The Real Russia. Today. Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Feature stories

💥 ‘Likely an accident from Ukrainian air defenses’: The latest on the missile strike that killed two in Poland (4-min read)

🪖 ‘They made me put on makeup and say we were fine’: How a Ukrainian doctor survived Azovstal with her four-year-old daughter — followed by months in a POW camp (12-min read)

🪖 ‘We were just dodging bullets’: Mobilized men from Novosibirsk refused to fight after they were sent to the front with no training (3-min read)

Opinion and analysis

⚖️ What were Yevgeny Nuzhin’s rights before he was sent to his death? — Petr Sapozhnikov (Meduza):

Do existing international laws allow the prisoner swap that returned captured Wagner mercenary Yevgeny Nuzhin to Russia, where he was soon executed, apparently by the same private military company that recruited him from a federal penitentiary? Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak says Nuzhin did not exercise his right to object to the POW exchange, while another adviser to Zelensky’s administration, Alexey Arestovich, claims that Nuzhin was captured in battle (contrary to his own account in multiple interviews before his death that he surrendered voluntarily). Meanwhile, former Russian lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev, who now styles himself as a Ukrainian freedom fighter, says Nuzhin was arrested and traded back to Moscow against his will after Kyiv supposedly discovered that he was working as a secret agent for Moscow’s intelligence community.

In terms of international law, whether Nuzhin surrendered voluntarily or was captured is irrelevant to his potential status and rights as a POW. While the Geneva Conventions don’t specifically regulate prisoner exchanges or formally prohibit the forced repatriation of captured combatants, civilians are supposed to be protected against repatriation if they have grounds to fear persecution back home due to political or religious convictions. (In interviews after his capture, Nuzhin expressed his willingness to fight for Ukraine, which made it reasonable to expect that he would be in danger, if returned to Russia.)

Nuzhin’s status in Ukraine was complicated: as a mercenary, he wouldn’t qualify as a combatant, making him a civilian, not a POW. On the other hand, the fighters in the Wagner PMC don’t neatly fit the Geneva Conventions’ definition of mercenaries (namely, because most of these men are citizens of one of the nations at war, i.e. Russia). And yet, even as a major component of Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine, the PMC’s notorious violations of the laws and customs of war undermine its members’ entitlement to the protections of combatant status. So, Nuzhin wasn’t technically a combatant, a mercenary, or a civilian. Amid these doubts, humanitarian law required Ukraine to create a judicial body to determine his status, but it’s unknown if the authorities in Kyiv did this. 

🪖 NATO could get entangled in WWIII at the very least — Alexander Baunov, political expert (Carnegie Endowment):

Speculating on “some important changes” that could follow the stray missile(s) that killed two people in Poland this week, Baunov says the United States might “try to convey” to Moscow that it “will not stand for any Russian activity in Ukraine’s western regions,” effectively declaring a no-fly zone over certain regions bordering NATO countries. Baunov also suggests that “NATO’s incremental entanglement in an armed conflict with Russia” could accelerate if the member states that “face the greatest risk” from Moscow are “at the very least” not prevented from acting with greater autonomy. The invasion supporters (particularly the pundits of the Kremlin’s propaganda) actually fuel this entanglement by encouraging any spillover into NATO as overdue retaliation for the shelling of Belgorod, the Russian region bordering Ukraine that’s come under fire since February 24.

👑 Russia’s security elites lack the coordination for rule by military committee, but they could maybe manage a messier coup — Grigorii Golosov, political scientist (Kholod Media):

Could the Russian military ever seize political power? Golosov says observers often credit Vladimir Putin with establishing a “security elites’ dictatorship,” given his KGB/FSB background, but his rise to the presidency was thanks mostly to his career in various administrative agencies. In fact, Yeltsin likely rewarded him with the appointment as a prize for elevating the office of the president above Russia’s security apparatus, preventing a potential military coup.

The main disincentives and obstacles to a junta in Russia today are (1) the existing deep integration of the security leadership in the political leadership and ruling class, and (2) the fragmentation of and distrust and competition between the country’s security agencies. Due to these factors, Russian security elites currently lack the motivation and the unity needed to attempt a coup to establish military leadership. However, Golosov says a military-led coup that establishes some other type of political regime (or starts a disastrous chain of military coups) is possible with a lower level of coordination.

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Other recent news

• 📺 Russian TV executive promises to deliver New Year’s Eve ‘emotions,’ no matter what
• 💥 Zelensky on the missile strike in Poland: ‘I have no doubt, it was not our missile’
• 🧠 200 troubled teens from Russia and annexed Ukrainian regions sent to Chechnya for ‘military-patriotic training’
• 💀 Deputy head of Vladivostok Pacific Naval College found dead in his office
• 🚨 Moscow’s Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo airports on maximum security alert due to ‘direct threats’
• 🤥 Russia denies shelling Kyiv on Tuesday, blaming Ukraine itself for documented damage
• 🪖 Russian man pleads guilty to attempting to pass off sauna burns as combat wound to obtain financial benefits
• 💀 Ukrainian President’s Office says murdered mercenary willingly took part in prisoner swap

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