I don’t know what this means yet, and I don’t think anyone truly does. But some thoughts on what’s been happening and what might be happening now. 1. Putin could have arrested Strelkov-Girkin in the summer of 2014… /Thread

https://twitter.com/scrawnya/status/1682345767632097281

… first for illegal military activity (leading a unit of fighters into the Donbas against advice from his handlers) and then for sedition.

Hearing assumptions from some senior US officials that winning is an existential imperative for Putin. Yes, but the logical gymnastics of how Rus MOD are spinning losses show that definition of “winning” is in flux & can simply be invented. /thread “To achieve the goals of the Special Military Operation, it was decided to regroup troops in the areas of Izyum to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction,” MOD said on 10/9.

With the plucky FSB solving the Dugina bombing so quickly, a popular emerging theory is that it was their false flag op to drum up support for a renewed offensive. While I can’t rule anything out, I don’t really buy this idea. Thread/ Obviously the FSB would have needed to “solve” it quickly and pin it on Ukraine, which is just what they did. But that doesn’t mean they need have carried out the bombing in the first place.

Watching with dismay the expert coverage of the Belarus-Polish migrant crisis, it occurred to me that we may need to retire the hybrid war concept, at least from news coverage. It’s become unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst. A (very long) thread. Today, Belarus restricted oil through the Druzhba pipeline to Poland (& it emerged that Lukashenko allegedly demanded recognition and an end to sanctions in exchange for ending the crisis in his talks with Merkel).

I took the time to look at some Russian state TV to gauge how Russia was propagandizing the US riots. I tuned into two programs on trusty old Channel 1 – a straight-forward newscast, and one or two segment of a talk show. Here’s what I saw and what I think it means. /Thread The news segment struck me as surprisingly impartial. I expected to see a critical focus on police abuse. There was some. But instead of condemning police brutality there was a lot about protesters and rioters – and no qualms about portraying protesters as violent.

It transpires that Putin’s order to pay medics infected with COVID failed because of the wrong… paperwork. A little thread on how things happen in Russia, or don’t happen at all. mk.ru/politics/2020/… In early April Putin orders medical personnel treating infected patients to get up to $1000 in addition to their salaries for three months. By early May turns out some medics are seeing additions of less than 50 cents. For some, salaries shrank themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/14/rus…

A great take from @SevaUT Gunitsky on what’s wrong with the fight against Russian disinformation. This is becoming a pretty serious problem, and it’s fed by three key mistakes about how we envision Russia twisting facts to sow discord. THREAD

foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/21/dem… First, policymakers in the west tend to vastly overestimate Russian capabilities. This is the case across several vectors of the political war that Russia is waging, but it’s particularly stark when it comes to disinformation.

Some thoughts on Putin’s logic, what we’re ascribing to him, and what we are missing by focusing on this reshuffle as a grand plan to stay in power. There are other things at play here. He wants to build up institutions capable of rule without him. THREAD 1/ Sure, in the constitutional changes he’s proposed, and in the government reshuffle, he’s building options on how to formally exit the presidency while retaining power for himself. 2/