The war in Ukraine is reminiscent of the Civil war in Russia a hundred years ago. Many Ukrainian citizens support Russia, but the opposite situation is not uncommon.  Since 2014, some Russian liberals have provided informational and financial support to Ukraine, and some Russian neo-Nazis have joined Ukrainian nationalist battalions.

In 2022 the cleavege in Russian society has become deeper. Don't get me wrong: this split is not 50/50. But the liberal minority is quite influential in Russia, especially in the creative industry and in the education system. Soon the anti-war movement received a new flag: white-blue-white.

At the same time on Ukrainian territory the idea arose to create a Legion of Free Russia for collaborators. Officially the legion should be made up of prisoners of war and migrants from Russia.

So far I believe that this initiative is a psyop without real content.

Nothing is known about the actual activities of the Legion. I see soldiers with hidden faces in formation, a car with a white-blue-white flag which goes somewhere, and that's it. There are no biographies of members of the legion, no reports of battles they fought in. The released videos may feature Ukrainian army soldiers or actors. Actually I'm not sure Ukrainians trust Russians enough to give them weapons.

The telegram channel of the Legion collects money and posts graffiti with the letter "L" (legion symbol) on various Russian buildings. This proves only one thing, which is already known: there are some people in Russia who support Ukraine. Whether there is a combat unit is a big question.

P.S. It's quite funny that white-blue-white is, according to the authors' idea, the Russian flag without red, the colour of blood. But if the legion exists and fights, then it's ok to spill Russian blood for them. Looks kinda hypocritical.

Three battles in Ukraine
1. The vicinity of Kharkov. The Ukrainians push Russian troops towards the border, in some places the distance of the frontlines from the border is 10km. Basically it's a tactical defeat.
2. Donbass. There Russian troops took some villages and vantage points near the city of Severodonetsk, the last stronghold of Ukraine in Lugansk oblast. Now the place is almost in a cauldron.
3. The mysterious battle on the Snake island. According to Russian sources the Ukrainians tried to capture the island, but suffered heavy losses, including some landing crafts and helicopters. I was waiting for the proofs for a long time and didn't get anything. By circumstancial evidence (Ukrainians acknowledged the death of some pilots) I must say that smth happened there, and Ukrainians don't control the island. Therefore, it can be called a Russian victory, although its scale can be overestimated.

In other places nothing new.

#war_in_ukraine

Sorry, guys, but I wanted to write this clickbait headline since 24th of February.

RUSSIAN TROOPS CAPTURED NEW YORK

That's a village in Donetsk oblast, founded in the XVIIIc by the Mennonites (Dutch anabaptists). They were invited by Catherine the Great, who was seeking the colonists for Novorossiya. The name of a settlement remained untouched till 1951, but spoiled relations between the USSR and the USA played their role. The village got the name "Novgorodskoye", which roughly can be translated as "New City". In 2021 the old name returned, but it seems the govt of the DPR will return Russian name again. Tbh, I would prefer New York to stay, it sounds a bit funny and shows some ambition. Let it be!

#war_in_ukraine

Mariupol

I think everybody knows where Mariupol is and what it means now. Once founded as a town of Novorossiya for Greek migrants from Crimean Khanate, the city became one of the industrial centres of the Russian empire, a part of Donbass economic region. In Soviet period of history the significance of Mariupol stayed. After the collapse of the USSR the Ukrainian oligarchs got the control over industrial plants and sea port of Mariupol, while Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians (99% of inhabitants) faced increasing level of discrimination on national scale.

In April 2014 the majority of Mariupol population participated in referendum on foundation of Donetsk Peoples Republic. Unfortunately the Ukrainians reacted quickly, and newly founded group of "little black men" (analogue of Russian meme "little green men" without insignia who took Crimea) established control over the city. Later these people were organized as "Azov" regiment, probably the most notable nazi unit of XXIc. They were killing civillians and prisoners of war in the area, symbolically the first victims of Azov were unarmed pro-Russian protesters who gathered in the city streets on 9th of May 2014, the Victory day. Also they rigged elections: Biletsky, the head of the regiment, got a seat in Ukrainian parliament from Mariupol constituency.

The rest is history you know. In the begining of 2022 campaign Azov members retreated into living quarters of Mariupol, using the locals they despised as human shield. Later they went to Azovstal plant and hold their positions for almost 4 months. Yesterday they started to surrender. It seems there are +/- 2500 soldiers and officers of Mariupol garrison in Azovstal plant (not all of them are Azov members), for now the half of them are already Russian prisoners of war.

As a man of culture I'm not interested in Nazi ideology, and I consider any deals with the Ukrainian govt on Azov unacceptable. Under no circumstances any of them can be exchanged. They are war criminals who were killing Russians for 8 years. The best outcome is to have trials in Donetsk, publish all their wrongdoings and sentence them. Here I should mention one interesting judicial fact: there is moratorium on death penalty in Russia, but not in DPR/LPR.

#war_in_ukraine

The bus column goes to give Azov a ride to the holding cells. Video by @Sladkov_plus

The ruble. Why is it so high? Is the exchange rate real?

It's rather complicated topic, so let's start with the first question. The currency exchange rate depends on supply/demand law. Despite sanctions, Russia sells oil, gas and other goods on international market. Ironically the sanctions made the commodities much more expensive than in the previous year, so Russian companies earn a lot of dollars. Here is the trick: such companies were oblidged to sell 80% (now 50%) of their dollar revenue and get rubles instead.

What about the demand of dollars? Due to sanctions Russia can't import cars, trains, industrial equipment, luxury goods, advanced chemicals, microelectronics, so Russian companies can't buy a lot of foreign goods. Also the central bank issued the limitations for money transfer abroad. Therefore the demand of dollars (for now) is not very high.

The second question — is the currency exchange real? Can I buy 1$ for 61₽? The answer is "almost yes", but it's not that easy.

You can buy dollars in electronic form everywhere. The real exchange rate is usually 7₽ higher than official one. So it's lower than it was before the war. The question is what can you do with such dollars? Visa and MasterCard left Russian market, so you can't travel abroad and pay with your card. Same with international marketplaces like eBay or Aliexpress. The Russian system "Mir' is not widely accepted in the world (despite its name, lol. Mir actually means the world). In Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan it's not a problem to find a place where you can pay with Mir card. In Turkey it's much harder, in Vietnam it's almost non-existent today.

The import of dollar, euro, yen notes is forbidden by Western authorities for Russian banks and other companies. The banks still sell cash, but it will take time to find notes. For now it's not a big problem, but I don't know how the situation will develop. The black market is not huge (yet?), the prices there are much higher than official currency exchange rate.

So it goes.

#economy

Yesterday Kadyrov said that Russian troops liberated Severodonetsk. Just like it was with Mariupol, it's true in part. The living quarters of Severodonetsk are under Russian control, but the industrial zone of the city is in Ukrainian hands. Also it should be noted, that the Ukrainians retreated to Lisichansk, the neighbouring city. That means the Russians control 50% of Lisichansk-Severodonetsk agglomeration.

Such agglomerations are typical for Donbass. Lisichansk was founded in the beginning of the XVIIIc, which makes it the oldest city in Donbass area. Its foundation was linked to coal mining, in this case stimulated by Peter I. Even after 300 years Lisichansk has operating coal mines in vicinity. The city was growing and getting new industrial plants during XVIIIc-XXc.

In 1934 the Soviet govt built a huge chemical facility near Lisichansk, called "Azot", and the new city of Severodonetsk for "Azot" workers appeared on the map. Eventually Severodonetsk became a bit bigger than Lisichansk (109k vs. 103k in 2021).

The Donbass rebellion in 2014 caused by discrimination of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians turned the agglomeration into the battlefield. The fighting lasted from May to July, when the pro-Russian militia lost to Ukrainian regular army and retreated. Now the wheel of history made its full circle.

#war_in_ukraine

The orange circle on the map is Severodonetsk. The blue one is Lisichansk. This map is approximately one week old, now the cauldron with these cities is almost sealed.

100 days of war

All experts expected two things.

First, Russian army must have defeated Ukraine quickly. Maybe in a week, maybe in two weeks. Then Special military operation should have turned into police operation with detention of Ukrainian nationalists and establishment of the pro-Russian govt.

Second, Russian economy should have collapsed under western sanctions. That collapse must have lead to ethnic separatism and regime change.

As you can see, nothing of this happened. The Russian army advances, but in a very slow manner, and the Ukrainian army is far from the complete defeat. As for Russian economy, obviously it was hit hard, but the strike wasn't a deadly one.

Instead of a short campaign Russia got the war. This situation has its pros and cons. The latter are evident: we lose people, we lose money. Also I believe many expected more from the Russian army and now it lost its prestige. That can cause other problems. For example in 1939-1940 the Soviet army showed rather poor performance in war against the Finns. The Germans analyzed the Winter war and became sure they would defeat the USSR with ease. Turned out they were wrong, but the Soviets lost a lot of people anyway.

What about the good side of the war? Putin wanted to control Ukraine through loyal local politicians. That is a way to nowhere. If we had taken Kiev we would have got corrupted Ukrainians in charge, soft derussification instead of hard one, billions of dollars spent on "good Ukrainians" etc. The end would have been rather predictable, too: the pro-western revolution and escape from Russia.

Here I'm glad Putin's plans failed and he has to integrate former Ukrainian territories. There are a lot of risks in this scenario, but here we have at least slim chance to expand Russian territory and save ethnic Russians.

#war_in_ukraine

Grain

Russia and Ukraine are among the leading producers of grain. They have 29% of the market combined. The war inevitably affected the prices in a bad way. Any talks about hunger are overestimation, but many African and Middle East countries rely either on imports from Russia or Ukraine (or both), so food inflation hits them hard.

There is no way any other country can substitute Russian + Ukrainian exports. French farmers face the heat, which destroyed approximately 5% of their grain harvest. India limits grain export. Under such conditions different politicians seek the solution to the problem.

Let's look on the situation more closely. Russia has grain, ironically, the harvest is better than in previous year. Unfortunately Russia is under severe sanctions. The Russian banking system is almost isolated, so it's hard to pay for its goods. Russian ships are not allowed into Western ports, while Western ships are not allowed to drop the anchor in Russia. All these sanctions are implemented by the West, Russia is fine to have foreign ships in its ports.

Ukraine suffers from war. Part of the harvest was burnt, the transport system of the country works at full capacity in interests of the military. The sea ports of Ukraine are either captured by Russia (Mariupol, Berdyansk, Melitopol, Kherson) or blocked by the Ukrainian mine fields (Odessa, Nikolaev).

Possible solutions:
1. The world forgets about Russia and tries to take out the grain at least from Ukraine by railroads. Such move will either disrupt the supply lines of Ukrainian troops or won't be efficient. There were talks about Belarus transit, and Putin approved them. But Putin's approval made this scheme inapropriate politically for many decision-makers, so the initiative was burried.

2. Russia promises not to attack Ukrainian ports, Ukrainians clear their mines and ships take Ukrainian grain. Recent talks in Istanbul were revolving around this idea. For a time it seemed the Ukrainians would get Turkish guarantees and agree, but the negotiations didn't reach their goal yet. Ukrainians don't believe in Russian good will and they refusee to put their shores in danger of invasion.

3. The most radical proposals were made by the UN officials. They desire to lift a part of sanctions from Russia and Belarus to normalize the international trade. Sounds cool, but obviously it's unbelievable someone will do so.

Since diplomatic initiatives look unrealistic I think Europe will eventually transfer the Ukrainian grain on its territory and resell it. Of course this procedure implies additional costs, so the prices stay high. As for Russian grain, in part it will be transported to the buyers by Russian ships. Russia lacks huge trade fleet (it almost non-existent), and most probably we will see the operations we got used to see with oil: ships with turned off transponders, intermediaries on the black market etc. Yes, you got it right. I don't see any way the prices on grain will fall.

#economy #war_in_ukraine #grain

Short statistics review

A side note about nazism

Russian propaganda says Ukraine is a fascist state. The Ukrainians say the same about Russia. None of them right.

Ukraine is a national state of Ukrainians. Usually it's not a problem, but Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians are a minority. Despite that fact they control the institutions and have international support while assimilating ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Obviously the discrimination of Russians causes problems within the country and negative reaction from Moscow. Still being a national (or even nationalist) state doesn't mean being a nazi one.

There are neo-nazis in Ukraine, but their role in society is to be a puppet of the elites. They serve in "Azov", "Aidar", "Kraken" and other military units. Before the active phase of war the neo-nazis and radical nationalists were involved in different criminal activities, like "protection" of small businesses, smuggling operations etc. These people are not in power and they will never be.

In fact Ukraine is the colony of western countries, ruled by the oligarchs. This construct has a typical facade of liberal democracy, market economy, tolerance towards LGBT, the desire to enter NATO and the EU. Guys from "Azov" can be against it, but nobody will let them to decide.

#war_in_ukraine

Sad news from the Black Sea fleet. The rescue ship "Vasiliy Beh" was hit by two missiles and sank. The crew was 33 people, number of casualties is unknown. It happened today at 4 a.m., when Bayraktar drone directed the fire of (most probably) Harpoon missiles.

I was waiting for official confirmation of the Russian MoD, but they are silent. Still the tg-authors linked with the Navy wrote about the disaster.

I've already written after the loss of "Moskva" cruiser that western satellites/drones and western missiles level Russian superiority in the sea. It seems one lesson wasn't enough to understand this.

UPD. The ship didn't sunk, but was heavilly damaged. I hope there won't be the need to write the second update.

#war_in_ukraine

Today I want to discuss Kaliningrad (Königsberg). The Russian enclave in the West faces blockade by Lithuania. What Lithuanians do is the implementation of European sanctions on transit from Russian mainland to Kaliningrad and vice-versa. Such limitations include construction materials, steel, some luxury products etc. In a whole sanctions cover up to 50% of the goods.

So far the situation looks like that:
1. Russian citizens can travel through Lithuania by transit train. Such travel requires an approval of Lithuania, it is given for free. These rules didn't change.
2. Russians can travel to Kaliningrad by car with standart Shengen visa. It is provided by Lithuanian side (not every country of Shengen zone gives visa to Russians now).
3. The planes from mainland fly over the neutral waters, because the flights over the EU airspace is forbidden for Russian air companies.
4. The ships from mainland also use neutral waters.
5. The land trade between Kaliningrad and other parts if Russia is severely limitied by Lithuania.

This new round of sanctions wasn't well prepared. Lithuanian side claims that they follow European instructions. The Euroberaucrats in Brussels say that European sanctions did not imply limitations for Kaliningrad, and they need some meetings with Lithuanians to form one opinion.
The position of Russia is clear: transit rules were defined in different papers accepted since 1991 and reshaped after the entrance of Lithuania in the EU. If Lithuania continues the blockade, Russia will get casus belli. Now the Kremlin has plans to turn off the Soviet energy lines from Russia to Lithuania which will make energy more expensive for Baltic countries.

The most radical members of Russian parliament issued a bill which denonces Russian recognition of Lithuanian independence and territorial integrity. It should be noted, that present-day borders of Lithuania were obtained after the implementation of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (Vilnus is ex-Polish Wilno) and Potsdam agreements (Klaipeda is ex-German Memel). Russia as a successor of the USSR automatically became a guarantee of this territory. The bill is pending, and its chances to become the law are very low. Still Russia showed what legal and economic opportunities it has. Now the ball is on the European side.

#international #kaliningrad