Daily reminder that Putin's army of invasion was trained on the Rheinmetall-built training centre Mulino. In 2014 they "left" and construction was finished by "Гарнизон" company, probably a proxy. 100% of its imports came from Germany, last Rheinmetall shipments coming in 2019
In 2011 Rheinmetall got a contract for building a training center in Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. They modelled it after the training center of Bundeswehr in Altmark. They planned to build "the most advanced system of its kind worldwide"
Mulino started in 2011 was the high point of Serdyukov's reforms. Two things you must understand about Serdyukov ministry:
1. No other minister of defence made such a big focus on the land army 2. No other minister of defence was so eager to import ready solutions from the West
Russian media was pretty open about it back then. See an article from 2011 kp.ru/daily/25636.4/… Now their straightforwardness may sound weird. Back then it was normal. Russia really started to hide its degree of cooperation with Western (German mostly) partners only after 2014
They say that Rheinmetall "rebuilt" it. Not quite true. Gorohovetsky centre in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is the largest in Russia. But it got obsolete. So new German-built Mulino was created very close to it, but on a new field. It was easier to build from scratch than modernize
In September 2021 Vladimir Putin visited Mulino to see the main phase of the Russian-Belarusian strategic manoeuvres "West-2021". Few months later the same troops were sent in Ukraine. Check Kremlin's website kremlin.ru/events/preside…
Mulino was finished in 2020 (FYI: the last Rheinmetall shipments are dated by 2019). My sources say though that Mulino doesn't meet the planned standards. Russian proxies were stealing too much. Otherwise Russians might have the NATO-level training centre
(Putin in Mulino, 2021)
You see Putin coming to the West-2021 manoeuvres with Minister of Defence Shoygu and the Chief of General Staff Gerasimov
The sign says: "Putin came to the main phase of manoeuvres in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast"
Indeed. The only modern Western built centre Mulino is located here
That's Klaus Eberhardt who signed the deal to build Mulino in 2011 as the CEO of @RheinmetallAG
I urge the media to question this person regarding his role in building the Putin's war machine. He started construction of the centre to train the future Russian army of invasion
I urge the media to question this person regarding Rheinmetall's ties with the Russian "Гарнизон" company that finished Mulino after Rheinmetall "left" in 2014. Did he supply them with equipment to finish Mulino *after* 2014?
We urgently need the investigation of @RheinmetallAG involvement in building Mulino, the only modern Western-standard training centre that Russia has. That's where Putin's army of invasion was trained. That's where he launched his last strategic manoeuvres before marching West
@RheinmetallAG CEO Klaus Eberhardt started building the Truppenübungsplatz Altmark-modeled training centre for Putin in 2011. And there are strong indications that the CEO Armin Papperger continued the project *after* 2014 through via a Russian proxy "Гарнизон". See data for 2019
Until a few days ago a press release about the @RheinmetallAG winning "a major order in Russia" (=Mulino) was still on their website rheinmetall-defence.com/en/rheinmetall…. It was there on July 5 when I wrote a thread on their role in building the Putin's war machine
Since then they deleted it
Well, I knew that the @RheinmetallAG are gonna to delete the article on their involvement in building Putin's best training centre where the Russian army was preparing for their march west
That's why I screenshoted it
Once again, I urge the media to investigate the @RheinmetallAG role in preparing the Putin's army for the war. That includes their connections with the Гарнизон company which was finishing the construction after the Rheinmetall "left" Mulino in 2014. Question CEO Armin Papperger
I also urge the media to investigate:
1. Other (German) suppliers of "Гарнизон" which was building Putin's training Mulino 2. German politicians who allowed this to happen. Did they do it knowingly? That must be investigated
Putin's war machine is fully import dependent. It was supplied from all over the world. In very rare cases it had such exotic equipment suppliers as Turkey, Brazil or China. Most equipment however is Western/Japan/Tigers. It's *not* Chinese. And most importantly, German
No other nation bears so massive and so direct responsibility for preparing Putin's army for this war as Germany. In this regard I find German stance quite cynical. It were your companies that armed Putin and your politicians that allowed it to happen. Investigate them. The end🧵
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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