1. MOD was able to form 280 new unites with mobilized men. 2. Russian army is experiencing problems with "unpreparedness of part of society to perform military duties" and blames it on "the information pressure of the online blogging community"
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3. RU Armed Forces have problems with provision of weapons and equipment, and state corporations and private companies help with the supply of equipment. 4. MOD began involving employees of security companies in the war efforts (as in private security companies)
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5. Military registration and enlistment offices compiled a database of 31.6 million people, 2.9 million of them are people of military age. The authorities also collect up-to-date mobile phone numbers and email addresses of those eligible for military service.
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6. Government's reserve fund allocated 5 billion rubles to "stimulate" military enlistment office employees working on mobilization and conscription.
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7. In 2023, the General Staff plans to create a new combined arms and RAF, one army corps, five divisions, 26 brigades, and also form new Azov naval military district.
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8. In 2023, the military registration and enlistment offices will conduct organized raids on conscripts together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Link: archive.is/bvxQK
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Can Prigozhin have a political future in Russia? Can he unite the ultrapatriots and challenge Putin?
The short answer is: not likely at all.
Why?
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Prigozhin has been highly critical of Russian MOD and arguably Putin himself. He is not the only one - another highly critical Russian combatant - Igor Strelkov/Girkin is no less critical.
Same as a group of various pro-war reporters and bloggers.
What kind of public
2/11
support do they have though?
None of them end up named as public politicians in open questioners. So, it is a big question who thinks of them as politicians. Generally speaking <1%.
Before the war - the ultrapatriotic rhetoric was represented by Rodina Party that barely
3/11
Highly speculative post about rumors on 🇷🇺🇺🇦peace negotiations configuration.
Yesterday one of Russia's chief propagandists Margarita Simoniyan proposed to "allow" Russia's frozen $300bln to be given to Ukraine as payment for territories that want to be with Russia or
Thread 1/8
as part of Russia's reparations for damages done during the war depending on where you sit.
There is a speculation that she's not just making this up - as the stuff she usually makes up is uber-patriotic and not about bargaining. What she refers to is allegedly discussed
2/8
configuration where Russian forces leave the territory of Kherson and Zaporozhe while keeping "DNR and LNR" as part of Russia. The argument is that they are destroyed anyway and most of residents of those territories are not loyal to Ukrainian state. So Russia gets to
3/8
How did Russian sinologists, foreign policy and military experts view the results of Xi's visit to Moscow?
I've looked into couple of dozen of expert articles and here are some main ideas.
In short: they've seen a lot.
Thread 1/8
For international observes it was mostly one-way with Russia accepting China's leadership/domination(@samagreene). Becoming vassal of China(@AlexGabuev) or simply Putin not getting what he wanted(@zakavkaza). Some like @IlyaMatveev_ argued it was Xi who is now dependent on
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Putin since he endorsed his 2024 presidential bid.
But when it comes to Russia, all of the commentators have praised the symbolic support of Xi coming to Moscow during the war in his first "post reelection" visit. For instance Vasily Kashin argues this is a direct support of
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Why did Kremlin decide to invade Ukraine? Nearly a year since Russia's invasion this question continues to puzzle journalists and researchers alike. Especially given how this war is going.
Is Putin mad is not a rhetorical question.
Few thoughts and observations.
THREAD 1/18
First of all whoever says he or she knows what Putin thought, felt or what kind of drug he was taking the morning he decided to invade Ukraine is likely lying or is crazy. But we do know that only tiny group within Russian elites knew of this decision before it was announced
2/18
Even within the Russian military, this decision was kept away from vast majority of those who would be leading Russian soldiers into war.
So, making the decision to invade Putin was consulting people who think like him (Security Council)
We now know that he was "deceived"
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Few observations about how the war in Ukraine is changing Moscow's relationship with Russian regions. 1. The so-called administrative decentralization started during Covid. Moscow gave regions more responsibilities - we see continuation of that since the first months
1/5
of war. However, regions don't get more power or money. 2. Moscow is especially careful not to allow horizontal collaboration between heads of regions to the point that even little politicizing is treated as "treason". The bottom line, heads of state care even less
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about their regions and its people - because only Kremlin gives and takes their gubernatorial seats. So, in fact, Russia is becoming even more centralized. 3. Since first occupation of Ukraine in 2014, Moscow has used the "sponsored regions" idea to get more of Russia's
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How does Russian foreign policy expert discourse change since February of 2022?
For one, there are less people trying to give a wholesome picture. The ones that have doubts remain in their niche "professional areas" of interest - or write in riddles.
The ones that do, tend to
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use a certain set of trope no matter the circumstances.
Here are a few of them: 1. Entire world order is in chaos, we're witnessing "geopolitical earthquake". So it's not only about Russia-Ukraine; its all of the world. 2. Increase use of "value argument". Russia cuts ties
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with the West because it has "too far" departed from common "Christian/traditional values". It used to be less relevant for FP people before. 3. Revisit past 30 years of development to assure that being part of "various OSCE" and other international organizations was always
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