When the mobilisation in Russia started, I wondered how they would train them all having only one modern training ground in the country?
That's the neat part. They won't
* Rheinmetall AG-built and supplied Mulino training ground which was used for training the army of invasion
PS and yes, Rheinmetall's awkward denial that they "did not supply the simulation technology" is a lie. Of course, you did. And the last shipment I have hard evidence of arrived on November 22, 2019. How do I know it? Well, it is designated in the customs documentation
КАТ. 18.2 ШАЙБЫ ПЛОСКИЕ, СТАЛЬНЫЕ, БЕЗ РЕЗЬБЫ, ПАЗОВ И ПРОТОЧЕК НЕТ, КОМПОНЕНТЫ ИЗ СОСТАВА МНОГОЯРУСНАЯ СКЛАДСКАЯ СИСТЕМА ПО ПЕРЕЧНЮ № 1: ДЛЯ СБОРКИ СИСТЕМЫ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЯ И ИМИТАЦИИ
HS Code: 7318220009
Shipper: RHEINMETALL DEFENCE ELECTRONICS GMBH
Arrival Date: 2019-11-22
КАТ. 18.2 ИЗДЕЛИЯ БЕЗ РЕЗЬБЫ (ЗАКЛЕПКИ), СТАЛЬНЫЕ, ПАЗОВ И ПРОТОЧЕК НЕТ, КОМПОНЕНТЫ ИЗ СОСТАВА МНОГОЯРУСНАЯ СКЛАДСКАЯ СИСТЕМА ПО ПЕРЕЧНЮ № 1: ДЛЯ СБОРКИ СИСТЕМЫ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЯ И ИМИТАЦИИ
HS Code: 8308200000
Shipper: RHEINMETALL DEFENCE ELECTRONICS GMBH
Arrival Date: 2019-11-22
КАТ. 18.2 КОНВЕЙЕРЫ РОЛИКОВЫЕ, ОБЛАСТЬ ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ - ДЛЯ СБОРКИ СИСТЕМЫ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЯ И ИМИТАЦИИ, КОМПОНЕНТЫ ИЗ СОСТАВА МНОГОЯРУСНОЙ СКЛАДСКОЙ СИСТЕМЫ ПО ПЕРЕЧНЮ № 1: ДЛЯ СБОРКИ СИСТЕМЫ
HS Code: 8428392000
Shipper: RHEINMETALL DEFENCE ELECTRONICS GMBH
Arrival Date: 2019-11-22
Russian customs data designate the purpose of these shipments:
"for assembling the system of modelling and imitation" (ДЛЯ СБОРКИ СИСТЕМЫ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЯ И ИМИТАЦИИ)
Receiver - JSC Garnison. The Russian company that was finishing Mulino after Rheinmetall "left" in 2014
NB: I chose just three examples from one single shipment that arrived on November 22, 2019. They are all designated as components for assembling modelling and "imitation" (=simulation) systems in customs declaration. Rheinmetall knew very well what they are shipping and what for
Let me get this straight. In 2011 Rheinmetall AG started building Mulino in strategic partnership with JSC Oboronservis, Russian Ministry of Defence daughter company. In 2014 JSC Oboronservis was renamed to JSC Garnison (they needed to distance from fallen minister Serdyukov)
In 2015 Rheinmetall "left" the Mulino project to the Russian JSC Garnison company. Notice that it is the *same* company that has been participating in this project from the very beginning as Rheinmetall's strategic partner. They just changed the name in 2014
As late as November 2019, Rheinmetall continued to supply JSC Garnison (which was completing Mulino) with components *specifically* designated "for assembling modelling and imitation (=simulation)" systems in customs declarations. They knew what they are shipping and why
In 2020 Mulino was completed. In 2021 they organised their manoeuvres West-2021, preparing the Russian army for invasion of Ukraine. And they're still training the troops (including Wagner mercenaries) there. It's just that one training ground cannot fit all the mobilised
I think Rheinmetall AG must be sued
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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.