How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Very good, sound points. 

I guess the only way to see how things are,  as outsiders operating off osint, will be more overt action on either party. 

If Prig or the FSB makes a move against something critical to either party,  that will give us better Indicators of Who's Hand Is Up Who's Bum.

I await further data... 

Prigozhin and Kadryov tried to take over the MoD. They didn't just get shut down because they didn't have anything close to the power to pull it off...they actually managed to get Putin to rehabilitate Gerasimov and Shoigu in response. Full proof that this is about faction management and Putin is pulling the strings. 

[billbindc]

2 hours ago, kevinkin said:

It's easy: if I poke you in the eye, I win. If you poke me in the eye, you win - maybe. If we both poke each other at the same time we both lose. Nuclear deterrence has been nothing other than a Mexican stand-off. The fear of losing outweighs the gains of perhaps winning. I demonstrated science and engineering as part community outreach. You would be surprised the light bulbs that go off when you keep things simple and hands on. I was never asked to explain nuclear deterrence. But if I was, my first demo would sound the school alarms and send the kids under their desks like we did in the 60's. Then explain how radiation penetrates surfaces and what they just did was fruitless.     

"It's easy" is a profoundly stupid way to think of it. Sorry. 

[Aragorn2002]

8 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Ajee Ajoo Oranje Go!

 

 

That would be a great honor for our little country. We are receiving more and more F-35s, so we can send F-16s to Ukraine within weeks. 

[kevinkin]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

"It's easy" is a profoundly stupid way to think of it. Sorry. 

Why? We all need to know how that conclusion is being made. 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Offshoot said:

The answers to these questions do not have to be static.

For a long time Prigozhin denied any connection to Wagner but in the past year has become the very public and outspoken face of it, gaining the public political support he lacked and the devotion of his cadre. Also in the past year Wagner have secured income flow from Africa, so theoretically they could be less tied to the MoD for logistics.

It doesn't necessarily mean that Prigozhin is trying to be a player and make a tilt for power. He could be doing what Putin is doing and carving out a more secure space for himself so that Putin cannot just easily replace him. From lap dog to guard dog.

EDIT: OK, I didn't read far enough before posting. I see you have talked about Prigozhin "making a splash".

 

I absolutely agree with your first point and much of the rest!

It's not static. For a long time, Prigozhin and the regime made the leadership murky because it provide useful deniability to fellow travelers in the EU. Wagner remained small and specialized. Why did he become so public and so big? For both Putin and himself. Putin needed a foil to poke the MoD and Prigozhin needed some sort of sainthood among the nationalists to not end up in Lubianka when this all ends. The latter point applies today and for the rest of his life. 

But what has not changed are the essential sinews of power in Russia. Putin essentially owns Wagner. Wagner cannot supply itself as the MoD holds those strings. Putin can make the MoD give or withhold logistics and at the same time Wagner can humiliate and threaten MoD. It's a system designed by Putin to check and balance threats to his power base. It is definitively not politics as we understand it.

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Why? We all need to know how that conclusion is being made. 

If you want to be taken seriously, don't start the discussion with a logical fallacy. 

If you want to get a grip on nuclear deterrence, I'd suggest with starting with the classics: 

https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Weapons-Foreign-Policy-Kissinger/dp/0393004945

Forewarning: it's not an 8th grade text.

[kevinkin]

2 minutes ago, billbindc said:

logical fallacy

Where was the discussion started? What was the logical fallacy? Don't hide behind other's words. Come to the thread armed to debate. If an 8th grader can mow a lawn, fix the sink, they can understand the basics of everything we are talking about with respect to war and how to conduct it. In fact, their out of the box ideas might be worth a listen to by the ossified brains in NATO. 

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, kevinkin said:

Where was the discussion started? What was the logical fallacy? Don't hide behind other's words. Come to the thread armed to debate. If an 8th grader can mow a lawn, fix the sink, they can understand the basics of everything we are talking about with respect to war and how to conduct it. In fact, their out of the box ideas might be worth a listen to by the ossified brains in NATO. 

That's just word salad. Wilted word salad. Meh.

[kevinkin]

Debate won. Team never showed up. 

[billbindc]

Just now, kevinkin said:

Debate won. Team never showed up. 

Welcome to the too ****ing dumb to interact with ignore list. 

[Offshoot]

37 minutes ago, billbindc said:

But what has not changed are the essential sinews of power in Russia. Putin essentially owns Wagner. Wagner cannot supply itself as the MoD holds those strings. Putin can make the MoD give or withhold logistics and at the same time Wagner can humiliate and threaten MoD. It's a system designed by Putin to check and balance threats to his power base. It is definitively not politics as we understand it.

On the subject of change, Vlad Vexler has just released a video on the reformatting, some of it semi-reluctant, of Russian political systems and society - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3XyDmR7vXA

This is seen through the lens of the Wagner-MoD tussles and a recent statement by some Russian soldiers who complained about their conditions and asked to be able to leave and join Wagner instead.

He likens it to Putin taking the Russian bus offroad (invading Ukraine) to keep everyone on the bus but running into mud and having to do more reformatting to compensate. He also covers Putin's use of Prigozhin to triangulate the pillars of power and how to use the current events as a window into the stability of the Russian regime.

It's long but the pith is covered in the first half.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Offshoot

[kevinkin]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Welcome to the too ****ing dumb to interact with ignore list. 

Too bad they don't have a coward list. You are not dumb, but smart enough to know when you have been defeated. Run to fight another day. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by kevinkin

[billbindc]

9 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

On the subject of change, Vlad Vexler has just released a video on the reformatting, some of it semi-reluctant, of Russian political systems and society (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3XyDmR7vXA).

This is seen through the lens of the Wagner-MoD tussles and a recent statement by some Russian soldiers who complained about their conditions and asked to be able to leave and join Wagner instead.

He likens it to Putin taking the Russian bus offroad (invading Ukraine) to keep everyone on the bus but running into mud and having to do more reformatting to compensate. He also covers Putin's use of Prigozhin to triangulate the pillars of power and how to use the current events as a window into the stability of the Russian regime.

 

It's long but the pith is covered in the first half.

Just listening now. 

"mellifluously functional" is a very good line. 

I think he's got an interesting perspective but I think he's pretty seriously wrong in imagining that the Putinist state has lost the monopoly on violence within Russia proper (i.e. not Ukraine or Chechnya). As he notes himself, Prigozhin was allowed to recruit prisoners and then...like a tap being turned off...he was not at Putin's order. 

I would say he's interesting but pretty much like the rest of us...folks looking from the outside in and reading the tea leaves.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Too bad they don't have a coward list. You are not dumb, but smart enough to know when you have been defeated. Run to fight another day. 

You claim you want things to be kept simple so I tried to do that when I told you to knock it off.  You did not, therefore you have just disproved your entire thesis.  Either that or I needed to explain things at something below 8th grade reading level.

I am close to giving you a vacation.  There has been only a few spats in this thread over the past month or so, all of which have you in the center.  I now count 5 people that have announced they have put you on their ignore list and I haven't seen even one such act in a long time.  3 of which were after I politely and reasonably asked you to stop what you were doing because after 25 years of moderating this Forum I have seen this sort of thing happen more times than I can count and, out of respect for you, am trying to stop you from self-immolation.

So I'll try to make things even more simple than I did the last time:

Straight up and fly right, or you will be grounded.

Steve

[kevinkin]

Here  is the post that started all this and I can't believe these words created a mess:

Or talking head? Give us a break. Please. If the deal looks good that means Putin is out. Take it. She is just another Princeton grad who knows little about the real world. I run into these freaks all the time.

 “If we just stop for a ceasefire, Russia wins because Russia has gained, illegally, territory that it has seized, and that is a problem,” Yovanovitch said. 

And this is a person that might wear diapers to bed. Like POTUS. I hope the women has no influence on anything. 

Perhaps harsh and mis-targeted humor. But there is nothing in these words that should cause the response I have been given by this community. Steve told me to cut it out. I did. Now I am responding to attacks on harmless words that I still stand by. Don't people have better things to do? I go back to Battlefront in 1999. Steve is very patient with advocates their product over the years. He knows I can be outspoken and can bring a different POV to any discussion. Let's leave it at that. 

And Steve I just got your recent recco to me one minute ago. Well said.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, billbindc said:

I pretty strongly disagree with this. Russia doesn't have rule of law. It has what some like to call a rule-by-law state. What that means is that the law exists on the books but it is only selectively enforced. Anyone with krysha can ignore the law at will and at the upper levels competition virtually requires that one does. Conversely, the power structure...meaning Putin...can at any time decide to activate the law against those he wishes to destroy or punish. This is not an esoteric subject within Russia. Everybody knows it and must adhere to the system. Wagner's slightly nebulous status heretofore was not to fool Russians...it was aimed at providing convenient myopia to decision makers in the West.

This is not wrong, but it isn't what I said   I said that Putin still has some degree of concern for the ILLUSION of the rule of law.  One of the best examples of this is the regular conscripts.  The law says they can not be forced into a battlefield without a declaration of war, which for most of this conflict Putin refused to allow anybody to use the word "war".  So society is placated because they think Putin is following the rules.  The reality is that if Putin wanted them at the front tomorrow they would be there at least within a week (Russian logistics suck).  But there would be immense blowback from this because people would disagree with this and say laws are being broken.  So this is a case where Putin has to maintain the ILLUSION of rule of law because it is in his best interests to do so.

A slightly different example of this is the "refusnik" problem.  At the beginning of the war a contract soldier did have the right to refuse to go into a conflict zone without it being declared a war.  Putin didn't contest this at first because a) he thought the war would be over soon and b) likely misjudged the scope of the problem.  Once things began to become clear that the refusniks were a significant issue, the MoD implemented an interim solution of threats and intimidation, which got more nasty to include guys being secretly tossed into basements.  Family members protested and, perhaps as a result, the laws were changed.  So now it is legal to do what was going on anyway.  Again, there is an ILLUSION of the rule of law.

Russians, unfortunately, don't know what the rule of law is supposed to look like.  They think this is normal.

4 hours ago, billbindc said:

In the context of Prigozhin, the situation is the reverse of your description above. The mercenaries under Prigozhin's wing can push back against  him...precisely because they all work for Putin and Prigozhin's perceived maneuvering isn't arm twisting Putin...it is to curry favor with him by balancing out the war primed influence of the MoD. Make no mistake...in every sense that matters, Putin is the Russian state and the Russian state owns Wagner. The day Prigozhin forgets that is the last day you will hear from him.

 

Yes to all of this and the followup discussion.   What I was getting at was something slightly different. 

Wagner absolutely is a tool of the state in order to have a counter balance to the MoD.  It provides benefits, but it also offers complications because the ILLUSION that it's separate does limit some of Putin's freedom of action.  MoD recruits can not be directly provided to Wagner, for example, because there is no established legal authority to do so.  We saw some of that legality stretched recently with MoD mobiks being handed over to Wagner, but only recently and even then I don't think that was a sustainable practice long term.

If Prig's mercenaries stop renewing their contracts or fresh meat stops showing up at recruiting events, then Wagner is dead.  The illusion of legal authority Putin established means that he can not directly order Prig's guys to sign contracts, any more than Putin can't currently force people into signing MoD contracts (trickery and intimidation aside). 

If Prig said to Putin "we've been run down to almost nothing" then Putin has some options:

1.  continue to use Wagner in Ukraine with added resources, possibly keeping it at the front for a while longer

2.  continue to use Wagner in Ukraine without added resources, thus rendering it ineffective

3.  withdraw Wagner from the hardest fighting in Ukraine and either rebuild it for later use there or task it with shoring up flagging influence in other parts of the world

It seems that Putin has decided on #3, though we haven't a clue why.  My comments were speculation that Prig advised Putin that a decision was necessary because without additional resources Wagner wouldn't be around for much longer.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

21 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

And Steve I just got your recent recco to me one minute ago. Well said.

I hope it has sunk in this time.  If a flair up goes beyond a few posts and it involves 1 vs. many, that's a sign things aren't going in the right direction.

Steve

[Offshoot]

26 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Just listening now. 

"mellifluously functional" is a very good line. 

I think he's got an interesting perspective but I think he's pretty seriously wrong in imagining that the Putinist state has lost the monopoly on violence within Russia proper (i.e. not Ukraine or Chechnya). As he notes himself, Prigozhin was allowed to recruit prisoners and then...like a tap being turned off...he was not at Putin's order. 

I would say he's interesting but pretty much like the rest of us...folks looking from the outside in and reading the tea leaves.

Maybe there is still a distinction between the Russian state and the Putinist state in that the Russian state is the visible aspect. So the Russian state has lost it's monopoly on violence (as the Communist Party Duma member says, PMCs are still illegal in Russia) but the Putinist state undertook a compelled outsourcing of violence.

He is reading tea leaves like everyone, but I am pleased that he is academically honest and acknowledges this himself by stating how the lack of transparency in the Putin regime makes it difficult to get a picture of what is going on.

[kevinkin]

 

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I hope it has sunk in this time.

Maybe send me a PM. I still don't know how my online posts the past 24 hours are causing such trouble compared to all the other posts I made over this war. And over the many years frankly. My posts are really benign in the scheme of things.  I am willing to learn unlike many. 

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Just listening now. 

"mellifluously functional" is a very good line. 

I think he's got an interesting perspective but I think he's pretty seriously wrong in imagining that the Putinist state has lost the monopoly on violence within Russia proper (i.e. not Ukraine or Chechnya).

Not having listened to the reasoning, I have to scratch my head on this one.  For sure Putin has never truly had a monopoly on violence within Russia any more than the head of a regional organized crime syndicate does.  There's still unauthorized violence that is the result of delegated authority and competing interests.  That said, the goons acting on their own know there are lines that they shouldn't cross and that there will be consequences if they do unless they have influence proportional to the transgression.  Even Mogilevich, considered the most powerful crime boss in the world, knows that if push comes to shove he'll lose.  So, in that sense Putin is absolutely at the top.

Why would anybody think this isn't the case any more?  I'd even argue that Putin has ultimate say in the violence in Ukraine and Chechnya.  What has changed is that he's more cautious now than ever of exercising that authority.  The 2015 assassinations of DLPR leadership worked back then, but would it work now?  Maybe not.

For Chechnya, Putin could have Kadyrov (or any other Chechen he doesn't like) killed if he wanted to and the FSB didn't blow it (big if there).  However, this would not likely be a good idea.  Kadyrov knows both of these things to be true, so he's smart enough to not be overtly intimidated by Putin's power while at the same time not directly crossing a red line.  So the theory about Putin's ultimate authority in Chechnya is untested.

28 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I would say he's interesting but pretty much like the rest of us...folks looking from the outside in and reading the tea leaves.

Yup, which is why it is so easy to have Putinologists come to different conclusions.  Even the most learned of them are just guessing.  Nobody has seen Putin or Russia under this much stress before and the Putin of 2023 is notably different than the one prior to 2020.

Steve

[billbindc]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is not wrong, but it isn't what I said   I said that Putin still has some degree of concern for the ILLUSION of the rule of law.  One of the best examples of this is the regular conscripts.  The law says they can not be forced into a battlefield without a declaration of war, which for most of this conflict Putin refused to allow anybody to use the word "war".  So society is placated because they think Putin is following the rules.  The reality is that if Putin wanted them at the front tomorrow they would be there at least within a week (Russian logistics suck).  But there would be immense blowback from this because people would disagree with this and say laws are being broken.  So this is a case where Putin has to maintain the ILLUSION of rule of law because it is in his best interests to do so.

A slightly different example of this is the "refusnik" problem.  At the beginning of the war a contract soldier did have the right to refuse to go into a conflict zone without it being declared a war.  Putin didn't contest this at first because a) he thought the war would be over soon and b) likely misjudged the scope of the problem.  Once things began to become clear that the refusniks were a significant issue, the MoD implemented an interim solution of threats and intimidation, which got more nasty to include guys being secretly tossed into basements.  Family members protested and, perhaps as a result, the laws were changed.  So now it is legal to do what was going on anyway.  Again, there is an ILLUSION of the rule of law.

Russians, unfortunately, don't know what the rule of law is supposed to look like.  They think this is normal.

Yes to all of this and the followup discussion.   What I was getting at was something slightly different. 

Wagner absolutely is a tool of the state in order to have a counter balance to the MoD.  It provides benefits, but it also offers complications because the ILLUSION that it's separate does limit some of Putin's freedom of action.  MoD recruits can not be directly provided to Wagner, for example, because there is no established legal authority to do so.  We saw some of that legality stretched recently with MoD mobiks being handed over to Wagner, but only recently and even then I don't think that was a sustainable practice long term.

If Prig's mercenaries stop renewing their contracts or fresh meat stops showing up at recruiting events, then Wagner is dead.  The illusion of legal authority Putin established means that he can not directly order Prig's guys to sign contracts, any more than Putin can't currently force people into signing MoD contracts (trickery and intimidation aside). 

If Prig said to Putin "we've been run down to almost nothing" then Putin has some options:

1.  continue to use Wagner in Ukraine with added resources, possibly keeping it at the front for a while longer

2.  continue to use Wagner in Ukraine without added resources, thus rendering it ineffective

3.  withdraw Wagner from the hardest fighting in Ukraine and either rebuild it for later use there or task it with shoring up flagging influence in other parts of the world

It seems that Putin has decided on #3, though we haven't a clue why.  My comments were speculation that Prig advised Putin that a decision was necessary because without additional resources Wagner wouldn't be around for much longer.

Steve

You said earlier "They legally do not have to do what Putin tells them to do.  And that still matters because the regime is still trying to maintain some degree of "rule of law"." which I took literally. What you say above is something much closer to what I understand the situation to be. The 'rule-by-law' framework essentially means that the law isn't an institutional bulwark but is a negotiated and contested lever of control. In the case of elites, they get to abuse it until they fall out of favor. In the case of the lumpen, they contest it via the suggestion of unrest or resistance and the regime trims its sales accordingly. But make no mistake...Russians don't see it as Putin 'following the rules'. The rules are variable by ethnic group (i.e. you don't see Kipchaks getting the same dispensation Moscow Russians do), etc. As noted above...everything is provisional and negotiated. 

Regarding Wagner and rules, I'm not sure I see what you do there. There are numerous examples of mobiks being dragooned into disposable units, highly specious transfers from prisons, LNR/DPR units, etc. Yes, the legal authorities are mouthed routinely but Wagner operates outside the law by its very nature...it is quite clearly both illegal in Russian law and at the same time is a direct creation and tool of Putin himself. 

Lastly, I do think it's pretty clear why Putin is choosing door 3. Wagner's job was to provide Russia with a symbolic political victory to the Russian population, to demonstrate that the established military had failed the leader and that the leader's strategic and operational vision was superior. It failed on all three counts and has now been weakened to a degree that might be dangerous for Putin. He's pulling it out to reconstitute it's ability to balance out the MoD and to protect its reputation in case the weight of the UA offensive obliterates it in toto. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by billbindc

[billbindc]

9 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

Maybe there is still a distinction between the Russian state and the Putinist state in that the Russian state is the visible aspect. So the Russian state has lost it's monopoly on violence (as the Communist Party Duma member says, PMCs are still illegal in Russia) but the Putinist state undertook a compelled outsourcing of violence.

He is reading tea leaves like everyone, but I am pleased that he is academically honest and acknowledges this himself by stating how the lack of transparency in the Putin regime makes it difficult to get a picture of what is going on.

I have only heard this one instance so I can't tell you how much I'd rate him but I read/listen/talk to plenty of folks more directly in this space and pretty much everyone is outside looking in when it comes to Russia today.

[billbindc]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Not having listened to the reasoning, I have to scratch my head on this one.  For sure Putin has never truly had a monopoly on violence within Russia any more than the head of a regional organized crime syndicate does.  There's still unauthorized violence that is the result of delegated authority and competing interests.  That said, the goons acting on their own know there are lines that they shouldn't cross and that there will be consequences if they do unless they have influence proportional to the transgression.  Even Mogilevich, considered the most powerful crime boss in the world, knows that if push comes to shove he'll lose.  So, in that sense Putin is absolutely at the top.

Why would anybody think this isn't the case any more?  I'd even argue that Putin has ultimate say in the violence in Ukraine and Chechnya.  What has changed is that he's more cautious now than ever of exercising that authority.  The 2015 assassinations of DLPR leadership worked back then, but would it work now?  Maybe not.

For Chechnya, Putin could have Kadyrov (or any other Chechen he doesn't like) killed if he wanted to and the FSB didn't blow it (big if there).  However, this would not likely be a good idea.  Kadyrov knows both of these things to be true, so he's smart enough to not be overtly intimidated by Putin's power while at the same time not directly crossing a red line.  So the theory about Putin's ultimate authority in Chechnya is untested.

Yup, which is why it is so easy to have Putinologists come to different conclusions.  Even the most learned of them are just guessing.  Nobody has seen Putin or Russia under this much stress before and the Putin of 2023 is notably different than the one prior to 2020.

Steve

Literally the only exceptions of any note to Putin’s monopoly on violence have been the Dugin assassination, the drone attack on the Kremlin and the Ukrainian attacks in Belgogrod, etc. In other words, acts of war not breakdowns in civil control.

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

You said earlier "They legally do not have to do what Putin tells them to do.  And that still matters because the regime is still trying to maintain some degree of "rule of law"." which I took literally. What you say above is something much closer to what I understand the situation to be. The 'rule-by-law' framework essentially means that the law isn't an institutional bulwark but is a negotiated and contested lever of control. In the case of elites, they get to abuse it until they fall out of favor. In the case of the lumpen, they contest it via the suggestion of unrest or resistance and the regime trims its sales accordingly. But make no mistake...Russians don't see it as Putin 'following the rules'. The rules are variable by ethnic group (i.e. you don't see Kipchaks getting the same dispensation Moscow Russians do), etc. As noted above...everything is provisional and negotiated. 

For sure Putin has been straining the credibility of the illusion, and the more this war drags on and the more desperate the situation becomes the clearer that is becoming.  Especially when it comes to Russia's constitutional guarrantees regarding freedom of expression.

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Regarding Wagner and rules, I'm not sure I see what you do there. There are numerous examples of mobiks being dragooned into disposable units, highly specious transfers from prisons, LNR/DPR units, etc. Yes, the legal authorities are mouthed routinely but Wagner operates outside the law by its very nature...it is quite clearly both illegal in Russian law and at the same time is a direct creation and tool of Putin himself. 

Right, but these instances are fairly recent and were conducted because Wagner was burning through men faster than they could achieve Putin's goals (see your next point).  However, notice that the solution that Putin most definitely authorized (mobiks being given over to Wagner) was shaped by what the constraints of the laws.  Individual replacements were not sent directly to Wagner, for example.  Instead, units of mobiks were covertly handed over to Wagner, including taking away the mobik's ability to communicate what was going on.  Again, this was done to preserve the illusion of complying with laws.  Putin just as easily could have dispensed with the smoke and mirrors, but they obviously are still being used because they serve some purpose (likely to limit domestic unrest).

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Lastly, I do think it's pretty clear why Putin is choosing door 3. Wagner's job was to provide Russia with a symbolic political victory to the Russian population, to demonstrate that the established military had failed the leader and that the leader's strategic and operational vision was superior. It failed on all three counts and has now been weakened to a degree that might be dangerous for Putin. He's pulling it out to reconstitute it's ability to balance out the MoD and to protect its reputation in case the weight of the UA offensive obliterates in toto. 

On this it seems we agree.  Putin gave Prig what he could given the constraints I've been talking about, they weren't enough, and now Putin has a choice of either fully dispensing with the illusion that laws apply and overtly give Wagner personnel, change the laws so he can do transfers "legally" or withdrawing Wagner.  The first two carry risks of pushback from the population, the third doesn't.  Since Wagner is, as you say, a failure for now, withdrawing it doesn't really change the balance of power in a tangible way.  But losing Wagner completely in battle likely would.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Literally the only exceptions of any note to Putin’s monopoly on violence have been the Dugin assassination, the drone attack on the Kremlin and the Ukrainian attacks in Belgogrod, etc. In other words, acts of war not breakdowns in civil control.

As far as we know, that's correct.  For all we know there could have been a flairup of violence between the various factions that he wasn't in control of, however the state deals with the news and "investigations" so we really have no way of knowing.  What we do know is that Putin doesn't control the violence caused by external forces within Russia and, as far as we can tell, they are not even being aided by an internal faction.

Steve