Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

How would you know, you're a guy from California.

How would you know, you're a guy from Berlin Moscow Virginia

Maybe from Wumao City.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Ramzan Kadyrov chimes in.

https://twitter.com/albafella1/status/1654530349790003214?t=oGItQFpkDATt-t2wk0_S...

If the older brother Prigozhin and Wagner leave, then the General Staff will lose an experienced combat unit, and his younger brother Kadyrov and Akhmat will come to his place...

Does the head of the republic consider himself inferior to the leader of a private military company?

Like Putin’s long-standing words that all his “cooks” are from the FSO (the Federal Guard Service), like the FSO garage next to the Wagner Center, like the obscene insanely brazen demand to the Ministry of Defense to increase the supply of ammunition, this once again confirms that the Wagner is really secret division of the FSO. Well, and like a thousand other clues.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Threaten to (effectively) desert and get rewarded with supplies which were presumably bound for other units. Wagner has a particularly high profile, but it's still a bit surprising they pulled this off.

It may have implications for other Russian army units and mercenary groups. Pretty much all of them want more supplies and might be willing to play this kind of dangerous game to win them, which would be bad news for the military as a whole.

The absurdity of the situation is that for mercenarism Wagner falls under Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. If Wagner were not a de facto secret unit of the FSO, then the only thing Prigozhin could demand was to reduce his criminal term.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I saw this discussed earlier so I thought I'd throw some of my thoughts in.

Andriy Biletsky is a deplorable fascist and a Neo-Nazi. He has softened his rhetoric in the past few years but this is cosmetic. He’s also on the deep fringe of Ukrainian politics and has never had success.

There are far-right formations in both Ukraine and Russia. Far-right, fascist, racist, antisemitic, ultranationalist armed formations have been operating on both sides since 2014. On the Russian side, these include

• Russian Orthodox Army
• Russian Imperial Movement
• Sparta Battalion
• Rusich Group (Part of PMC Wagner)
• DShRG Ratibor

And this is just a limited sample of groups with explicitly far-right ideology. It's interesting how we hear endlessly about Azov Battalion but never about this lot. Now let's talk about Azov. Azov Battalion was founded in 2014 as almost an armed wing of Social-National Assembly, a far-right party connected to Right Sector and Patriot of Ukraine. At this point, the Ukrainian state was in a state of inertia, in the midst of reconstructing its institutions, including the military, after the Revolution. Azov was one of many "volunteer battalions" that were sent into Donbas to stop the total collapse of order in Luhansk and Donetsk. Azov consisted of far-right activists and football hooligans, and its emblem at this time included a Black Sun. It operated far-right summer camps, and were absolutely a far-right organization. Since 2014, the Azov Battalion was incorporated into the National Guard, where a lot of far-right personalities were removed for political reasons, or were killed in the fighting. To say the Azov of 2022 is the same as that of 2014 is grossly misleading. And perhaps most importantly of all, this is just one regiment with a few thousand people!

This leads into my next point, there is so much talk of these far-right militias in Ukraine (weirdly so little about Russia). But what matters is how this influences the Ukrainian state. Is the Ukrainian state influenced by ultranationalist ideology? Is it influenced by fascist theory? I have yet to see any compelling argument that this is true. After all, Zelenskyy is a Russian-speaking Jew who was elected as the de facto candidate of the east. The cabinet of Prime Minister Shmyhal is full of liberals, as is Zelenskyy's circle of advisors, many of whom are personal friends, or come from the liberal-dissident, color revolutionary scene. It is not exactly a hive of ultranationalists. Many of them are not even ethnically Ukrainian!

Far-right formations exist in Russia, the state has apparently given up on curtailing their extremism. In the past, Putin as coopted ultranationalist, xenophobic groups in his state blob, but these days he exhibits less control. Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence that suggests his motivations in Ukraine are motivated by ultranationalism, specifically Ivan Ilyin, an early 20th-century White emigré and fascist intellectual.

Ukraine is not a perfect liberal democracy. I've been very critical of Viktor Yushchenko and other Ukrainian liberal figures in my own writings. But the Ukrainian state is not influenced by ultranationalism or far-right ideology, Moscow, definitely more so.

And, I haven't even mentioned how PMC Wagner is totally filled with Nazis! It totally is! It is a modern Dirlewanger Brigade.

In addition, the IFRI study from 2016:
The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Speaking of neo-Nazis:

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1656467468079046658?s=20

The party, which was later renamed The Other Russia, had an ingenious coat of arms:
Национал-большевистская партия

It exactly personifies Putin's Russia.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/treaschest/status/1656522699588378626?s=12

It will be very revealing if Prigozhin suffers the fate of Yue Fei.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

You know whenever people whine about how aiding Ukraine is too expensive it's important to think about a point made about the UK's donation of Storm Shadow cruise missiles. This is actually saving the UK money.

Why? Bevause they were due to be phased out in a couple years anyway. And disposing of old stock safely is expensive. Donating them to Ukraine avoids this issue.

And that's also true of most of the equipment donated by the US. Only Russia hacks make this claim, it's not a good faith concern.

In addition, the maintenance of military equipment requires constant costs in itself. Finding a buyer is long and difficult, each additional month means additional costs, and it's easier to give away for free.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/treaschest/status/1656522699588378626?s=12

It will be very revealing if Prigozhin suffers the fate of Yue Fei.

Prigozhin's an aggressor while Yue Fei was a valiant defender of home and country even when his own government didn't want him to be, and was a little too good at it. It'd be more like if Zelensky executed one of his top generals after the war.

You are right, there are no 100% exact analogies. I only mean the end of Yue Fei's career when the government forced him to commit suicide due to his disagreements with the government. And as a result, the army was defeated.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Even though Putin's wallet contains all of Russia's money, I don't think Putin could buy Trump. Whereas it is very easy and very common for one state just south of Russia.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I can't believe Prigozhin is STILL allowed out there to put out these daily diatribes criticizing the war effort of a war that he's an active participant in. I guess the Russians letting open factions and rivalries (apparently) get in the way of the war effort at a crucial time is consistent with everything else we've seen from Putin's Russia. If Putin were to drop dead tomorrow who is supposed to keep Prigozhin, Kadyrov, Shoigu and all the other minor warlords united towards a common purpose without mass arrests and executions? Anyone?

Since the Brezhnev era, the so-called Russian Party has had a department of the so-called Osipovites. While the main Russian Party positions itself as moderate politicians and carefully filters its words, the Osipovites do all the dirty work and consist of completely insane extremists, compared to whom Bin Laden is a good boy.

The Osipovites can and should scold the main Russian Party in order to appear to be an independent force, so that the Russian Party seems to be a kind policeman, wisely managing in high positions, and the Osipovites seem to be individual crazy people who do not influence anything.

Now it doesn’t make much sense to continue this strategy, all cards are open, but apparently Putin is very used to it and still considers it convenient.

About the Russian Party and Osipovites, it is written in detail, but with rounded corners, in the dissertation
Митрохин, Николай Александрович. Русская партия : движение русских националистов в СССР, 1953 - 1985 годы / Н. А. Митрохин. - Москва : Новое литературное обозрение, 2003

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I'm not sure what Prigozhin's end goal is, but biting the hand that feeds you feels risky:

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1657179402747125762?s=20

I would not be surprised if the corpses shown by Prigozhin originally belonged to the regular army, which the Wagnerites shot with friendly fire, and now Prigozhin invents excuses for this one after another in the NLP manner beloved by the Russians.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/tendar/status/1657435618325024770?s=12

Girkin, Kvachkov, Kalashnikov, Limonov, Barkashov and other Osipovites always spoke in the same spirit. For example, in his non-forbidden book, Kvachkov, a friend of Girkin, called Putin a rooster, which means a member of the lower prison caste — a passive homosexual who is constantly raped.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Prigozhin already is an Atlas poster:
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=profile;u=18362

Prigozhin is not so pro-Kremlin, like him

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Wagner is widely suspected of being a tool of the GRU, the people who make people fall out of windows. The fact that Prigozhin hasn't fallen out of a window yet is a VERY bad sign for Putin.

This is a common opinion, but GRU owned the Redut PMC, which completely failed at the very beginning of the war. I have no direct evidence, but based on open sources, it seems that Wagner is a structure within the FSO. Which allows the Wagnerites to insult the Ministry of Defense with impunity and contemptuously demand that it increase supplies. The FSO stands above the Ministry of Defense and above even Rosguardia (why actually Kadyrov with his Rosguardia's Akhmat called Prigozhin his elder brother), whereas the GRU is entirely subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.

The FSO is one of Putin's personal guard services, perhaps the most competent.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Biden admin is warming up to the idea of a frozen conflict most likely happening, for years or even decades.

You are projecting in the style of Russian propaganda, since a frozen conflict for years or even decades is literally every war started by Putin. Frozen conflict is Putin's M.O.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Well per the NYT, some good news. The oil price cap directed at Russia has had real bite.

"Russia’s oil revenues in March were down 43 percent from a year earlier, the International Energy Agency reported last month, even though its total export sales volume had grown. This week, the agency reported that Russian revenues had rebounded slightly but were still down 27 percent from a year ago. The government’s tax receipts from the oil and gas sectors were down by nearly two-thirds from a year ago."

Moreover, tax revenues from the oil sector are way down, and Russia is having to also divert money from the war effort to try to finance its own oil trade delivery  apparatus - ships, insurance and so forth.

The mission to BK Russia is alive and well, if not the yet the beginning of the end, at least per Winston Churchill the end of the beginning. Keep the squeeze on baby, and bleed them dry.

Technically true but we have to consider base effects



What took place was that in early 2022 Russia got a massive surge in revenue relative to 2021 mostly due to a surge in world energy prices.  2023 is reverting to 2021 levels due to a clear decline in overall world economic fortunes

This shows that while reaping the benefits of 2021 in 2022 everything was fine for Russia, as in 2021. In 2023, Russia is reaping the benefits of 2022, and we see that in 2022 Russia, for some reason unknown to us, decided to suddenly jump out of the window.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Given all the resources the Russian state has at its disposal, certainly plausible for a frozen conflict to go on for many years.
More than anything else, it's a reason for us to back up Ukraine as needed. We're in this for the long haul. (Unless we make some kind of deal with Russia that would work out for our global interests, that involves us stopping backing Ukraine. We'll see.)

Perhaps someday it will be possible to negotiate with Russia again, there are (or were) brilliant young people in Russia, but the Putin and Patrushev clique is absolutely incapable of negotiating. Their state is controlled by a terrorist organization.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I'm still convinced that the reason for this invasion is because Putin's on borrowed time. He usually thinks fairly long term, but he has been taking more and more risks lately, including this war, and wants to be remembered as the man who rebuilt Russian dominance.

He looks more like a man who destroyed the well-being of Russia.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I'm still convinced that the reason for this invasion is because Putin's on borrowed time. He usually thinks fairly long term, but he has been taking more and more risks lately, including this war, and wants to be remembered as the man who rebuilt Russian dominance.

He looks more like a man who destroyed the well-being of Russia.

Yeltsin is dead.

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Characteristic recessions in 2008 and 2014, with Putin-raids to Georgia and Ukraine. And in terms of population, the country halved in 1991, there is clearly some kind of cheating with equating the USSR with the Russian Federation.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I would watch with interest the recession from 2023 and beyond, I think it will be especially significant.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I would watch with interest the recession from 2023 and beyond, I think it will be especially significant.

Of course, that logic cuts both ways.  A mild world recession has been mostly priced in the world energy markets.  A severe world recession will for sure hammer world energy prices but such a severe recession will also shift the political dynamics in the collective West as far as the priority of resource allocation toward Ukraine's economic and military aid.  I think the pockets and will on both sides are pretty deep.  There is no reason to believe that this will be an indefinite war that will mostly benefit those outside it.

The PRC will definitely benefit from the cumulative subsidence of the economies of the West and the former USSR. This will allow the PRC to dictate its terms to the West and finally subjugate the Commonwealth of Independent States. And in the long run to bargain for the takeover of Taiwan.

Cui prodest in full height.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1659883799969136640

QED.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

The PRC will definitely benefit from the cumulative subsidence of the economies of the West and the former USSR. This will allow the PRC to dictate its terms to the West and finally subjugate the Commonwealth of Independent States. And in the long run to bargain for the takeover of Taiwan.

Cui prodest in full height.

PRC gains economically mostly by having its industrial competitors in the EU saddled with higher energy costs and it also can penetrate the Russian market much more easily.  I guess PRC makes minor geopolitical gains.  Geopolitically the big winner clearly is India.

So far, I see that India has egg on its face, since it has always depended on Russian weapons, and now the reputation of these weapons is lost, and the reputation of India itself will be lost if these purchases continue.

We can see one of the things China won right in the photo above, but what do you think India wins?

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

The PRC will definitely benefit from the cumulative subsidence of the economies of the West and the former USSR. This will allow the PRC to dictate its terms to the West and finally subjugate the Commonwealth of Independent States. And in the long run to bargain for the takeover of Taiwan.

Cui prodest in full height.

PRC gains economically mostly by having its industrial competitors in the EU saddled with higher energy costs and it also can penetrate the Russian market much more easily.  I guess PRC makes minor geopolitical gains.  Geopolitically the big winner clearly is India.

So far, I see that India has egg on its face, since it has always depended on Russian weapons, and now the reputation of these weapons is lost, and the reputation of India itself will be lost if these purchases continue.

We can see one of the things China won right in the photo above, but what do you think India wins?

Now everyone, the PRC-Russia super bloc, and the collective West, now wants India on their side and be their friend.  A great geopolitical coup for India.

This is a very interesting interpretation. Thus you can choose any country. For example, instead of India, you can say Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, or Singapore, and your statement will not only still make sense, but become even less controversial.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Now everyone, the PRC-Russia super bloc, and the collective West, now wants India on their side and be their friend.  A great geopolitical coup for India.

No, the PRC would rather go to war with India over some uninhabited barren ice caps in a place where no one can even breathe than have India on its side. India for its part now has one hostile neighbor to the north and another humiliated ally to the north, forcing it to become a vassal to the West. China is isolated and has no real allies except.... Russia. Russia is humiliated and is currently celebrating the "liberation" of a bunch of charred out ruins no one had ever heard of a year ago. Ukraine joins Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria in the dubious "my country was destroyed in the 21st century" hall of fame. Europe suffered an energy crisis and has lost a major trading partner. As far as I can see, everyone is a loser.

The only real winner here is the U.S. For the cost of a relative pittance in military aid and no U.S. troops, it is achieving a major strategic victory over Russia. If you look at the U.S. economy in recent years, and it's continual generation of new innovations like SpaceX, ChatGPT, and so on, it's clear it's pulling further away from the rest of the world. In the future, political, economic and military power will increasingly be concentrated here; unipolarity is rising.

I very much agree with the first part of your post and disagree with the second. Despite my love for American civilization, I have to admit that the USA is like an iPhone — insanely expensive, super-stylish, but archaic and not very common. Whereas Russia and China, despite their eternal inability to fight on the battlefield and sliding into isolationism, as well as the Asian phones they find cheap solutions with a higher level of progressiveness and functionality.

Take, for example, the aspect of information confrontation — even this little-known forum has been flooded with wumaos. Whereas for Russian-speakers, the US point of view is represented only by a couple of small Voice of America studios in Prague and Washington with a few provincial journalists. And 99.99% of modern Russian-speakers, having forgotten the Soviet times when the Voice of America was very popular, just do not know about the existence of such media.