Thread by @sumlenny

THREAD Putin has removed Army's Gerasimov from command over Kursk operation, installed FSB's Portnikov. This is great. Let me explain:
1) Russian system of power always set on the secret police over the Army. The Secret Police was over-financed over-empowered for centuries /1

1.1) In 16th century, Moscovy's tyrant Ivan the Terrible has created Moscovy's first Secret Police: "Oprichnina" (literally: the special ones), letting them arrest, torture, kill, rape any opposition, and seize their property. Ivan's opponents were destroyed. But in 1570... /2

1.2) ...Ivan the Terrible sent the Oprichnikis against free people of Revel (Tallinn), in a war of conquest. The Oprichnikis were beaten. In 1571, the Oprichnikis were called to fight back Tatar Devlet-Girei khan. They have not even come to the battle (see Kadyrovtsy today) /3

2) Still, Moscow continued providing any secret police with privilege. Moscow Tsars feared local opposition more than a foreign threat, so a well-funded secret police was of a higher value, while army wasn't trusted. In 1803, Emperor Nikolai I founded a "secret police regiment"/4

2.1) Which was practically a top-armed army-style unit of the "His Emperor Majesties Own Chancellory's 3rd dept.", or a Russian Gestapo. Of course, this regiment, lavishly funded, has never recorded any significant victory besides oppressing uprisings. It existed until 1861 /5

3) Under Stalin, "The NKVD troops" were created (what was an oxymoron, as NKVD stays for "People's commissariat for internal affairs"), best armed, with personal loyalty to Stalin. Their best operations? Scorching Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian towns after WWII. /6

4) This played bad for the NKVD. After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev organised a coup against NKVD-top Beria, and the Army, humiliated often enough by the NKVD, gladly took over Moscow and executed Beria. Watch "Death of Stalin" comedy (which is not a comedy) for this /7

5) In early 2000s, it was FSB (Russia's modern secret police) which provided Putin with final pacification of Chechnya, what looks like an FSB's victory. But before the FSB was able to kidnap, torture, rape, execute Chechens, it was the Army which burnt Chechnya down. /8

6) So now the FSB takes the task of repelling a foreign invasion, because the Army is not good enough for this (which is true). But what can the FSB do? They can only pacificate (with a lot of terror) already occupied territories. Good luck with that with your black SS uniforms.

You may support daily activities of the @EuroResilience and the Ukrainian cause by your regular donation: paypal.com/donate/?hosted…

And: The FSB will probably get Ukrainian uniforms and demonstratively execute local Russians, to create "evidence of Ukraine's brutality". This is what NKVD/MGB/KGB did in the West of Ukraine to undercut support for the Resistance, and later FSB did in Ichkeria. That's why FSB.