We are releasing our investigation on Roscosmos, covering a nearly exhaustive sample of Russian ICBM producing plants. We have investigated both primary ICBM/SLBM producers in Russia, a major producer of launchers, manufacturers of parts and components.
Each material includes an eclectic collection of sources, ranging from the TV propaganda to public tenders, and from the HR listings to academic dissertations. Combined altogether, they provide a holistic picture of Russian ICBM production base that no single type of source can.
If traditional intelligence worked with the deficit of information, modern one must work with its hyper abundance. Our collection aims to introduce the media, academia and strategic community into the hyper abundance, depth and variety of sources on the seemingly impenetrable.
It is two companies within Roscosmos that are primarily responsible for the missile production. The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT) makes solid-propellant missiles, Makeyev Design Bureau – liquid propellant ones.
Of these two, the MITT is a far richer company.
We investigated five Roscosmos plants:
1. Votkinsk Plant is one of two key intercontinental ballistic missiles producers in Russia. It is the sole manufacturer of solid-propellant missiles, such as ICBMs Topol-M and Yars, SLBM Bulava as well as missiles for the SRBM Iskander.
Votkinsk has automated an unusually wide variety of its production processes, implementing the fully integrated turnkey solutions in forging (Danieli Breda 🇮🇹) and in precision casting (Shell-o-Matic 🇨🇦). In terms of machining, however, it tends to be relatively frugal.
The Votkinsk Plant machining park consists of a mix of:
a) Modern Western equipment
b) Soviet machines upgraded with modern CNC controllers & servo drives (= "modernization" in the Russian manufacturing terminology)
2. Titan-Barriady is a major producer of launchers, control equipment and electronics for the SRBM “Iskander”, ICBMs “Topol”, “Yars”, and SLBM “Bulava”. Like the Votkinsk Plant, it is also a part of the much richer MITT holding (= solid-propellant missiles).
Titan-Barrikady is a heavily-lopsided enterprise that heavily prioritizes CNC machining. It has more of the modern, sophisticated CNC machinery by the leading Western European and American producers compared to any other plant in this sample.
It's a machining-oriented plant.
As we finished with the MITT (solid propellant), we now go to the Makeyev (liquid propellant). It is much poorer, with more archaic & often physically worn out machinery. Its actually missile production is largely concentrated within the single plant - Krasnoyarsk Plant.
3. Krasnoyarsk Plant is one of two principal ICBM producers in Russia. It is the leading manufacturer of liquid-propellant missiles such as the ICBM Sarmat and SLBM Sineva. It is the most important and best funded enterprise of the (relatively poor) Makeyev company.
It operates with a mix of Soviet stock, mid-tier modern imports (🇨🇿 Czech, mostly), and a few ad hoc machines assembled from the Western European parts. Overall, its park tends to be of lower tier compared with the MITT plants, yet by far the best within the Makeyev structure.
4. Zlatoust Plant is a relatively neglected facility making parts and components for the liquid propellant ballistic missiles (Sineva, Sarmat). It is an example of what a competent management can do with a chronically underfunded military plant.
It will largely switch to the production of civilian goods, household appliances and, most importantly, aluminium extrusion. The competent industrial management kept this plant alive, even when totally neglected by state.
5. Miass Plant is a liquid propellant SLBM producer of secondary importance. A lower priority enterprise of the poorer Makeyev hollding, Miass has faced severe financial constraints. Like Zlatmash, it tried selling to the civilian market, but with considerably less success.
Miass business model included selling the oil storage equipment, brewery machinery, LED lamps and the electricity from its power plant. Overall, it is a military purpose plant which struggled with adapting to the post-Soviet market realities and has very much degraded.
Some takeaways:
a) The Russian ICBM production base is a mix of modern Western equipment & remnants of Soviet machinery
b) There is almost nothing "Russian" out there
c) And, more interestingly, almost nothing Chinese
This suggests the policy of Chinese exclusion, pre-2022
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This collection of sources serves as a technical appendix to our report How Does Russia Make Missiles? On our research methodology see pp. 33-44, on our conclusions pp. 45-46 of the cited report.
There is hardly any other genre of literature more factual, and more realistic than the sci-fi. It is exactly its non-serious, seemingly abstract character that allows it to escape censorship and ostracism to a far greater degree than it is normally possible for a work of art.
Sci-fi allows you to to present the most painful, insulting, insufferable, obnoxious, criminal and traitorous arguments in a non-serious way, as a fun, as a joke. In this regard, it is far superior to any other genre. Compare three ways to sell a heresy:
By its very nature, sci-fi is inseparable from the social commentary. For this reason, quality sci-fi should be always read as a self-reflection and self-criticism of the society it is written in.
If the "Gulliver’s Travels" is a reflection on Britain…
Tatarstan is a large and wealthy ethnic republic located, in the very middle of Russia. While being culturally and institutionally distinctive, it is not really peripheral. It sits in a few kilometres from the population centre of Russia🧵
While Tatarstan does not sit in the centre of Russia geography-wise, it does so demography-wise. The Russian centre of population (red star), located somewhere in southwest Udmurtia, is literally in a walking distance from the Tatarstani border.
It is the very middle of Russia.
If you look at the Russian administrative map, you will see that most ethnic republics (colored) occupy a peripheral position. The main exception are republics of the Volga-Ural region (green), located in the middle of Russia & surrounded by the Slavic sea.
Wagner march was incredible, unprecedented to the extent most foreigners simply do not understand. Like, yes, Russia had its military coups in the 18th c. But those were the palace coups, all done by the Guards. Purely praetorian business with zero participation of the army.
Yes, there was a Kornilov affair in 1917, but that happened after the coup in capital. In March they overthrew the Tsar, then there was infighting in the capital, including a Bolshevik revolt in July, and only in September part of the army marches to St Petersburg.
Half a year after the coup. Not the same thing
I think the last time anything like that happened was in 1698, when the Musketeers marched on Moscow from the Western border. And then, next time, only in 2023.
(Army leaves the border/battlefield and marches on the capital without a previous praetorian coup in the capital)
As a person from a post-Soviet country, I could not but find the institutions of People’s Republic of China oddly familiar. For every major institution of the Communist Russia, I could find a direct equivalent in Communist China.
With one major exception:
China had no KGB
For a post-Soviet person, that was a shocking realisation. For us, a gigantic, centralised, all-permeating and all powerful state security system appears to be almost a natural phenomenon. The earth. The sky. Force of gravity. KGB
All basic properties of reality we live in
It was hard to come up with any explanation for why the PRC that evolved in a close cooperation with the USSR, that used to be its client state, that emulated its major institutions, failed to copy this seemingly prerequisite (?) institution of state power
Soviet output of armaments was absolutely gargantuan, massive, unbeatable. “Extraordinary by any standard” , it was impossible for any other country to compete with.
From 1975 to 1988, the Soviets produced four times as many ICBMs and SLBMs, twice as many nuclear submarines, five times as many bombers, six times as many SAMs, three times as many tanks and six times as many artillery pieces as the United States.
Impossible to compete with.
Which raises a question:
How could the USSR produce so much?
It is not only that the USSR invested every dime into the military production. It is also that the Soviet industry was designed for the very large volumes of output, and worked the best under these very large volumes
Overall, you can expect tech moguls to have much, much higher level of reasoning abilities compared to the political/administrative class. But this comes at a cost. Their capacities for understanding the Other (masses count as the “Other”) are much poorer.
E.g. Putin is much, much less of an outlier in terms of intelligence compared to Thiel. He is much more average. At the same time, I am positively convinced that Putin understands the masses and works with masses much better.