Ukraine vs Russia III

This is a reasonable take on why the fall of Assad hurts Russia

The collapse of the Assad regime is for Russia a far worse catastrophe than most realize. It will take me many posts and you will see more and more like this coming the coming days and weeks. Here, I will show the implications on Africa.

As it is well known, one of Russia's… pic.twitter.com/mJK724zdtZ

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) December 8, 2024

 

Is Transnistria the next Russian area to collapse? The leader of the Russian occupied region has declared a 30-day state of economic emergency as it will be cut off from cheap Russian natural gas and oil at the start of the year as Ukraine will stop allowing Russia's use of the pipelines that cross Ukraine. Moldova does not have a military to speak of, so if Transnistria falls, it will be via internal collapse rather than Moldova kicking them out.

https://kyivindependent.com/transnistria-declares-economic-emergency-over-russian-gas-supply-threat/

 

Zelensky is saying there are 800,000 Russian troops operating inside of Ukraine right now. That's about four times as participated in the initial invasion.

https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3lcvgo4dj6c2q

 

Straws in the wind, part . . . whatever.

"M Video", Russia's 2nd largest seller of consumer electronics, employing 30,000 people in circa 1,200 stores is one of the success stories of the post-Soviet economy.
They've just announced that, due to the collapse in of mobile phone sales, they will begin buying, refurbishing, and selling used phones.
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Ex-Soviets just love their gizmos, the newer the better. Money no object. Not a sign of good consumer sentiment

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Tendar is one of those writers who is always worth reading. Even when he's wrong, which isn't often, he makes you think and you always learn something interesting.

 

This map - from Rybar's TG channel - shows how important the Syrias bases are as the key hub for Russian operations in Africa.
The loss of Syria as a refueling and logistics point would undermine all of Russian efforts on the continent.

 

So yet another level of Russian pain where you think the people would raise up and remove Putin. We'll see.

 

I do not think their "people" are there yet. But, I am curious about the elites. They will be the first to feel the pinch if they don't already.

 

The elites have been disappearing at a rapid trace. There's also the caveat that as a Bolivian I am used to seeing grassroot overthrows. Russia is apparently not anything close to Bolivia.

 

Do the people really care about Russia's operations in Africa? They don't even care about the 1,000 casualties a day that they are suffering in Ukraine, why would they care about their operations in Africa having issues?

 

It's a moneymaker for the Russian state and a symbol of its prestige. If Russia no longer makes money off of these ventures and the state appears incapable of power projection, there's not much use for the elites making their lives better.

 

But that's only the elites. Even then, that population is rapidly shrinking thanks to their proclivity to fall from high places.

 

Either the factions overthrow Putin or he runs out of people to staff the government. Russia's a big place and needs a lot of people doing things to keep it together.

The collapse of the Russian Federation won't look like a collapse at first. It'll be some squabble in the Caucasus or a revolt in some tiny town in Siberia. It's the fact that the Russian state won't have the resources to put it down that will signal the Russian Federation is collapsing. If Putin kills off too many elite Muscovites or St. Petersburg-ians (Petersborgians?), there will be nobody to hold the line in the regions.

 

I should have specified that I was talking about their economic collapse.

 

But such a collapse won't happen in the very near future will it? And I'm not sure it will be because Russia can't maintain their African missions. A much, much bigger impact is the drop of oil and natural gas revenue due to the Ukrainian war.

 

Even a lean industry such as the oil industry -- you don't need a lot of people to administer oil production -- requires a large bureaucracy to transfer its benefits to the public. Petrostates survive by bribing the public with public goods and direct transfers. If workers are afraid to work in Russia (conscription) and the state cannot physically transfer money to its citizens (fewer bureaucrats), then economic collapse doesn't have to be Venezuela.

Another way to describe what I'm saying is there aren't any countries in recent history that have voluntarily decided to shred their population in the way Russia has. Examples from history don't look great for Russia in the short, medium, and long run. Depopulation *is* economic collapse.

 

It worked the last time when the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of having to match the Hot Cold War arms race.

 

Not wrong, but Russia has a lot of petro to state with. Obviously, that's hit a pretty major blip since the invasion, but I fully expect the petrodollars to flow back into the elites bank accounts if/when the war ends. Of course, the going question is when the war will end and if it will be in time to stop the elites from doing something about their diminishing bank accounts.

I dunno.. I think China is competing really hard with Russia on voluntarily shedding their population. But point taken.

 

It's also very, very big with rather few means of transport between different regions. Rather easy to cut off a city of 500k or so that's become restive and feed the rest of the country a line of BS until the unrest has been put down.

Georgia, by contrast is quite small and although Ukraine is big, the centre and West are rather more densely populated with plenty of transport routes between cities

 

Meanwhile, Russian Telegram channels are claiming that something is brewing at the Khmeimim airbase. https://t.co/gAZn6brHSi pic.twitter.com/DZIILcKjqJ

— Mark Krutov (@kromark) December 9, 2024

IMO the relevance of being pushed out of the bases is twofold. The first is that the job of a boss is to recognize when the organization is on a loser, cut the losses and GTFO. Syria ending as a write-off is seriously embarrassing but being chased out - on camera - by a ragtag militia in 10 days time will be utter humiliation

The second is that the point of the Syria adventure was to prove that "Russia is back, baby!" as a superpower. That Russia's wishes need to be taken into account. So is invading Ukraine, only more so and with far more at stake if it goes wrong. Syria has, badly.

VIPs are very quietly asking why Ukraine will end differently.

 

Russia inserts itself in places like Mali with Wagner groups to help “protect” gold mining assets. Gold is important to Russia.