that it is happening in Dagestan where people used to pay a bribe to get drafted. In a republic with no economic perspectives there were too many volunteers. But now there are too few of them

That's the somewhat counterintuitive dynamics of the escalation. The war going the hard mode may increase the jingoist feelings among the Russian masses. But the high casualties numbers change the pro vs cons balance for the new recruits. There are now way less volunteers

Russia is becoming more diverse than ever. But it seems that the draftable qualities of demographic groups vary greatly. Graham Greene argued that a torture can't happen without some sort of implicit agreement from the one who's being tortured. The same might be true for a draft

Caucasians or Native Siberians proved very much draft able and sustained the enormous casualties in Ukraine as a result. I have a general impression (though I can't prove it or provide with evidence) that the most un-draftable demographic group in Russia are Central Asians

Russian statistics are tricky and it's not easy to determine how many Central Asian "Gastarbeiters" live in the country. The first problem with determining their numbers would be - what do we mean by "live"? How much time do you need to spend in Russia to qualify as "living" here

It's hard to draw their accurate figures from the official data, because this data relies on the number of people officially registered in a property. With the registration procedure being difficult, much like Chinese hukou, produced figures are unreliable. Much like in China

What is important here, is that we have lots of indications of Russian authorities trying to draft or to lure the Gastarbeiters into Ukraine. Mostly to the Russian regular army, but the DPR and LPR armies reportedly tried to launch a recruitment as well. They failed

Again, I don't have any reliable statistics on how the recruitment of Gastarbeiters campaign is going but my general impression it is that it failed. From what I learnt, even those with Russian passports preferred to hide or go back to Central Asia rather than get drafted

I don't see any sort of enthusiasm regarding indeed very high compensations the Russian army is offering right now among this poorest social strata of the Russian big cities. Why? I think it's a general mistrust to the Russian gov and all of its institutions

For decades Central Asians were viewed as a prey by police and any sort of officialdom. They were extortionable and torturable. Police would regularly "check documents" (collect tribute) from the immigrants. They would check documents of everyone brownish & poor-looking

Quite often law enforcement officers who would need labour, let's say to build a country house, would just catch Central Asians and make them work for free. Much like a prostitute owed unpaid субботник services to the cops and officials, Gastarbeiter owed them his unpaid labour

Russian law enforcement had to show the good KPIs on the percentage and number of solved crimes. Every unsolved crime (висяк) was a problem. So when they couldn't solve it, they would just catch Central Asians and make them sign confession. Many such cases

As a result, large Russian cities, especially the Moscow agglomeration, now have a large and growing strata which has zero faith into any Russian institutions, offer and promises. They're not only undraftable, they're also almost totally unrecruitable

In order to be lured by a promise of a high salary of 200-300 thousand you should have some faith into the people or the institution which is making those promises. If you assume they're lying and ill-intentioned it would be hard to lure you by any promise. Even if it's true

When I'm talking about the demographic problems of Russia and their impact on the Russian military capacities, I point out not only to the absolute numbers shrinking. I'm also pointing out to the demographic structure changing. End of 🧵

PS. I pointed out to many popular sources on the Russian military and their efforts in Ukraine being below any criticism. To be fair, there are *lots* of good sources. And yet, they're usually in Russian. So if you are really interested, better use a google source

Mediazona is open sourcing & updating the data on Russians KIA by the region, the age, they day they were killed, the branch of the Army. You can see a negative correlation between the wealth of a region and the number of casualties. Last update May 20

zona.media/casualties

Proekt made an investigation into the war in Ukraine. They established (many of) the names of Russian commanders: from the brigade commanders and up. Only 23% has prior military experience. But 1/3 has debts, mostly for the utilities and the child support

war-proekt.media

That's another Russian investigative media I like - Agenstvo. I never read any more succinct, informative and entertaining narrative on the personality and the record of Shoygu, the Russian minister of defence and the impersonation of Subutai-bagatur

proekt.media/portrait/serge…

A lot of useful stuff can be found in the Telegram. For example this channel - "the Military Ombudsman". That's an attorney who's helping the military to sue their commanders and the Ministry of Defence. Since the start of the war he doesn't charge a dime

t.me/military_ombud…

That's a channel of "musicians" (=Wagner mercenaries). Also quite useful, they use it for recruitment and post advertisements there t.me/grey_zone

Димитриев. He is originally from Ukraine, escaped to Russia in 2014. In 2022 he entered with the Russian army expecting a place in the new administration. Something didn't work out. Now he's informed and disillusioned, posts interesting stuff

t.me/russ_orientali…

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