The Real Russia. Today. Thursday, May 16, 2024
The war in Ukraine
💥 How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought ruin to its Belgorod region
A new investigation by Verstka Media describes how Ukrainian shelling of the Belgorod region has begun to depopulate one of Russia’s most attractive alternatives to its metropolises in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Attacks have damaged several thousand apartments and private homes, according to local officials, and journalists at Verstka estimate that the region is now hit by Ukrainian bombardment 300–400 times a month. This violence has triggered an exodus of many of the most skilled workers and demanding consumers, and wrecking the region’s economy (which lacks military-industrial plants and supplies the army with few contract soldiers). Among those who remain in Belgorod, individuals’ bank savings growth rates have failed to keep pace with inflation.
Meanwhile, the state has saddled entrepreneurs with volatile rent costs, failed to offer them the preferential loans that sustained small business owners during the coronavirus pandemic, and forced employers to shoulder some of the region’s security costs (for example, by requiring farmers to buy and install their own anti-drone electronic warfare systems in order to qualify for state compensation in case their facilities are attacked).
🇺🇸 American general says NATO trainers on ground in Ukraine are inevitable
“NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces,” reports The New York Times. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Thursday that a NATO deployment of trainers appeared inevitable. “We’ll get there eventually, over time,” he told journalists, clarifying that attempts to deploy trainers right now would put “a bunch of NATO trainers at risk” and possibly divert air defenses from critical Ukrainian infrastructure near the battlefield. Meanwhile, a White House official reiterated on Thursday that President Biden will not put American troops, including trainers, on the ground in Ukraine.
🪖 Life back home for Russia’s returning homeless combat vets
A new investigation published by Mediazona describes how homeless Russians are increasingly turning to military service in Ukraine for a lack of alternatives. In January 2023, Russia’s government rejected an initiative to subsidize free mental healthcare for combat veterans. Officials dismissed the measure as “excessive,” apparently relying on psychoanalytic expertise claiming that U.S. experience with shell-shocked soldiers doesn’t apply in Russia because “the Americans wage unjust wars on foreign soil.”
As a result, many Russian soldiers returning from Ukraine (particularly those who were homeless before they enlisted) have resorted to alcohol and other drugs to treat their PTSD. Homeless veterans have also struggled to manage the relatively large financial rewards of combat service, further aggravating their problems with substance abuse. Some returning homeless veterans have been able to find support from charity groups or relatives, but many of these men return to the street.
🪖 Rob Lee says the war’s future depends largely on Ukraine’s training and Russia’s recruitment momentum
Earlier this week, FPRI president Aaron Stein spoke to senior fellow Rob Lee about Russia’s new offensive in the Kharkiv region. Lee describes it as an attempt to capitalize on Ukraine’s shortage of manpower, ammunition, and proper fortifications. Lee says Russia's strategy is likely to establish a buffer zone that pins down defensive forces around Kharkiv, stretching Ukrainian forces and making it “more difficult for Ukraine to conduct strikes within Russian territory and elsewhere.” However, Lee notes that he doesn’t think Russia will be able to “take Kharkiv.”
He argues that these problems will persist for Kyiv despite the passage of a new mobilization bill and another large U.S. aid package. Lee points out that the failed 2023 counteroffensive demonstrated that Ukraine’s new brigades need more time to train together before they can be expected to breach Russia’s defenses. Whatever Ukraine manages in terms of manpower, much of the war rests on Russia’s capacity to “continue recruiting 30,000 guys a month.” If this is possible, says Lee, “it’s going to be very tough for Ukraine, no matter what.”
⏳ Michael Kofman and Rob Lee op-ed in NYT on ‘Moscow’s window of opportunity’
In a guest essay for The New York Times, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Michael Kofman and FPRI senior fellow Rob Lee reiterate many of the same arguments Lee made in his FPRI interview (see above). The two military experts observe that “Russia’s aim is not to take Kharkiv, but to menace it by advancing toward the city and threatening it with artillery,” while noting that “Moscow’s window of opportunity is likely to close and its relative advantage may begin to diminish in 2025.” Kofman and Lee reason that Russia, too, struggles with the “quality of its forces” and with leadership losses. Additionally, “Russia is also burning through equipment, most of which comes from storage, and will face equipment shortages in 2025.”
The coauthors stress that “Ukraine is not out of men” but must overcome the “policy choices,” “rickety mobilization system,” and “political intransigence” that have caused its long-running manpower deficit. The war also depends on continued ammunition and weapons from the West and Kyiv effectively managing its forces and establishing proper defenses, say Kofman and Lee.
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Russian politics
📺 Here’s how the Kremlin wants its propagandists to cover Russia’s cabinet shakeup (3-min read)
As the dust settles on Vladimir Putin’s post-inauguration cabinet reshuffle, the presidential administration has issued a new set of media guidelines for its propagandists. Documents obtained by Meduza show that the Putin administration has instructed Russian state-controlled and pro-Kremlin media outlets to emphasize the new appointees’ long record of service and “battle-tested” management skills while ignoring unpleasantries like the corruption scandals that have plagued Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev’s family and Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt’s close ties to the billionaire brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, who happen to be two of Putin’s closest friends.
🗳️ Putin’s ‘relaxed’ new approach to gubernatorial appointments
In an analysis of Vladimir Putin’s new appointments of acting governors in five regions of Russia, Verstka Media highlights that three of the appointees — Alexey Smirnov in Kursk, Dmitry Milyaev in Tula, and Ilya Seredyuk in Kemerovo — have local ties, while a fourth appointee (Alexey Besprozvannykh in Kaliningrad) rose through the ranks in regional (not federal) politics. All five men will face elections on September 8, 2024, to keep their posts. Verstka cites political analyst Konstantin Kalachev, who argues that the appointments are meant to be a gesture of deference (a “curtsy”) to regional elites and residents, which the Kremlin can now afford after past cycles of “strengthening the power vertical” to achieve a “centralized unitary state.”
✊ Twelve years after the Bolotnaya Square protests, Meduza’s Russian readers reflect on what went wrong (17-min read)
Twelve years ago, on May 6, 2012, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets of Moscow as part of the “March of Millions.” The demonstration reached its climax when clashes between protesters and riot police broke out on Bolotnaya Square, resulting in nearly 400 arrests and criminal charges for over 30 of its organizers. The standoff was the culmination of a longer series of protests that erupted in the aftermath of Russia’s allegedly fraud-ridden parliamentary elections in November 2011 and escalated following Vladimir Putin’s victory in the March 2012 presidential election. Putin ultimately responded by introducing a series of draconian laws cracking down on Russian civil society; today, a protest of that scale being held in Moscow seems almost unfathomable. Many of Meduza’s readers have the Bolotnaya Square protests etched into their memory, and we asked them to share their stories and reflections with us.
As the world turns
🇱🇾 Thousands of Russian fighters are flooding into Libya, raising concerns over what the Kremlin might be planning (9-min read)
Russia has been bolstering its military presence in Libya for the past few months, according to a joint investigation from the independent outlet Verstka and the All Eyes on Wagner project. Libya has been mired in civil war since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and Russia has long been accused of meddling in the conflict. Now, the Kremlin appears to be shipping more military equipment to Libya and the surrounding region and redeploying regular troops disguised as mercenaries, along with recruits from Wagner Group’s Africa operations.
🌾 The Kadyrov clan’s Special Business Operation in occupied Ukraine
In a new investigation, journalists at iStories reveal how members of Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov’s entourage have looted parts of the grain-harvesting industry in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region by forcing local farmers to sell their product at below-market prices or chasing them off their land completely. In October 2022, The Financial Times reported that a government-run firm resells grain stolen from Ukrainian farmers’ storage facilities and crops harvested from their lands to buyers in Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Russian officials say they’re only seizing materials from “abandoned” facilities.
iStories describes how Elbek Zaiev, a man with connections to the Kadyrov regime, founded a company called Agro 24 in a process that has attracted many other Russian nationals to Kherson for business that’s suspiciously conducted primarily in cash. The Kadyrov clan has also staked a claim on the industrial infrastructure Russian troops have destroyed in Ukraine, expanding into the scrap metal industry. As an example, iStories cites how Valid Korchagin, a businessman with ties to Chechen Senator Suleiman Geremeyev, briefly owned a venture to plunder the wreckage of Mariupol’s Illich Steel and Iron Works.
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