「経済制裁はいかにロシアを殺すか？」抄訳

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

How sanctions are killing Russia? Russia's falling. Old sanctions of 2014 sabotaged development of new innovative weaponry. New sanctions of 2022 are undermining Russian military efforts, destroying its technological chains and communications lines, thus breaking country apart🧵 pic.twitter.com/vYgVNCv290

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Western analysts greatly overestimate the robustness of Russia. Russians themselves are now talking about the imminent end of this state. Consider a Peskov's slip of tongue: "Special Operation launched to get rid of Russia" pic.twitter.com/enCQRK6iqW

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

End of Russia - that's what is on the table right now. Consider this talk show of Solovyov - top Putin's propagandist. Their point is - *any* treaty Russia signs with Ukraine will mark its defeat. That gonna be beginning of the end, not of Putin's regime but of Russian state pic.twitter.com/QVuOUEPLuH

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Medinsky, Putin's negotiator in Ukraine, claims that "the very existence of Russia is on stake now". Well, then the question arises - how did these guys put Russia on stake? Is it compulsive gambling disorder or what? pic.twitter.com/C4pmP5VaJi

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Well, they were sure of Russian victory. We have absolute military superiority and can easily crush Ukraine. We may not invade, but if we do, we'll 100% win. This was based on assumption about the invincibility of Russian army. Compare vibe of Russian TV in late February and now pic.twitter.com/YCXrXKEoQk

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

The assumption that Russia gonna win was based on three elements. First, on the mythos of WWII. They conveniently forgot that in WWII Russia fought on the side of greatest economic power and now it's fighting against. See Soviet soldiers on American Studebakers pic.twitter.com/mFtMIiRUXj

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Many talk of Serdyukov's military reforms. However, efficiency-maxer Serdyukov made interest groups angry and was fired. His successor Shoygu was a court-maxer and PR-maxer more interested in building his personality cult than the army. His flatterers even portray him as Subedei pic.twitter.com/DHcMI25MIL

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Many talk of Syrian war, where Russia got "so much experience" proving its fighting capacity. Putin believed in it. Russian generals believed in it. Western "expers" believed in it. Only Russian soldiers didn't. Consider this interview with a Wagner mercenary who fought in Syria pic.twitter.com/luOwMjvRhF

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

On February 26 Wagner mercenary debunked a myth of "real combat experience" Russian army got in Syria. Aviation got a real experience, air defense too. But the land troops didn't. Those who expect a victorious march through Ukraine are wrong. Ukraine got much stronger since 2015 pic.twitter.com/ZeCGLfTcE4

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Other Russian military sources which I'm not gonna quote even argued that Syrian experience was negative for Russian army. For example, much of their role was convoying Syrian and Irani supply caravans through a flar desert where it's difficult to set up an ambush unnoticed pic.twitter.com/1pm4N3gfvT

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In Syria Russians learnt that convoying caravans is easy. Now they try to repeat this Syrian experience in Ukraine. Being used to convoying caravans through desert, they now convoy them through forests or residential areas. There they get into ambushes and are exterminated pic.twitter.com/DH4iiLslji

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That's why Russian military are so pessimistic about their perspective in Ukraine. Consider Strelkov. For 29 days Russia didn't achieve strategic success on any directions "My worst fears came true, we get involved into a long, bloody, and very dangerous war" pic.twitter.com/eipd1xGqQD

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That's why Russia is losing so many generals. Why are they even being present on frontline? Because Russia is losing and Putin's knows it. He's furious and sending his generals to the frontline to take direct control in order to improve the situation. And there they get killed pic.twitter.com/THI7hhYjVF

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Putin launched a war, expecting an immediate victory. Russian propaganda leaflets literally boasted that Kyiv gonna be captured in one day. Yes, that's propaganda. But it reflected a widespread Russian conviction that Ukrainians wouldn't resist pic.twitter.com/b51R3lWCaH

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

What consuequences will it bring for Russia? Western analysts exaggerate how robust Russia is. Consider this recent article by Nial Fergusson. I think he's wrong. Putin won't be able to reach a result that Russian people will view as a victory. Any treaty will mark Russian defeat pic.twitter.com/zPi7yvOqaa

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That's why smarter ones of the Russian elite are already trying to get off the sinking ship. Here is Chubays cashing out at an ATM in an Istanbul airport. Chubays is *the* major architect of modern Russia and he's running away pic.twitter.com/HvlYDehfDh

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In 1990s a St Petersburg liberal economist Chubays designed Russian privatization. He purposefully organised it in a most shady and non-transparent way to quickly create lots of rich people owing everything to the regime. That's how oligarchs fortunes were created pic.twitter.com/atby5jJt72

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

By the late 1990s crony "systemic liberals" like Chubays got tired of democracy. They didn't want parliamentarian, didn't want public politics. They wanted a Tsar who'll defend them from the public opinion (which hated them). So they chose Putin and boosted him out of nothing pic.twitter.com/w4l37r6rJ4

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In 2010s Chubays turned to Russian ethnonationalism. He funded nationalist media such as "Sputnik and Pogrom" who advocated building the "Russia for Russians" in these borders. Chubays is personally responsible for building oligarchy, Putinism and jingoist delusions in Russia pic.twitter.com/YupDjSXg3y

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

There is hardly any other living person who bears so much responsibility for what is happening in Russia now than Chubays. He created oligarchy, promoted Putin to power, boosted Russian ethnonationalism. He was all powerful and now he ran away. Because he knows Russia is over pic.twitter.com/Nyzb8nxvXn

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Well, Chubays made a good decision - run while you still can. MPs from the United Russia ruling party already can't leave the country without permission. Only smarter ones who escaped before the prohibition are now safe abroad, like Milonov. Others are trapped in Moscow pic.twitter.com/YR7PABpGlw

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Now let's finally outline a scenario of collapse. First, sanctions will destroy its technological and supply chains. Many believe in self-sufficiency of Russia. But Russia is not autarkic. It's not an evil empire but a Trade Federation totally dependent on technological import pic.twitter.com/Yli6IK6t72

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Machinery is the first victim of sanctions. It's using foreign components on all levels from microchips to bearings. Thus sanctions are destroying: 1. Military industry 2. Transport and communication lines 3. Production of consumer goods Thus they're breaing Russia apart pic.twitter.com/O91FUeraJX

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Sanctions won't make Putin back off. They won't make Russian people rebel. That'd be a collective action of a huge scale which isn't gonna happen. They will undermine Russian military efforts and incentivize a much smaller scale, easier to do collective action - local separatism pic.twitter.com/M0yZYprV48

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Let's start with military industry. Counterintuitive it may sound, it is *especially* import dependent. Why? Well, because it's relatively complex. For example, it is the main consumer of precision manufacturing industrial machines in Russia - buying over 80% of these machines pic.twitter.com/UDH8eXyhEV

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Annexation of Crimea was a major blow on Russian military industry. As Sverdlovsk Oblast minister of industry Sergey Perestorin admitted, Ural plants, including tank producing ones, started having problems with components supply immediately after 2014 pic.twitter.com/k5tRAH8ozE

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Thus new types of Russian weaponry, for example, the Armata tank were never mass produced. Mass production was supposed to commence in 2015 but in 2022 it still didn't, because of the sanctions. Electronic components import, transmissions import, everything sopped after Crimean pic.twitter.com/WzGchw2D7o

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

There's another aspect of the problem. It seems Russia lost many technological competences and capacities it used to have under the USSR. In the USSR a job of engineer was prestigous and highly paid. Military engineers were kings. But now they're losers with no respect or salary pic.twitter.com/SJtLp47key

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

As a result construction bureaus and engineering institutions didn't get new competent engineers. Some would come after a college but than had to leave, because they had to feed their families. Average age of an engineer in tank industry is now around 55-60 years

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That means that while old engineers were dying and retiring, too few capable youngsters came to learn from them. So many competences of old engineers died with them. As then deputy minister of defense Makarov pointed out Russia lost Soviet technologies of producing a tank barrel pic.twitter.com/PPXNP5Nb3f

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

No wonder that all the production on Uralvagonzavod, the only producer of tanks in Russia, is now stopped. Old sanctions introduced in 2014 didn't allow to develop new innovative tanks. New sanctions of 2022 don't allow to build any tanks at all pic.twitter.com/9djhJfxIuv

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Russian military industry is fully reliant on Western equipment and components. Consider Motovilihinskie Zavody - the major producer of MLRS and artillety systems in Russia. As you see, they are using a turn-mill industrial machine of an Italian company Tacchi Giacomo e Figli SpA pic.twitter.com/72VKWidCMl

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Consider an interview with a CEO of Baltic Industrial Company that supplies Russian military plants. We don't produce industrial machines, bearings, ball screws, spindles. Yeah, Russia can produce lots of "cool" weaponry. But it will fall because it can't produce any boring stuff pic.twitter.com/unxVZOwDao

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Non military industry is dying, too. Car and vehicles plants are stopping for the lack of details and components. They are laying off their workers. Of course some try to find solutions and built new vehicles "from Russian components". Sounds good doesn't work pic.twitter.com/FXsQNFqOiN

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

See this order of Yekaterinburg police. Policemen are not allowed to use their foreign produced cars anymorebecause under the sanction regime they can't re repaired. There are no components for that pic.twitter.com/rkotcKCmRw

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Another victim is the railways. Russia switched its railroad cars production from the roller bearings to the cassette bearings. That's more efficient, but all 3 cassette bearing producing plants in Russia are both foreign owned and import dependent. Railways gonna have problems pic.twitter.com/tUvJWYg9gm

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

The railways are the main carcass keeping the country together. Unlike North America they are crucially important not only for transporting goods, but also the people. Most of Russian autoroutes are horrible. It's the railways that connect this country. Soon they'll be disrupted pic.twitter.com/6xcogYTlUD

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Russian airlines are disrupting right now. Russia isn't getting new components for its Boeings and Airbuses, won't be able to maintain them. That's why Pobeda airline for example gonna reduce its fleet by 40%. There are so few details that you can't keep all the planes working pic.twitter.com/AqTBi2lffD

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Yes, Russia has its own aircraft industry. But the aircraft factories are working on foreign components, too. Rostov aircraft plant closed for the lack of import, so Russian-produced Ан-24 and Ан-26 planes gonna be impossible to repair. They'll function for 5-6 months the most pic.twitter.com/GR4hnZH5SO

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Consider this interview where a minister and his aides aides discussing that they won't be able to repair the stolen planes abroad. Yeah, they'll try to do it in Russia. Good luck repairing them with the import of components stopped pic.twitter.com/HptjU21B1F

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Third aspect of Russian fall will be the decrease of supply in literally all consumer goods. Mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive, there are two options: prices can rise or there will be deficit. At this point both phenomena take place. People are shocked by new prices pic.twitter.com/OOL1Ao6mej

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

There's of course a deficit in consumer goods, like sugar. You can see lots of videos of people shouting, fighting, arguing over this precious deficit good pic.twitter.com/8uAaO7UggG

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

As sugar becomes deficit, incentives to steal and stock it rise exponentially. Here you supermarket workers stealing sugar from its stocks and loading into a car trunk. A woman is commenting: "That's why they don't have sugar on shelves" pic.twitter.com/vrjFwxypao

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Many will try to enrich on sugar trade. Here a man got arrested for selling a 50kg sack with sugar for above market price. The government is already fighting against the profiteering. Such things will only increase pic.twitter.com/zpABhoe56g

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

As you see Russian supermarkets are already restricting the purchases of "socially important goods". Too many try to buy as much as possible to stock it and create the shortage pic.twitter.com/Iq9vL4J2Jl

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Now let's think in higher orders. People trying to stock as much as possible is indeed exacerbating the existing deficit. But the thing is - regions and towns *are doing the same*. It's not individuals stocking sugar that will kill Russia, it's that governors are doing the same pic.twitter.com/bubSD85afl

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

When we think about Russian state we are usually operating in dichotomy Putin vs People. Will people support their leader? Will they rebel? They won't but it's irrelevant. The state is not homogenous. Putin can ignore sanctions but his subordinates can't pic.twitter.com/3HDvxI06lW

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Yes, the core electorate of Putin, is standing by their President and will stand by the end. Putin is sacred, they're not gonna blame him for anything. Whom they're gonna blame for their problems, for the lack of food? A corrupt mayor and governor of course pic.twitter.com/Z5DBf6ui0c