At great threat to my mental wellbeing, another dip into today’s Russian press around the Crocus City terrorist attack. A thread. 1/ The high-circulation Argumenty i Fakty (incidentally where Patrushev most often gives his interviews) has no doubts, as shown by this front page. Islamic State? No, it was the Collective West and their Ukrainian puppets 2/

Reading today's government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta in many ways illustrates the key dynamics around the Crocus terrorist attack. A short thread 1/ We have Putin's remote (in every sense) meeting, at which he reluctantly admits jihadists committed the attack but repeats his claim that it connects to "a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014 at the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime" 2/

Sudden excitement from some quarters: ‘OMG, Russia now admitting war in Ukraine is a war, not a “special military op”’. The truth, as ever, is rather less exciting, but an interesting semantic-political tale 1/ The source is an interview with presidential spox Peskov in AiF in which he does indeed say ‘we are at war…’ 2/
aif.ru/politics/world…

“Start with yourself, Comrade Dugin”
A broadside attack on Alexander Dugin appears in Moskovsky Komsomolets. A couple of quotes and thoughts... 1/
mk.ru/social/2024/03… "People want to have an income, a pension and peace of mind in the future. And they are offered an eternal battle and endless belt-tightening in a dystopian society literally divided along Brahminical lines. There is an elite - and everyone else." 2/

I was very pleased to be able to play a small, small role in this fascinating expose of Presidential Administration files on various political projects. Read the article (more to come, I understand), but a couple of other points... 1/

https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1761964302884540592

Firstly, it is a reminder of the power and scope of the Presidential Administration. I think its position at the heart of the Russian state is often under-rated. In many ways, to put it in Soviet terms, it's the Central Committee Secretariat to the Council of Ministries... 2/

Shock! Putin is standing for re-election next year. How could he not, now? Before 2/22 he might have dreamed of stepping back, but he can’t risk it now. A thread. 1/
rg.ru/2023/12/08/put… Here’s my startling take: he’ll win.
What?
Seriously, while the decision to stand and the inevitability of his win is no surprise, there are some things to watch 2/

Today, 4 November, is Russia’s Day of National Unity, established in 2005, and in the current situation, there’s an attempt to give it a depressing but predictable new spin. A thread. 1/ It was introduced ostensibly to celebrate the events of 1612, when the people's militia under the leadership of a Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky liberated Moscow from Polish invaders 2/

The ‘sanctions work/don’t work’ debate is often pretty sterile and distorted by the way some boosters seriously overplayed their likely effects on Russia at the start. A short thread from a non-economist 1/ 2/ This was triggered by a characteristically vapid article in today’s govt newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta with the title ‘They got what they deserved. The consequences of the departure of European companies from Russia’
rg.ru/2023/08/07/pol…

This is a particularly bad take, epitomising a dangerous kind of triumphalism that also does Ukraine no favours. A short thread 1/
Take away Russia’s nuclear weapons – for Putin is finished and his country may soon collapse telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/1… "Vladimir Putin is finished... He might struggle on for a few more weeks, even months." What possible evidence is there for assuming there could be regime change in weeks? 2/

I’ve enjoyed @ThreshedThought’s HOW TO FIGHT A WAR: it’s an intro to warfare that manages to be accessible without being simplistic, well worth a read. It also has strong resonance with what’s happening in #Ukraine 1/ The centrality of a credible strategy is a recurring theme. It is still shocking just how ill-thought-through Putin’s initial strategy was, but we have to recognise that, given its practical and political constraints, the Kremlin has now landed on a relatively viable Plan B 2/

The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, has claimed that during its mutiny, Wagner tried to seize backpack nuclear weapons from the Voronezh-45 base. I’m sceptical. A short thread 1/
reuters.com/world/europe/w… If there were any backpack nukes there, a holdover from the 60s and 70s, it is highly dubious whether or not they would still be operable, as they need constant maintenance as the radiation scrambles the electronics 2/
abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto…

There’s been some wild speculation that #Russia’s other mercenary forces could be the source of the “next mutiny” that misses the mark as to how they are unlike #Wagner. A quick explanatory thread 1/ Russia has PMCs and also mercenary forces: the former are generally reputable international businesses involved in mine-clearing, maritime security, training, VIP protection – not front-line fighting 2/

“Why the events of Saturday did not weaken, but only strengthened our country.” This article in the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda gives a good sense of the new propaganda line, as the Kremlin desperately tries to spin the Prigozhin mutiny 1/
kp.ru/daily/27520.5/… “Russia passed another test”, it begins, excoriating “the great couch army” that hid on Saturday or praised Prigozhin, and then “began Sunday morning with belligerent statements that the authorities had done everything wrong again.” 2/

The New York Times, which often feels like the US intel community's PR agency, is reporting that the IC suspects Gen Surovikin knew in advance about #Prigozhin's mutiny. Maybe so, but were I a cynic I'd wonder if this was an info op because... 1/ ...Surovikin quickly issued a public appeal to Wagner mercs to stand down, making a clear statement that - contrary to previous suspicions he was close to Prigozhin - he was loyal to the Kremlin. This might have helped cleanse his record and... 2/

All still pretty unclear as to Prigozhin's rebellion, but am struck by the uncompromising language in Putin's emergency address in which he denounces this as treason and a betrayal of the Fatherland 1/
kremlin.ru/events/preside… If Prigozhin thought there was a deal to be struck, this implies not. But I suspect VVP has (belatedly) come down hard because he must realise just how far his own legitimacy and credibility is on the line. 2/

@Stanovaya @CarnegieRussia While I wholly accept Putin does have a grandiose sense of his historic mission, my point of divergence with you was the notion that from this came a strategy, and that he was in no way fearful about the situation 1/ @Stanovaya @CarnegieRussia First of all, I don't see Putin as a real strategist, but rather an improviser with a very loose sense of his goals; this is something that has marked his whole presidency. 2/

.@Stanovaya is always well worth reading but I'm not convinced we're just talking about a 'messiah complex' + a genuine belief on his part that everything will work out. If anything, the opposite: he's least able to make decisions when they're hard 1/
carnegieendowment.org/politika/89826 Micromanaging the war and aspects of reconstruction are distractions from the intractable big issues (like drawing up a detailed revision plan rather than actually revising!), a comfort. When faced with big, hard decisions (eg, end Kyiv offensive, leave Kherson) he dithers 2/

A vicious but fair assessment of Gerasimov from @WarintheFuture - if anything, I'd add another failure, a moral as much as professional one. A short thread 1/

https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1656048006423285766

The role of the CoGS is not just to be the foreman of the military imposing the leadership's orders but also the shop steward, arguing the military's case and fighting its corner. This Gerasimov failed to do, and it's hard to get any sense he even tried 2/

Hah, when I recorded this, I said that I thought Prigozhin would be walking back his threat to pull Wagner out of Bakhmut, before his deadline. I just hadn't appreciate just how quickly he would! A couple of thoughts 1/
bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…

https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti/status/1655151545183289344

Realistically, Prigozhin couldn't. Apart from the practical point that Wagner depends on the MOD for strategic mobility, short of just walking west, I don't think it would have been politically survivable for a man so wholly dependent on the Kremlin - and with so many enemies 2/

Obviously the Kremlin drone story is still very much a breaking one, but people should really stop talking about this as an attempted assassination attempts against Putin. That's just playing to Kremlin talking points 1/ He notoriously rarely goes to the Kremlin, let alone stays there overnight, and there were no scheduled early morning meetings or the like there which might make one assume he might be in his (palatial) flat there 2/

A lengthy extract from my @OspreyBooks/@BloomsburyBooks book PUTIN'S WARS in @BusinessInsider, from the chapter on Spetsnaz. Of course, so many have since become casualties of the Ukraine war that this becomes more historical than anything else... 1/
businessinsider.com/mark-galeotti-… Reconstituting these forces is more than just a matter of finding more warm bodies. Judging by memorials and the like, tactical officers have suffered disproportionate losses, so even if new 'Spetsnaz' are drafted into units, who will train and command them in the field? 2/