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Branislav Slantchev Profile picture
Branislav Slantchev
@slantchev
Professor of Political Science at the University of California San Diego IR theory and conflict, formal modeling. All views expressed here are strictly personal
3 subscribers
Nov 23 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Russia is in very deep trouble because its economy cannot sustain the war expenditures on the scale it needs to be able to advance for much longer. Even Moscow-based analysts now warn that 2025 would be dire indeed. But don't take my word for it. Here's an overview.

1/15 The ruble has sunk to 104 to US$. With the exception of the brief period right at the outset of the invasion, it has not been so weak since the dreary years after the collapse of the USSR. Back in 2022, the Central Bank intervened to prop the value of the ruble & it worked.

2/15 Image
Nov 17 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Putin has ordered the liberation of Kursk before the Jan inauguration of Trump. The Kremlin is pouring troops by the thousands there but they have stalled again. Losses are incredible because commanders know that if victory is achieved nobody will ask them about the cost.

1/8 The Russian economy is tanking faster than I expected, and now even state-affiliated economists in Moscow report that 2025 is probably going to be absolutely dire, with things getting worse after that.

2/8
Nov 7 • 40 tweets • 6 min read
As the dust settles after the election, everyone is processing the results. I have seen people call for scrubbing of all their social media accounts (because the coming "fascist" regime is going to be using these to "get them")...

1/n I have seen people talking about "internment camps" and "mass deportations" including of US citizens, I have seen people saying they are breaking with family and friends who voted for Trump because they must be evil and immortal to have selected a person like him, and so on.

2/
Oct 1 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Biden is said to consider advancing Ukraine's NATO bid on the West German model (which did not require the territorial integrity of Germany and only extended the security guarantees to areas under the control of the West German government).

1/8 With Rutte, a strong pro-Ukrainian voice, as the new Secretary General of NATO who was appointed today, this is an eminently possible development provided Biden isn't dissuaded at the last moment.

2/8
Jul 11 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This is a thoughtful article by @e_sarotte who argues that Ukraine can become a member of NATO even with part of its territory under Russian occupation. A few thoughts:

1/7
foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/better… I also believed that NATO membership is the only real security guarantee for Ukraine, and that it’s essential to obtain it. I also think that Russians will occupy parts of Ukraine for the foreseeable future, and that this shouldn’t stop it from becoming a member.

2/7
Jun 27 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Sanctions Don’t Work, Right? Right?

The Deputy Head of the Russian Central Bank Chistyukhin warned that the new wave of Western sanctions that blocked payments in dollars and Euros threatens the Russian economy with “death.”



1/6moscowtimes.ru/2024/06/26/v-t… Setting aside the melodrama (the economy won’t “die” — I don’t even know what this means), he points out to considerable problems that will greatly increase Russia’s economic woes.

2/6
Jun 20 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
From the series “Sanctions Don’t Work and Russia’s Finances are Stronger Than Ever”

Several weeks ago, the Russian Ministry of Finance stopped issuing government bonds needed to fund the victorious war & booming economy due to “market volatility.”

1/7
 moscowtimes.ru/2024/06/19/obo… Since the Kremlin is desperate for money, they decided to try selling these bonds (called OFZs) on June 19th.

The first auction for 500 billion rubles at fixed rates until 2035 was canceled by the Ministry due to “lack of offers at acceptable prices”…

2/7
Jun 10 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
While I agree with the conclusion of this article, the analysis is flawed in several aspects. It suggests that Russian society is unified in mobilization for war and things are going great for Putin. The evidence & logic, however, are… meh.

1/11

theatlantic.com/international/… I’ll just go ahead and say that the 75% support for the regime cited from polls is utter nonsense. Too many people have discussed this so I won’t belabor it. We just don’t know & can’t really know. So let’s look at other indicators.

2/11
May 28 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Very interesting article, "At Any Cost: How Ukrainians Think about Self-Defense Against Russia" that is coming out in the American Journal of Political Science, with very important implications for the prospects for peace / diplomacy / terms in Ukraine.

1/8 It is a survey experiment conducted in Ukraine in July 2022, so before the ZSU successes in Kharkiv and Kherson. It finds that Ukrainians are overwhelmingly NOT willing to trade territory or political autonomy for peace.

2/8
May 11 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
A hundred or so @UCSanDiego students and two faculty marched to Chancellor's residence. This is over the line & I take exception to "Faculty Demand" posters as they do NOT speak in my name, or in the name of vast majority of faculty.



1/14 The University also gave the faculty a fact sheet about the encampment, and it contains some relevant details that I did not know about. Here are the highlights:

2/14
May 6 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
I went to my campus at @UCSanDiego to see the protests and offer some help to students who need to talk to someone about what's going on here and in the Middle East. Here are some observations.

TL;DR: Both protesters & police are keen on keeping the protests peaceful.

1/13 The campus is closed to vehicular traffic. I parked at the Glider Port, along with students who were heading to the protest (wearing keffiyehs). It was sort of funny to see what people describe as revolutionaries look for a legal parking spot, but that's what they did.

2/13
Apr 16 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
The Myth of the Lost Peace of 2022

This claim that the warring sides "almost finished an agreement" is entirely unsupported by the evidence. In fact, this article points to precisely the opposite: there was NO agreement to be had in the spring of 2022.

Let me explain.

1/9
Image It is clear that Ukraine tried to negotiate in good faith: their basic proposal was to offer neutrality in exchange for Western security guarantees and Russia withdrawing to pre-invasion lines, with status of Donbas/Crimea to be resolved later (implying concessions).

2/9
Feb 12 • 36 tweets • 6 min read
A Quick NATO Explainer

NATO was founded in 1949 during the first major crisis over West Berlin when the Soviets blockaded the city in an attempt to force the West to abandon it.

1/ Located deep inside Soviet-controlled East Germany, West Berlin was nightmarish logistically, indefensible militarily and useless strategically. It made good sense to abandon it so as to not to tempt the Soviets into provoking a crisis the West could not handle.

2/
Aug 25, 2023 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Some (speculative) thoughts on Prigozhin's demise: Who did it?

TL;DR: FSB, maybe (maybe not).

1/19 Everyone on twitter seems to be certain that Putin killed Prigozhin and, this is important, that this was 100% foreseeable. I have been trying to reconcile this with what we know of his behavior and put a coherent story together... and it just does not work.

2/19
Jul 22, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
The movie Oppenheimer seems to have revived the debate about the role of the nukes in ending the Pacific War. They did, but not in the way people seem to imagine.

A thread.

1/14 At the time of surrender, Japan had over 2 million men ready to fight. The incendiary raids on major cities (firebombing of Tokyo killed as many as a nuke) had not undermined morale. The dogged defense of Okinawa showed that invasion could be exceedingly costly.

2/14
Jun 24, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Prigozhin live update from the HQ of the Southern Military District in Rostov.

- we have taken under control military installations in Rostov, including the airport
1/6 - planes participating in the war continue to depart on schedule, we’ve only assumed control to ensure that the fighters attack the Ukrainians and not us
2/6
May 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Kremlin spokesman Peskov: It was hard to imagine that the NATO countries would intervene in the conflict and take Ukraine's side. 1/4 I don't think he's lying. Many Russians believed they could do anything they wanted in their near abroad. After all, they had done it for a long time. A small victorious war in Ukraine would've elicited verbal protests & some feeble sanctions but not much else from the West. 2/4
Apr 27, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The collapse of the Russian labor market. 🧵

According to official statistics (tass.ru/ekonomika/1749…), the number of workers between the ages of 19 and 35 has decreased by 1.34 million in 2022, the largest such decline since the fall of the USSR. 1/7 Image Russia experienced a "demographic hole" during the crisis years with especially pronounced collapse of number of births between 1993 and 2006. So this would account for some of the "missing" workers & this is how the statistics have been explained in official releases. But... 2/7 Image