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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
@kamilkazani
Jul 30, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
You see, too many intuitively plausible assumptions about Russia are wrong. For example the one that the war will be exclusively fought with young men. It was in the beginning. Now however, they are actively recruiting in older ages, around 50 and even plus
Makes sense. Russia is ageing and depopulating country. There is not so much youth to start with. Theoretically you could have used massive human resources of much younger Central Asia. But for a number of reasons Central Asians are extremely unwilling to fight for Russia
That has nothing to do with regime or ideology. That has always been so. During the WWI, Tsar's attempt to mobilise Central Asians (simply for wartime labour) resulted in the massive rebellion of 1916. During the WWII, there was no rebellion. But the desertion rates were enormous
With Slavic population shrinking, the regime has to recruit anyone. Prigozhin is now touring prisons to recruit folk for the Wagner. "I'm one of you, I spent 10 years behind bars myself". They had to drastically lower the standards. They now don't even test recruits for drugs
From what I know, they now take very many older recruits, in their 40s and even 50s. That makes sense. Russia has lots of people with no money or perspectives. When you are 20, you hope one day it may change. When you are 40, you don't hope anymore
Why do they go into army? Money. My friend recently made a long trip through the Urals province. Two observations. First, there are no roads, only directions. Second, he didn't see a single Z or V patriotic poster. But recruitment posters offering 200 000 per month are everywhere Image
They specifically recruit older guys who lost any hope and offer them huge monetary compensations. You probably can't even imagine how much money they pay by the standards of destitute province. And they accentuate *salary*, not some BS like fight on fascism. That's for Moscow
Regarding that video with parents of a soldier KIA buying a car on the coffin money. I get many messages that I didn't confirm that the episode with a car was shown only in province, not in Moscow & St Petersburg. If true, that means that's not a report. It is an advert. The end

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
May 2
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

(what kind of input produces this kind of output)
Read 6 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Apr 12
There is a common argument that due process belongs only to citizens

Citizens deserve it, non citizens don’t

And, therefore, can be dealt with extrajudicially

That is a perfectly logical, internally consistent position

Now let’s think through its implications
IF citizens have the due process, and non-citizens don’t

THEN we have two parallel systems of justice

One slow, cumbersome, subject to open discussion and to appeal (due process)

Another swift, expedient, and subject neither to a discussion nor to an appeal (extrajudicial)
And the second one already encompasses tens of millions of non citizens living in the United States, legal and illegal, residents or not.

Now the question would be:

Which system is more convenient for those in power?

Well, the answer is obvious
Read 10 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Apr 5
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 aboutImage
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.
Read 30 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 16
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.
Read 6 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 1
Three years of the war have passed

So, let’s recall what has happened so far

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 Image
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) Image
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 Image
Read 32 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Feb 8
Why does Russia attack?

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. Image
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. Image
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.

Let's see why Image
Read 24 tweets

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