Thread by @kamilkazani

@RheinmetallAG responded to my last thread about their participation in construction of Mulino training ground where Putin trained and is still training his army for the war in Ukraine. And yet, I feel that their answer is misleading (to say the least). So I'll add some context🧵

To start with, @RheinmetallAG claims that they simply provided the "simulation technology" for the Mulino project. The audience may think you were just one of many subcontractors. But that's not what your own press release from 2011 says. It's about winning an order to *build* it

This, according to your own words, "state of the art training centre" was modelled after the Bundewehr facility in Altmark and represented "the German defence industry's first significant foothold in the Russian market". You hoped for more follow up orders from Russia

This remark may be hard for a layman to interpret. Why exactly did you hope for more follow up orders? Because of the "plans to modernise the equipment of the Russian armed forces".

What did you mean by that?

"Plans to modernise the equipment" = Serdyukov's reforms

Since Sergeyev's era, the land army was in low priority within the Russian armed forces. Sergeyev himself used to be the commander of Strategic Rocket Forces. In 1997 when he became a minister resources of the Russian army were very limited. So he invested it all into the rockets

Spend-it-all-on-rockets strategy brought its fruits. In 2000, Russia got the first fully Russian intercontinental ballistic missile - Topol-M. All the previous analogues were either built in Ukraine or had lots of Ukrainian components. Sergeyev managed to import substitute them

That gives context for the "import substitution" discourse. Russia indeed managed to do its import substitution. Over the three decades they mostly substituted Ukrainian components, that Russian missiles and aircraft industries used to be totally dependent upon. Great success

It was only the minister Serdyukov appointed in 2007 who for the first time prioritised the Russian land army. No wonder, in 2007 Serdyukov had *way* more cash than Sergeyev could dream of in 1997. Putin pumped hella lots of the oil revenue into the military

In 1997 Sergeyev had to save *something* with minimal budgets. So he chose to save strategic rockets and allowed the rest to rot

In 2007 Serdyukov had to improve the military with new massive budgets. So he focused on the inadequate land army, rather than on already good rockets

Two things were special about the Serdyukov's ministry:

1. No other minister put so much focus on the land army
2. No other minister was so enthusiastic about the direct import of weaponry and ready solutions from the West. Most importantly, from Germany

In June 2011 Serdyukov visited the German Army combat training centre in Letzlingen with the Russian ministry of defence delegation (see the photo). Here they signed contract with the Rheinmetall AG to build a training centre in Mulino, Russia

Source
dw.com/ru/партнеры-по…

Why Rheinmetall though? Well, that's the leading defence company which had already built a Bundeswehr training centre in Altmark. Now they promised to build a superior version in Russia, clearly hoping to signs more contracts with this import-friendly minister

Simulation technology would be one of the key features of this centre. For example, instead of the real ammo they would use lasers. Much cheaper (= you can train more often), safer, easier to track and analyse. Therefore, easier to see and amend one's mistakes after the training

Just a minor detail. In the German center Mulino was modelled after, they used special simulation gas masks. Soldiers would often loosen their masks during the training, making it easier to breathe. But simulation masks had pressure sensors that would detect it. No BS approach

To be fair, Serdyukov aimed to import useful equipment from other countries as well. He placed orders for the French Mistral-class amphibious assault ships, Italian Iveco Light Multirole Vehicle. He even planned to buy Italian wheeled tanks (at the anger of Russian producers)

The clueless or the liars argue that it was the "corruption scandal" that led to the Serdyukov's downfall. Absolutely deranged idea. In most cases "corruption"a pretext, a rhetorical smoke curtain to hide the real reason. In this case, the anger of military industrial lobby

Since 2000 Putin consolidated the military industry into a number of mega-holdings. Roskosmos is doing ballistic missiles, Almaz Antey - air defence, KTRV - cruise missiles, Rosatom - nuclear warheads. But the largest, the most powerful and most eclectic one is Rostec

If other Russian defence mega holdings have some clear specialisation or focus, Rostec does not. It's eclectic, it's about everything. To put it simply, its CEO Chemezov swallowed (often through hostile takeovers, etc) everything he could. That's why Rostec is about everything

Back then Rostec hadn't swallowed all the land army production (as it has by now). But it was already a gigantic producer in this field. That's why Serdyukov's switching-to-import strategy was so risky for Serdyukov's career. He was making too many enemies

In 2007 created a JSC Oboronservis. This state-owned company had to receive the military from the non-military functions. Construction, repairment, energy - all of this functions were taken from the military and given to this daughter company of the ministry of defence

Serdyukov's mistress and Chief of Staff Vasilyeva was at the Oboronservis board of directors. Some argued this affair was his major mistake. He divorced his wife, a daughter of Putin's close friend and ex-prime minister Zubkov for Vasilyeva. Thad didn't win him more friends

In 2012 Vasilyeva's apartment where she lived with Serdyukov was searched, as well as homes of Serdyukov and his aides from the Ministry of Defence. They were all accused of corruption (Oboronservis case). Many of these accusations were probably true. Still, it was a pretext

To execute the Mulino project, Rheinmetall "entered into a strategic partnership with JSC Oboronservis". Oboronservis would serve as the general contractor and later operate the facility on behalf of the Russian army

Why? Because Oboronservis was Serdyukov's wallet

Serdyukov created the JSC Oboronservis and made it his wallet. Construction, repairment, maintenance: this company was getting all the juicy contracts the Ministry of Defense had. That's why the Rheinmetall AG concluded the "strategic partnership" for building Mulino with them

In Serdyukov's era JSC Oboronservis accumulated lots of nice contracts. But Serdyukov's downfall and the Oboronservis case gave this name a bad reputation. So in 2014 they rebranded to the Гарнизон (Garnison) company. And continued to build Mulino in the same capacity. The end

PS After 2014 Rheinmetall "left" Mulino to the "Garnison" (=Oboronservis). Thankfully, import genius allows to trace where Гарнизон was importing stuff from. It's all from Germany, Rheinmetall AG making the lion share

It looks as Garnison was merely a proxy for Rheinmetall