Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 6 39 tweets 14 min read
21. What's happening in Russia



TL;DR Russia is now fascist. No return to status quo is possible. Regime must be broken. Fortunately it can be broken quickly via sanctions and brain drain. But if the regime isn't broken it can evolve to sth much stronger
22. Why Russia can't produce anything



TL;DR Russia is technologically dependent from the West. It can't change this under current sociopolitical structure. Growth of complex industries might entail renegotiation of power balance which is unacceptable
23. Why sanctions are effective and how to make them even more so



TL;DR Sanctions should restricting Russian technological import, resources export, maximise brain drain. Technological chains collapsing, Russia will lose the war, which will topple regime
24. Why Russia army is so weak?



TL;DR Russian army isn't used to fight wars against regular armies. It also holds low position in Russian dominance hierarchy. Ruling state security fears rivalry from the military and makes every effort to castrate them
25. How to defeat Putin



TL;DR Playing predictable is suicidal when your adversary is trying to hack your strategy. If he is sure, you're dove, he'll play hawk and scale up. That's how WWII happened and WWIII will. Don't project too predictable image
26. Crisis and Jubilee: What's happening in Russia?



TL;DR Financial capital is debt. Political capital, too. During crisis both are being defaulted on en masse which leads to redistributes of power, property, status. This process is accelerating rapidly
27. Give them salt



TL;DR If you want to cooperate, you need to give them what they need, not what you think they should need. Thus deescalation with Putin is unrealistic: the West can't give him anything. But it can give much to soldiers and officials
28. Why East Ukraine fights so hard?



TL;DR Many perceived East Ukraine as just continuation of Russia. And yet, it now fights very hard against Russian army. Why? Putin's conflict manufacturing strategy disappointed East Ukrainians in Russian alliance
29. How to sabotage Russian war efforts?



TL;DR Russia used to have huge military capacity. Fertility was high, population young, thus Tsars had lots of manpower. Now Russia's old and lacks youngsters. Give soldiers the way out and pay cash for sabotage
30. How popular is Z-war in Russia?



TL;DR Mass support for Z-war in Russia is very much exaggerated through governmental leverage and incentive system. Mass Z-rallies are fake, people press-ganged there. Protests against the war are brutally suppressed.
31. Why Russia can't win against the West?



TL;DR Russia is portrayed as autarkic but that's BS. Its major military victories resulted from the alliance with main economic powerhouses of the era. Stalin's industrialization was fully managed by Americans
32. Military casualties in Ukraine and the end of Russia as we know it



TL;DR Russia is suffering huge casualties in Ukraine, not only among the army, but also among state security. Their massacre brings the end to Russia as we know it
33. Cops as the true and only revolutionary class



TL;DR Sociopolitical changes are not made by word gibberish but by elite rearrangement. Identify counterelites and raise them up. In Russian case it would be regional elites and cops. Give them salt
34. World War Z and Russian minorities



TL;DR Russian minorities are wildly overrepresented on Ukrainian battlefields as cannon fodder. In return for their blood they are awarded with forced assimilation and loss autonomy. Many question their support of Z
35. Z-aesthetics: how Russian militarism looks like



TL;DR Z-propaganda has deeply morbid, necrophilic vibes. That's not a recent thing. It is a well-established tradition of Wagner company. At this point Russian militarism evolved to the pure death cult
36. How to hack the system



TL;DR Smart and rich people know that institutions work procedurally, even if illegally. Their policies are algorithms which are full of bugs, you just need to hack them. Dumb and poor view institutions as humans and get fucked
37. How sanctions are killing Russia



TL;DR Obama's sanctions of 2014 sabotaged modernisation of Russian army. New sanctions undermine Russian military efforts, break its communication lines & destroy consumer goods supply thus breaking the country apart
38. Three scenarios for the Russian future. Part 1. North Korea



TL;DR If the West deescalates, it will prove Putin is a genius, Z-war was a great decision and those who doubted him are idiots. His power will increase and Russia will turn into North Korea
39. TikTok warlord



TL;DR Kadyrov is a TikTok warlord with TikTok troops. How could he rise so high then? Well, because he shares mindset and values of Russian ruling elite. If Soviet Union was the Evil Empire, than Russian Federation is Bullshit Empire
40. Imperial Reboot



TL;DR Should Putin keep power Russia turns into a huge North Korea. Should Putin be changed for some Good Tsar with oppositionary background, Russia gonna have its Imperial Reboot. But what Russia truly needs is the National Divorce
41. Why Russia is losing this war?



TL;DR Soviet-Russian army is a multitool designed for the nuclear war. It's not that great for a conventional war. Meanwhile, Ukrainians were preparing for the conventional war and their progress was underestimated
42. Surkov and the rise of Putin



TL;DR Putin reportedly arrested Surkov. For years, the grey cardinal of Kremlin Surkov overmatched its domestic politics and policy in Ukraine. Today we'll discuss the role of Surkov in Putin's rise to presidency
43. War of memes: why Z-war won't end with peace

TL;DR Z-war is not about NATO or CSTO. It's about memes. Russia aims to transform the old "Russian" (=Church Slavonic) sacred community into the unitary Russian nation state extirpating Ukrainian culture

44. Finished. Have been writing for three days
45. About Lukashenko and his uneasy relations with Putin

46. Who fights for Russia? Part 1. Russians



TL;DR Although Z-war is inspired by Russian ethnonatinalism, minorities are heavily overrepresented on the Ukrainian battlefields and in Russian casualty lists. Russian victory would be against their interests
47. In this thread I'll be collecting podcasts and broadcasts where I have presented my position on the current war. I'm including here both English and Russian language talks in a chronological order, so they will be easier to navigate through

48. The prospect of total mobilisation



TL;DR Some argue that Putin won't declare mass mobilisation on May 9, because that would be stupid. I disagree. That would be stupid and he still absolutely can do this. That however will create revolutionary risks
49. Z-war and total mobilisation



TL;DR Total mobilisation in Russia didn't start yet. But it is going in Donbass which is the main reserve of the cannon fodder for Russia. Kremlin might want to scale up this model all over Russia but that gonna be risky
50. We need more Harvard projects



TL;DR Apart from mining the formalised data, a special focus must be made on studying the lived experiences. That's how you get the tacit knowledge of how institutional (technological, etc) cultures do really function
51. How do I make predictions?



I want to discuss some general principles I use for making prognoses on example of this thread. On Feb 27 I predicted Russia gonna lose this war. Let me outline some of considerations that helped me to make this prediction
52. Who stands behind Z? (a hypothesis)



TL;DR Neither Westerners, nor Russians understand the meaning of Z. Some point out to Z originally being a sign on the vehicles. Sounds fair. That however, doesn't explain much as it is centrally enforced. By whom?
53. Why Russia is more fragile than you think



TL;DR Russia tends to avoid small manageable risks, thus accumulating large risks it can't manage. This includes the cadre policy as well. If you don't retire the elderly gradually, they just die all at once
54. The place of Chechnya within the Russian regime



TL;DR Russia is extremely centralised which makes it fragile. It needs an informal and largely independent face to make the regime more robust. That's why Kadyrov is the last line of Putin's defence
55. What's happening with Russian economy?



TL;DR Russia is almost totally dependent upon the technological import from the West. That also means that powerful industrial interest groups in the West are financially dependent upon the export to Russia
56. Chinese Russian alignment



TL;DR It looks like before 2022 Russia may have been avoiding the technological import from China in its military industry due to the perceived risk asymmetry. With these concerns gone, Russia will be now cured of Sinophobia
57. Order №338



TL;DR

1. Russian empire uproots any ability for personal initiative and collective action, be it pro or against Kremlin

2. Maidan Effect: Revolution -> cadre change -> many staunch supporters of the new order in army & intelligence
58. Regional Divergence in Russia



TL;DR

Most regional barons in Russia are losing. And the more complex economies they built, the more they lose. The only winners are southern agrarian and the cannon fodder suppliers. Soon they may be disaffected too
59. How a German company built Putin's war machine



TL;DR Putin trained his army of invasion in Mulino, his only modern training centre. It was built by @RheinmetallAG probably even *after* 2014. Investigate them & politicians that allowed this to happen

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More from @kamilkazani

Jul 13
Daily reminder that Putin's army of invasion was trained on the Rheinmetall-built training centre Mulino. In 2014 they "left" and construction was finished by "Гарнизон" company, probably a proxy. 100% of its imports came from Germany, last Rheinmetall shipments coming in 2019 Image
In 2011 Rheinmetall got a contract for building a training center in Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. They modelled it after the training center of Bundeswehr in Altmark. They planned to build "the most advanced system of its kind worldwide" Image
Mulino started in 2011 was the high point of Serdyukov's reforms. Two things you must understand about Serdyukov ministry:

1. No other minister of defence made such a big focus on the land army
2. No other minister of defence was so eager to import ready solutions from the West Image
Read 18 tweets
Jul 11
"Jewish wife is not a luxury, but a means of transportation"

Old cynical Soviet joke. It makes more sense for those familiar with the Russian literature beyond Tolstoyevsky
If you want to understand *modern* Russian culture, don't read 19th c. aristocrats. They're all dead and their world is dead, too. Read the "Twelve Chairs" and "Golden Calf" instead. Picaresques on Ostap Bender's adventures may be two most influential books of the Russian 20th c Image
And they are certainly the most quotable in normal talk, in every day situations Image
Read 9 tweets
Jul 11
I think this interpretation may lack cultural context. In Russia an official getting a monetary token of gratitude for allowing the project to proceed is normal. It's called "откат" (something that rolls back). It's not a "bribe", more like tribute. Not demanding откат is unusual
That's why "Serdyukov was ousted for corruption" argument is dumb. It's not "corruption", it's just normal rules of the game. When a high official falls "corruption scandal" is just a pretext. You must charge them with something so you pretend they did a "crime" by taking откат
When Ulyukaev was jailed that was seen as a result of his personal conflict with Igor Sechin. When Serdyukov was fired, this was seen as погорел на бабах. I don't think that either of this interpretations is exhaustive. But those with half a brain know it's not about "corruption"
Read 5 tweets
Jul 11
Gave a comment to @NeilMacFarquhar

One point: Draft plays a major role in Russian stealth mobilisation. First you need to get them into army, even as conscripts. Then you force/persuade them to sign a contract and now it's legal to send them to Ukraine

nytimes.com/2022/07/10/wor…
And my earlier comment. Serdyukov tried to modernise the land army, equipping and training it according to the NATO standards (= context for the Rheinmetall story). But he made enemies, was ousted from power and his successor dismantled much of his legacy

nytimes.com/2022/05/16/wor…
The Rheinmetall-built Mulino training center modelled after a Bundeswehr center in Altmark may be the biggest achievement of Serdyukov. No wonder that manoeuvres West-2021 which prepared the Russian land army for Z-invasion opened and closed in Mulino

Read 4 tweets
Jul 10
Historically this has been (largely) correct. With major and important exceptions science used to be a business of the idle rich and weirdos till around WWII*. In the last decades though it taylorised so much that I'm not sure if we can view it as the same institution as before
* Of course I'm generalising. Some disciplines (chemistry) could have more potential for practical applications and thus earning potential than others (physics). But the science itself transformed into a somewhat normal industry with somewhat normal career potential only recently
I'd even argue that the post-WWII world when academia was indeed a normal career track, was a historical aberration mistakenly taken for a new norm. Under normal conditions you either have some other means of income or you starve. Now we're simply returning to the historical norm
Read 5 tweets
Jul 9
Researchers studying regionalism and diversity in Russia produced tons of great books on Caucasus but very few on Volga region. This is by far the best book on Tatarstan that I know. She:

1. Has actually learnt the language
2. Lived into the culture rather than merely studied it
What makes Faller's book special is that she tried to grasp the conceptual framework of a culture she studied rather than apply her own. That's very rare. That requires lots of intellectual humility and the great language fluency. Unfortunately, too many researchers have neither
Helen Faller focuses on cultural politics. Unlike many others though, she has actually learnt the culture she's writing on. She raises tons of minor questions most researchers would never ask. Like, what constitutes a well-organised domestic space in Russian and in Tatar culture?
Read 5 tweets

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