what the fuck is happening in Russia?

I liked this summation that actually brings in a lot of the history into it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtwyT4NIyZo

Didn't know whether to put this here or in the Ukraine thread. Regardless, a longish but worthwhile read about exactly how fucked Russia is, and how this "mobilization" basically amounts to Putin pounding the table and nothing more, because logistics and materials and money are not on his side:

A brief Twitter thread: what I think of #Russia's capability to even arm its reservists properly.

TL;DR: Russia would struggle to even reactivate meaningful quantities of Soviet surplus heavy weapons fast enough, much less manufacture enough modern kit to matter. 1/

— Janne M. Korhonen 🇫🇮🇪🇺🇺🇳🐟🇺🇦🇵🇸 (@jmkorhonen) September 22, 2022

what if the russians read this finnish blockchain researcher's analysis (he has "been studying industrial mobilizations since 2020," which is around 10,000 waking hours) and decide not to as he's sure they will launch human wave attacks against enemy artillery? did he ever think about that?

Pretty powerful video. In Dagestan locals clearly don't want to go to war with Ukraine. The recruiting officer argues they have to fight for the future. – We don't even have a present, what future are you talking about," replies a Dagestani man. pic.twitter.com/1O4ob2GhSN

— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) September 22, 2022

So I'm headed for the nearest foreign border...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/my-heart-sank-with-news-of-draft-russians-flee-in-droves

apparently draft notices were delivered by mail, not electronically, which implies this has been in the works for some time.
news of men being interviewed at border crossings and airports about their military status, purpose of their trip and whether they have a one way ticket.

also news of men getting drafted even though they don’t fall within the criteria outlined by government

Apparently they also served draft notices to jailed protestors

the morale of these draftees is going to about where is was with guys drafted into the Vietnam War in 1972

scenes from the draft.. some of these guys look pretty old

Еще видео с моего родного города Нерюнгри Республика Саха (Якутия) pic.twitter.com/haaWQX17uf

— Polina (@poli_golobokova) September 22, 2022

President Keyes otm

I'm sure they will be drafting heaviest in places a long long way from Moscow or St Petersburg.

small difference: vietnam and the usa don’t share a border.

if Ukraine presented any real danger to the Russian Federation that would be a significant difference, but the only 'threat' here is a set of mostly abstract geopolitical considerations, so, not so very different from the USA and Vietnam.

The point about morale is germane.. nobody wants to be the last killed in a pointless, losing war. I watched a british documentary about the U.S.'s final days in Vietnam, and the grunts were basically hiding in trenches and waiting for some kind of peace deal. They were no longer actively conducting the search & destroy missions ordered by the brass

Unfortunately for these Russians, these HIMAR systems can land right in your trench like a fly landing on a cucumber slice.. I think 200 were killed last week when a rocket landed on a bus station where they were hiding out.

(correction: it was last month, not last week)

i haven't kept up, has iron maiden written a fucking amazing song about this war yet

yeah, too bad Lemmy's not with us anymore, I'm sure he could write a sick jam about the "Azov Brigade!!" defending a steelworks to the bitter end

if Ukraine presented any real danger to the Russian Federation that would be a significant difference, but the only 'threat' here is a set of mostly abstract geopolitical considerations, so, not so very different from the USA and Vietnam.

well, it’s more than just about geography but yes, having a shared border makes for a very different dynamic - including how some russians feel about the war.

including how some russians feel about the war.

how do you think these particular Russians you have in mind are feeling? and are they a significanty body among the conscripts or simply "some Russians" not asked to go fight?

this may be a weak analogy, but imagine some troops from seattle sent to attack vancouver BC.. they might follow orders, but their hearts ain't in it. Too much in common

It's so depressing that no matter one's degree of knowledge, life experience, personal politics or opinions, they can just look at these events with an almost boundless level of cynicism and be right <i>so often</i> that it's almost convincing to <i>always</i> look at Russia/Russian goings-on this way.

I know there's some die hard communists on here I've had some run-ins with, and other people who are probably more level-headed than I am, and a few of either type who are probably more forgiving of the Soviet Union or whose horror or distaste is appropriately offset by the none-too-innocent perfidy of American and Western empire, and I get that, but it is so fucking depressing to see all this playing out and have one's worst fears come true, the most cynical expectations fulfilled.

There's a historian named David Glantz, for instance, who's done great work in the early 2000s and almost single-handedly converted the reputation of the Red Army in WW2 from a bunch of scrubs being sent into the meat-grinder with NKVD machine-guns at their back to a disciplined, organized, mechanized force used intelligently to help prosecute an apocalyptic conflict to a successful end, and you know, he's right. The Red Army DID start off shitty, but they got better, and it's important for the historical record to reflect that. It's one of the many ways that the USSR has been mis-remembered and its reputation unfairly maligned, whether you're ultimately a fan of what it stood for or not. The anti-communists and the rehabilitated Nazi generals moaning about "Soviet hordes" had their way for too long, and the record had to be corrected.

But now? Now, all the worst stereotypes of the USSR and Russia, fair or unfair, are coming true. (Except the Orientalist bullshit about "Asiatic hordes," sometimes afloat in twitter when some wag posts a picture of a Buryat soldier or Chechen Kadyrovite and labels them "savage," as though more "pure" Russian soldiers aren't capable of the kinds of atrocities we've already seen enough of this year). Whatever your 'position' is, you just can't be cynical ENOUGH when it comes to this conflict.

Take the Azov bullshit just as the ultimate example: Russians were using their attack on Mariupol as a primary example of "denazification," they captured the Azovites as a telling lesson in "doing right by those poor misled Ukrainians, who are really bamboozled Russians after all;" they were going to put them on trial, in fucking CAGES, and have their own 21'st century Nuremberg tribunals. Hell, they even (probably) killed a bunch of them in Olenivka, and blamed it on the Ukrainians for reasons known only to the Russian army but probably having more to do with torture than the Azovites revealing Nazi secrets. Makes sense so far, right?

But what do they do in the end? They trade dozens of them, including commanders and twitter-famous members of the regiment, in exchange for some shitty no-name Russian officers and a fucking Ukrainian: Medvedchuk, the would-be Russian stooge. It's such a betrayal of everything that the most nuanced, anti-Nazi Western observers have come to expect, let alone the rabid Russian nationalists for whom Azov was akin to Satan's personal goon squad, such a fucking brazen handbrake turn from "denazification" or even the soft-pedaling of said policy as the Russian army got bogged down earlier this year, but still made noises about the upcoming Azov trials in Mariupol. And virtually on the same day that they announce the not-so-partial mobilization inside Russia? Forget saying this is a "spit in the face" of this or that faction, these or those observers from afar. At this point, is there anyone who's not covered in a Biblical flood's worth of saliva, save those happy full-time cynics laughing from inside their submarines? They don't need to see or observe anything when they're always proven right.

This is just one series of circumstances within a short time during this awful war, but it's a useful kind of prism through which to see these bizarre, seemingly contradictory events. Regardless of how evil the outcomes are, they are the result of an amoral, plodding policy that is beyond mere ethics, factional passions, or "realism." Excuses, justifications, rationalizations are chosen and discarded at will with little to no regard for any humans or their reactions. War has often proven to be fertile ground for the absurd, but rarely to this extent.

Moomin, I always appreciate your comments, since this whole shit-show began

"I know there's some die hard communists on here I've had some run-ins with, and other people who are probably more level-headed than I am, and a few of either type who are probably more forgiving of the Soviet Union or whose horror or distaste is appropriately offset by the none-too-innocent perfidy of American and Western empire, and I get that"

Proceeds not to get it.

It's a weird rant. And whatever stereotypes you may hold in your head about Russia (or the USSR though I don't think that matters) it really doesn't matter.

Unfortunately the partial mobilization means the conflict will be prolonged, and the nuclear threat means that some negotiation with Russia will need to take place to de-escalate the conflict.

Any consensus on how the mobilization is going to work? I can see how it can potentially solve some of Russia's rotation issues, but beyond that its unclear what kind of plan there is (yet?).

I can't tell if the nuclear threat is different to the previous nuclear threat, what size/type device would be deployed or what location, where it would accrue more advantage than a non-nuclear strike

I don't want to fuck about and find out.

Proceeds not to get it.

It's a weird rant. And whatever stereotypes you may hold in your head about Russia (or the USSR though I don't think that matters) it really doesn't matter.

Weird post imo. Nothing anyone posts here "matters", strange criticism to make.

I mean to say that going on about USSR as something to be defended by "ilx communists" or Russian stereotypes isn't a way to think about this conflict.

If you want to, that is.

Suggesting that current Russian policy mirrors the worst stereotypes that have been thrust at Russia through the ages does not have to be some sort of skeleton key to understanding the conflict, it can just be a person of Russian origin expressing dismay at what their country has turned into. In, you know, the Russia thread.

Given what else is in that post I wouldn't say it's "just" exasperation at domestic politics, which is a feeling I know about.

Well no, it's also exasperation at foreign policy.

Proceeds not to get it.
Proceeds not to get what? Russia's legitimate security concerns, I assume?

"I get that" it's just something people say in the middle of an argument with someone. Oh, I get what you are saying. Just a thing to clear their throats before carrying on like they would do.

how do you think these particular Russians you have in mind are feeling? and are they a significanty body among the conscripts or simply "some Russians" not asked to go fight?

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

i think they love their children too

I know there's some die hard communists on here I've had some run-ins with, and other people who are probably more level-headed than I am, and a few of either type who are probably more forgiving of the Soviet Union or whose horror or distaste is appropriately offset by the none-too-innocent perfidy of American and Western empire, and I get that, but it is so fucking depressing to see all this playing out and have one's worst fears come true, the most cynical expectations fulfilled.

― borrowed Ostalgia for the unremembered 80s (MoominTrollin)

i don't really understand most of your post, but by "communists" you're thinking, like, soviet apologists, right? what folks on the left would call "tankies"? the communists i know are _not_ favorably disposed towards russia or particularly forgiving of the soviet union's atrocities.

I'm dense, so thank you for stating explicitly what I now assume xyz's point was.

xxps i don't particularly feel like explaining multiple nuances in russian/ukrainian relationship (partially because moomintrollin knows a lot more historic context and would do a much better job at explaining it) but no, it's only similar to vietnam drafting when you trivialise it to something simplistic - and russian/ukrainian relationship is anything but.

to be clear: i would love to see this idiotic mobilisation to serve as a trigger for civil unrest, i'm just perhaps cynical enough to not expect that it will actually work that way or expect that it will result in more russians supporting ukraine. it won't.

i've learned a lot over the past few years about revolutionary politics in post-democratic states

people who speak russian tell me that "what is to be done?" in the original russian is a call to revolution

it's hard for me to see it as anything but a shrug

of course, the people united will never be defeated

of course, despots throughout history have known this

putin and the oligarchs have spent the past decades isolating and marginalizing any voices of dissent

of course few people will actually be happy with nicho - with putin's disastrous policies

it doesn't seem remotely plausible that revolution will make things better

it hasn't worked that way in any of the other revolutions and attempted revolutions we've seen in our lifetimes

it is fairly clear at this point what kind of person one has to be to succeed in russian politics

equally clear (even, one must imagine, to putin, even if he will never admit it publicly) is what the russian state is and is not capable of doing

putin wants conscripts to fight in the ukraine? that is fine. actually going to the front, to die for his stupid little war, that is out of the question... does that mean then that one must fight against putin?

if the russian people value their individual survival more than the abstract idea of "liberation" i can hardly blame them

whether that be the "liberation" of the ukraine or their own "liberation" from putin

What hurts is that people appear to be pretty mutable, their behavior and lifestyle and even beliefs can change quite quickly due to any number of inputs. This can be positive but also quite frightening depending on the example used (1930s Germany!)

So, going back to the "stereotypes" talk, there is no such thing as some essential "Russian" mentality. Or a "Chinese" mentality. Or an "American" mentality. But it entirely possible for a mentality to be required to succeed in a given social or political context, giving rise to cadres who happen to possess or cultivate or affect such a mentality. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. This is where we are in contemporary Russia - an inexact but analogous mirror image of the late Soviet period, suffused with cynicism and incompetence, sure, but also paradoxically competitive careerism (you gotta hustle to be a regional industry manager or a member of the Politburo, after all).

Some of those old stereotypes and attitudes - "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend we're working" - sound like they're equally applicable today. I recently saw a theory re: the earlier Russian offensive in the Donbas, compared to the recent and somewhat more successful Ukrainian drive in Kharkiv Oblast, to the effect of: "the people in charge were making small advances over a wide area in order to be able to report constant weekly territorial gains." And so we return to that old saw about the Soviet factory, asked to meet a quota of two tons of nails, producing one two-ton nail. Technically, the plan was fulfilled.

Regarding the "run-ins with communists" paragraph, that was just my attempt to answer a question that no one had yet asked in response, something like "well sure, but what about negative American stereotypes that America then goes and confirms, over and over?" I'm not looking to accuse any communists, real or imagined on my part, of being "soft" on the Soviet Union or Russia currently and as I've tried to explain above with my reference to the history of David Glantz, I don't believe that the USSR was a 100% evil monolith that carelessly ground its citizens into the dust. The point I was working on is that in my eyes, while the search for nuance in what the Russian leadership is doing and how it is steering the war is commendable, it also appears to be increasingly futile, and produces less accurate results than simple crude cynicism. Especially cynicism fueled by decades of stereotypes that this leadership appears to be bent on resurrecting, one after the other. Which is depressing.

"Some of those old stereotypes and attitudes - "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend we're working""

Sounds like a typical ilxor tbh.

Another revealing video. Scene inside a mustering station in Russia where an officer yells at angry, resentful men who have been mobilized.
“That’s it- playtime’s over. You’re soldiers now!”
pic.twitter.com/oTfomvgsUf

— Patrick Reevell (@Reevellp) September 23, 2022

That podium has seen some shit.

That's one motivated looking military force

I'm not sure what to make of the mobilization. Or rather, the form the mobilization appears to have taken, and what the immediate purpose.

On the face of it, it seems haphazard (consequence of procrastinated then rushed decision?)

I'd thought would solve short term rotation issues but rather than going specifically for people with recent service, which would make some sense - it seems haphazard and random, if we're to belive these vids are representative.

And many in Moscow and St Petersburg too not just the periphery.

And more generally about mobilization not just this specific form, what effect this has on demographics. Russia currently has manpower shortage with ever shrinking working age population

The Russian economists Maxim Mironov (@mironov_fm) and Oleg @itskhoki (of IE University and UCLA respectively) have published an important thread estimating the likely demographic impacts of mobilisation on Russia. A translation follows. ⬇️ /1

— ChrisO (@ChrisO_wiki) September 25, 2022

Seems to be "troops" from the separatist regions who are behind a lot of the more egregious behaviour carried out by the Russian forces - which makes sense, civil war and all that. I saw an interview with a young guy from one of the areas recaptured by the Ukrainians and he said the actual Russians weren't that bad but that the separatists were "crazy".

Sounds like a typical ilxor tbh.

― xyzzzz__

i'm pretty open about it tbh, my entire existence is spent in this state of shell-shocked brezhnevian malaise.

Come for what the fuck is happening in Russia?, stay for what the fuck is happening on what the fuck is happening in Russia?.

when the supply chain started breaking down i gave up. when i was a kid i was told that the reason america was better than the soviet union was the strength of our supply chain. the soviets, on the other hand, suffered random supply chains, random gluts. you couldn't plan for anything, it was more, well, what's going to be available this week?

i stopped being able to make plans a long time ago. the leaders i guess are still making noises and putting out their usual propaganda. there is no point in listening. they are talking to please themselves. what am i going to learn? why are the flags flying at half-mast this week? the dangers of enemies, domestic and foreign? half of the time i am one of the "enemies" they are warning against.

or perhaps they will tell me how much they care about trans people, this government that has for three years failed to listen to my pleas to call me by my legal name. every time i tell someone they are outraged and they assure me they will correct the problem immediately. i never hear from them again. my name is not corrected.

i have a strong work ethic. i like to work. i believe in work. what are they paying me for? what am i accomplishing with my work?

they are tremendously supportive of me at my workplace. tremendously understanding of the mental illness i suffer. every few months or so, perhaps when the sky is on fire or perhaps when there appears to be a serious possibility that we will all die in a nuclear attack, i will have a breakdown and i will go on short-term disability and they will teach me how to better deal with My Problems. this is the only thing that can be done.

My Problems are the only ones i have the power to deal with. therefore it follows, does it not, that the best thing is to act as if the only problems that exist are My Problems. if there is a problem and it is outside of my ability, what good does it do me to dwell on it?

so i go back to my job in healthcare, where every day for the past several years i see people dying of preventable diseases, and what do they do? they call me a hero! a hero, like batman, or like stakhanov. see what good an ordinary man can do?

oh, or woman, of course. an ordinary woman. or an ordinary non-binary thing. person. thing. of course it does not matter what gender you are. you must understand this is all very new and it is very difficult for us.

the russians, sting tells me, love their children too. did my parents love me? very much. very much. did they hurt me, neglect and abuse me? yes. very much.

america loves me. america _cares_ about me.

they are tremendously supportive of me at my workplace. tremendously understanding of the mental illness i suffer. every few months or so, perhaps when the sky is on fire or perhaps when there appears to be a serious possibility that we will all die in a nuclear attack

you have to understand, the problem wasn't _really_ that i was afraid that we were all going to die, it was that my marriage was falling apart. that was what i learned in my treatment program. certainly nobody except for me and my ex can be held accountable for this. our workplaces were both very supportive of us during covid. they didn't want us to go into the office and spread diseases. we could work from home. they were responsible, they cared about us, and a lot of people were not as fortunate as us.

so we were responsible too. we spent all that time just with the two of us. we didn't talk to anybody else, because other people, you know, other people were not so responsible. we didn't want to be responsible for someone else's death due to our own selfish negligence. was it stressful, just the two of us together, nobody else, nobody to support us except for _the internet_? yes, certainly, but there is no reason for me to begrudge my employer and the wiser minds in my government their _concern for the general welfare_. obviously that had to be of the utmost importance.

but of course at the same time one couldn't... one couldn't hold people who were selfish and negligent responsible for that. is it _fair_ that sociopaths should reap the rewards while the rest of us bore the costs? doesn't matter. it doesn't matter what is fair or just, what matters what is _practical_, and the most _practical_ thing is to allow rich sociopaths to profit while we suffer.

the most practical thing for my ex and i was to sell our house, which we loved, which we hoped to grow old in together, and move into separate squalid rooms neither of us can quite afford on our own. people tell me that i will be happy for this, one day, that it opens so many more opportunities for me. like many russian people, i am used to people telling me things that i do not believe, and accepting their words without complaint.

Jeez the end of that xpost ChrisO thread of the two economists:

Losses will be comparable to those of DNR troops - British intelligence estimates that as of June (3.5 months into the war) they left 55% of their original strength. It can be assumed that in the next 6 months the losses among the Russian mobilised may amount to 60-70%. 31/

— ChrisO (@ChrisO_wiki) September 25, 2022