what could go wrong to have all ministries report to the MoD???
if that doesn’t end corruption - what will ??
/s
And that’s going to lead to a lot of Russian citizens being pissed. As was stated - the population is not going to be happy working for ration coupons to support an unpopular war of aggression against another country. The propaganda will only go so far.
The more the population gets unruly, the more effort Putin will need to put into supressing dissent. And this leads to more dissent. It’s a vicious circle that leads to Putin falling out a window.
Agree completely about your end game. And that this move hastens the arrival of that end game.
The challenge for the rest of us is the ride between here and there, which enhanced MoD logistics can only prolong & make more severe while it lasts.
Plus whatever comes next after Putin’s unfortunate fall.
Of course, there’s a decent chance that enhanced logistics will just lead to enhanced corruption. There’s got to be someone there figuring the smart move is to line their own pockets before Putin is defenestrated.
Putin has cancelled his annual press conference. Seems he might be nervous about being in “public,” even a managed one.
Vladimir, screamed in vain.
Sounds kind of catchy, the whole revolution thing making full circle.
Going back to the topic though, it’s one thing when Putin does the rattling, because while evidence shows he’s not the chess grandmaster many thought he was, he does plenty of manipulation, bluff, and bragging to elevate his image and intimidate his enemies. When lower level commanders start talking about it, with or without direct Kremlin influence, I wonder if it’s threat or desperation. From a recent (12/14/22) CNN breaking news thread -
Commander Alexander Khodakovsky of the Russian militia in the Donetsk region said on Russia-1 that Moscow’s resources are limited.
He also claimed that Russia is now fighting the entire Western world, which is why the next escalation of the Ukraine war can “only be one: nuclear.”
It seems that what he is saying is most likely true, that NATO has supplied and will continue to supply Ukraine with enough supplies to outlast the Russians and thus they are a defacto NATO force in all but name. He is not saying that he supports using nuclear weapons, he is just saying that only way for Russia to advance would be to use nuclear weapons. Which he doesn’t support. It’s just an honest observation.
It could also be that he’s setting up for a de-escalation. There is still at least some talk of Russia having some massive amount of men and equipment held in reserve that it just hasn’t committed to the fight yet, for some reason, and this might be his way of disabusing those people who believe this of these notions. “We’re not going to pull a rabbit out of this hat, guys. Either we concede, or we nuke them. Pick one.”
I think I like @Horatius’ analysis best. Despite many wishes, I don’t think Putin’s situation is bad enough yet for someone to give him urban skydiving lessons. But there may well be a growing feeling that a slow, endless loss on the Ukraine border is the new normal with no end in sight.
I do wish that there was more talk of ‘Is any of this worth it’ at the command level, although not that I would expect to hear any of it coming out of Putin’s Russia. I’m positive that quite a few military commanders, missing their comfy homes and grift, and worried about being fragged by their own drunken troops, are thinking it very, Very loudly.
This is going to go down in history as one of the weirdest wars ever.
Has there ever before been a country that could invade a neighboring country, get thoroughly trounced in battle, admit defeat and retreat back across the border, and yet, still be essentially immune to a subsequent counter-invasion, and possible conquest, by the country they invaded?
The US could admit defeat in Vietnam, because no matter what, there was zero chance the Vietnamese could take the war to the continental US. But that’s not the case here. Were Russia not a nuclear power, it’s entirely possible that Ukraine could push them back over the border, and then annex a big chunk of Russia itself. Even in WWII, smaller countries like Czechoslovakia had enough military resources to be at least a threat to the Great Powers around them. Hitler probably couldn’t have just turned around and gone home without any repercussions.
But Russia could do that, if it chose.
The comparatively few colonels & generals currently shivering in trucks & tents in Ukraine? Yes. The many staff generals back in Moscow? Not so much.
The latter are the ones who matter. At least for now. If the mess on the ground in Ukraine gets desperate enough that commanders start marching their forces home on their own initiative, that’ll be a different situation altogether.
Agree w this. As many imperialists, including the USA, have learnt to their detriment, getting into a war is vastly easier than getting out of one.
The very best outcome Putin & his coterie can hope for now is to slow this to a so-called “frozen conflict” as in Abkhazia, Transdinistria, etc. So lots of hate, graft, and warlordism amidst endless undying misery for the populace, but little ongoing significant loss of men & materiel.
The problem for Putin of course is that the enemy gets a vote.
And in this conflict, the enemy is Ukraine and most of the West. We (the West) can collectively afford to keep bleeding Russia of men and materiel at an unsustainable rate for them for as long as Ukraine is willing to supply most of the manpower and all of the battlefield. Which may well be decades.
Oh, agree 100% - that’s why I specified the ones away from their comfy homes and grift and worrying about their armed troops. 
And the few commanders that have returned from the front are pretty much all in disgrace, so no one is listening to them.
Given that most of us in the various other Ukraine threads DON’T see many more major breakthroughs as likely, and the major shrinkage of stockpiles of men and modern material to throw into the grinder, I am every so slightly more hopeful than when I started the thread that the talk of nuclear weapons will remain talk (although even then, I didn’t consider it likely). But it remains a reminder to Putin’s own people that they can ‘win’ if they need to, but more a reminder to the West that too much more interference will bring consequences.
Because Putin certainly doesn’t want the balance to tip any further.
No territorial repercussions. At least not immediately. The advantages of being nuclear-armed are significant in modern statecraft. A lesson not lost on General Secretary Kim nor Supreme Leader Khamenei.
But if Putin announced tomorrow that it was all a big misunderstanding, an April Fool’s prank gone wrong, and he was retreating out of all of Ukraine (except Crimea (or even Crimea)) ASAP and actually did so, his country would still be a pariah state for the rest of his term as supreme dictator. And probably for the next couple of leaders after him.
Which will significantly alter Russia’s trajectory for the next 50-100 years vs. what might have been had Putin left well enough alone. Those are (or will be) significant repercussions.
Well, yeah, for Russia in general, but for Putin and his cronies, well, as I’ve said before, Rich in Russia is still Rich. So long as no one can actually rolls tanks across the border and take out Putin personally, the leaders are going to be living large, even if it’s not quite as large as it could have been had they not gotten involved in this folly.
Long before Ukraine was regaining territory, but when they were decidedly not losing it at the rate expected, I asked a Ukrainian colleague what they were going to do with Russia when they got done conquering it.
“We don’t want it.”
Well, yes, but if they did want it, they could have it, were it not for nukes. Like I said, I think this may be a unique situation in history.
Ok, now I follow you. Agree completely.
Yes, no matter how the war unfolds Putin’s personal safety is much more at risk from fellow Russians than from the West. Even if deposed in something resembling a coup he’ll live out his days, or not, at the pleasure of the then-sitting Russian government, not at the pleasure of some NATO-sponsored latter-day Nuremberg Trials equivalent.
Unless we get to WW-last wargasm. In which case he’s, along with millions of others on both sides, simply more molten slag under a pile of radioactive rubble.
I’d suggest we say “unprecedented” rather than “unique”.
IMO this is the first time this situation has arisen: a potentially existential war involving nuclear powers. Or at least a war involving nuclear powers that has post-war regime survival in doubt for at least one side. I have no reason to think this will be the last such opportunity future history will offer humanity.
May we all hope that the good lessons are drawn from the good outcome of this current unprecedented experiment.
Any generals named George Monckovich? Monckski? Anything like that?
Including a nuclear one?