I feel like most of the debates about the resolution of the war in Ukraine miss the point. It's not about the occupied territories, NATO or security guarantees. It's about the future of the Ukrainian army.

A 🧵.

1/ Most people agree at this point that the liberation of all the occupied territories is unrealistic.

2/

Fascinating how Putinist the so-called "Project 2025" is both in terms of ends and means. Goals such as completely banning gender-affirming care and sexuality education: done and done in Russia.

Recent staff changes at the top in Russia reveal Putin's thinking about his entourage. Essentially, he divides his people into three categories: experts on the Anglo-Saxon conspiracy, old heavyweights and guys actually capable of working ("technocrats").

1/ Putin's clear preference lies with the conspiracy experts, as he's become such an expert himself. He likes to talk to them and hang with them, discussing Russia's historic mission and Western perfidy.

2/

I am devastated by the news from Moscow. The death toll is terrible. I will not speculate about the perpetrators. Nor will I tolerate gloating comments here. One thing I will note though. After such an attack, one wants to know the truth - and this is precisely the thing the Russian authorities cannot deliver.

Despite everything, there is a tendency in the West to see Russian "elections" as actual elections.

That is, Putin's "victory" is seen as reflecting genuine popular approval of the economic performance, military successes etc.

It just doesn't work this way in dictatorships.

1/ Syria's Assad "won" with 92% of the vote while the civil war was raging across most of the country. It wasn't even clear which territories "voted" in his "elections".

Tunisia's Ben Ali "won" with 90%. A year went by and he was ousted by a popular movement.

2/

Sorry I can't stop with this tweet

You know what's especially ironic? As part of the "smart voting" strategy, Navalny called to vote for the second most popular candidate in single-seat elections across the country. That candidate was usually from... the Communist Party.

1/

https://twitter.com/Niall_Diarmuid/status/1759530258187837786

For Navalny and his team, this was a tactic in the conditions of electoral authoritarianism.

They understood full well it's impossible to replace the authorities with voting in Russia, but they believed one could make a dent in the regime's stability...

2/

Rustling through the pages of (relatively) old papers.

10 March 2022. Alexander Khramchikhin, a military expert who is highly patriotic and loyal to the Kremlin, but not devoid of common sense, struggles to find reasons for the invasion of Ukraine.

1/

nvo.ng.ru/realty/2022-03… He makes several points:

- Ukraine was not going to be admitted into NATO, both because of territorial conflicts with Russia and unwillingness of some NATO members to admit Ukraine.

2/

Ekaterina Duntsova and Russian electoral dictatorship. A 🧵

1/ Ekaterina Duntsova is a local activist and journalist from Rzhev, a small town in central Russia known mostly for the gruesome WW2 battles that happened there.

2/

Very dangerous developments in Ukraine

The conflict between Zelenskyy's office and Zaluzhnyi is apparently real. Within this conflict, people close to Zelensky leaked to WaPo what is effectively an admission that 🇺🇦 is responsible for Nord Stream.

1/

archive.is/sgzm8 The purpose of the leak is to blame Zaluzhnyi for the Nord Stream attack while claiming that Zelensky did not know about it.

2/

Alexey Navalny's team @ACF_int found this 15,000,000 EUR estate in Marbellla, Spain, owned by a Russian Duma deputy Alexey Chepa.

Chepa did not bother too much to hide his ownership - the estate is listed under the name of his 22 y.o. son.

1/ While Chepa himself is under sanctions, his family isn't. According to Navalny's team, the house looks occupied and, in all likelihood, his family members continue spending time there.

2/

This article is riddled with factual inaccuracies. The author is not aware that most Russian investment in Ukraine and elsewhere came through offshore centres such as the Netherlands, so he underestimates Russian economic influence in post-Soviet states.

https://twitter.com/immanuelness/status/1687763388833976320

He is also not aware of the details of Russia’s energy trade and its energy blackmail of Ukraine, as a result of which Ukraine actually paid a higher price for gas than some Western European countries.

What happens now is both relatively insignificant - and highly illustrative of Putin's system and its likely future.

1/ So what's happening exactly? Prigozhin has gone rogue out of sheer desperation. Behind it is a mix of frustrated ambitions and war-related psychological problems.

2/

Today the Russian parliament unanimously voted to *completely prohibit* gender transition in the country.

All medical procedures associated with it are outlawed. Changing the gender marker in the official documents is banned.

1/ Even the Ministry of Health opposed the new law, claiming that it will increase the number of suicides.

2/

Anatomy of failure

Everyone knows that the health spending in the US is mostly a private burden (carried by businesses and individual citizens).

1/ The share of public spending in the overall health expenditure in the US is among the lowest in the OECD group - 51%, as compared to 71% OECD average.

In other words, the US government forces companies and individuals to carry half of the burden of healthcare directly.

2/

Mikhail has remained in Russia despite multiple not-so-subtle hints to pack his stuff and go. Strategically, as well as morally, I understand his decision because I see the work on the ground that he's been doing (he's no Kasparov alright...)

1/

https://twitter.com/muzh_Zapolskoy/status/1659130288037941248

Yes, it's risky and yes, it's almost certain to lead to the regime's response. But someone has to do it if one is serious at all about political change in Russia. (Again, contrary to Kasparov's vile nonsense.)

2/

Still can't stop cataloguing losses...

In a new policy paper for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung I explore the negative consequences of the war for the social situation in Russia.

1/

russia.fes.de/en/events/russ… I focus on five dimensions of the social crisis: 1) poverty and declining living standards, 2) the impact on industrial areas, 3) supply and personnel problems in healthcare, 4) troubles in the non-governmental sector, 5) demographic decline.

2/

So many bad takes on Putin-Xi summit here based on wishful thinking.

The summit is a huge win for Putin and makes Xi dependent on him - not the other way round.

1/ The most important thing that came out of the summit was Xi expressing his full confidence that Putin would win in 2024 elections (with Putin never even publicly committing that he would run).

2/

Russian budget is apparently in deep trouble. The government finally agreed on a "windfall tax" of 4-5% on "excess profits" of non-energy companies, hoping to collect some 300 bln rubles in revenue.

1/ Before the war, such attempts (announced by individual public officials such as Andrei Belousov) were easily repelled by the organized big business. The government's overall strategy was to minimize any sudden changes to the tax regime - and they took this goal seriously.

2/

The latest issue of Russian Politics journal is dedicated to the evolution of the Russian political-economic order.

Together with Oleg Zhuravlev we contributed an article on the (mostly failed) attempts at building a developmental state in Russia.

1/

brill.com/view/journals/… Contrary to some authors, we don't see Russia solely as a "kleptocracy" where everything revolves around rent-seeking. For one, if it were true, the war would not have happened - one of its consequences is the radical reduction in rent sources for corrupt public officials.

2/

So let's talk about Alexei Navalny for a little bit.

I will share some simple observations below ⬇️

1/ For a long time, there was a talk in Russia that Navalny was a Kremlin creature. "Why is he so much more popular than the other opposition leaders? Why isn't he in prison?"

1/

I no longer work at a university in Russia, but my colleagues shared with me some of the student essays they received recently. It's heartbreaking to see how propaganda and societal pressures destroy the ability to think logically.

1/ In my experience, freshman students come to the university with some preconceived notions, but curiosity and the desire to learn something new combined with the teaching efforts of the whole faculty win over propagandistic tropes.

2/