billbindc

Russia buying shells from North Korea. As Alperovitch notes, a likely sign of severe supply issues and an overestimation of what they had originally. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/politics/russia-north-korea-artillery.html

Oh man, this. I've had too many conversations that arrive at "well, Russia has thermobaric weapons (or nukes, or reserves or Soviet Man Hulk Power)" and they sound a lot like pipeline guys. There's just a lot of emotional investment in Russian power and only a decisive loss in Ukraine is going to change it.

Correct. Equipment provision is being stepped to manage escalation. Aircraft and other limitations will likely end if Russia uses chemical weapons and direct intervention will result in the case of Russia using a nuke.

Exactly. This isn’t rock/paper/scissors. It is a contingent process with ebbs and flows, reactions and counter reactions. It’s also, given how little data we really possess, somewhat of a fruitless endeavor to try and make a judgement on that sort of data. What we *do* know is that Russia profoundly lacks manpower. We know that the RA is, if not demoralized, then close to it. And we know it is under pressure and retreating in some areas in the Kherson oblast. I’ll take that over a possibly specious point about pipelines.

Would Ukraine have that hard of a time figuring out where Russian pipelines were given US ISR and analytical capabilities plus their own on the ground humint? Actually…no, they wouldn’t. That strikes me as one of those things that experts say to sound smart but…well….isn’t.

Galeotti on suicides and ‘suicides’. I think this applies to both Gazprom guy and Drugina: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-defenestration-of-ravil-maganov-says-about-russia

There's not a court in the country that would convict you. Seriously.

Tempted to take the risk:

There are a lot of dubious assertions in there...not least: "Why did Russo-Western relations break down in 2022? We do not know what precisely happened on the Ukrainian question". It's also a fairly bizarre thing to write off the economics of Russian gas for Germany or what has already happened and is about to happen to the Russian economy from the sanctions regime. Finally, he used the term "dyad". Automatic memory hole offense.

It was Cold, certainly, but in terms of how it affected Russians on a daily basis it was certainly a war.

I respect how deep into the background and possibilities you gents are getting re a coup, but I have some reservations based on things we definitely know. For example: https://time.com/6208238/why-russian-support-for-the-war-in-ukraine-hasnt-wavered/. The bare fact is that this war is not yet unpopular in Russia and for some time at least, the more significant effects are going to be hidden from the core areas of the state. Until that happens what do the Russian nationalists have to offer? General mobilization that the people don't want and who they can't arm anyway? Continuing the war...which is already going to continue? If the war goes south and public opinion swings against it in the heartlands of Moscow, Smolensk and Ryazan the political position of the reanimated homo sovieticii are in a situation that's worse. "Let's fight this war better" has the ring of Kerenksy much more than it does Comrade Lenin. There is nobody in the elites in Russia who isn't aware of this history. They won't move unless the effort takes them out of the war.

Mikhail Gorbachev is dead. I remember seeing this from a distance...and simply not realizing what was happening because Soviet leaders simply didn't do crowds or personal popularity. It was refreshing and the relief one felt at the time in DC is hard to explain to those who don't remember the Ground Zero Cafe or dancing to Party at Ground Zero. I am quite sure this won't be an event of obvious consequence now but keep an eye on it later. It's the sort of thing that brings old allies together, that reminds the public that the end result of Gorbachev's very complicated legacy didn't need to be *this* (as in Putin's grim autarky).

If we are going to speculate about a Putin-ending coup, then look for the kind of folks who would be near (but prudently not right at) the forefront of any attempt to change the power structure. In other words, pay attention to guys like Dmitri Patrushev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Patrushev Yes, he's the son of the Nikolai Patrushev at Putin's side. He has an FSB education/background, very strong contacts across government and his own fairly extensive following within the governing bureaucracy. He has feet in multiple camps and a rep for sobriety and getting things done. And better yet, he's not at all tainted by the war. He didn't help start it, he didn't misjudge what would happen when it did and he hasn't been dragged into it as it continues. There are others out there like him but he's a guy you can safely put on your coup fantasy league team.

I think our only point of disagreement is on what level of stress is going to allow space for change to happen and provide enough incentive for blocs to form relative to the risk they take in doing so. Russian political culture is highly tolerant of badly run regimes and even badly run regimes like this one have pretty powerful coercive levers to pull. I don't think getting stuffed in Kherson will do it, nor will the coming debacle of the 3AC. It will take those events, more battlefield defeats and slow economic suffocation tied to sanctions. And even then...we'll see.

I agree that there are not unified blocs. Putin's apparatus for the last quarter century successfully devoted vast energies to forestall that exact situation. But that's also what makes a dramatic, immediate overthrow unlikely until stresses on the system both weaken Putin's ability to enforce disunity and the various factions are put under stresses that make joining together worthwhile. That will take some serious shocks and an exhaustion of the state. It can/will happen eventually but we aren't there yet.

I think the term is "on the horns of a dilemma".

A bit of a resource game at this point too. Given the supply situation, pushing Russian frontline units to expend ammunition at a much higher rate even without significant initial breakthroughs is going to shape things quite nicely in a couple of days/weeks.

There is an argument for making the announcement. The UA would certainly be happier with Russian forces spooked and moving rather than grimly hanging on in their positions.

The issue isn't that Putin is in a weaker position...it's that all of the contenders are in weak positions too. The intelligence/suppression services are humiliated by their misread of Ukraine. The military is humiliated by its continued malpractice at making war. The oligarchs are divorced from the levers of power and don't have any resonance within Russian nationalism. The first two pillars of power are also intensely, mutually antagonistic and neither has much time for the money men. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It is a feature of this sort of state...it's bad at everything except forestalling the rise of a competing power structure. If Putin falls, it won't be a revolution so much as a corollary to total systemic exhaustion. We aren't there yet.

Oh, I think the Russian mission in DC is pretty highly harassed already. Unlike pre-invasion, all of their buildings around town now have some police presence (of varying visibility) and God help anyone waving around a Russian flag.

Take this one with a big grain of salt. There's no evidence so far (unlike Lesin's hyoid bone) that suggests something beyond suicide. And the article's assertion that it's weird that nobody noticed him jumping is nonsense. I know DC's West End and that specific corner. It's deserted at 2am. It's absolutely likely nobody would witness it. Maybe Putin killed him. But so far, unlike in Lesin's case, there's nothing that is out of the ordinary for a suicide.

Soldatov sees a long war coming. I'm not sure I agree but he's a legit and careful observer.

We should be careful of the assumption that there's perfect information available to virtually anyone involved. The RusNats clearly ducked a bit when it happened. Now they've started to stick their heads up again. I'd say that tells us that at minimum they weren't sure at first who it was aimed at but that they've been either reassured or know it wasn't for a message for them. But that's all it tells us.

This is the best rundown I've seen in a long time on the long running and complicated factors that lead to the current mess Germany finds itself in. https://www.dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-year-relationship/a-61057166 Like most debacles on a national scale, it happened for a lot of both good and bad reasons which were all pretty obvious for a very long time. The deal depended on the parties involved basing their national decisions strictly on the positives and negatives of the deal itself. Germany couldn't envision anything that would induce the Russians to screw up something so obviously and mutually beneficial while the Russians saw the the arrangement as a temporary quid pro quo that could be turned from a carrot into a stick. Neither the Germans nor the Russians were crazy strictu sensu to stick with it for as long as they did. It fit their worldviews. And in the end, it's going to be clear that Germany got a lot more out of it than Russia did.

It's also important to remember that the Ru Nat movement is pretty much the opposite of a bloc. Some will be fanatical, some will be simply opportunists. Sort of like the Bolsheviks in 1916 when you think about it.