Thread by @kamilkazani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App 2/28/22, 4:41 PM

Frida Kahlo: La exposición

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Frida Kahlo Abrir

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Kamil Galeev
Follow @kamilkazani 72.8K followers

Feb 24 • 29 tweets • 11 min read

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3 theses on the Russian-Ukrainian war:

1. Putin's decision to start the war on Ukraine isn't foreign policy. It's domestic
one. Putin first consolidated his power through the war in 1999-2000 and it
worked. So he repeated this trick every time his popularity started waning

Putin was confirmed as the Prime Minister on 16 August 1999. By that point Yeltsin chose him as a successor and
Putin controlled intelligence. But he still had to stand on elections - and he was unknown. His rate of approval was
between 3-4% because ppl didn't recognise his face

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Thread by @kamilkazani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App 2/28/22, 4:41 PM

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Just two weeks later apartment bombings started. Since September 4, a number of residential houses in Moscow,
Volgodonsk, Buinaksk were blown up. More than 300 people died, 1700 were wounded. Putin accused Chechen
terrorists in these attacks and invaded the separatist region

He won. In the course of the war he built his image as a tough victorious military leader. And Russian public

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opinion likes victorious military leaders. By the end of the year with the Chechen resistance largely crushed, he
became very electable. That's how he became a President

Of course, the entire story with so timely blown up houses looked kinda shady. There were certain suspicions
regarding who really organised these attacks, especially in the context of the Ryazan case

With all these explosions, the country became vigilant. On September 22 Alexey Kartofelnikov living on Novoselov
14/16 in Ryazan noticed a strange white car parked near their residential building. Its passengers took several bags
and brought them into the basement of the house

After the strangers left, locals called the police. Police came and found several large bags from sugar - with a
detonator. People were evacuated and the police expertise showed that the bags contain hexagon. Next day it
became the national news - the media were still free

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Prime Minister Putin congratulated them with preventing a terrorist attack. The same night police (police is MVD
- different from FSB) arrested two suspects. To their surprise they showed the FSB IDs. Ofc Moscow HQ of FSB
called the police and ordered to release their agents

Next day Putin gave a different version. Now he said that those were simply the trainings, the manoeuvres. The
FSB was learning how to prevent terror attacks and these bags contained regular sugar. The detonators were fake

It all sounded shady. But the military planes were already raising Grozny to the ground. Successful invasion that
followed changed the electoral balance completely. In August 1999 2% voters would vote for Putin, in 2000 - 53%
did. Russian people love victorious wars

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So, it worked. And that's how the institutional inertia dynamics commence. Whatever worked out in the past, will
likely work out again. So why bother with making up new ideas if older ones are completely reliable? And indeed,
reliable they were

In 2010s Putin was clearly losing popularity. Fraud on the parliamentary elections of 2011 triggered the largest
street protests since Putin came to power. That was a bad marker. Economy was rising, quality of life improving.
And many were still angry

Frida Kahlo: La
exposición

Más de 2.500 fotogramas animados

pintados a mano

Frida Kahlo Abrir

But streets protests could be ascribed to a politicised minority, whereas silent majority supported him. That's why
he confidently came to a boxing championate to give a speech, with the federal TV broadcasting it in real time.
And he was booed with millions people watching

That was a heavy blow. He came to power as a victorious military leader. But now, 11 years later, ppl didn't
recognise him as such. They saw him as a pathetic gerontocrat with too much botox fillings. He became a joke. So
he had to take urgent action to be treated seriously again

His popularity falling, he had to restore his image as a serious leader. How? Well, by winning wars. Again, he
initially built his legitimacy through a military victory, so why not do it again? Thus Russia engages into wars:
Syria, Ukraine, Africa. Domestic policy by other means

So the real audience of this play are neither Ukrainians, nor Westerners. It's Russians. Of course many won't
wholeheartedly support the war. But it will make them take Putin seriously. And for Putin it's much better to be
regarded as bloody and merciless, rather than ridiculous

2. Many in the West exaggerate how robust the Putin's regime is. It's not only dependent on Western technologies
and imports, it also can't decrease its dependence without a renegotiation of power balance. Which means it exists

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only as long as the West doesn't take action

Infrastructure-wise there is one thing it's doing well - building and maintaining communications for exporting raw
materials. Railways, pipelines, seaports

And yet, sanctions obstruct development of new oil or gas deposits. There are new deposits introduced, but they
don't compensate the depletion. Theoretically Russia has huge deposits, but they're primarily on Arctic shelf and
Russia lacks the technology to extract them alone

Russia is not the USSR. The USSR was a theocracy legitimised through technological progress, which valued
scientists and engineers highly. Modern Russia doesn't. Consider salaries which state corporation offers to
aerospace engineers - kinda 150 usd/month

That's important to keep in mind. Unlike USSR, Russia doesn't value people who produce stuff. It's not
prestigious, it doesn't pay. So whoever can leave to the IT and work for international market directly, will do it.
There's huge negative selection in production of hardware

Which means that Russian industry, including military, is highly dependent upon Western technologies and
equipment. Precision manufacturing is done on German, Swiss, Italian machines. Production of literally anything
complicated continues only as long as it is allowed to continue

3. What will be the result of this war? That largely depends on Western, primarily American reaction. If Putin
manages to win a small victorious war again and get away with that, it will not only increase his authority but
trigger tons of terrirotiral conflicts all over the world

Let's be honest, in most countries there're groups who believe that their neighbours occupy a piece of our sacred

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Thread by @kamilkazani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App 2/28/22, 4:41 PM

land illegitimately. That's very typical feeling and usually it's mutual. The only reason why wars over the land don't
happen more frequently is the fear of reprisals

If this invasion succeeds and Putin gets away with it, this will trigger a chain of imitators waging their small
victorious wars all over the world. More powerful powers than Russia will certainly do, less powerful ones will try
their chance, too. That will be a very bloody era

Paradoxically enough, even the military defeat of Russia is not necessary to prevent that scenario. Simply Putin
losing his power would be enough as a warning. And counterintuitively, that would likely result naturally if he
doesn't achieve a quick victory

There's a big difference between an easy war and a hard war. An easy war makes regime stronger because it
achieves victory without having to transform. But a hard war will transform it. The longer WWI lasted, the more
the real power over Germany flowed from Kaiser to Ludendorff

Russia plays hard. But hard war is incompatible with the state security rule. They aren't guys who do stuff, they
are the guys who find wrongdoings in the work of others. Critics, not doers. So once the war becomes existential,
power will start flipping from their hands. End of

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Kamil Galeev Kamil Galeev Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani @kamilkazani @kamilkazani

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Thread by @kamilkazani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
Why Russia will Feb
lose27this war? Much
of the "realist" discourse is about
accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's
*guaranteed*. But how do we know it
is? I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate
Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian
one 3) misunderstand Russian
strategy & political goals
Consider a timely paper on Russian
army
Readby83
Bismarck
tweetsAnalysis. It's good
& informative. It's correct on its land-
based and artillery-centric character.
It's also correct that Minister of
Kamil Galeev
Defence@kamilkazani
Serdyukov greatly increased
army's efficiency in 2007-2012. But
Feb 25
it's still misleading
I started my substack with a text
"How Russia got so big and so cold"?
History of Russian
Yes, Minister imperial
Serdyukov indeed
expansion,
reformed the army.some
teaches important
He increased its
lessons about
efficiency, Russian
fought with big strategy.
corrupt and
Media
crony armament producers its
focuses too much on
ideological context
improving the armyand too little
supplies. As -aon
economic one
result he became extremely
kamilkazani2.substack.com/p/how-
unpopular, made tons of powerful
did-russ…
enemies and was ousted in 2012
losing his power and status
Let's
Readlook
14attweets
the map of Muscovite
expansion. The rise of Muscovy was a
chain of hostile takeovers oriented
northward - to control the supply of
furs from the North and Siberia
(orange line). They would push their
representatives into local
administrations and then impose
control
That's how Moscow secured the
supply of the main tradable good it
could get, the furs, and cut off its
main rival of Novgorod from its
supply lines. After Novgorod was
isolated from its eastern lands, which
supplied it with tradable goods, the
fall of this republic was determined
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1496711906412933121.html
Feb 26
News about 10 000 Chechen troops
leaving to Ukraine alarmed many.
And yet, one must know context to
understand its meaning. Many
assume that after Putin's victory
Chechnya became just part of Russia
and thus Chechen troops are just
Russian regulars of Chechen origin.
Not quite
Chechnya
Read 55istweets
an ethnic republic in the
south of Russia. It has a quickly
growing population of 1,4 million. Its
natural demographic growth is highly
Kamil Galeev
important in the military context. In
@kamilkazani
depopulating Russia that's one of few
Feb 24
regions with steady supply of young
Are Putin's decisions collective or
males to send to war
personal? It depends. To my best
knowledge annexation of Crimea in
2014 was aconsists
Chechnya collective
of decision.
northern,And
about 50%
lowland, of them
part whichwere supposed
the continuation
"liberals"
of EurasianBut, I wanna
Steppe andstress, since
southern,
2020 Putin's
highland part,been isolated.
limited by theHe
panicked
Caucasus and locked
range. himself in a
Historically,
bunker
Chechens lived in cold infertile
highland and wished to occupy the
warm and rich lowland which lied
HeRead
largely governed a country
5 tweets
beyond their reach
through telecom, kinda zoom. No one
could get in without a quarantine. So
most of his old St Petersburg pals or
his staffers simply wouldn't come.
Thus their influence over him
declined. And let's be honest - his grip
over them, too
The only big Kremlin boss who locked
himself in a bunker with Putin was
Alexey Gromov. He wasn't Putin's old
friend, he's from the previous
Yeltsin's administration. And yet,
now he has become the closest one,
controlling the access to the body.
And the info Putin is getting
2/28/22, 4:41 PM
Feb 25
Let's discuss Putin speech. He
declared Ukrainians to be "Neonazis"
and promised to "denazify" them.
Indeed the "Nazi" character of
Ukrainian statehood and identity has
long been a central thesis of Russian
propaganda. Let's discuss why and
how it reflects ideology of Putinism
Why do 45
Read we exist?
tweetsDifferent Russian
regimes gave different answers to this
question. Bolshevik theocracy
claimed to lead humanity to the
Kamil Galeev
earthly heaven of communism. Until
@kamilkazani
1960s they were serious about it. In
Feb 23
1960 Khruchev gave specific
That's Putin celebrating the Day of
deadline: communism will be built by
State Security Worker. Indeed, the
1980
domination of State Security "the new
nobility" over all other institutions is
a particular
Khruchev feature was
however of Putin's regime.
the last true
Which hadn't been the case in
believer at power. In 1964 he wasUSSR.
State security
deposed rule is the
by Brezhnev whomajor
didn't care.
innovation of Putin
Brezhnev abandoned the agenda of
building communism by a specific
deadline. "Developed socialism"
USSR wasn't run by the state security.
would be good enough. So we kinda
It Read
was run
48by the Party. The Party was
tweets
don't march to the earthly heaven
the supreme institution controlling all
anymore
others, including KGB. Party had its
cells in every KGB office, which had
to control KGB and report on it. KGB
activities were checked by the Party
commissars
Of course cadre decisions in KGB
were done by the Party. Since the
cleansing of Beria's henchmen in
1950s KGB was never ever led by
career KGB officers. All the KGB
chiefs were political appointees from
the Party nomenklatura. They were
always outsiders, "suits"
Page 8 of 9
Thread by @kamilkazani on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App 2/28/22, 4:41 PM

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