Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Aug 24 20 tweets 8 min read Read on X
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.

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We have five OSINT materials, one per each plant. To access our materials, you can either:

a) Click on a respective plant in the diagram
b) Choose it from the list below it

Follow the link: rhodus.com/roscosmos
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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. Image
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. Image
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. Image
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.Image
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) Image
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).Image
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. Image
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.Image
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. Image
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.Image
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.Image
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. Image
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-2022Image
Our work depends upon your financial contributions. To contribute, you can:

a) Card Payment ()
b) PayPal donations@rhodus.com
c) BTC: bc1qssdxjeazytnqds0s92lsh2nm4t7zq6594q3eyz
d) ETH: 0xA9FA4454cC3EC0Ff521926BB5F8D4389bA0e665a rhodus.com/donations
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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.

cdn.prod.website-files.com/65ca3387040186…

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More from @kamilkazani

Aug 8
Two observations. In the recent years,

1. Silicon Valley has been turning red
2. MAGA discourse has been increasingly dominated by a few tech moguls

Now the thing with moguls is they are extreme outliers, who do not understand they are outliers.
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.
Read 12 tweets
Aug 3
One problem with that is that too much of the supply chain for drone production is located in China. The thing with drones is that they grew out of toys industry. Cheap plastic & electronic crap that all of a sudden got military significance

America forgot how to produce cheap
Image
That is also the major problem I have with "China supports Russia" argument. China could wreck Ukraine easily, simply obstructing & delaying the drone/drone components shipments. That would be an instant military collapse for Ukraine.
Both Russian and Ukrainian drone industries are totally dependent upon the continuous shipments from China. To a very significant degree, their "production" is assembly from the Chinese components which are non alternative and cannot be substituted with anything else (as cheap).
Read 4 tweets
Aug 3
No, Israel being a republic causes it to be more barbaric towards the conquered population than Russia, and with no escape. There is simply no room and no possibility for any sort of integration whatsoever.

Were Israelis slaves to a Big Man, integration would be conceivable.
Crawling on the knees before your Big Man is Lindy

Scaleable, manageable, robust

Every nation on earth will concede to it, after the sufficient amount of sticks (and may be some carrots, but that is optional). Which makes it very, very scaleable Image
In contrast, crawling on the knees before an other nation is not Lindy. No people on the earth will ever accept it, no matter the degree of violence applied.

That's why republican dominion over the disenfranchised colonial periphery is always so fragile. Not scaleable at all.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 25
Today I will introduce one more concept critical for understanding of how the manufacturing industry has evolved over the last few decades. It is the shift of technological knowledge from esoteric to exoteric

In the pre-digital era, manufacturing used to be mysterious, esotericImage
To visualize how the manufacturing worked in the pre-computer/early computer age, imagine the atmosphere of magic, mysticism, enigma. That would be not very far from truth.

To illustrate the idea, I will give you one simple, straightforward example. The train car production. Image
Train production is a very, very rare example of a Russian machinery industry that survived through the post-Soviet collapse. Of course, it contracted. Of course, it suffered losses. Still, it made it through, while most of the Soviet machinery sector was simply wiped out. Image
Read 22 tweets
Jun 17
Rocket Science

As I have already pointed out, general audience, analysts, strategists & decision makers included holds unrealistic notions of how the global economy is organised. Now that is because they never see the back end of industrial civilisation

So let me show you some
There is a major delusion of seeing Europe as a sort of retired continent that "lags in tech" or even "doesn't produce anything". To some extent, it is just American hubris. Image
But there is more in there than just hubris. There is also some honest, sincere ignorance. The thing with most people is that they see only facade of industrial civilisation. They never ever had a chance to look behind the curtains

Whatever there is behind, is a total mysteryImage
Read 26 tweets
Jun 1
Tu-160M, the "White Swan" is the largest, the heaviest and the fastest bomber in the world. Originally a Soviet design, the plane you see today has limited continuity with the USSR. It was created in late 2010s, as a combined project of Putin's Russia and Siemens Digital Factory Image
Original Tu-160 was created as a domesday weapon of the Cold War. Designed in the 1970s, it was officially launched into production in 1984. And yet, with the collapse of the Soviet Union the project was aborted. In 1992, their production ceased.

No Nuclear War, no White Swans. Image
With the fall of USSR, Russia suffered a catastrophic drop in military expenditures. As the state was buying little weaponry (and paying for it highly erratically), entire production chains were wiped out. That included some ultra expensive projects such as strategic bombers.Image
Read 21 tweets

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