Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Sergei Shoigu's chestful of medals has been highlighted by @rshereme, who points out that the Russian Defence Minister has never served in the military despite his uniform and decorations. But the full story is both ridiculous and revealing. ⬇️

https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1662457837346250753

2/ Shoigu, as Roman notes, is a civilian – he was originally Boris Yeltsin's Minister of Emergency Situations (equivalent in US terms to the head of FEMA), appointed way back in April 1991. He served in that role until Putin made him Defence Minister in May 2012.

3/ A native Tuvan (his ethnicity is an important consideration), Shoigu is the longest-serving Russian defence minister since Count Dmitry Milyutin (1861-1881). His corruption and incompetence have been criticised for having catastrophic effects on the Russian armed forces.

4/ Nonetheless, Putin likely sees Shoigu as an ideal defence minister: as a non-ethnic Russian he's effectively disqualified from the top job, he depends entirely on Putin for patronage and protection (his 'krysha'), and he is slavishly loyal to Putin.

5/ So what are all those medals doing on his chest? In short, many of them aren't military medals at all. Shoigu has spent his time inventing or re-establishing literally hundreds of decorations, some of them for nothing more than having attended a parade.

6/ Let's break down the medals that Shoigu likes to wear to the annual military parade to commemorate the end of the Great Patriotic War.

7/ Left to right:

- Shield of the "Honoured Rescue Worker of the Russian Federation"

- Badge of a graduate of the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President

- Badge commemorating "200 years of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation"

8/ - Order for Merit to the Fatherland, 2nd Class

- Gold Star Medal for the honorary title of Hero of the Russian Federation

9/ Top row, left to right:

- Order of Alexander Nevsky
- Order of Honour
- Order "For Personal Courage"
- Medal "Defender of Free Russia"
- Medal "In memory of the 850th anniversary of Moscow"

10/ Bottom row, from left to right:

- Medal "For services in conducting the All-Russian Population Census"
- Medal "In memory of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg"
- Medal "In memory of the 1000th anniversary of Kazan"

11/ - Medal "200 years of the Ministry of Defence"
- Medal "For the return of Crimea"
- Medal "Participant of the military operation in Syria"
- Order of St. Andrew the First-Called
- Star of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd Class

12/ In addition, not displayed here, Shoigu has at least 23 other Russian and foreign medals. They include:

- Three Medals "For Strengthening Military Cooperation"
- Medal "For Diligence in Engineering Tasks"
- Medal of Great Awareness in Geo-political Affairs [ironic!]

13/ - Medal "200 Years of the Ministry of Internal Affairs"
- Medal "For Merit of the Stavropol Territory"
- Order of Rightitude (for services to being correct on the territory of the Russian Federation)
- Order of Merit of the Altai Territory

14/ - Honorary Citizen of the Kemerov Oblast
- Honorary Citizen of the Tula Oblast

He has also been issued medals by Abkhazia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malta, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Serbia, South Ossetia, Syria and Vietnam.

15/ The Ministry of Defence awards 113 different medals, of which at least 66 were established by Shoigu and another 15 re-established by him. It also has hundreds more ribbons and insignia, in total more than 400, of which over two-thirds were created by Shoigu.

16/ Shoigu's profligacy with awards was also evident when he ran the Ministry of Emergency Situations, during which he created more than 40 medals and insignia.

17/ The Russian MOD's medals and decorations include awards for remarkably trivial achievements, such as attending parades. Remarkably, there's even a special award for "Participants and guests of the parade".

18/ Participants in Russia's Tank Biathlon also get medals, as do those awarded "For excellent graduation from a military educational institution of higher professional education of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation". 'Field bankers' get their own special medal.

19/ Some more recently established medals include these (shown here left to right):

- "For the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic"
- "For contributing to congress and exhibition activities"
- "100 years of military trade"
- "For participation in the Main Naval Parade"

20/ - "For participation in the military parade in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."

21/ There are many "For Service" medals, such as:

"5 years in military service"
"For service in the Strategic Missile Forces"
"For service in the Railway Troops"
"For service in the Aerospace Forces"
"For Service in the Surface Forces"
"For Service in the Submarine Forces"

22/ Add to that the "For Merit" medals, such as:

"For Naval Merit in the Arctic"
"For Merit in Perpetuating the Memory of the Fallen Defenders of the Fatherland"
"For Merit in Ensuring Law and Order"
"For Merit in Ensuring Flight Safety"

23/ The GRU (Russian military intelligence / special forces) gets its own unique medal, "For Merit in Special Activities", while nuclear forces get a medal tastefully decorated with a picture of a nuclear explosion.

24/ Shoigu's medal "For the return of Crimea" has an interesting story. Its existence was denied until 2018, when Shoigu first wore in it public. The medal dates the start of the operation to seize Crimea as "20.02.14" – while Viktor Yanukovych was still the president of Ukraine.

25/ Russian investigative journalists discovered that the contract for the medals was advertised as early as December 2013, only a month after the Euromaidan protests began in Kyiv, and were concluded on 13 January 2014, with Mosshtamp Plant LLC awarded the contract.

26/ This suggests that Russia was planning to seize Crimea well before Yanukovych was deposed on 22 February, and probably intended to seize it whatever the outcome of the protests and the 'referendum'. Russian propaganda had claimed Crimean was Russian since as early as 2001.

27/ The Russian MOD issues medals and awards in huge quantities. At least 212,750 medals and 32,000 other insignia were awarded in the first half of 2015. By 2018, at least 573,000 medals and 45,000 other awards were given out.

28/ When Russia held its massive Vostok-2018 exercise involving troops from Russia, China and Mongolia in September 2018, 339,566 medals were awarded to the participants at a cost of almost 77 million rubles ($975,000) – as much as a T-72 tank. The Chinese didn't reciprocate.

29/ Military medals have been given to some surprising recipents. The actor Vasily Lanovoy and nationalist singer Oleg Gazmanov were both awarded the medal "In Memory of the Heroes of the Fatherland". The latter also received the medal "For strengthening the military community."

30/ Oleg Gazmanov, entertainer Vladimir Vinokur and pop singer Zara all received a medal for being a "Participant of the military operation in Syria", presumably relating to their cultural work in support of Russian forces in Syria.

31/ Improbably, the conductor Valery Gergiev, cellist Sergei Roldugin and violinist Andrei Tian were also awarded medals for the liberation of Palmyra. Medals have also gone to children from the Nakhimov Naval Schools and Young Army Cadets National Movement.

32/ The story of Shoigu's medal-mania is in many ways symbolic of what has happened to the Russian military as a whole: an emphasis on costly display and symbolism at the expense of actual military efficiency and integrity. /end

Sources:
🔹pikabu.ru/story/razbor_o…
🔹 svoboda.org/a/medali-shoyg…
🔹 newizv.ru/news/2020-12-0…