"There's now a shortage of places on Nizhny Tagil graveyards"
Nizhny Tagil is located in the Urals. It's one of the most heavily industrialised Russian cities. Metallurgy, chemicals, machinery. Uralvagonzavod which is usually considered to be the largest Russian military producer is located in this city
Despite its massive industrial production, Nizhny Tagil is one of the most quickly shrinking cities in the region. People die or leave. All the revenues from the industry are sucked by the insatiable Moscow, while the locals get only the poisoned air and water
As pretty much the entire eastern part of the country, the Yekaterinburg Oblast where Tagil is located became a massive supplier of the cannon fodder the Putin's Special Operation in Ukraine. See the number of confirmed deaths by region by Mediazona zona.media/casualties
Geographic asymmetry of Russian casualties in Ukraine is impressive. Consider the following example. So far Moscow has less confirmed deaths (11) than Kamchatka (14). Population of Moscow - 11.9 million, Kamchatka - 312 thousand. Moscow has 38 times more ppl but less casualties
This is Kamchatka. It is located half the world away from Ukraine, just across the Bering Sea from Alaska. And this sparsely populated region that has 38 times less people than Moscow, lost more people in Ukraine than the capital
How is that possible?
Russia is not a "nation". It's the last colonial empire. Its metropole is localised in the Furstenstadt of Moscow. It is the northernmost megapolis of the world, located furthest from the waterways and on the infertile soil. It is too expensive to feed
In such a centralised empire as Russia, opinion of Muscovites is of critical importance to Kremlin. They invest every effort and resource so that Moscow wouldn't feel any discomfort at all. The rest of empire will be sucked dry for the benefit of Moscow
Even the most productive regions are sucked dry to feed Moscow. So Moscow can use them again as the cannon fodder suppliers. Go through all the adverts with "short term army contracts" and you'll notice they focus on material benefits. 200 000 a month, zero ideology. Money talks
Still that doesn't explain all the casualty asymmetry. Yes, it's very much easier to lure the destitute provincials than Muscovites with the few thousand bucks. Still, even in the peace time Moscow had *tons* of military and paramilitary quartered there. Why no casualties then?
Most probably, because Siloviki from Moscow are spared from the war. If Moscow suffer almost zero casualties, it means they're probably in the most privilege position in Russia. They're not sent to the frontline
Even their St Petersburg colleagues are less lucky
Meanwhile, provincial Siloviki suffer massive casualties, including the senior officers. On March 20 in one day the buried the entire leadership of the Vladimir SOBR - the National Guard SWAT branch. All four Vladimir lieutenant colonels were KIA in Ukraine
Photo of the funerals
Russia is not a nation. It is the empire with a metropoly - the Fürstenstadt of Moscow. Moscow is too expensive to feed, so its massive colonial empire is being sucked dry. Which gives an additional perk: since they're so destitute, you can buy cannon fodder from there cheaply
There's nothing unusual about it. It's a typical behaviour of a colonial empire, British did the same
“We don’t want to fight,
But by Jingo, if we do,
We won’t go to the front ourselves,
But we’ll send the mild Hindoo”
As formulated in the popular parody to the Jingo Song
What is peculiar about Russia is not that its practices are unprecedentedly evil or hideous. They very much remind of what Western powers did with their colonies. It is that Russia is the last European colonial empire that still exists. 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