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/ Russian warbloggers continue to reflect on the war in Ukraine entering its fifth year. The 'hurrah-patriotism' of 2022 is now long gone and the mood is bleak. Nikita Tretyakov says there is "nothing left to hope for; all hopes and illusions have been shattered". ⬇️
2/ In comments that illustrate the political dangers which the Putin regime will face when the war ends, Tretyakov – a mobilised paratrooper, military correspondent, and volunteer – writes on his Telegram channel:
3/ "Four years of war is a monstrously long and daunting time. As culture and history have taught us, such an anniversary demands some analysis, conclusions, and a summing up of interim results...
1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin is marking the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine – after eight years of war in Donbas, which he did much to start – but he isn't celebrating. He sees a "bleak" outlook of mutual exhaustion, caused by poor leadership. ⬇️
2/ Girkin writes from the prison where he is now half-way through a sentence for "inciting extremism" (i.e. criticising the Russian government's mismanagement of the war):
3/ "Today officially marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the Special Military Operation (although according to some sources, it began two days earlier, but was announced to begin on 24 February 2022).
We arrived at this significant date with extremely negative results.
1/ Russians who have never served in the Russian army and have never signed a military contract are nonetheless being rounded up as deserters and sent to their deaths in assault squads. It's the result of an ongoing and still unresolved bureaucratic blunder by Russia's MOD. ⬇️
2/ During the war in Donbas, between 2014 and the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022, thousands of Russian nationalists volunteered to fight for the militias of the Luhansk and Donetsk 'People's Republics'. Many were subsequently discharged.
3/ In December 2022, Russia formally incorporated the Luhansk and Donetsk militias into the Russian Army as part of the annexation of both 'People's Republics'. All current and former members of the militias were reclassified as soldiers of the Russian army.
1/ What is the war in Ukraine even for?, asks a Russian warblogger and paramilitary leader. After four years, the shifting goals of the Russian government have left many of its citizens confused about what its aims are in Ukraine, making it unclear what victory actually means. ⬇️
2/ Zakhar Prilepin sums up the complaints of many warbloggers about the vagueness of Russia's objectives:
"Yesterday, I received a lot of congratulations, and the phrase "I wish you victory!" was a common one.
I hope people say it ritualistically, not seriously."
3/ "It's not even that Russia can't win yet. The point is that we don't have such a goal. We're not planning to go to Kyiv, and we're not planning to go to Odesa. This means there will be no demilitarisation or denazification.
1/ The results of Russia's war have been "mediocre", says a Russian warblogger who is fighting in Ukraine. The army is beset by "corruption, scheming, and collusion", and by the mass intimidation and coercion of soldiers by commanders. He sees tough challenges still to come. ⬇️
2/ 'Vault No. 8' writes:
"The war was not easy from the outset.
The enemy still retains counterattack capabilities; over time, the enemy has become capable of targeting the economy of pre-war Russia and conducting mass terror and sabotage, including in Moscow."
3/ "However, it was only in the fourth year of the war that we began to properly employ strategic strike weapons, which began to yield maximum success. Only in the fourth year of the war did we bring the drone component up to a modern level.
1/ Russia is "entangled in too many sins" for it to have succeeded in Ukraine over the past four years, argues Russian warblogger Yuri Podolyaka. He sees the war as a "salvation plan" for Russia that went badly wrong and "laid bare" the country's problems. ⬇️
2/ "Four years ago, a special military operation began...
It obviously didn't go according to plan. Or rather, not according to the plan our military and political leadership had originally.
As a result, the country changed irreversibly.
3/ "No matter how much anyone would like to turn everything back. And this, perhaps, is the most important result of these four years. Difficult years. But, apparently, necessary. Since God decided so.