The defence of Mariupol seems to be unprecedented in the recent military history. Some pro-Russian pundits claimed that defenders were "hiding" in the catacombs of the Azovstal. That's factually wrong. They repeatedly counterattacked ambushing Russian soldiers on the city streets
Mariupol is a key industrial center located almost on the Russian border. It was besieged on the very first day of the war and completely surrounded by the early March. Still, its defenders continued resisting till the late May in the deep rear of Russian forces
Defenders of Mariupol achieved two objectives. First of all, they deflected the Russian attention. Azovstal becoming an Alcazar-like symbol, Russians had to keep on attacking the plant which remained in their rear instead of just pushing forward. That helped Ukraine to buy time
With every new week of the war the balance of power is changing in favour of Ukraine, not only due to narrowly defined "military" but also due to material factors. Ukraine is getting lend lease, while Russia is getting sanctions burden which amount to an anti lend lease program
I'll cover the logic of sanctions (as I see it) later. For now I would like to say that they look like an almost exact reversal of the lend lease program of WWII. Russian industries are being turned off now roughly in the same order as they were turned on in the 1940s
Some perceive Hitler's decision to invade the USSR as madness. I'll however argue that it was a very well-thought decision. Hitler assumed that the German advance would break the Soviet supply & technological chains thus undermining their military capacities. That was correct
What Hitler didn't take into account however, was the gargantuan scale of the American aid, which specifically targeted all the gaps in Soviet supply chains created by the German advance. The US targeted bottlenecks in the Soviet supply chains turning industries on one by one
Right now Russian industries are being turned off one by one in roughly the same order as they were turned off in the 1940s. The effect of sanctions was very much visible since the 2014 (just read the interviews with engineers and technologists of the military plants)
Still, both the aid to Ukraine and the anti lend lease program for Russia need time to produce a significant effect. And the resistance of Mariupol was one of important factors in gaining this time for the rest of Ukraine
Defenders of Mariupol achieved one more objective. They destroyed a significant number of Putin's subjects: both the Russian regulars (possible to estimate) and the Donbass levy (impossible to estimate right now), depleting the quickly shrinking manpower that Putin can employ
The Russian advance slowed significantly. They retreated from the North (Kyiv, Cherhnihiv). Ukrainians are now successfully counterattacking in the Northeast (Kharkiv). Still, the war will continue and probably continue for long. So the material help is needed urgently
If you would like to donate, here you can find more links. You could contribute financially by Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay or Apple Pay (this is verified) fainemisto.com.ua/en/donate/
A bit later I'll publish a larger thread with links for donating to the specific detachments of the Ukrainian military, including the army, the territorial troops and the national guard. End of thread
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Fake jobs are completely normal & totally natural. The reason is: nobody understands what is happening and most certainly does not understand why. Like people, including the upper management have some idea of what is happening in an organisation, and this idea is usually wrong.
As they do not know and cannot know causal relations between the input and output, they just try to increase some sort of input, in a hope for a better output, but they do not really know which input to increase.
Insiders with deep & specific knowledge, on the other hand, may have a more clear & definite idea of what is happening, and even certain, non zero degree of understanding of causal links between the input and output
I have recently read someone comparing Trump’s tariffs with collectivisation in the USSR. I think it is an interesting comparison. I don’t think it is exactly the same thing of course. But I indeed think that Stalin’s collectivisation offers an interesting metaphor, a perspective to think about
But let’s make a crash intro first
1. The thing you need to understand about the 1920s USSR is that it was an oligarchic regime. It was not strictly speaking, an autocracy. It was a power of few grandees, of the roughly equal rank.
2. Although Joseph Stalin established himself as the single most influential grandee by 1925, that did not make him a dictator. He was simply the most important guy out there. Otherwise, he was just one of a few. He was not yet the God Emperor he would become later.
The great delusion about popular revolts is that they are provoked by bad conditions of life, and burst out when they exacerbate. Nothing can be further from truth. For the most part, popular revolts do not happen when things get worse. They occur when things turn for the better
This may sound paradoxical and yet, may be easy to explain. When the things had been really, really, really bad, the masses were too weak, to scared and too depressed to even think of raising their head. If they beared any grudges and grievances, they beared them in silence.
When things turn for the better, that is when the people see a chance to restore their pride and agency, and to take revenge for all the past grudges, and all the past fear. As a result, a turn for the better not so much pacifies the population as emboldens and radicalises it.
The first thing to understand about the Russian-Ukrainian war is that Russia did not plan a war. And it, most certainly, did not plan the protracted hostilities of the kind we are seeing today
This entire war is the regime change gone wrong.
Russia did not want a protracted war (no one does). It wanted to replace the government in Kyiv, put Ukraine under control and closely integrate it with Russia
(Operation Danube style)
One thing to understand is that Russia viewed Ukraine as a considerable asset. From the Russian perspective, it was a large and populous country populated by what was (again, from the Russian perspective) effectively the same people. Assimilatable, integratable, recruitable
In 1991, Moscow faced two disobedient ethnic republics: Chechnya and Tatarstan. Both were the Muslim majority autonomies that refused to sign the Federation Treaty (1992), insisting on full sovereignty. In both cases, Moscow was determined to quell them.
Still, the final outcome could not be more different. Chechnya was invaded, its towns razed to the ground, its leader assassinated. Tatarstan, on the other hand, managed to sign a favourable agreement with Moscow that lasted until Putin’s era.
The question is - why.
Retrospectively, this course of events (obliterate Chechnya, negotiate with Tatarstan) may seem predetermined. But it was not considered as such back then. For many, including many of Yeltsin’s own partisans it came as a surprise, or perhaps even as a betrayal.