1/ If Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had succeeded in 2022, Ukraine's industries would have been seized and taken over by Russian oligarchs. A leaked document shows that oligarch Konstantin Malofeev intended to create a 'DMZ Concern' from Ukraine's largest plants. ⬇️
2/ Malofeev is a billionaire who is a close supporter of Vladimir Putin and an aggressive promotor of religious conservatism. He's an overt monarchist who reportedly sees Putin as a new Tsar, and has links with far-right parties and individuals in Europe and the US.
3/ The EU, US and Canada have sanctioned Malofeev for trying to destabilise Ukraine and finance separatism. He's closely linked to pro-Russian separatists and was the former employer of Igor Girkin. He's been accused of funding radical nationalist movements across Europe.
4/ The DMZ Concern document, a presentation possibly dated 30 May 2022, was published recently by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel. It sets out a business plan for the "expansion of production assets based on the results of the Special Military Operation".
5/ The first slide shows what appears to be the intended territorial division of a defeated Ukraine, with the whole of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts – up to the Moldovan and Romanian borders – under Russian control.
6/ This would have stripped Ukraine of its entire coastline, all its ports and much of its heavy industry, hydroelectric and mineral resources. It would have become an economically devastated and landlocked rump state, likely under the control of a pro-Russian puppet government.
7/ Slide 2 describes the 'DMZ concern' as a vastly expanded version of the existing Donetsk Metallurgical Plant (DMZ) company, which operates mines and other industrial enterprises in the 'Donetsk People's Republic'. It states a goal of achieving:
8/ "consolidation of existing financial, economic, technical and market opportunities of enterprises of key industries in the liberated territories of the DPR, LPR and Kherson, Zaporizhzhia regions, which form the [economic] basis of the south-east region of the former Ukraine."
9/ After listing DMZ's existing holdings on slide 4 (#3 is missing), slide 5 of the plan lists "enterprises located in the liberated territories [that] are possible [candidates] for integration" with DMZ. They include some of Europe's largest mining and mineral processing plants.
10/ These include the Marganets Mining and Processing plant and the Nikopol Ferroalloy plant (both in Dnipropetrovsk oblast), the Zaporizhstal steel plant in Zaporizhzhia oblast and others. Slide 7 discusses a number of additional Ukrainian factories being considered for seizure.
11/ Slides 5.1 and 5.2 indicate that this was not just a theoretical exercise – the plan was already well advanced. Legal work had been done and management agreements had been signed as part of a three-stage plan to be carried out through 2022–2027.
12/ Interestingly, slide 5.3 lists among various business and growth goals for the 2023–2027 period an objective of achieving "Entry into the markets of friendly and sub-allied countries of Eurasian Economic Union, Middle East (Iran, Syria), South-East Asia, Turkey and Africa."
13/ The plan sets out a goal of aligning the DMZ Concern with a "strategic partner" (presumably Russian) and inclusion of its enterprises in "the state programmes of the Russian Federation." It also raises the possible takeover of Odesa port to serve DMZ.
14/ The end result, anticipated on slide 8, is the "reactivation of cooperation and activities of enterprises in the key sectors of the liberated territories of the DPR, LPR and south-eastern Ukraine…
15/ …in the form of a cumulative increase in annual financial indicators from RUR 70 billion [$990 million] (data for 2021) to RUR 220 billion [$3.1 billion] by 2024." This would achieve the "creation of a major enterprise in the interests of the Russian Federation."
16/ The slide indirectly acknowledges the impact of the DNR's large-scale mobilisation of fighting-age men, most of whom are now likely dead, by describing a goal of the "preservation of 8,616 jobs (excluding those mobilized)". It anticipates having over 16,000 workers by 2024.
17/ The plan doesn't specify where the extra workers would come from, but it's likely that – as has happened in Crimea – large numbers of people would be relocated from Russia to repopulate Ukraine's south-east, replacing the Ukrainians who have fled or been deported from there.
18/ Needless to say, the Ukrainian owners of the seized enterprises would not have received a kopek in compensation. With their collective value of billions of dollars, Malofeev was planning arguably the biggest heist in history – though it's now hopefully been thwarted. /end
1/ Recently-announced Russian plans for a giant 500-ton unmanned surface vessel (USV) are being greeted with scepticism, confusion and ridicule by Russian warbloggers. They say that the Navy is wasting money on grandiose schemes while failing to fix its current problems. ⬇️
2/ The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Aleksandr Moiseyev, announced the plans on Sunday to mark the occasion of the Russian Navy's 330th anniversary. The vessel will be more than three times the size of the existing Grachonok-class patrol boat.
3/ In an interview, he said that the vessel was already under construction and would be used to search for submarines and other objects.
'Rybar' expresses polite scepticism about the concept:
"We need naval drones, but we shouldn't repeat past mistakes.
1/ As Russian progress in Ukraine slows to a crawl, frustration is mounting among warbloggers about why Russia isn't yet 'fighting for real'. One proposes a list of what should be done, from seizing the eastern half of Ukraine to emulating 2022's infamous Hostomel air assault. ⬇️
2/ Russian warblogger Yuri Kotenok advocates:
"1. Stop playing second fiddle in the war by seizing the initiative. For example, by imposing a pre-emptive blockade on the enemy’s ports and transport links, rather than responding to attacks on ships in the Black Sea and Azov Sea.
3/ "2. Do not agree to a compromise; do not be taken in by the temporary and ostentatious ‘peacefulness’ of the Trump/Macron camp and suchlike, or by the, to put it mildly,…
1/ Russia has doubled the rate of personal income tax to cover the budget deficits caused by the war in Ukraine. However, as a gloomy Russian commentary notes, it's likely to have dire effects on the economy and the country's already declining demographics. ⬇️
2/ 'Political Report' writes:
"In 2025, Russian authorities doubled personal income tax collection at rates exceeding 13%, turning citizens' incomes and savings into one of the fastest-growing sources of budget deficit financing."
3/ "The federal treasury received 763 billion rubles [$9.72 bn], up from 339 billion rubles [$4.32 bn] the previous year.
1/ Gas prices were lowered, restrictions were lifted, and queues vanished temporarily for a visit to Irkutsk by Vladimir Putin. Russians are calling it a modern-day Potemkin village, but it appears to show how hard Putin's underlings try to hide Russia's problems from him. ⬇️
2/ The original Potemkin villages were said to be fakeside river towns built by Grigory Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine the Great in 1787 (though it appears to be a myth). However, it was an attempt to fake success, rather than hiding failure from a leader inhabiting a bubble.
3/ The Russian Telegram channel 'Honesty, and that's final' reports on unusual events that happened during Putin's recent visit to the western Siberian city of Irkutsk:
1/ Russia isn't winning in Ukraine and it's all the fault of Russian society, says an angry Russian warblogger. Seeking an explanation for why (in the eyes of warbloggers) Russia has not yet started "fighting for real", he blames ordinary Russians for apathy and cowardice. ⬇️
2/ Russian society has been massively atomised under the rule of Vladimir Putin, with the near-destruction of most civil society organisations (apart from a limited number approved of or tolerated by the state). Passive subservience is welcomed; collective action is discouraged.
3/ This nuance seems to have passed by the author of the 'It's Time To Go Home ZOV' Telegram channel, who thinks that his fellow citizens, rather than the oppressive regime they live under, are to blame for the current situation:
1/ Wildberries sellers are generally blaming the Russian government, rather than Ukraine, for their losses. It's an interesting and striking dynamic, which Russian warbloggers say the Russian government itself has created through its suppression of bad news. ⬇️
2/ Over the last couple of weeks, Russian social media has been flooded with videos of distraught Wildberries sellers weeping over their huge losses as a result of Ukrainian drone strikes against warehouses across Russia.
3/ Tens to hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses have lost much if not all of their stock, with total financial losses just from inventory alone already reckoned to be in the billions of dollars. Ukraine, however, has received surprisingly little blame.