Thread by @MarkGaleotti

Putin has just issued two presidential decrees on martial law, following an emergency meeting of the Security Council. A quick thread with some first thoughts about how this is in effect a declaration of variegated martial law across the whole of Russia 1/

In his prepared comments to the Security Council, Putin framed this as a response to Ukrainian “terrorism” as “The Kyiv regime…, refused to recognise the will and choice of the people” in occupied territories 2/
kremlin.ru/events/preside…

The Decree on the Introduction of Martial Law in the territories of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions is pretty short and straightforward: martial law and all that implies 3/
kremlin.ru/events/preside…

The Decree On Measures taken in the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of October 19, 2022 No. 756 (what a snappy title) is in some ways more interesting 4/
kremlin.ru/events/preside…

In Crimea, Krasnodar, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov, a kind of martial law lite, allowing for curfews, movement controls, temporary resettlement _ the right to impose militarised regimes over certain industries. Massive opportunities for abuse needless to say 5/

Furthermore, heightened security provisions are introduced all across the Central and Southern Federal Districts, and slightly less serious ones everywhere else. In other words, some level of emergency regulation now applies across the whole of Russia 6/

Of course, quite what this means remains to be seen. It is framed as empowering local officials, and it will be interesting to see who uses them as Moscow wants, who essentially tries to ignore them, and who just uses it to embezzle all the more assiduously. 7/

Moscow mayor Sobyanin, whose earlier announcement that mobilisation in the city was over was seen as a snub to the Kremlin, has already announced that at present he plans not to invoke any of the decree’s provisions 8/
kommersant.ru/doc/5621201

This is esp interesting as Putin had asked Sobyanin, who heads the State Council commission on state and municipal management, to work with the Presidential Administration to oversee the decrees’ implementation. 9/

This is all a big deal. I am minded of the spread of creeping martial law by extraordinary measures under late tsarism, such that by 1917 most of the country was ‘extraordinary.’ Not a great precedent. 10/END