This literally is what happened. The Russians have been disabling the Ukrainian grid at will. — boethius

You said it. :wink: — ssu

I did not deny saying this and I pointed it out it's true.

Where I am unsure the citation is from me or someone else I say so.

And again, why not just use the citation function so it's clear who said what and when.

For example, when I stated:

Once Kiev is encircled the military, social and political dynamic will completely change. — boethius

First, this is in the context of responding to the comment:

It's also unclear why they wouldn't want to encircle Kiev as quickly as possible. You can hold most of the area around a city, and if supplies can still get through, your seige won't be effective. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My comment is explaining why Russian would want to encircle Kiev, because once the capital is encircled the dynamic changes.

And the first sentences of explaining that is:

They certainly do want to encircle Kiev as quickly as possible, but due to the political consequence of of that (leadership also stuck and suffering) preventing encirclement of Kiev is Ukraine's top priority.

Why gains in the south are extremely rapid and Kherson was taken without prolonged urban combat resistance, is because Ukraine clearly can't fight on all fronts. — boethius

In other words, encircling the capital would change the military, social and political dynamic (so one reason the Russians are trying to do it) and it also absorbs a lot of Ukrainian forces as their top priority is to prevent encirclement (precisely because that changes the military, social and political dynamic) which has the benefit for the Russians of gaining ground in the south.

In literally my next comment I clarify:

Definitely Ukrainians could keep fighting for a long time. — boethius

Precisely to clarify that Kiev may succeed in preventing encirclement, break the siege and rout the Russians with a surprise counter offensive, or even just be sieged for a long time.

I add further clarification in my next posts that:

Of course, deception is a large part of warfare, so the Ukrainians could be planning some brilliant move to rout the enemy that launches at any time. Likewise, stories of Russian moral collapse could be totally true or then riots start breaking out all over Russia at any moment. There's definitely risks on Russia's side and predictions of obviously possible things always have a chance to come true. However, what we can be certain of is that all the retired generals and retired intelligence directors that hammer this impending Ukraine victory home, base that on absolutely nothing. The real experts acknowledge they don't know the situation on the ground for Russia or Ukraine. — boethius

And when asked:

↪boethius are you averse to including evidence/sources with your posts? — Changeling

I respond:

I'm not averse to it, but the whole point of my post is that we don't really know what's going on. Western media continuously say one unsourced thing, so seems appropriate to say the alternative scenario. — boethius

In other words, the context makes it abundantly clear that I am engaged in analysis of different possibilities, including the Ukrainians completely routing the Russians in some brilliant surprise move.

However, I explain why I don't think that will happen:

So, that being said, the reasons to assume Ukraine is not going to bust out some brilliant move is that conscripts generally speaking, and especially conscripts that trained sometime in the distant past, are terrible at offensive maneuvers. Conscripts are effective at manning trenches and firing artillery mainly, and doing the logistics, cooking, repairing, medical evacs and nurse work etc. — boethius

I then go onto explain what would change that situation and be a game changer:

In terms of game changing weapons, it seems extremely likely to me that Migs from Poland would just get shot down and not do much (certainly can have a chance of doing some damage before being shot down; but the idea the skies would be safer for Ukrainian pilots than for Russian seems "untenable" to use the word that seems to currently describe that). The reason for the focus on the planes is likely for the simple reason that Ukraine does have the pilots and personnel to put some planes up in the sky.

The real game changing weapons would be a lot of armor. There's a reason that Nato assumed that the Soviet Union could just roll through Europe: a shit ton more armor than Nato had. Turns out that the US wildly overestimated the Soviet capabilities (because they hired a Nazi to run intelligence on the Soviets who realized grossly inflating Soviet capabilities would get him more resources and reason to hire his friends), but the basic principle that only a bunch of armor is actually effective against a bunch of armor at the end of the day is pretty accurate (planes and other things can help, but any large scale offensive or counter offensive maneuver needs a bunch of armor--which is why the conscript mobilization playbook also calls for an insane amount of anti-armor mines everywhere). — boethius

Which is exactly what everyone accepts a year later that Ukraine needs a lot of armour to do any offensive maneuovre.

I explained this March 10th, 2022, less than a month into the war right after explaining Ukraine contesting the skies is "untenable".

I could provide even more context to explain that my analysis at the time was completely accurate.

After all this military analysis of the different scenarios (not predictions), in my next comment I state:

Yes, definitely Putin could stop at any moment and says he's achieved whatever he set out to achieve. — boethius

In particular:

Key land captures to show for the blood spilled: land bridge to Crimea. — boethius

Which is what happened. If you believe the Russians they retreated from the siege of Kiev as a show of good faith in what they believed was preliminary agreement to end the war.

So, I fail to see how any of this analysis was anything other than spot on.

That's not within NATO's mandate, is it? Others may not have such a charter, though. But, hey, maybe you're right, end the tiptoeing. — jorndoe

There is no tiptoeing, there's a very clear objective to weaken Europe, in particular the Euro, and give money to the defence contractors and start a new cold war so even more money flows to defence contractors: everyone pulling their weight and spending 2% of GDP, No Free Rides!!

... seems to often enough be put forth by those saying that Ukraine should capitulate. — jorndoe

The logic also goes the other way, that if it makes no sense for NATO to pick a fight with a nuclear armed opponent, neither does it make sense for Ukraine.

Well, what I remember was that the "clear arguments" were for the Ukrainian Nazis just to roll over and die. Because Ukrainians were Nazis, right? — ssu

The clear arguments were that Ukraine has less man power, far less material in what you are now calling a material war, barely any airforce, needing to traverse 1000 km to supply the front whereas the front is next door to Russia pre-invasion.

The additional clear arguments is that NATO does not wage and is not prepared for the kind of war Ukraine is fighting, relying on a strategy that assumes gaining air supremacy (which makes sense if you are the US projecting power around the globe, but does not make sense if you are Ukraine defending against a lot of artillery without said NATO airforce).

But let's just look at the past comment just why and how unfeasible it has been to attempt to remove Russia from its "former territory" (Hint, Soviet or Imperial territory) by military means. — ssu

Exactly what one would expect looking at the numbers and looking at the disparity in forces is happening: Ukraine has suffered massive casualties, needs to conscript down to 16 years of age, and has not achieved anything militarily.

the Russian army and reserves are far larger and now on the defensive and have all the benefits Ukrainians had defending Kiev, and the Russian army can disable. the entire Ukrainian grid at will

This literally is what happened. The Russians have been disabling the Ukrainian grid at will.

as from many Russian's perspective, once the 4 Oblasts are officially part of Russia then they will be defending their country against a hostile invader

I'm pretty sure I didn't even say this, but I'm sure many Russias see the Donbass as ethnic Russians that have been re-integrated into Russia and with the annexation support Russia's defense of this legal Russian territory (legal as far as Russia is concerned).

But you take the trouble to get these quotes, why not just use the quote function so it's clear who is saying what and when and anyone can easily find the context.

I do that "work" as part of my new "job" later I guess.

Additionally, Russia has demonstrated it has highly motivated soldiers able to win in urban environments, so, as I already mentioned, the reservists can have a large impact simply supporting the professional forces.

This is exactly what the Wagner narrative turned out to be that these highly motivated professional mercenaries took Bahkmut because they are so good and professional, only these highly skilled professionals could oust the brave defenders. Of course, less professional soldiers manning the rear and quieter parts of the front are essential in supporting said mercenaries.

Ukraine has sent fresh conscripts with little to no training into front line combat, but there's no reason to believe Russia will do the same.

Ukraine has done exactly that, putting conscripts into Bahkmut with essentially no training, whereas Russia fought Bahkmut with only mercenaries which are not conscripts at all. The reservists Russia called up are, whether you want to call them conscripts or not, are already trained and have been training all throughout the Bahkmut ordeal.

Let winter pass and by the spring everyone will be so fed up with energy prices that peace with Russia will just be the normal, competent, level headed thing to do by politicians wanting to be reelected.

Again, I don't think I said this, but it is also what is happening, just not as early as this poster predicts. Take Poland for example, distancing from support to Ukraine, calling Ukraine ungrateful and a drowning man (pretty strong words) due to upcoming elections.

Russia has only committed 10% of it's standing army to Ukraine, and so can also rotate units in and out of the war as well as reinforce if it needs.

This is what Russia has been doing. Unless the West's own figures are wrong, the amount of troops Russia has committed to Ukraine at any given time has been remarkably low.

This narrative that the Russians have "stalled" makes zero sense. Had Russia failed to siege Kiev (the biggest single strategic objective), ok, then clearly a big stall, but it didn't fail. Reporters are essentially reporting Kiev is now under siege. It may not be completely surrounded, but if it can cover the Southern gap with artillery fire then it becomes significantly harder to resupply Kiev

This I probably said, but I'm pretty sure was when Russia was still advancing. The stall narrative basically came out in the first days of the offensive when clearly nothing was stalled. But we could go back and debate that sort of things retrospectively if you want.

Definitely I did predict Russia would continue the siege of Kiev but I also did mention they had other option such as pulling back and just keeping and defending what they already took in the Donbas.

Keep in mind that the paper (written before the war) analysing different scenarios of a Russian invasion concluded establishing a land bridge to Crimea was the maximum war aims achievable by Russias force disposition. I made it clear that maybe they will just do exactly what that paper said was the maximum they could do.

I also made clear that the purposes of laying siege to Kiev was both to tie up Ukrainian troops, as the Capital takes priority over everything else and can't fall, and also to apply pressure for a diplomatic resolution. So, all that analysis was entirely correct.

If Ukrainian forces dig in to the front of a salient, Russian forces can just flank and pincer around it, and in flat open territory like this I do not see how Ukrainians could build and defend a line hundred or two hundred kilometres against armor maneuvers.

This too I likely said, and definitely armour in this war has not been decisive outside the first days of the invasion.

However, that Russia can simply flank the Ukrainian lines remains completely true. The front is not what the Western media calls the front in the Donbas but the entire border.

There are large formations of Russian troops in Belarus for example, but simply moving large amounts of troops and equipment around the border with Ukraine to conduct an offensive anywhere is entirely possible.

So we'll see.

If you've been following my analysis as closely as you're citations of some of what I have said seems to indicate, you'd know that Russia's own military doctrine is that a modern war would have 3 phases: first a manoeuvre phase supported by advanced capabilities but this would get bogged down due to the small quantities of advanced capabilities, followed by an attritional phase where neither army can make significant advances but large quantities of men and material are being lost (due to things like drones, precise strikes etc.), and then a termination phase that will be won by the side that out-learned their opponent in the attritional phase.

That the war moved into a attritional phase is therefore not a surprise in that this is exactly what Russian doctrine calls for as well as this doctrine may simply reflect the truth of modern warfare (that a modern army needs advanced capabilities to compete but it's impossible to afford to fight a whole war with them, so there's this crazy mix and a high rate of attrition).

Obviously, Russia can eventually simply complete the encirclement of Ukraine by coming up from the south, but that will take time and preventing encirclement of Kiev meanwhile is their main strategy.

Once Kiev is encircled the military, social and political dynamic will completely change.

I definitely agree Ukraine managed to prevent complete encirclement and thus the dynamic didn't change and they had the determination to continue to fight.

As I said at the time, they fought to the point of maximum leverage to negotiate the best resolution to the war.

But please, explain how Ukraine leverage has increased since their breaking the siege of Kiev.

Also of note, the war is not over and Kiev can be sieged again at any time.

Likewise, Russia can still potentially invade right to the Dnieper.

If their doctrine is correct and they have indeed out-learned the Ukrainians then we may see the return to manoeuvre warfare and these strategies play out.

Not that I want NATO to send troops to Ukraine and spark WWIII, but it dangled that promise of safety infront of the Ukrainians only to hang them out to dry. — Tzeentch

People like to forget, but the first things Ukraine was "fighting for" was "the right to join NATO" and a NATO no-fly zone.

What's even worse is that early on I also put it to the "pro-Ukrainians" that if Ukrainian former lands is so important, why not send NATO boots on the ground to defend it? which was met with a combination of not-our-fight, can't escalate are you crazy, Russia has nukes! and but, but, but, but we're harming Russia for free!!!

And through all this Ukrainian cheerleading not a single moments reflection on the lives lost.

Not a single prediction ever comes true from Russian low morale will somehow cause total collapse of Russian lines, sanctions will destroy the Russian economy, Ukraine doesn't need heavy weapons when they have "saint Javelins", Ukraine doesn't need Western Heavy weapons, Western heavy weapons will be a game changer, but ok the next heavy weapon will be a game changer, Ukraine will "cut the land bridge", Russia has run out of missiles! Russia is running out of artillery! etc. etc. etc.

And yet not a single moments reflection of questioning source of these predictions and there relation to any discernable reality.

When I have the time I'll go through my posts and cite myself explaining that not only does Ukraine have no reasonable chance of winning in military terms but that as soon as that becomes clear Ukraine's "friends" will abandon Ukraine just like we abandoned all our freedom fighting "friends" in Afghanistan and that, just like Afghanistan, they would be blamed for the loss by not "wanting it enough".

I would compare it to something like a drowning person... A drowning person is extremely dangerous because he can pull you to the depths ... He can simply drown the rescuer. — President of Poland, as quoted by Reuters

The only argument I heard that things will be different in Ukraine is that Ukraine is European (aka. white).

However, seems to me the scene seems set to play out exactly as before.

Of course. That's what I and many others have been saying for months. — Tzeentch

Just too ironic.

And not just for months, since the very beginning clear arguments have been presented of why it's simply unfeasible for Ukraine to attempt to remove Russia from its former territory by military means.

At the time the only argument for continued fighting was able to present was that "maybe" Ukraine has some surprise in store.

And, since the beginning, the question has been to the pro-more-war side of the issue to either explain how Ukraine has a chance of winning military (without invoking magical thinking) or then explain how indefinite warfare benefits Ukraine (in particular if they do all this fighting and lose).

However, not only is no theory of victory ever presented (for example how to deal with the lack of air power) but even simple questions such as how many lives lost would be worth the territory back if it was feasible likewise proponents of Ukraine policy can't answer.

That it is simply Ukraine's choice is the answer and we must just take it for granted that Zelensky speaks for all Ukrainians.

But who doesn't have a choice is Westerners supplying weapons. No actual sense to the project need be presented by Ukraine nor anyone else. Ukraine wants to fight!!

If they can't "vote with their feet" if they don't actually want to fight as they can't leave, that's called wanting to fight apparently, and if they can't vote as elections are suspended, that's just not only wanting to fight but fighting for democracy.

As I wrote, it is now impossible to determine how much Russia trades in rubles and how it is affected by the exchange rate, as that depends on the terms of the contracts and the info coming out of Russia seems rather contradictory. — Jabberwock

If you understood anything about how the commodities market works internationally -- or then read and reflected on even a small part of what I explained about it -- you would know that any imbalance between the international spot price and unclosed contracts relative the Ruble would be small and short term.

Instead of pretending like you know anything about what you're talking about and that maybe there are 10s of billions, or hell why not hundreds of billions of dollars worth of unclosed commodities contracts in Rubles could have been out there: that for some unexplained and irrational reasons that have zero evidence actually exists, the Kremlin, knowing that their currency could be a weak point, decided to commit for the long haul to Ruble prices for their commodities and have taken a severe hit now that the Ruble is cheaper to buy.

Or, you know, you could be honest and just say you have no clue what you're talking about but happy to learn.

hat is absurdly untrue. Even China is very much reliant on the Western technology:

https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/china-more-dependent-us-and-our-technology-you-think

Most of Russia's industries now have a choice: go back to the eighties (which will make them completely uncompetitive anywhere outside the domestic market) or fold. All Russia has left is the resource trade and even that will suffer, as most oilfields and gas fields were serviced by Western companies. You cannot buy such equipment and knowhow through parallel import. — Jabberwock

We are talking about Russia and what critical supplies Russia needs for their economy to simply function.

Obviously, since Russia's economy has not collapsed and nearly entirely cut off from Western supply chains, it's able to source what it needs from mostly China.

I'm also talking about critical technologies.

You also don't know how licensing works. That you need to purchase a license doesn't mean you can't produce whatever it is, it's that you can't export it into the Western economies as it's protected by a patent.

The fact the authors of the article you cite (from the spin machine that is the Heritage Foundation) don't understand the difference between capacity and licensing render their analysis completely useless.

Now, compare this situation where China is spending big to license technologies in order to be able to export those technologies back to the West to the technological differences between China and the West during the cold war, then you'd understand my point.

Yes, I retract the inital argument, it was based on the data (supposedly from the Bank of Russia, shown in the chart before) that half of Russian exports are denominated in ruble, which seemingly was incorrect. — Jabberwock

Good that this little interlude is over.

However, the data can be completely correct even for commodities.

Saying the exports are denominated in Rubles just means that people needed to buy Rubles one way or another to then buy whatever it is. However, the contracts can easily just reference the international spot price in USD one way or another, and, even if the contracts are in rubbles commodities usually trade on a fairly short term basis so there would be winners and losers in any currency change. Additionally, commodities traders generally hedge against such currency fluctuations so the winners and losers can be completely different parties, all financiers in Shanghai for example, who provide markets for these sorts of derivatives.

And, obviously, saying have is in Rubles is the same as saying half is in hard currency of other nations, which in Russias is a significant amount of cash in addition to it's cash and precious metals reserves.

There was certainly the possibility of severe economic dislocations when the war and sanctions started as supply line disruption could have caused cascading failures in industry, infrastructure which then immediately spill over into financial chaos and civil unrest making the problem even worse.

I don't think anyone outside the Kremlin has any good idea of how close or far such a total system failure was due to Western sanctions. What we do know is that they did prepare for 8 years for that exact scenario and were able to mitigate it.

After nearly 18 months it's extremely implausible that Russia would have some severe economic problem now.

The main reason is that everything the West supplied, China and India also supplies. "Competitive advantage" of Western technology can easily be 1 or 2 %.

Unlike the cold war, there's no critical technologies today that the West is far ahead of everyone else.

So, it was certainly disruptive for a whole country to change supply chains on such a large scale, but substitutes do exist and it was pure Western hubris to believe that they didn't or there's something special about Western tech in today's market.

Sure, if you ignore all the differences between certain countries, then they are exactly the same. I am pointing specific issues which make Russia's situation difficult and you just ignore them and go back to your generalities. — Jabberwock

Russia's economic situation would be difficult if it was in or we had reason to believe it was heading towards recession, that's what all these various macro economic variables synthesise to.

If all the things you point to were a "difficult situation" then why isn't there a recession or analysts predicting a recession?

Analysts have gradually been improving economic growth forecasts, now seeing Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) rising 0.7% this year, up from 0.1% in the early May poll, and increasing 1.4% next year, slightly lower than previously thought. — Reuters - Russia to hold rates next week, 2023 GDP growth may improve, Reuters poll shows

And in the same article:

Analysts have gradually been improving economic growth forecasts, now seeing Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) rising 0.7% this year, up from 0.1% in the early May poll, and increasing 1.4% next year, slightly lower than previously thought. — Reuters - Russia to hold rates next week, 2023 GDP growth may improve, Reuters poll shows

So there is zero "difficult situation".

Lol. No, he is not. He gives examples of specific sectors which indicate the bigger problem which is the overreliance on raw resource exports - that is the whole point of the meeting (and his speech). I have asked you to provide the examples of the sectors (beside the military one, which is also not doing that great) which are booming and seemingly you are unable to give any. — Jabberwock

You're literally repeating my arguments to me.

You point to sectors reliant on exports as some sort of economic problem, I explain that (in the context of there being no recession) it would be only a problem if there's some strategic consideration; you then cite someone explaining the same thing, I point that out and then you re-explain this argument that reliance on imports is not a economic problem in itself (if there's no recession caused by said reliance, just normal economic phenomena of specialising in some things and importing others) but would be a strategic problem.

I.e. we both agree these imports do not represent some structural economic problem which was and is your argument.

Whether there's some strategic vulnerability, such as over-reliance on China, these imports represent is a different question, but you'd need to elaborate an actual argument of how China both intends and is going to actually exploit such reliance. For, China is also reliant on Russia for a significant amount of the commodities it needs.

And again, I don't claim Russia's economy is or will be booming.

I literally state:

Where do I argue some sort of commodities boom is coming? Generally speaking or even for Russia?

This literally comes from literally no where. — boethius

You claim there is a "difficult situation".

What was you're original argument:

↪Changeling The exchange rate of ruble against all major currencies (USD, EUR, CNY) is climbing very fast. That means that all imports are more and more expensive for Russians. Whatever they bought for 75 RUB in December soon will cost 100. But that is even more devastating for Russian war effort, as they have to import lots of parts (e.g. electronics). Due to sanctions they had to pay much more for parts bought through intermediaries, now it will cost them even more. But even before the war due to 'easy' money from the natural resources (and rampant corruption) Russia's economy has been underdeveloped in many areas and relied on imports. — Jabberwock

You literally use the word "devastating".

Devastating for what? "for the Russian war effort".

Which is relevant to this conversation of the war in Ukraine.

You've now moved the goal posts to Russian economy is not "booming" after accepting all my arguments.

The key one is that Russia can effectively pay for whatever imports it needs for it's war effort with commodities: Russia sells commodities relative the international price (that has nothing to do with the value of the Rouble) and brings in foreign exchange which Russia can then use to buy imports it requires for military equipment.

At no point is Russia forced to try to buy foreign exchange with Roubles to then buy imports for military equipment.

You have zero clue what you're talking about and now just flailing around strawmen and throwing the goal posts off the field entirely.

If you're now no longer arguing that the currency devaluation is "devastating for the Russian war effort", then not being clear that you've retracted and reformulated your position to "not booming" and "weak in some strategic sectors" is tiresome, bad faith, and the sign of a weak mind that is not even aware of what it has said in the past, or then you're just a no-good, damn dirty liar.

It just doesn't seem like Ukraine can take it back...without getting destroyed in the process...and the Russian Ukrainians of the Donbas want to stay part of Russia — Jack Rogozhin

To give an alternative possibility than the frozen conflict hypothesis of @ssu, the weapons systems being used are too advanced and too destructive to result in any sort of stability resulting in a war of attrition that the Ukrainians are losing.

Ukrainians are losing the war of attrition not simply because they are smaller country that can absorb less losses, but because they lack all sorts of capabilities entirely.

We could go weapons system by weapon system, but the overall reason is that NATO is designed primarily as an air force with the approach of gaining air superiority and then air dominance and then dealing with things on the ground by relentless bombing.

Whether this is the best strategy for NATO to have or not is of little importance in the current conflict since NATO doesn't want to and arguably can't effectively transfer this equipment to Ukraine anyways, and Russian air defence systems can shoot down all such planes, even F-35 and F-22, if they're close enough even without any particular technology to shoot down stealth air-craft. Stealth aircraft don't allow you to just go fly over the front and drop bombs at will with zero risk. Of course, perhaps US / NATO as a whole could effectively suppress and attrit Russian air defence and then be able to bomb at will or largely at will, which would be a different conversation.

What matters in the current situation is that even if NATO could establish air superiority / air dominance, itself against Russia, there's zero way to transfer these capabilities to Ukraine. Likewise, even more flexible (in terms of ground facilities) air assets like helicopter gun ships can't just be sent to Ukraine.

Long story short, Russia is prepared to fight exactly this kind of war and NATO is not for reasons that are easy to explain: 1. Russia is there 2. the US isn't there. Moreover, the US has no plausible threat of being invaded by land and so focuses on both defence projecting force globally by sea and air.

Even if NATO wanted to, it's simply impossible to just transfer the NATO way of war fighting to Ukraine.

For these reasons, support to Ukraine was most effective during the phase of just scrounging up old soviet equipment, and sending in NATO equipment instead has shown essentially zero results as Ukrainians have barely and training on these systems and they aren't designed for the conditions ... and you still need air power and air defence which Ukraine has essentially run out of.

To put it simply, Ukraine doesn't have the capacity to fight a war of attrition indefinitely and NATO doesn't have what Ukraine would need to even attempt to do so and Ukrainian man power and will is not some magical given but has a breaking point.

And the above is only in material and capacity terms, if you then consider in addition the strategic situation, Russia has a massive advantage.

For, the front line is not constrained to the South-East of Ukraine but is in fact the entire border with Russia and Belarus. Russia chooses to only fight in the South-East of Ukraine during this attritional phase of the conflict not simply because that's where the Russian speakers are and the land they want to keep, but also it's the farthest point from NATO supply lines in Poland. To supply the front in the South-East Ukraine needs to travel a maximum of distance which creates delays and all sorts of logistical problems while maximising the amount of time Russia has to observe material and troop movements and plan accordingly.

Not only has NATO forbid Ukraine to invade Russia proper but there's essentially no strategic advantage in doing so ... there's not really anywhere to go once you're in Russia.

So, if Ukraine wants to make gains it's only realistic choice is to attack the Russian heavily fortified lines in the South-East as there's nothing to accomplish in Russia and the purpose of the Ukrainian war effort is to liberate previously held Ukrainian territory. Ukraine can only attack where it will face the deepest mine fields and maximum fortifications.

However, no where is it written that Russia will just stay in the South-East along the built-up line of contact and can only attack Ukraine where it has build up defences. At any time Russia can move into Ukraine along any part of the border in "big arrow" offensive mode.

↪boethius, no, it wouldn't be stabilizing, and Putin presumably knows. (Not sure why you keep writing that.) — jorndoe

We're discussing the hypothetical situation where at the start of the war NATO provided Ukraine no limits support and Ukraine routing the Russians and Russian lines and military falling apart and civil unrest and the economy unravelling due to both losing the war and the disruptive effects of the sanctions and the collapse of the Russian government imminent.

In such a situation, dropping nukes on Ukraine would stabilise the military situation as Ukraine would have no way to nuclear retaliate. Stabilising from their perspective (the perspective of the people considering nuclear use in a unstable and deteriorating situation).

Hence, NATO did not provide "no limits" support to Ukraine, so, in the least, NATO agrees with me.

Your argument was that depreciation of ruble was great for Russia, because it boosts exports. While in theory that is correct, in this particular case it will not boost Russian exports, for the numerous reasons I have already given. — Jabberwock

No where do I say the depreciation of the Ruble is "great for Russia", I explain why the Russian central bank supported the Ruble and how letting the Ruble float (or close to float) is wiser and in some ways inevitable central bank policy policy. I explain there's winners and losers in these sorts of macro economic shifts, exporters of manufactured goods that have foreign buyers with inputs purchased in Rubles being among the winners but there are of course both losers and plenty of other effects.

My point is this currency change is no unexpected nor dramatic nor, due to the particular circumstances of having reoriented supply chains, not a signal of high risk or imminent collapse or inability to prosecute the war (which is what we're discussing).

I explain the depreciation is also in essence a tax on the middle class who therefore are losers in this scenario, insofar as they don't ultimately benefit from increased exports of manufactured goods and services.

I also explain how depreciation of the Ruble has nothing to do with Russia's ability to get foreign exchange in selling commodities on international markets denominated in foreign currencies (and the fact Russia forced some countries to pay in Rubles is of little importance).

More to the point, none of these macro-economic variables mean much if they aren't the cause of or symptom of recession, which the Russian economy is not currently in and the depreciation of the Ruble against other currencies is unlikely to cause recession.

Balance of trade and capital flows and so on can go one way one year and another way the other year ... or, you know, consistently have a trade deficit for decades such as in the case of the United States.

Lol, you are hilarious... You know who Dmitry Medvedev is? This is what he said seven years ago (Google translated):

The situation in some areas is still extremely difficult. Let me remind you that our share of imports in machine tool building is estimated at approximately 90% (90!), in heavy engineering - about 70%, in oil and gas equipment - 60%, in power equipment - about 50%, in agricultural engineering, depending on the category products - from 50 to 90%, too, and so on. Even in civil aircraft construction, imports, unfortunately, are still overwhelming - more than 80%.
— Dmitry Medvedev

Are you saying he is an anti-Russian racist? — Jabberwock

He's saying the same thing as me:

In any major macro-economic shift (such as cutting off nearly all trade with the West) there are losers and winners (what matters is how many of each in the mystical agragate of the economist). Russian economy is growing, so pointing out sectors that were losers from recent events is not indicative of the whole. — boethius

Any economy will have sectors that rely heavily on imports, that is not indicative of the whole.

What is more indicative is recession or not. If the Russian economy is growing then maybe it's doing other things of value where it is more competitive.

Plenty of countries are not competitive in all those sectors you mentioned and a long list of other sectors.

Being competitive or then protecting / subsidising a domestic industry is important if the sector is strategic, but there is literally no country on the planet that is fully self sufficient.

If Russia is getting infrastructure built faster and cheaper by the Chinese then maybe that's building capacity that creates more overall value ... which is basically economics 101.

Japan imports a lot of oil, Saudi's import a lot of arms, America imports a lot of electronics and random stuff.

Pointing to an economy and then pointing to a sector that is heavily reliant on imports means absolutely nothing and you can do that with every country. What matters is if those dependence relations can be disrupted or manipulated. The West tried to disrupt those dependence relations prophesying doom and the Russian economy was able to adapt. Now the argument is the dependence relations are manipulated by China and India and so on and prophesying ... I'm not exactly sure, a few points off the international spot price for a few years?

Russia was selling under the price cap practically till June and it was accused of lying about the cuts (as Daniel Yergin pointed out). — Jabberwock

I have zero problem accepting massive discounts in 2022 and 2023, as I explain these are massive flows of material and finance over decades and centuries and what matters is the medium and long term and not any given year or two. I even explain why Russia needs to offload the oil at nearly any price as the oil wells can't easily be turned off and on. However, there is zero evidence Russia is somehow stuck with those discounts for any significant period of time.

You seem to just randomly assign points to me in total disconnect to anything I've written or the points you've made, and then argue against those points sometimes repeating my arguments I've made against your points that you've actually written.

It's tiresome.

Russia's primary concern was to maintain revenues, given that half of its budget is financed by resource exports. You are pretty confident China and India will buy same amounts for higher prices, but actually give no argument for that. And it does not align too well with the facts: China's July crude imports drop to lowest since January India's purchases peaked in April. — Jabberwock

Russia built up massive foreign currency reserves as well as gold and other precious metals reserves.

The priority in 2022 was not maintaining revenue (whole point of having a war chest) but to maintain market share, especially in fossil fuels.

The reason maintaining market share is important is that industrial projects and capacity can have long lead times and cost significant capital and may not be easy to just shut off and on again (in terms of the state of equipment, skills, supply lines, etc.), especially oil fields of which shutting off may damage the oil fields permanently.

So, Russia offered deep discounts to be sure to move it's stuff and maintain market share.

It would take many, many years for Russia to entirely deplete it's war chest and running a budget or trade deficit for a single year might be a warning sign or might be smart investment that will create larger growth and surpluses down the line, depends on what the money is spent on and what capacities imports help build.

Again, what is true in principle does not necessarily apply to each and every situation. Sure, Russia would be happy to sell a somewhat smaller amount for a much higher price. The question is who will be happy to buy from Russia at those inflated prices. You assume that China and India will happily buy the same amounts of oil if it is much more expensive. That assumption is, to put it very mildly, unreasonable. — Jabberwock

It's basic math.

Maybe I'll explain it tomorrow with the actual volume and price numbers of the recent oil market to show what price increases make the price cuts worth it in terms of revenue and the how much bigger an effect it has on profits (which is what matters).

And I have pointed out why Russia's exports will stall while its imports soar. I did not write that I expect a collapse, I wrote that it will be more and more dififcult for Russia to pay for its imports. — Jabberwock

Well, the main point of my analysis is that this isn't the case.

Insofar as Russia sells a lot of commodities denominated in foreign currencies (how the international commodities market works) there will be the forex available to buy whatever imports Russia needs.

Across the board subsidising all imports is a simplifying measure that's practical in the case of the disruption of the sanctions to ensure business have the purchasing power to find substitutes, but now that the Russian economy has adapted it is far more efficient to let the currency float and then target the sectors you want to support (that have some strategic value) since supporting the price of the currency is a massive subsidy covering everything (dildos to capital flight) and so covers what you want but also everything you don't want or don't care about. Targeting subsidies means bureaucratic overheads (that you can't implement and scale in an emergency) but is far more efficient over the long run (why countries are constantly accusing each other of unfairly subsidising strategic sectors).

As long as Russia has a large foreign currency revenue from selling commodities it is easy for the Russian government to subsidise any given sector it wants to protect / grow.

There is no structural problem that is currently happening in Russia.

Of course, managing an economy is difficult and simply because Russia has the foreign exchange to subsidise imports of whatever it wants doesn't mean it will do so wisely, but that would be mismanaging in the future and not some structural problem that you seem to be describing.

Also, for the record I don't expect Russia to grossly mismanage these sorts of economic questions; Russian economic policy has been pretty effective in recent years so presumably that will continue.

↪boethius, turning it into a nuclear war wouldn't stabilize anything, it'd be like a defcon 2 or 1 escalation (sort of, to use old verbiage).
I'm assuming the Kremlin knows, but might be wrong I suppose.
Or, do you think Putin is that spiteful (and mad)?
He'd jeopardize lots more than himself, and has been told so by more than one party on more than one occasion.
(For that matter, there's a chance it could lead to unrest within Russia.)
At times, Putin comes through as meticulously calculating.
Incidentally, in this respect, I'd be more worried about Kim Jong Un. — jorndoe

If the Kremlin was faced with the unravelling of the Russian economy and state, from their perspective, nuking Ukraine would be stabilising.

Certainly that may not be true for the rest of the world, but we are considering the actions and decisions of the Russians in the scenario that NATO actually did provide "unlimited support" and "whatever it takes".

NATO would not nuke Russia in return and, at least in my opinion, nuking a bunch of key formations and infrastructure in Ukraine would arrest any offensive momentum. Some people disagree that nukes would be militarily effective ... but I find that hard to believe, and not just "because nukes" but because there are plenty of missile strikes on targets that survive and are repaired and attacked again (bridges, air-fields, logistics hubs) that a tactical nuclear weapon would not only dispatch in one go but permanently. The fact these targets are struck again and again simply to disrupt them indicates to me at least that they are of significant importance and simply nuking them off the map would be of comparable significant military advantage.

And yes, obviously would send the US to defcon 1 and things would be tense.

However, there's zero reason for the US to strike Russia with nuclear weapons and risk escalation into a strategic nuclear exchange so the US would likely do nothing.

Why would the US risk it's own cities in retaliating on Ukraine's behalf? Zero reason.

Now, the Neocons spent significant grey matter on trying to crack this impasse by brainstorming non-nuclear retaliation options that could potentially deter Russia from using nukes in Ukraine to therefore justify more and more advanced weapons systems being sent to Ukraine.

(Again, I don't think it's a given that there was a significantly better strategy than pouring in every piece of old soviet equipment NATO could find) but the neocons definitely wanted a "no limits" policy and that didn't happen because they never solved the nuclear retaliation (or lack thereof of an option) problem.

They'd say things like "oh, we'll strike Crimea with conventional missiles and sink the black sea fleet!!"

However, Russia could just eat that and not retaliate in turn as a "cost to doing business".

Of course, there would be significant costs to Russia and significant chaos down the line (including to Russia) due to the disruption to the international system using nukes would cause, which explains why they don't go around nuking people.

And, keep in mind, if Putin was hell bent on nuking Ukraine, or anyone, that would have happened already.

Putin is not an irrational actor, he has different goals that are at odds with Western goals but the West does not define rationality. The West goes around saying it defines rationality to justify imposing imperialistic policies on weaker parties since other forms of justification (the glory of the emperor or the will of God or straight up plunder) are incompatible with the Western advertised ethos.

Let us see about that... — Jabberwock

Yes, let's continue, why not?

Yes, that is exactly what I wrote: 'No, because Russian problems with exports have little to do with prices.' Russia had to provide significant discounts to find new customers for its resources, but it is no longer able to do that as it needs to make profit. — Jabberwock

... You literally wrote:

No, because Russian problems with exports have little to do with prices. Due to its huge official (and probably even bigger unofficial) deficit Russia no longer can provide such deep discounts on resources, so even with the better exchange rate — Jabberwock

Linking exchange rates to the commodity prices, somehow mitigating the already existing discounts that are too much of a discount and Russia's problem?

I didn't have time to unpack entirely how little sense that makes on each level. I leave it as an exercise to the reader.

I also didn't even have time to point out that Russia has large cash reserves and so can run a deficit.

We are all Keynesians now except for this guy.

Most of Russia's exports are related to raw resources. We do not know what portion of it is denominated in rubles, what we do know is that Russia wanted to move away from USD and EUR in its trades. — Jabberwock

None of it is denominated in Rubbles.

Countries who sell commodities do so relative the international spot price of those commodities.

You have literally zero clue how the international commodities market functions and you're insistence on providing analysis based on complete ignorance is, as I say, remarkable.

That is exactly Russia's case for most exports beside resources, because its industry is underdeveloped and heavily relies (or did, when it worked) on imported inputs, most of those from Western countries. That is why its e.g. automoblie industry practically collapsed - Russians have no know-how, no domestic industrial machinery, etc. There will be no export boom for Russian cars, if the door handles come off or the car does not start. — Jabberwock

In any major macro-economic shift (such as cutting off nearly all trade with the West) there are losers and winners (what matters is how many of each in the mystical agragate of the economist). Russian economy is growing, so pointing out sectors that were losers from recent events is not indicative of the whole.

However, it does not matter much, because there will be no boom in the trade of resources, for reasons already given. — Jabberwock

First, Russia makes regular revenue and foreign exchange off the sale of resources in completely normal market conditions and does not require a boom to continue to do so.

Second, commodity price increases are due to either shocks (which are by nature unpredictable) or then follow the international business cycle (recessions put downward pressure on commodity prices and growth puts upward pressure, in a cycle that is not really cyclical but a one way street to environmental collapse, but that is a larger time frame than the war at hand).

Third, I must admit I do not know the reasons given, feel free to provide them again.

We do not know in what state Russian industry is, as we do not know what part is directed to the war effort. — Jabberwock

... I thought you literally just told us because you know??

because its industry is underdeveloped and heavily relies (or did, when it worked) on imported inputs, most of those from Western countries. — Jabberwock

Which is just anti-Russian rhetoric, I'd say racist, based on nothing, but also self-contradictory.

Yes, I know that. That was my argument, maybe it was too succint. There will be no boom in resource sales for Russia, because there will be no or very few new customers who will be willing to break the price cap (and going through intermediaries diminishes profits). — Jabberwock

You're argument was:

Few countries are willng to break the price caps, Saudis are demanding keeping output cuts. Russia will not be able to boost its resource sales significantly. — Jabberwock

Which definitely implies Russia is selling under a price cap few are willing to "break" and so the only way to increase revenue is to sell more volume but the mean Saudi's are demanding Russia keep output cuts.

But if you're now saying your argument was too "succinct" to make any sense or have and meaning, yeah, sure.

No, as I have already mentioned. China and India were eager to buy at the discount, but it was not profitable enough for Russia. Besides they bought much more than they need already and they cannot store unlimited amounts, not to mention that China's economy is cooling off significantly. Russia will struggle to maintain the exports at the current levels, export boom is simply unrealistic. — Jabberwock

Again, zero understanding of commodity markets. Russia's primary concern when the war started was maintaining market share and ensuring it's oil flows somewhere. Storage is limited and stopping oil producing oil wells can be costly and do irreversible harm to the oil field for a bunch of complicated geological reasons (of course producing the oil efficiently will harm humanity more, but that's not Russia's main concern in 2022 or 2023 ... and possibly for the foreseeable future as they'll have a large amount of the world's arable land and can just watch world burn if they feel like, you know, we've been less than understanding).

Again, while generally you are correct, you are wrong in this particular case. Russia does not want output cuts NOW, it needs to increase its exports to cover rapidly growing imports. — Jabberwock

I literally explained several times that Russia (and Saudi Arabia and the other major oil exporters) want high prices and are perfectly happy to cut production if it means prices are higher. For example, obviously you'd be willing to sell 10% less if you are selling at 100% higher the price, but it's even more sensitive to price than that because what you actually care about is profits and the profits will increase even faster than revenue with price increases. It's basic math, I can break it down with additions and multiplications and subtractions if you want.

Now, what each oil exporter doesn't want to do is take it on themselves to cut production just to see another oil producer increase production and take their market share; if they did that then they'd be selling less at the same price and so simply making less money; if they then increased production to try to win back that market share then the price will decrease. The solution is to form a cartel and get enough of the market to coordinate production cuts to increase the price while no single cartel member looses market share relative the other members.

It's called friendship.

Nope. China and India will simply buy less if the price is raised (and they already buy from Russia below the OPEC price) as they have gotten enough cheap oil already, countries working with the West will not buy if the price cap is exceeded. All that is left is the illicit trade, but that will not be sufficient. Again, no boom in sight. — Jabberwock

Where do I argue some sort of commodities boom is coming? Generally speaking or even for Russia?

This literally comes from literally no where.

I've simply pointed out that the Russian central bank letting the Rubble float is quite usual and expected and not, in itself nor in this actual context, some harbringer of economic doom.

As long as Russia can sell a large quantity of commodities it will have foreign exchange and some sort of forex driven economic collapse (as certainly can happen as we've recently seen in Sri Lanka) is basically impossible in Russia's case.

Of course, some sectors of the Russian economy may do better may do worse, sanctions or central bank economic policies may or may not be the cause, but at the moment Russia's economy is growing so there's zero reason to believe there are some imminent economic problems that would affect the war effort, which is what we're discussing here.

Also, for people interested in actually understanding the situation rather than just swallow anti-Russia rhetoric, commodity producing nations don't go bust in one or two or several years. These are massive material and financial flows and have large amounts of momentum and what matters is a whole bunch of years. Even if Russia did sell at deep discounts in 2022 and 2023 (which we don't really have enough details of all the horse trading that goes on to really know much) this is just 2 years in decades and decades. 10 years would be a reasonable time frame to consider, such as Russia amassing a war chest over 10 years before invading Ukraine, and there is no evidence that Russian buyers of commodities have enough leverage to turn Russia into a vassal state that is unable to sell relative the international market rate.

No, because Russian problems with exports have little to do with prices. Due to its huge official (and probably even bigger unofficial) deficit Russia no longer can provide such deep discounts on resources, so even with the better exchange rate (and, as I have shown, it helps only some, as half of the exports are in rubles) the opportunistic trade with India and China is slowing down - they now have enormous, cheaply bought reserves. — Jabberwock

You have a remarkable ability to have zero clue what you're talking about.

Russian resources are sold at international prices and if offered at a discount due to having limited buyers due to sanctions that has nothing to do with the Rubble exchange rate, but would just be 20% or whatever off the international price that's denominated in USD (even if the sale is made in other currencies, the price will be set relative the international price).

Where currency devaluation cheapens exports is in things that are not commodities but services or manufactured goods where the inputs are bought in Rubbles (i.e. labour and domestic resources and components -- if you need to import most of the inputs to your product then currency devaluation doesn't necessarily result in a lower price of the final product).

Devaluing your currency has an immediate effect of making your exports (dominated by domestic inputs) cheaper to international buyers while also making imports into your country more expensive thus encouraging buying domestic.

Of course, if your exports require all sorts of imports to produce (energy, material, services etc.), such as basically any small country that specialises in a few parts of the value chain, then currency devaluation can have the opposite effect, but that's not Russia's case.

You are literally grasping at straws trying to spin these changes in currency and trade balance winds as some sort of fatal blow to the Russian economy.

Russia is not in a recession and pretty much any economist on the planet will be able to inform you that supporting the price of the Rubble has only short term reasons for doing (subsidise import substitution to adapt to sanctions and provide stability and "confidence" generally speaking) but those reasons go away and long term it's wise to let the currency float (at least pretty close) to its market rate (supporting your currency is, fundamentally, subsidising capital flight out of the country).

Few countries are willng to break the price caps, Saudis are demanding keeping output cuts. Russia will not be able to boost its resource sales significantly. — Jabberwock

First, Russia doesn't sell to countries that have a price cap:

Russia bans oil sales to countries using price cap — BBC

And there are enough countries to purchase Russian output, in particular China and India as well as countries willing to man-in-the-middle Russian oil to Europe.

Whatever discounts Russia offered in 2022 or even 2023 to lower "friction" is relative higher prices due to anxiety caused by things like ... a big war.

And stating that "Saudis are demanding keeping output cuts" like that's against Russias interest or desires is just laughable.

Both Russia and Saudi Arabia always want output cuts as major oil exporters ... just "if everybody does it".

OPEC is a cartel who's entire purpose is to cut oil production and Saudi Arabia and Russia are in this cartel to always try to do that.

What matters is profits and if oil is 2% oversupplied or 2% undersupplied on the global market has a huge difference on profits, so if you can form a cartel to cut production and so fix prices high then you make far more profits than selling 10% more volume but at half or less the price.

So, if you can get enough exporting partners together you can all agree to cut production and sell less volume but at a higher price and make not only far more revenue but even more profits.

That's what OPEC is about, so Saudi Arabia "demanding" output cuts during this conflict is basically siding with Russia to make mad coin.

Saudi Arabia said it would extend its voluntary oil output cut of one million barrels per day (bpd) for another month to include August, adding that the cut could be extended beyond that month.

Shortly after the Saudi announcement, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Moscow would cut its oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day in August. — Reuters - Saudi Arabia, Russia deepen oil cuts, sending prices higher

The oil cuts are literally good, not bad, for Russian oil export revenue.

Of course, the US exports oil too, so higher prices are a mixed bag to the US, in particular US elites who are the people that matter in the US system.

Europe on the other hand ...

↪boethius, losing out in Ukraine wouldn't destroy Russia, though it might be detrimental to Putin. Starting a nuclear war on the other hand... — jorndoe

That's why I literally say:

Obviously there are costs to using nuclear weapons, but faced with total destruction (in this case of the Russian government or "regime" or whatever you want to call it) then any tool that avoids that is a preferable option. — boethius

I say "in this case of the Russian government or "regime" or whatever you want to call it" as military defeat could spiral into civil unrest and unravelling of the economy (people in the streets rather than dealing with supply line disruption of the sanctions).

Likely, in such a scenario, the Russian decision makers (certainly Putin, maybe others as well) would conclude that using nukes on Ukraine to "stabilise" the situation is the pathway that leads to the least use of nuclear weapons. Better to nuke a few military formations and assets than the unravelling of the Russian government and nuclear armed warlords nuking whole cities. Whether that would happen or not, that would certainly be the argument of the pro-nuking debaters in such a meeting: that not-doing-the-thing leads to more of that very thing. I.e. by nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki we are in fact saving lives. Of course, can be debated both ways.

Now, how effective the full compliment of applicable NATO weapons would be in the battle space at the start of the war I'm not sure (maybe Russian anti-air missiles can shoot down F-16s on mass, Western tanks would not make much difference etc., and maybe Russia could even shoot down F-35 if that was possible to supply, train and support, or maybe they would not have been able to deal with advanced NATO weapons, or then maybe they could but the Russians run out of missiles etc.), so it's not a given that more weapons to Ukraine would have made a major difference. Advanced weapons take a long time to train on to become proficient and then more time to integrate those systems into a battle doctrine, unlike handheld missiles, so would have depended on what the limiting factors were for Ukraine at the start of the war. It's entirely possible that scrounging up and throwing in as much old soviet equipment as possible was the only effective strategy for NATO and tanks and planes are more symbols than potential game changers at any point in the conflict.

What is certain is that NATO decided very deliberately to not come close to testing that scenario because Russia could respond with nuclear weapons if it works. If it doesn't work then it's bad PR for Western military equipment (at this stage of the war there's plenty of excuses that the Ukrainians are tired, the Russians laid down all these mines and have air cover etc. -- excuses that would work less well at the start of the conflict): point being it's a lose-lose situation making an honest attempt to support Ukraine defeating Russia on the conventional battle field. What's a win for the US is subjugating Europe and sacrificing Ukrainians to do so.

Why likely would? It would seem rather spiteful, certainly not good for Russia(ns). Making it a nuclear war over a fifth of Ukraine (or however much would be left) suggests that the world (not just that area) has a markedly larger problem with the Kremlin, something in need of attention now (politically, tactically/strategically, militarily). — jorndoe

In terms of domestically and international politics, had NATO truly done "what it takes" and given Ukraine all manner of military equipment Ukraine could possibly want or need, started training on F16s and a thousand tanks and every sort of missile, and hell, why not F-35 and F-22's while we're "doing what it takes" and so on, then Russia could easily say they are fighting NATO, de facto attacked by NATO and so they're using nuclear weapons. So the optics would be "nuclear favourable".

Furthermore, if supplying all these advanced weapons to Ukraine resulted in major battlefield victories and Russia was losing, then the choice would essentially be between massive civil unrest and potential collapse of the economy and government or to use nuclear weapons to stabilise the situation.

Obviously there are costs to using nuclear weapons, but faced with total destruction (in this case of the Russian government or "regime" or whatever you want to call it) then any tool that avoids that is a preferable option.

Therefore, as long as Ukraine can be defeated with conventional means and, more importantly, has no chance of defeating Russia, then the costs of using nuclear weapons outweigh the benefits. Since NATO doesn't want Russia to use nuclear weapons as it has no response, hence NATO basically introduces one weapons system at a time so that Russia can easily adapt and overcome.

This typically could be covered by the trade surplus (i.e. if what Russia sold for foreign currencies was still more than it bought for them), but this has been also shrinking rather dramatically and it is now headed toward deficit. — Jabberwock

In other words, you agree with my analysis and the depreciation of the Rubble is not a problem, may even boost Russian exports and thus help that trade deficit problem ...

What is for certain is that the Russian central bank letting the Rubble float is not going to cause some imminent economic catastrophe.

Crash of the Rubble definitely could have been highly disruptive and caused such a economic and social unravelling at the start of the sanctions, but Russias central bank had plenty foreign currency reserves to support the Rubble.

For those wondering, the practical effect of the sanctions is massive supply chain disruption and so there's plenty of Russian businesses who have Rubbles in the bank and need to find alternative import substitutes for things that simply don't exist in Russia (ultimately exchanging Rubbles for whatever currency they need to buy whatever imports they require from somewhere else). Had the Rubble collapsed these businesses would have simply immediately failed causing further supply chain disruption and the entire economy could have unravelled.

By supporting the Rubble, the Russian central bank was basically underwriting (de facto subsidising) Russian business finding alternative supply chains and sorting things out.

Now that supply chains have been "reoriented" a fall in the Rubble actually boosts exports as now everything is cheaper for foreign buyers.

Generally speaking, all these macro economic moves have winners and losers and if it's good or bad and for who depends on a bunch of specifics. For example, if the government prints money to spend on social programs, that's basically just taxing the middle class to transfer wealth to the poor and invest in education and health and other things that ultimately benefit everything. If the governments prints money to "monetise" banker bets that went bad, that's taxing the middle and even lower classes to transfer wealth to the banks to further capture the political system.

what leaves out from his commentary on the Rubble exchange rate is:

First, the energy contracts Russia insisted on Rubble payments was to "unfriendly countries"

Vladimir Putin has demanded payment in roubles for Russian gas sold to “unfriendly” countries, setting a deadline of 31 March. — The Guardian Explainer

This was not done to:

Also last year, to strengthen its currency against sanctions, Russia decided to renegotiate some of its export deals to be nominated in rubles. — Jabberwock

But was done mainly for political reasons of forcing Europe to make exceptions to sanctions and making countries who need the gas contradict their rhetoric; essentially playing the "push comes to shove game".

With the oil, the international market quickly adjusted to Western sanctions as long as Russia can sell somewhere, as oil is primarily transported by ships which can go pretty much anywhere in the world without significant extra costs. To make a long story short, international oil flows quickly adjust to changes in buyers and sellers.

International gas flows are far less flexible in any short period of time and so there are far bigger consequences to cut off supplies either by choice or by pipelines being blown up.

What @Jabberwock also leaves out is that even these contracts where the payment is in Rubbles, the price is not actually denominated in Rubbles but still in Euro or USD and what changed was the buyer needed to do the exchange into Rubbles rather than Gazprom or the Russian central bank. There is not really any economic difference in making the buyer make the exchange into Rubbles or the seller. The difference in this case was that insisting unconverted funds could potentially be stranded if payments were made to Gazprom subsidiaries who then, due to sanctions, could not move the money, but, in my opinion, the move was mostly symbolic of making countries "bend the knee" and buy Rubbles in contradiction to their public positions.

However, the price of the gas is not denominated in Rubbles so these countries will just be buying more rubbles.

Point is @Jabberwock has no clue what he's talking about, and even ignoring the gas, Russia has plenty of foreign reserves, gold and sells plenty of Oil in other currencies that the depreciation of the Rubble has zero relevance to Russia's ability to import electronics for arms manufacturing.

Rather, a low Rubble boosts Russian exports of manufactured goods.

For years, the West complained about China manipulating it's currency ... in which direction?

Lower!!

The accusation has been China keeps it's currency undervalued in order to boost it's exports.

Currency depreciation is only a major problem if you don't export anything.

As long as you're exporting, then you're getting foreign exchange that can be used to purchase whatever critical imports you need and your domestic currency can constantly inflate (which is basically a form of tax) and there's no issue (to the government and the wealthy who get the forex).

Case in point, Sri Lanka's economy unravelled because it's major export was tourism and then with Covid there was no more tourism, so Sri Lanka suddenly had no foreign exchange coming into the country but still has critical imports it needs to buy.

Things start to go bad when traders notice this and start to bet against the Sri Lankan economy in every way possible, further devaluing their domestic currency and forcing the central bank to spend foreign reserves to try to keep things from crashing altogether while a solution is hopefully found (such as an IMF loan to kick the can down the road or then tourism restarting in Sri Lanka's case), but then things crash completely when those foreign reserves run out and the central banks only option is to to to buy critically needed foreign cash in domestic currency, resulting in hyper inflation and the collapse of the government, as no one wants Sri Lankan money so you'd need to offer a ridiculous amount to buy any foreign money.

This doesn't happen as long as you can export.

If you're able to get into the country foreign exchange (which basically all goes to the central bank) through exports then you can by definition buy whatever critical imports you need with the foreign exchange you get through said exports.

You can then print as much as money as you want as a form of taxation and a form of national "sale" to foreign buyers of manufactured goods that are denominated in Rubbles. For example, if you're a Russian business and you sell farming equipment both in Russian and to foreign buyers and all your costs are in Rubbles, then there's not really an immediate affect of a change in the Rubble exchange rate ... in fact you're happy if the Rubble goes down as you're going to make more sales; you've basically been able to offer all your foreign buyers a discount without any of your cost structure or profits changing.

Normal poor people who mostly buy food (which Russia produces) and energy (which Russia produces) and maybe some fixed costs like rent, won't feel the effects of this currency depreciation either.

Who's affected is the middle class who don't own a business exporting anything and want to buy a phone or whatever on the foreign market or want to go on vacation somewhere, now it costs a lot more.

Which is why this form of inflation is in no way an economic problem for Russia and is just a massive tax on the Russian middle class.

The reason Russia manipulated it's currency to stay high until now (which the Russian central bank could easily keep doing if it wanted) is that there was propaganda value in doing that and keeping the currency stable to work out the effects of sanctions provided domestic "confidence" (so people stay in business and can work out alternative supply chains and so on).

However, the reasons for the central bank to support the Rubble are short term and once those reasons go away, any economist will recommend "price discovery" of what the fair value of the Rubble is on the international market.

Currencies depreciate on foreign exchanges or inflate (leading to the same thing) all the time without that being some problem.

It was a problem for Sri Lanka because the central bank ran out of foreign exchange, but in the case of Russia, the Russian central bank has plenty of foreign exchange reserves, plenty mineral reserves, can easily get more, and also basically doesn't have any loans equal to or exceeding its GDP with interest payment denominated in foreign currency (which is what fucks up small, fragile developing world economies).

Another way to put things in perspective is:

The inflation rate in India between 1958 and 2022 was 8,808.16%, which translates into a total increase of $8,808.16. This means that 100 rupees in 1958 are equivalent to 8,908.16 rupees in 2022. In other words, the purchasing power of $100 in 1958 equals $8,908.16 in 2022. The average annual inflation rate between these periods was 7.27%. — Rupee Inflation Calculator

And yet, India's economy has grown significantly and is considered a major international player.

Continuous inflation and artificially devaluing your currency on the international market on-top of inflation is a standard national economic strategy that the West continuously complains about as providing competitive advantage.

There is zero reason to assume this is not also true for Russia.

Of course, there are winners and losers in inflationary policy but neo-liberal economists can go on for quite some time on how everyone basically wins in the end, poverty vanquished etc.

So, at minimum, it's highly ironic and annoying that the Western press who employ neo-liberal economists to comment on everything else are suddenly pointing to currency devaluation as some sort of blow to Russia.

Looks like Bayer agrees with boethius, sort of, in a way, partially... — jorndoe

Thanks for adding "sort of", but, yes, it is obvious even to staunch supporters of the war that Ukraine doesn't get "whatever it takes".

However, we are long past the moment where no-limits weapons supplies would make a major difference to the war.

Not that I would have supported such a policy when the war started or lament now the path not taken, as Russia could and likely would respond with nuclear weapons ... exactly why the policy has been to drip feed Ukraine weapons in a progressive and controlled manner that Russia can deal with without panicking (aka. win).

We care about Ukrainian sovereignty, but not enough to die for it. Sending weapons has the advantage of us not dying. — Jabberwock

Ok, thanks for just spelling out the obvious nature of the position, that the West's position is that Ukrainian sovereignty is not worth dying for (to us), and not deflecting with accusations of "framing" or whatever or then jumping over this important premise directly to:

Ukrainians, on the other hand, do want to die for Ukrainian sovereignty, possibly because it is their own sovereignty. I would say it is rather uncomplicated. — Jabberwock

Now, if free and prosperous Ukraine still had elections, maybe you could plausibly say the policies are what "Ukrainians" want.

Likewise, if men were allowed to leave the country and weren't forced into fighting, maybe you could say they "want" to fight, because they aren't leaving.

But, please explain the simple answers to these issues, as it's all uncomplicated to you.

Likewise, let's assume you are correct and "Ukraine wants to fight", and lets say we (the arms suppliers) know Ukraine will lose the war at immense cost, death and suffering.

Should we still send arms even if we knew Ukraine is very likely to lose anyways?

Because you also say in your uncomplicated world view that you don't need a theory of victory, so is Ukraine losing at the cost of a million Ukrainian lives worthwhile?

I would say the amount of arms sent is not a result of deliberate anything — Jabberwock

You sweet summer child, like a leaf blown along the winds of hope without a care in the world.

Honestly seems nice to be that naive, but let us continue for the sake of argument.

it is the woeful result of the state of Western politics, which is ruled strictly by popularity, therefore politicians instead of making up their minds try to please everyone, so that we have the exact situation of 'helping the effort, but not too much'. — Jabberwock

Ok, well, if this "woeful" state of Western politics results in Ukraine losing the war at a massive cost of lives and suffering, are you saying the "woeful" support was justified nonetheless, or are you actually against the current policy, preferring sending no arms rather than insufficient support (which may not be achievable at all with only arms shipments but may require sending actual soldiers)?

the support for the effort was greater in the West (like it is e.g. in the Baltics, former Eastern Bloc countries and Finland), then the war would be long over with. — Jabberwock

Extremely doubtful, unless you're talking sending in troops, which, as you note:

We care about Ukrainian sovereignty, but not enough to die for it. — Jabberwock

So I assume you aren't.

But, we agree that the support isn't at the level of the former Eastern block, Baltics and Finland so seems a moot point.

OK, let us bring up the expected consequences of not helping Ukrainians at all. I tried to bring it up with Isaac, but to no avail. — Jabberwock

We've gone through the alternative many, many times with previous interlocutors. I haven't read all the posts since my haitus here so I'm going to assume @Isaac did in fact answer you sufficiently, or then just dealing with your continuous deflection, but I can summarise the alternative:

First, not-helping Ukraine at all other than humanitarian aid the West can arguably be said to provide universally (or then makes an honest attempt, such as Médecins Sans Frontières) isn't a moral catastrophe. There's plenty of wars all over the place, not to mention those in which the West is the aggressor, in which we do not "help".

So not helping Ukraine would be the less hypocritical, and therefore more honest and more moral position.

Nevertheless, the alternative to arms shipments is diplomacy based on the honest position that we're not willing to die for this cause and there's zero evidence sending arms to Ukraine will result in a better outcome for Ukraine or anyone else (that the only hopium-light reason to do so is a cynical expenditure of Ukrainian bodies, "fight to the last Ukrainian", for debatable, and arguably counter-productive, geopolitical ambitions), but we (the West, and in particular Europe) may have things both Russia and Ukraine want that can help end the conflict.

Of course negotiating a resolution to the conflict requires both compromise and risk.

So, if you're opposed to either compromise or any risk (obviously only diplomatically and not the risk of warfare which you are perfectly content with) on principle then we should debate that first.

You seem to take it for granted that Ukrainians continuing to fight "to victory" (while also not requiring a theory of victory of how that happens) is the only reasonable option.

Are you against a negotiated resolution?

You guys work yourselves up into a righteous moral frenzy about Ukrainian sovereignty, and then when I mention the option of raising the flag, beating the drums, rolling the fully upgraded tanks, sending in the troops, and ask why that doesn't follow from your moral position the answer is always:

1. Oh, it's Ukrainians who want to fight, not us:

We decided that we do not want to fight, Ukrainians have decided that they do - all they ask for is help. — Jabberwock

So, ok, it's not our issue, why do we care again?

If we don't want to fight, why do we want to send arms? What's this moral theory about sending arms regardless of the consequences sending arms has is the moral thing to do? Feel free to explain.

2. How dare you ask us to explain ourselves!!!

The usual intellectually miserable tactic of framing opponents’ views. — neomac

Ok, well, un-frame it for me.

In what moral theory is there a cause not worth risking much of anything yourself but is like "totally so important"? Worth sending arms ... but not too many arms!!!

Why would they be 'manipulated' about the Western help, if the West in the beginning of the war flatly refused to supply them with tanks, planes and long-range artillery? — Jabberwock

There's this delicate balance right in the middle of sending the "just right" bowl of arms that seems to aim for maximising Ukrainian dead, but at the same time it's presented as some obvious idea and anyone who's critical is "helping the enemy" who we're not actually at war with.

Absolutely nothing is obvious about this idea and every time the consequences are brought up, instead of accepting the consequences as a consequence of this idea suddenly the West isn't moral agents at all and it's Ukrainians doing all the fighting and choosing and it's their choice and we aren't to question that choice no matter how irrational it seems, but somehow sending arms isn't our choice but just obvious thing to do.

The usual intellectually miserable tactic of framing opponents’ views. Apparently, on matter of facts we can’t prove anything, if we happen to believe anything is because of Western propaganda, what they believe is clearly not propaganda though (even if, on the other side, all narratives are claimed to be all plausible interpretations), on matter of moral we are either coward or cynical (is that yet another interpretation? or The Facts™?). — neomac

What does your comment have to do with my comment?

Are you disputing the fact that other Western countries, and also all the other countries, have not sent their soldiers into Ukraine?

Or are you arguing sending arms to Ukraine is brave? That's what a "brave" country would do, send arms instead of their own soldiers.

Feel free to have at it: You / the Western legacy media / NATO says Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative to uphold ... just not without sending themselves or their own soldiers. If Ukrainian sovereignty is so important, why is it not worth risking our own soldiers lives to see it preserved?

He was advocating refusing military help to Ukraine which would most likely result in Ukraine's loss of further lands and quite likely its independence. I think it is pretty much 'giving away further parts of Ukraine'. — Jabberwock

It is totally different.

There is no moral imperative to supply arms.

And don't move the goal posts from "free and prosperous" to "independent".

I do not need a theory, because it has already happened: Ukraine already IS more free than it would be if it was subjugated by Russia, which would likely happen if the help was denied. — Jabberwock

Really? Is "no further elections" your definition of freedom?

Notice also that your "I don't need a theory of victory" is a theory of victory: that Ukraine is "winning", at least in the freedom sense so far, and your theory here is that it will continue to be this free and prosperous if the status quo of arms shipments is maintained.

But that's not in anyway guaranteed. Even if I were to accept that Ukraine is "more free" so far, that doesn't somehow imply it will continue to be even the current level of freedom compared to losing the war.

Notice also that you simply ignore all not-free Ukrainians in the process so far because they are dead.

And I am not sure why you are treating Ukrainians as fools who do not know better. — Jabberwock

It's called "war optimism".

Here's an example:

They have not done that because they were not ready. And yes, it will take tens of thousands of lives and yes, it could still fail. Still, it is the best manuever at this time.

And it will not be 'exposed salient' - if the land bridge falls, then most likely the Kherson oblast falls as well, Russians will not be able to supply the area just from Crimea. Ukrainians would be exposed only on the 80 km section from Vuhledar to Mariupol - the rest would be protected by the very same defence lines which Russians cannot breach for a year. 'Cutting from North' would be essentially repeating attacks around Vuhledar - we know how well those went. And supplies would be no problem - they would still have Zaporozhe behind them, as they do now. It is Russians who are in vulnerable position there - they have 150 km to defend with their backs to the sea and only 80 km of depth. — Jabberwock

How'd that "best manuever at this time" turn out?

Why would they be 'manipulated' about the Western help, if the West in the beginning of the war flatly refused to supply them with tanks, planes and long-range artillery? — Jabberwock

So you agree we're manipulating them with false promises?

... Just that it's ok manipulation because they know we're manipulating?

They have made the choice to defend their independence (i.e. to risk death) BEFORE any Western help was promised, in fact, the West was quite resigned that they will lose the war quickly. — Jabberwock

"They" meaning all of Ukraine?

"Risk death" as in commit to fight and be wiling to die regardless of the chances of victory?

No need to move anywhere, just ask: by your own words free and prosperous Ukraine is a grave threat to his regime. We know that he is willing to go to war to defend against threats, so it is reasonable that he would keep threatening war until there was no chance of free and prosperous Ukraine. As you are claiming that avoiding the war is better than letting people get under oppression, you would advocate letting him subjugate the whole of Ukraine if it meant war could be avoided. We also know that he is interested in Ukrainian territories and is willing to risk war to get them, therefore we can assume that he might want more Ukrainian territories. Again, you would rather give away Ukrainian territories to avoid war, therefore you would advocate giving away further parts of Ukraine, until it run out of parts. — Jabberwock

This is your problem, you are talking in complete abstractions of what's preferable.

Neither @Isaac nor the whole of the UK where he lives, or me and the country where I live, or NATO or the whole of the EU, has a choice in front of us of "giving away further parts of Ukraine".

We do not own or control it to begin with.

You are trying to turn a false choice that does not exist into simply justifying the current Western policy of pouring arms into Ukraine.

The first choice of @Isaac and myself and other non-Ukrainians (insofar as he affects the policy of their country) is are we willing to send soldiers into Ukraine to defend it against Russia?

Now, the UK, where I live in Scandinavia, the whole of NATO, EU, not to mention other countries, have repeatedly and unequivocally made clear the position that we aren't going to be sending our soldiers into Ukraine to defend shit.

Why? Well, Ukraine is not an ally, never has been, and Ukraine (according to all these countries that have not sent soldiers) is not worth defending.

That is the policy.

Do we wish that Ukraine was free and prosperous? sure, why not?

But we aren't willing to send any of soldiers to go make that happen by force, which is the key point.

Now, seen as everyone agrees Ukraine is not worth spilling their own countries blood to defend (at least anyone who actually affects policy), the key question is whether the policy of sending arms instead is a morally justifiable in lieux of our cowardice or then a smart geopolitical move to cynically use Ukrainians to harm Russia, and if the whole of Ukraine needs to be sacrificed to do so that's just "gainz" on the geopolitical chess board.

For, you're missing the other alternative in your "free vs oppression" choice which is "they dead".

Even with pouring in arms (at a drip feed pace, only introducing the next weapons system when all the previous systems fail in their promise), Ukraine may not be able to win this war.

Is it morally justifiable to send them on a fools errand that results in them dying in huge numbers based on a series of false promises (i.e. lies and manipulation) that we're going to "do whatever it takes" and "provide whatever they need"?

If that's not morally justifiable, then you need some theory of victory that actually leads to your free and prosperous Ukraine (that also takes into account that elections have been cancelled).

You cannot structure an argument as "I prefer A and therefore support any violence that is claimed to achieve A ... someday".

I've been away for a couple of weeks, but below is a saved post I didn't finish writing.

Considering Prigozhin seems still alive and seems to have even met with Putin in person, I find it really difficult to believe this was a genuine coup attempt.

Has it disbanded? — ssu

It's effectively disbanded, ordered to either join the regular military, go to Belarus or go home.

Now, if "the spirit of Wagner endures" in Belarus; sure, seems it will, but it has been effectively disbanded as far as the coup is concerned.

So why on Earth the weak timid response then from Putin and the references to 1917 and civil war? How many Russian politicians backed Putin when Wagner was marching toward Moscow? I myself don’t know that, so it’s an important question. — ssu

Maybe because it is theatre.

Why would Putin require an overwhelming show of strength if the coup is fake?

Now, if it is fake the purpose was clearly to get "buy in" with fake war of words and fake airplane and helicopter shoot downs (which are pretty easy to fake, especially if you control the whole environment).

However, we agree these details of who was backing who are obviously important for the analysis.

You seem to have the attitude of ”Everything is fine, there’s nothing to see, the Russian leadership has everything in control” as it obviously hasn’t got everything in control. Then when Wagner is truly disbanded and Prigozhin dead or in jail, then things are ”under control”. — ssu

I've made it clear I am not trying to "prove" it was fake,.

What you say is possible.

The answer to "why didn't FSB know about this ... oh, they did know about this ... and it was such an easy operation to penetrate that UK intelligence knew about it too ... ok, why didn't FSB just go arrest or kill Prigozhin the day before?"

Can just be Putin is so weak the FSB knows and does nothing about people plotting coups.

And, generally, the answer to every question would be "Putin's weak" in the case the coup was real but then aborted ... well too weak to punish the coup plotters and mutineers and intelligence that did nothing, but still strong enough to survive the coup.

And the answer to every question if the coup is fake is that it's just theatre and they are all working together.

They need to make Putin look weak to sell the coup, so they are willing to pay that price for the benefits (or perceived benefits) of staging the coup. They may simply have shows of strength planned to repair Putin's reputation or then may do nothing on the basis it doesn't matter or then "real strength" can stay quiet and is in fact more intimidating that way.

What we can agree on is that the whole series of events doesn't make a whole lot of sense and has lot's of discrepancies that would any theory would need to account for.

"The coup is real" will account for those discrepancies with Putin is weak, Prigozhin was just trying to get a better deal basically by threatening chaos and could do this because Putin is weak and /or maybe there was a pathway to a real coup (army and civilians spontaneously backing him) but that didn't work so Prigozhin cut his losses and cut a deal.

The "coup is fake" is going to explain any discrepancies as necessary to sell the coup.

Of course, whenever there are confusing events the idea it was all orchestrated neatly fits the data and has an inherent intellectual attraction. However, that the situation simply was really confusing fits the data too, there's just by definition no neat cause and effect chains that can be created.

So, in this light, the strongest evidence it was fake is

1. The timing: Prigozhin launches his coup (or "armed protest") right after Ukraine announces a delay in their offensive. There is therefore minimum risk to Russian frontline forces (no large ongoing battles threatening a break through), which therefore minimises Prigozhin leverage. Likewise, that the coup is resolved so quickly again minimises actual military risk, as it takes more than 24hrs for Ukraine to plan, launch, advance and start applying real pressure of a breakthrough. The coup timing turns out to be perfect in triggering Ukrainians to renew their offensive while, "just so happens", minimising the actual military risk.

2. The resolution: Prigozhin agrees to go to Belarus. No one in their right mind who actually just embarrassed Putin and Russia's military and intelligence agencies on the world stage would accept going to Belarus in a deal. So, in the theory that Prigozhin was just "negotiating" or then "cutting losses" in a real failed coup after failing to build the momentum, the rational deal would be to try to get to a legitimately neutral country.

The supporting evidence that supports this key evidence would be:

a. The coup starts 1000km away from Moscow without any coup elements whatsoever within Moscow. If you were plotting a classic coup you would have elements in Moscow to kill or take some symbolic buildings, or just cause general chaos.

b. As far as I know there is no combat footage of this coup that isn't easily faked. For example, planes can be easily controlled by remote control, so if you wanted to get Western media buy-in that it's a real coup then downing a plane seems pretty cheap.

c. The military plan makes zero sense. We're supposed to believe that Prigozhin is some mastermind military commander but also just launches a coup without any possibility of military success.

e. Prigozhin not only gives interviews (at least one), overjoyed, after the coup has already ended and he's leaving in an SUV but also makes cryptic remarks that moral has been boosted, it was all part of the plan, brilliant strategy of some guy ... rather than fearing for his life that he's just embarrassed Putin and Putin will certainly want him dead.

f. Ukraine does attack so if that was the goal (which if you are Russia you definitely want Ukraine to attack to be able to capitalise on all your defensive investments) then that goal is achieved. Not only does Ukraine renew its offensive but there has been no evidence of any decrease in Readiness of the Russian side as one would expect in the event of a real coup.

Well, Yeltsin needed only to climb on an IFV and give a speech. And then all those milloin of troops (then, actually million) and their official leaders couldn’t do anything. — ssu

Prigozhin isn't a politician with a constituency and has zero official command of anything that would be important for a coup, such as a military district or in charge of an intelligence agency.

There's zero evidence that Prigozhin has any backers in any position of power at all (except for Putin who he was on personal speaking terms with up to a week before this coup occurred).

Literally zero of the conditions that are necessary for an actual coup existed here.

Prigozhin makes no call for action, is clear he is not challenging Putin himself, of anyone and has zero demands (other than to "talk" with the top brass). And because he has literally zero answers to normal coup questions, he starts calling it a "march for justice" to simply form the narrative without answering any of those questions. Finally, it was simply an "armed protest".

Most importantly, Prigozhin isn't going anywhere remotely neutral and out of Putin's reach. So now that the coup is ended, Wagner effectively disbanded, if Putin was actually so embarrassed and shown to be weak etc. would he just have Prigozhin and any other ring leader killed over night.

If he kidnapped high ranking people and then negotiated a billion dollars and safe passage to some neutral country that guarantees his safety ... ok, it would at least look like some high stakes extortion and I'd consider it at least plausible that maybe Prigozhin thought he was about to be murdered anyways and this stunt of threatening chaos behind the lines was his best bet of saving his own skin. But he's going to Belarus ... where the leader is a Russian colonel and is covered with FSB and Russian military personnel. It's pretty much the same as going to any Russian province; in anyway that matters exactly the same as negotiating with Kardiyov and then going to Chechnya to live in peace and quiet while Putin "fumes" about this embarrassing insubordination.

It really doesn't matter if it wasn't a coup (which also some Russian nationalist commentators believe it was). Prigozhin came close to Moscow (after seizing Rostov) armed, ready to kill and with hostile demands against the establishment status quo in a already tense environment for Putin from external and internal pressure. — neomac

It totally does matter if it was a real coup or fake.

You outline the costs, which I agree with. Definitely is a PR issue for Putin, but that it's some sort of PR catastrophe is an outrageous exaggeration. He was challenged by Wagner, but still in power and Wagner is now being disbanded, and bunch of other key people made videos pledging their support for Putin and asking Prigozhin to stand down and so on. Everyone that actually matters immediately backed Putin which made pretty clear there wasn't going to be a coup now nor any time in the future. The events show that in terms of Russias internal politics everyone that matters backed Putin, and Prigozhin arguably doesn't matter at all in any real internal politics sense: he's not a politician, he's not military, he's no a government official -- he's a business man.

However, more important that evaluating exactly what the costs actually are of this event to Putin and the Kremlin, speaking of costs at all only matters if you comparing them to the benefits.

So, one benefit mentioned above is the large show of support of everyone else that matters in Russia.

However, there are several other potential benefits. the coup triggers large scale Ukrainian assaults on Russian lines. If Russia is trying to win a war of attrition, then this is exactly what Russia wants. If the "mutiny" didn't actually change any Russian readiness on the front, then triggering the Ukrainians to attack is more easy attrition (far easier than Russia attacking the Ukrainians).

There's all this recent talk of Russia blowing up a nuclear power plant or otherwise causing a nuclear event of some kind. If the Kremlin knows that's not what their planning, then the reason for such rhetoric is potentially a false flag. If Putin is now "weak" and not really in control, then it's difficult to pin any nuclear events on Putin. Indeed, even puts the Kremlin in the position to double bluff, do exactly what the Ukrainians are future-accusing them of already doing, then say it was just more "rogue" military elements.

Then there's just classic madman theory, which Putin and all the old guard will remember how effective that was when the US did it to the Soviet Union. No one in the West actually wants Russia to fall apart and nuclear weapons and material to get dispersed to random war lords and the blackmarket, in addition to even more inflation if Russian exports were to actually stop entirely, and so on, so making it seem that could possibly happen encourages Western support to Ukraine to be cautious and hesitant.

And, the beauty of madman theory is that even if your opponent think it's likely fake, just madman theory ... there's still that chance that it's not.

In addition to all these, there's the classic benefit of a fake coup in sussing out any potential collaborators and evaluating the loyalty of the command structure based on what people do, say, react etc. So, sure, maybe some PR costs to the coup happening, but if you can then purge everyone who maybe an actual threat then the benefits can more than outweigh the costs.

Finally, as I've explained in previous posts, there's the advantage of disrupting your enemies narrative and plans, making them improvise on false premises and make mistakes.

Especially considering:

and in two days nobody will remember the coup — Jabberwock

Of course, as @Tzeentch points out, how things play out will give us a lot more information. If Prigozhin suddenly has some new role in Belarus that would seem pretty incompatible with him also being a treacherous mutineer that brought Russia to the brink of civil war and showed Putin to be weak and disoriented, then it may seem a lot more plausible that he has a role to play and it's all theatre. If he's dead tomorrow, we may draw other conclusions.

Likewise, if Ukrainians exhaust more equipment and material and the temporary moral boost of their dreams coming true of Russia falling apart is followed by even lower moral of that not happening, and Russia starts their own offensives that rapidly take ground, it may certainly seem like the coup "just so happened" to have positive effects on the battle field, on the coup indeed will be forgotten and Russian moral will be high on the drug of victory.

Lastly, if Putin's power is even more consolidated than before, maybe the coup wasn't a "negative" for him after all.

Of course, maybe none of that happens and there's an even bigger coup tomorrow.

So we'll see.

Wagner had, however, grown into the most potent such force due to its ability to recruit from prisons and then its willingness to carry out costly frontal attacks that the military balked at despite apparently heavy pressure from Putin and his clique. — Count Timothy von Icarus

True, but Wagner could recruit from prisons only because the Russian state allowed that to legally happen, precisely for the purposes of having prisoners dying on the front lines rather than regular troops.

The whole point of mercenaries is they are more expendable and the civilian population is less affected if they die.

Which fit in this strategy of attrition during the last phase of the war, as well as mitigated the disruption of the sanctions (limit "normal people" dying while people are also dealing with sanctions, and so reduce overall discontentment and disruption; i.e. avoid mobilising as much as possible people actually needed for the economy to function properly).

While Ukrainians have been fighting with regular Ukrainians this past half a year, Russia has mostly been fighting with these mercenaries.

In parallel to this phase of keeping the fighting focus in Bakhmut and primarily using mercenaries, the missile campaign has aimed to attrit Ukrainian air defences.

This all makes a lot of sense if during this time the Russian population has hardened its support for the war (due to things like Ukrainian intelligence assassinating people in Russia, suppression of dissent, and so on), the mobilisation and training of reserves can complete, Ukrainian air defence is effectively depleted, continuous artillery attrition over the whole front, and the next phase of the war Russia will have high moral, civilian support and air and artillery superiority.

Not to say Russia achieved all these things, just what I think is clearly what they aimed to accomplish these last 6 months.

Any large scale manoeuvres require huge amounts of troops, so not feasible with only mercenaries, but this last attritional phase of the war does make sense to use mercenaries as much as possible to limit the effect of casualties on the civilian population.

Not that this basic strategy of using mercenaries explains the "rebellion", but just why Wagner has been such a focus since last six months.

If this current and next phase of the war involve large scale engagements (such as Ukrainian attacks at multiple points along the front and any large scale offensives the Russians may do) then mercenaries are of less relevant. It also makes sense to distribute the experience gained in Bakhmut throughout the whole of the military. Which again, doesn't really explain the coup, but does explain why Russian MoD would offer Wagner forces that "didn't rebel" to sign regular military contracts.

Putin's reputation in the West is completely irrelevant; for him his reputation at home is essential. The propaganda monolith is very sensitive to any detractions, Putin appearing weak before Russians (and that is exactly what has happened, as evidenced by Russian TV, forums and blogs) for him is potentially fatal. He has shown that he can be challenged with impunity - there is nothing worse for an authoritarian figure. — Jabberwock

Well good we agree his reputation in the West is irrelevant, and I assume you agree with my point of reputation vis-a-vis other authoritarians.

As for domestic reputation, I agree with your general framework, but this (in my view) simply supports that the events were staged as it is precisely these drawbacks that are mitigated.

In my experience, the biggest difference between planned (whether overt or covert) and unplanned events is the presence of risk mitigation. When things happen by surprise and you just need to deal with them, there's generally no time to carefully mitigate minor risks. A quick example is a device that finds itself in a hostile environment compared to a device designed for a hostile environment.

In this case, Prigozhin mitigates his remarks about Putin to such an extent it's difficult to call this a coup (as originally advertised) at all and it's now being referred to a mutiny or rebellion ... but mutiny or rebellion to do what?

Putin himself was not openly challenged, Prigozhin clarifies during his escapade that Putin is the duly elected head of government, and it's not a coup but a "march for justice".

Instead of Putin being actually challenged, he plays more the "godfather" role of mediating and resolving disputes between subordinates, all of which pay homage to him.

Not to mention that you have failed to show how exactly 'Russian lives have been saved'. Nothing of the kind happened and in two days nobody will remember the coup, as the military packages are getting bigger and bigger. — Jabberwock

Yes, definitely, if no one will remember the coup and it will be just forgotten, then all the costs you point out don't matter. Just like the US pulling out of Afghanistan and leaving their "friends" high and dry, and having people fall off planes and so forth definitely seemed like a "reputation hit" at the time but no one remembers or cares now. The Western narrative has become a mix of out of sight and out of mind as well as Afghanis just didn't fight for their freedom hard enough, US tried its best but you get what you deserve.

However, my point was that if it is an intelligence operation and somehow these negatives consequences you point out become relevant (costs outweigh the gains) they could just come out and say it was an intelligence operation to fool the West / Ukrainians and that saved lives somehow (whether it is true or not).

Most costs and risks are not static, there's ways to mitigate them by some action in the future. Something we have already seen; if it was planned then the problem would arise of how make people 100% believe there's a coup and a "point of no return" has been reached and there will be fighting between Wagner and regular forces ... but then unwind it afterwards. It's a problem, but if you think creatively you may come up with the idea of having Belarus broker a deal and Prigozhin will go hang out there and that's the resolution to the legal crisis. It still doesn't make much sense, but it makes more sense than someone internal to Russia brokering a deal and Prigozhin staying in Russia.

And think about it, why would Lukashenko spontaneously intervene in Russian internal affairs? If this was an "open challenge" to Putin and Putin wants these mutineers dead, it makes absolutely zero sense for Lukashenko to call Prigozhin like this was some high school level drama.

That is demonstrably false. Prigozhin alone has assembled a military force that appears to be decidedly better than the rest of the Russian forces. The whole point is that Shoigu and Gerasimov's troops could not equal Wagner even with theoretically bigger resources. If he was that easy to replace, then all Russian soldiers should equal Wagnerites. They pretty obviously do not. — Jabberwock

This is just pure delusion. 25 000 troops without any supply lines or airforce or satellite intelligence and so on, are not going to defeat a million troops with supply lines and all the hardware and gadgets. Russian regular forces could continuously carpet bomb Wagner positions. Additionally, not all Wagner troops joined the "rebellion", those that didn't have the opportunity now to just join Russian regular forces. So we don't even know how much troops we're talking about.

There's also zero evidence that each Wagner fighter is literally match for 10 or even a 100 Russian regular forces, even if equipment and supply lines where equal. Pretty much a ludicrous claim. To make matters even worse, since the "coup" started 1000km from Moscow (if this was a real coup) Wagner would need to break through fortified positions, and Russian troops need only surround them and continuously fire artillery, rockets, missiles and continuously carpet bomb the entire area.

Your statement here is so foolish and disconnected to any military reality that it's difficult to even contain in the minds eye for the purposes of critical scrutiny.

Again - they had little choice as Wagner was indispensable. Besides Prigozhin was not going off script for most of the war – only when he started to hint at his ambitions they decided to pacify him by sending Wagner to Bakhmut. — Jabberwock

That's not how any military or intelligence operation works or even business works. Someone who goes off script and is unpredictable and a loose cannon is a serious problem, as you don't know what they're going to do and how much damage they can cause, wittingly or not. It doesn't matter how fast you are at putting up drywall if you're likely to burn down the entire project.

And any organisation (government, business, non-profit, and even more so military and intelligence agencies) are extremely sensitive to what information is made public. It would not matter how good a developer or executive you are at Google if you start randomly talking to the press and causing PR problems (no single person could possibly produce enough value to offset all the time required to deal with and mitigate problematic talking to the press, in addition to not knowing what the person would say next). Likewise, whenever intelligence information is leaked (and not on purpose) the idea that the leaker was otherwise good at their job and maybe still "worth it" doesn't come into the equation.

Prigozhin is not essential to Wagner continuing to operate essentially exactly the same.

Equating Wagner with Prigozhin is just false and there would be zero reason to keep him around if he was causing problems, you just get rid of him (by an "accident" or just arrest him on sedition or make a executive order or pass a law nationalising his "private military organisation") and problem solved.

No imagination is needed, because we do know that he had the leverage: the war would go much worse without Wagner. If that happened, Putin would have much bigger problems than Prigozhin. If they had the choice between allowing his ambitions to grow and losing an important part of the front, it was not much of a choice at all. — Jabberwock

Again, Prigozhin does not equal Wagner, you can easily have Wagner without Prigozhin and there is zero evidence that Prigozhin's experience in prison and hotdog stands and fancy restaurants has made him some military strategist so brilliant that he is simply irreplaceable and the war cannot be fought without him. Likely he's not involved in the tactical decisions at all (but leaves that to military professionals).

Yes, you seem pretty hung up on that argument, but it does not follow. As in our previous discussions, you seem to treat the issue in a restrictively binary way – either Russian intelligence can orchestrate the whole US elections or it is helpless. That is, of course, a false dilemma. — Jabberwock

This is not what I've stated. I've stated the belief that Russian intelligence can orchestrate the US elections is incompatible with the belief that all these strange events with Prigozhin cannot possibly be staged but must be exactly what the Western media would wish to be true about them.

It is not a false dilemma. If Russia didn't engineer the outcome of Trump's election, then maybe it's still very capable, just not that capable.

Putin taking an enormous hit to his reputation (again: he literally promised Prigozhin, the traitor, harsh punishment and utterly failed to deliver) for the price of being in the news for three days (because that is how Western media works) is beyond absurd. — Jabberwock

For sure it's absurd. However, if you do actually want to stage the coup then this is one thing you just have to accept, that "strongly worded" statements go back and forth during the "coup", so there's buy in, and then everything is just walked back.

Sure, in some ways there's negatives for Putin's reputation, but if he remains in power and the Ukraine war and economy goes well there's no long term damage, and maybe later they're all like "aha, it was all just an intelligence operation, many Russian lives were saved by getting the West to believe whatever Prigozhin would tell them".

Also, keep in mind that Putin's reputation doesn't matter much in the West, he's already literally Hitler over here, and where it does matter is vis-a-vis other authoritarians, and these conversations are private, so he could just tell them it was all planned (whether it was or not). Point being, negative reputation in Western media may not really matter and how other authoritarians view things maybe very different (what likely matters most to other authoritarians is simply who is winning on the battlefield).

Kremlin has tolerated Prigozhin for months, because he was extremely useful for the war effort, at least until Bakhmut. — Jabberwock

But you don't need Prigozhin for that. You can just arrest him and replace him or even just pass a law nationalising Wagner at any time. There is zero evidence Prigozhin is some sort of brilliant military commander ... his curriculum vitae is going to prison and then running a hot dog stand and then fancy restaurants. There is zero military benefits Prigozhin provides that some other commander / businessman can't equally provide, maybe better.

As for the risks, someone going "off script" and is totally out of control and may do anything at anytime, bad for moral, etc. is impossible to justify tolerating during a war. You really think Putin and the ministry of defensc and intelligence and all the generals will sit around drawing up plans that can be "disrupted" by Prigozhin at any time? It makes zero sense.

But, more importantly, Prigozhin is (or was till Friday) idolized by all pro-war Russians: his troops were most efficient, did not flinch from most difficult tasks, actually made the effort (unlike Tik-Tok troops). — Jabberwock

Again, zero problem: "died in an artillery strike, hero of the nation".

You're argument is basically Prigozhin had the leverage and importance to have every higher-up in the military and Putin himself worried what he might do or say, worried about the power he's continued to be allowed to accumulate. Maybe that's true, but I find it a far longer stretch of the imagination than what is non-sensical theatrics is just that: theatre.

To remind people of what an actual coup attempt looks like:

↪frank I always try to give the benefit of the doubt. — Jabberwock

Well, give it a go.

Why would the entire Russian military and intelligence structure of Russia tolerate Prigozhin criticising them for months and months, "embarrassing them", lowering troop and citizen moral, and so on? Why would Putin tolerate it? Why would Russian intelligence (that has plenty control over the internet in Russia) allow Prigozhin to just post his dissenting videos completely impromptu?

How does Prigozhin do his "march for peace" for 800km without running into any road blocks or obstacles of any kind. Why would Prigozhin the "mutineer" be safe in Belarus and accept such a deal in order to get away with the fruits of extorting and embarrassing the Kremlin, the military, the intelligence structures?

You really think Prigozhin is just this powerful? Allowed to amass this unchecked power ... that's 100% dependent on the Russian military structure for ammo and supplies?

You really think the best explanation is that Prigozhin has just massive balls and (at least expects) to just waltz out of Russia into Belarus carrying his sacks of gold under his massive nuts?

↪boethius So either we go with what we know, and the known loss/gain ratio practically excludes the 'staged coup' scenario, or we assume we know almost nothing and have to refrain from conclusions. — Jabberwock

There's plenty of benefits we can analyse.

My point about benefits we are too unsophisticated to even know is in the context of people think Russian intelligence plaid a vital roll in getting Trump elected. If you ascribe that much power to Russian intelligence they are literally capable of anything. Literally anything happening in the entire world could be Russian intelligence.

However, I don't ascribe to that theory, so, yes, I would agree with you that we should be able to make some sense of things if its staged.

The basic benefit of whole Prigozhin thing is just getting your message in the Western news to begin with. Prigozhin sorts of "hacks into" the Western narrative machine. Of course, how is that possible? It's only possibly by telling things the Western media wants to hear. It's quite extraordinary, a Russian military commander (or whatever you want to call Prigozhin) starts to be basically a trusted source of what is happening on the front line.

If you want your enemy to believe something false for either tactical or strategic value ... well you just have Prigozhin mix it into his diatribes. For example, if you want your enemy to double down in Bakhmut, have Prigozhin say there's heavy losses and artillery is running out and so on. The consequences of a single false belief can be quite extensive and costly.

Likewise, want to frustrate the Ukrainian-Neocon narrative to get Ukraine more heavy weapons, maybe stage a coup and seem weak.

For, one asymmetry in this war is that Russia does not need to import any weapons, but Ukraine does, and (as has been demonstrated since the war started) actually getting heavy weapons into Ukraine can be a long and complicated diplomatic process.

To put things in context, the current top headlines on CNN are:

- Putin claims Russia would have put down 'armed rebellion'
- Russia President Addresses nation and warns against 'internal mutiny' in wake of Wagner insurrection
- Wagner boss calls march on Moscow 'protest' and not attempt to overthrow Putin
- Analysis: Yevegeny Prigozhin over-reached and lost
- Analysis: The West must now consider possibility of a Russian political collapse
- Purin power threatened: John Bolton advises not to 'underestimate' Putin
- Analysis: Despite an abrupt about-face, Prigozhin deeply humiliated Kremlin
- The next shoe to drop in Russia
- China throws support behind 'strategic partner' Russia
- Biden says the US and its allies had nothing to with Wagner's rebellion

Now, why Putin et. al. would want these kinds of headlines is to skip over the basic advantages of taking the initiative in forming headlines. Putin is in the news and the whole world wants to know what he has to say about these recent events, and who's not in the news: Zelensky asking for more weapons, or Graham and Blumenthal talking about their resolution to put Ukraine under the US nuclear umbrella, nor celebration or rationalisation of Ukraine taking a few villages in their offensive, nor any events in Ukraine at all.

You can see how 'relieved and comforted' people are on Russian TV... On Solovyov's show Bezrukov is complaining about the weak and impotent government. 'This couldn't happen in a strong country!' he says (on Solovyov's!). Margarita just looks stunned... Half of milbloggers are calling for blood... On RIA's forums very few people are 'comforted', most are frightened and confused. The most often asked question is: why nobody seeks to punish someone who shot down a dozen of Russian airmen? — Jabberwock

For sure it will remain confusing. However, the fright will dissipate with everything going back to normal/

But for any normal person, they will definitely be relieved and comforted by the coup ending suddenly. One day it's the return to the 90s, tanks gonna be firing at government buildings and so on, bracing for total chaos, collapse of government, and a civil war in Russia ... but also nothing makes sense and it's not a coup and a march for peace, and then the next day it's just completely over, "settled", bloodless.

I would say that both Prigozhin and Putin lost much too much for it to be staged. — Jabberwock

As I mentioned, you need to give to get. Coup has to be "sold".

Reasons the negatives can be mitigated are, for instance, confidence in victory on the battlefield.

However, the costs only make sense to consider in the context of the benefits.

The whole Western media is now talking about this coup and how weak Putin and Russia is ... what they aren't talking about anymore is the imminent nuclear attack in Ukraine by Russia nor needing to get more heavy weapons to Ukraine as Russian resistance has been "fierce". Zelensky is out of the news, and all we're talking about is Russian internal politics and how bad a Russian civil war could get.

However, it's difficult to complete such an analysis because we don't have all the secret information available to intelligence agencies. Maybe this was a high stakes reaction to information of some other intelligence agency engaging in some high stakes action (which may or may not be actually true), such as pre-blaming Russia for a nuclear attack and then going and spreading some nuclear material and blaming it on Russia.

Or, then just classic mad man theory as well as classic controlled opposition.

And my basic point is not to "prove" it was staged, just that it's certainly possible (and possible for reasons we may not have any information access about), but most of all, a group that ascribes enough elaborate propaganda power to Russia as to fix elections in the United States should certainly conclude from that belief that pretty much anything happening in Russia could be some sophisticated propaganda plot.

That's the point I want to emphasise the most, the belief that Russian intelligence can significantly influence US elections through US technology companies under US government regulation and NSA supervision is not compatible with the complete denial Russian intelligence can't come up with this whole Prigozhin character arch for reasons we may even be too unsophisticated to even imagine. If Russia can control events, and perception of events, in the US, they certainly can do it even better in Russia.

And this criticism is mainly towards Western media that harped on about Russia influencing US elections for years, compromat on Trump etc. and then turn around and take all these antics (since months and months and months) by Prigozhin at face value.

Well kudos for that! It did all look theatrical at times for sure, but shooting your own helicopters down is a bit extravagant unless Prigozhin suddenly turns up in the West telling stories to intelligence agencies or some such. Or am I missing something? — unenlightened

Well, first of all, maybe it is just a shit show. My main point is that people who say masterful Russian propaganda methods exercised through the West's own technology platforms under NSA surveillance got Trump elected should certainly at least consider the possibility these events as staged for propaganda purposes.

Not that I'm saying you personally say Russia got Trump elected, or even played a contributing roll (rather than the 2 billion of free airtime the Western media provided Trump), just that my basic point is in that context.

That being said, if it is staged the critical problem is selling it to Western media. You need to give to get. Prigozhin needs to "go the distance", at least shit talking wise, so that this is reported as a full blown coup, rather than Prigozhin just clowning around and looking stupid. Response of Western media could be ... yeah ... right, I'll believe it when there's actual fighting going on.

So, how do you sell it? Talk is cheap, so you first would want to say things that really seem "coup like", such as Ukraine never intended to attack Russia, the generals are traitors etc. ... of course you don't want to trigger an actual coup, so you also say you 100% support the elected president and you're not even doing a coup but just a "march for peace".

Then, yeah, maybe down a few helicopters. Did this even happen? Who knows. And if it did happen, could also just be staged as helicopters can be remotely controlled, shot down, or then fire fake missiles (i.e. missiles without warheads) and then set off a harmless fireworks from the helicopter and "go down". All this is happening inside Russia, so events can be 100% controlled. However, I haven't even seen any footage of these alleged helicopter engagements.

The video that supposedly proves Wagner came under attack is just a camera jogging through a forest, no sounds of battle whatsoever, with a guy just saying they came under attack.

Now, they keep on saying the "mutiny" was bloodless ... so at least the Russian narrative is no one died at all. So that doesn't even seem compatible with helicopters being downed, or then the pilots weren't harmed. The Russian narrative doesn't even make any sense on this point.

However, the whole point of an operation like this, if it's staged, is that it's so zany that it's impossible to tell. Sure, zany shit happens all the time. Take Trump's run for president, or Hunter Biden's laptop or then the character arch of Saddam Hussein. Really crazy shit does happen that genuinely doesn't seem scripted and is just driven by zany characters doing wild shit. Maybe Prigozhin's Russia's version of Trump and Ye, just 100% riffing it all the time.

What is the truth when it comes to the cloak and dagger doings of intelligence agencies and their associates, I view as best to keep an open mind, maybe it will become clear later or never. But as a matter of principle, I feel it's wise to assume people's who's job is to deceive you ... may actually succeed in doing so from time to time.

Yes and you predicted all that, obviously. But kept silent to better enjoy the exquisite irony right? Now the explanation pls. Everything must be connected to land bridges, right? — neomac

Team reality did predict it:

However, what could actually be staged is Prigozhin's midnight comedy blowout theatre show, and when I point that out suddenly the idea Russia has some propaganda tricks up their sleeve is ludicrous and certainly the Russians couldn't put together a simple plan of telling the enemy what they want to hear so that their own propaganda networks seed your message for you and your enemy basically "trusts" one of your commanders and take everything he says at face value.

And if that's not the case, why is he still alive?

Nothing easier than arranging an "accident" in a war zone. When it started, maybe he had gone rogue or something, but it's been going on for months so at some point it's difficult to interpret people's actions that are on the same team as something other than team work. — boethius

And I was in the middle of doing some basic research, writing up an analysis of why this latest chapter may too be staged ... take a break, and I wake up and the coup has ended ...

Why we would have reason to believe it was staged, is:

First, Prigozhin is very clear what he is doing is not a coup and the elected president is great ... so this is literally the first coup in history against subordinates of the head of government. So what could possibly be the plan if it's not staged? "March of freedom" to Moscow and then somehow get the Ministry of Defence job and run the war.

Second, the "coup" started literally 1000 km from Moscow. Rule number #1 of couping is get things done fast, "fait accomplie" as soon as possible and immediately seize both the key people and symbols of power. If this was some actual coup attempt, a part of his men would have sprung into action in Moscow, then heavy weapons

Third, Prigozhin has bee continuously criticising the whole officer corp, especially all the top brass, of Russia for months now, he's not in command of any significant number of troops (required for a coup) nor had any backing from any actual high ranking officer. There is literally zero conditions required to successfully stage a coup ... which Prigozhin is clear he's not even doing.

Fourth, Prigozhin only ever talks shit when Russia is winning and troops will be in high moral. Things escalated the last weeks of Bakhmut when it was certainly a foregone conclusion that Ukraine could not possibly hold on to a dozen or so buildings. So, whatever moral downer Prigozhin shit talking may actually caused, is more than compensated by actual victory on the battlefield in taking Bakhmut. It is the perfect timing for some venting of genuine negative emotions that citizens can then project onto Prigozhin: True patriot and son of Mother Russia. Likewise, this "coup" only happens after Ukraine publicly pauses their offensive, and no first day or then during the offensive where this sort of shit disturbing would provide maximum leverage or then (if a genuine coup) a minimum of Russian troops could be diverted to confront him (as the front lines must be adequately manned to prevent a Ukrainian breakthrough, and, moreover, a "coup" in Russia may supercharge the assaults).

So what is he doing. The narrative now is that it was indeed a show, but to simply negotiate more money. Now, it would in principle be possible (but highly unlikely) for going rogue to be a negotiation tactic. I'm going to skip over all the numerous reasons why that really does not seem to be the case, to get to the main one which is that the resolution is Prigozhin going to Belarus, which means absolutely nothing in terms of Prigozhin personal security. Now, if Prigozhin attained free passage to some actual neutral country that guaranteed his safety, like UAE or something, a place that was not a vassal state to Russia, where it would cause a diplomatic incident for Russia to be killing people there, and he could live with some plausible basis to believe he could enjoy his millions and millions, or even billions, he's cashed away so far and then extorted even more out of Russia with his little stunt, ok, that would be one thing. But he's literally going next door to Russia to a country with hundred thousand or more Russian troops where the leader of said country is literally a Russian Colonel somehow.

So, if it's not staged, then Prigozhin literally agreed to go somewhere where he would be killed, giving up all his leverage ... to be immediately killed as soon as he gets to Belarus or even along the way. He could be killed and then just never spoken of again, Belarus doesn't ever investigate and just never talks about him again.

The only rational situation where Prigozhin would do this sort of stunt is if he believed he was about to be assassinated anyways and he had nothing to lose, but in that case he'd negotiate leaving Russia's sphere of influence ... not accept just hopping over to Belarus and calling it square.

It's absolutely ridiculous as some sort of genuine rational plan on Prigozhin's part. There's also zero reason to believe he was about to be assassinated. He took Bakhmut, then was chilling in the rear, the worst (for him) that was being discussed is just the Russian MoD taking more control of Wagner. If Prigozhin talking shit and posting it to the internet was a problem, he would have been killed months ago in an "artillery strike - hero of the father land".

Now, I'm not saying things can't get so fucked up that this sort of fake coup happens by genuine surprise in some high stakes everyone is extorting everyone shit show.

However, a group of people that tie nearly everything they don't like happening in the media to "Soviet propaganda" should definitely be considering this as one case that may actually be this Soviet "nothing makes sense, everything is true and false" legendary propaganda move.

For the most part, these allegations of Soviet propaganda prowess bringing Trump to power through a network of international Marxist (who no one can name as working on behalf of the Soviet Union) and normalising gay and trans identity to break down the family unit and erode the military ethos and so on, is completely insane.

However, this whole Prigozhin saga is literally exactly what these alleged propaganda techniques would look like if they were to be actually used.

To what purpose?

Certainly there are costs of Prigozhin's shit talking ... but even then it's a controlled outlet of people's real emotions, so that's literally not even Soviet but simply standard propaganda methodology.

As for the benefits, to make a long story short, Prigozhin's antics are basically best described as "narrative spiking". You have Western spin doctors carefully crafting their cool aid, and everyone in the West (well, at least main stream media) is just standing around drinking it pleasantly, everything it good, everything is fine. Then, Prigozhin rides into the party on a Harley Davidson and a leather jacket and cracks two bottles of vodka and just drops them right into the cool aid like he doesn't even care. Suddenly everyone is getting drunk Prigozhin sauce, the calm and orderly party, more of a get together really, turns into a rowdy frat blowout with people losing their fucking minds about some coup happening or some shit. Everyone is suddenly a giddy Joe Rogan rambling on about their pet theories, as deep into things without having the slightest clue of what you're talking about as you can possibly get.

Why would you want to do this?

It's the only way for Russia to impact Western narrative and disrupt the medicine of the Western spin doctors. A "coup" in Russia was obviously not part of any plan in the West and it's then really difficult to blend back in these events into whatever the next version of reality and talking points are supposed to be.

To make matters worse, since these unexpected events in some ways go along with parts of the Western narrative (that Russia governance is incompetent and about to collapse ... any day now) all the foot soldiers of the Western narrative machine roll with it. These people still have jobs of reporting the news, and this is clearly news worthy and they are forced to report on things without there being time for a narrative consensus of the people who matter to be formed. Certainly sounds good to present things as a real coup in Russia and Putin is weak and so on, so Western journalists need to say something and so extend the existing narrative in a logical way to include these events.

Measures are certainly extreme, but this coup happens literally the day after both Ukraine and senators in the US rapidly escalate the talk of nuclear events in Ukraine and Nuclear retaliation for any nuclear events in Ukraine, that would obviously be Russia's doing by definition.

If you're Putin or anyone in Russian governance, intelligence or the military planning ... this is really alarming talk, by a side that just made a movie trailer for an offensive that has not made any gains remotely close to "cutting the land bridge", and arguably no actual gains at all.

... So, what's even more newsworthy than all this nuclear talk and would disrupt any actual plan, political or operational, nuke wise? A literal coup in Russia might do the trick. Basically throwing out a wild card in a tricky situation to at least disrupt your opponents plans.

Whether Russian analysts and decision makers were genuinely concerned of this nuclear narrative or not, or viewed it as sabre rattling, I don't know, but it's certainly something people would pay attention to.

However, there's also other benefits for such an event and reasons to stage it. Ukrainians and the West just went on an emotional rollercoaster of all their dreams suddenly coming true and then ... nada. Likewise, ordinary Russians were just faced with the anxiety and abyss of real chaos and then immediately relieved and comforted with the warm cloak of order and familiarity.

Which is literally the exact definition of this mythical Soviet propaganda system, which as an explainer for the entire liberal progressive movement has scant evidence, nor does it seem even possible for Soviet agents to be orchestrating the "left" since several decades right under the Western intelligence and media system's nose, but if you take this Soviet propaganda hypothesis and actually lay it out and ask what would fit this methodology, this whole Prigozhin saga is an exact match and clearly feasible and with direct communication between Prigozhin and Putin and Putin and everyone else of importance, there is clearly the organisational opportunity to pull it off, the scope is limited enough to be some actual feasible plan, "no blood was spilled".

After all, it started in 2014. — ssu

The war has not been so intense since 2014.

That there was 8 years of a low intensity civil war "supported" by Russia is not any basis to say the current intensity of warfare can last 8 years.

At some point things will start to fall apart, and it's difficult to bet against the far larger and stronger side with far more kinds of capabilities.

Probably why talk of a "frozen conflict" has ramped up in the West, the alternative to one side winning or a negotiated settlement is just each side being unable to carry out large offensives and things just stay like that.

However, I'm unsure if this would even be stable in this case, mainly due to the drones allowing attritional warfare to continue at great distances. This is very much a new thing in the history of warfare and may prevent a large no-mans land forming which each side hesitates to cross and firing artillery randomly back and forth is basically guess work and mainly just a reminder of what would happen if large infantry formations did enter no mans land.

Actually the Russians were in the same situation as the Ukrainians just few months ago. And that Winter Counteroffensive was forgotten as it didn't go anywhere. Likely what will happen with the Ukrainian counteroffensive is that it will take time. Both sides have their limitations. — ssu

This is exactly my thesis: that Ukraine offensives have the same problems as Russian offensives ... just worse as they have less capabilities (less planes, less helicopters, less air defence, less tanks and so on).

Going on failed offensives is not "initiative":

First of all, to have the initiative in war is extremely important. If you remain passive and don't engage in the enemy, you are handing the Russians the advantage: they can choose where and when to engage. — ssu

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not between being passive and undertaking a major offensive that suffers significant losses. While defending you can do plenty of things such as launch small counter offensives and so on that have a positive cost-benefit. By not wasting your forces you constantly threaten to engage them anywhere along the front line as well as have them available (because they are not dead or destroyed) to reinforce lines where it is suitable to defend (i.e. not a few building left in Bakhmut but somewhere else that's more suitable or defence).

With such a strategy Ukraine can single (or explicitly say) that they can't defeat the Russians, but the Russians can't defeat them either, so it's better to accept our perfectly reasonable offer (which is the problem, Zelensky does not want to offer anything Russia might accept, seek concessions from either Russia or the EU or even the United States to compensate what he gives Russia to end the conflict).

How you give the Russians the option to simply defeat you is by wasting your forces in undertaking fools errands and no longer having the reserves necessary to maintain a defence on a 1000 km front or prevent the Russians from encircling the capital successfully this time and so on.

It's reported Ukraine has lost 4 MiGs in this offensive so far and also could be easily 6-18 months to actually have any F16s in Ukraine ... so that's a pretty significant loss of air capabilities that could have been used to keep things together until said F16s arise. Now, fog of war, who knows anything, but the point is if you want your offensive to have a good chance of success then you committing your planes you may need to do.