https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1772761991989326091.html Spoiler I want to try to encapsulate the magnitude of big picture problems Russia is having. So here is a list: 1. In the wake of a terrorist attack Putin is blaming Ukraine instead of ISIS. This means that they might not be taking steps to address the actual problem 2. Putin has now said that the attackers were radical islamists. Russian media has pointed to them being migrants and I’ve seen no efforts to cool tempers or prevent backlash to people who might be considered associated with the terrorists. Quite the opposite. 3. Many inside of Russia know that Putin was missing for 19 hours, previously joked about the warnings from the U.S. and that the argument that Ukraine was behind the attack is nonsense. 4. Migrants have never been in a good position in Russia but it has gotten significantly worse since the invasion as many are routinely rounded up and sent to fight in Ukraine. This new waive of fear and hatred towards migrants, is not being discouraged by the government & propagandists, in fact quite the opposite. This could lead to innocent people being hurt and many migrants leaving either by choice or by force. 5. Russia has a demographic crisis and a MASSIVE labor shortage. This new wave of anti-migrant sentiment is happening at the beginning of spring planting. You can imagine how Russian agriculture will go if there’s no labor. 6. It appears another one of Putin’s wonder weapons was defeated by the Patriot system, which is another embarrassment to Putin as Russia’s military export business continues to collapse and Russia struggles to deliver on the contracts it does have. 7. The threat of secondary sanctions from the U.S. appears to have worked as many have stopped banking with Russia. 8. India continues to reduce the amount of oil it purchases from Russia, the combination of banking issues and issues with sanctions has made Russian an unattractive purchase (for now at least) and India is buying more from Saudi Arabia & the U.S. 9. Due to years of neglect, Russia infrastructure is collapsing. Hundreds of thousands of Russians were without heat this winter due to the degradation of these systems that are connected to MASSIVE apartment blocks. This is probably just the beginning of this problem as the budget for 2024 to deal with essentially the same or worse when accounting for inflation as it was in 2023 and is planned to be DRASTICALLY cut 2025. 10. The key rate is 16% 11. Russia installed a new person to head the Russian navy. Days later during exercises the Russian navy accidentally hit a Russian trawler in the Baltic. Then communications and possibly more boats were struck in Crimea by Ukraine. 12. Russia is having to finance big ticket projects out of the National Welfare fund because no one else will invest in them 13. Russia is unable to stop Ukraine from hitting its oil refineries. Which could lead to a societal collapse. Propagandists yell on TV about why they’re not protecting them themselves and says they’re only paying taxes! Another Lukoil executive mysteriously dies 14a. Due to the issues with the Houthis Russia is shipping stuff by rail ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY to the Pacific and back again. Which is causing challenges for the railways. 14b. Due to several bad decisions years before, Russian railways are having trouble maintaining their fleet. Shortages of parts, issues with sanctions, and labor shortages are causing compounding problems and downtime for repairs continues to get worse. 14c. Because the refineries are being hit, Russia is relying on the Railways to transport even more products from operational products even further distances on an already congested system. 14d. There’s over 2,500 oil & gas filled tankers just sitting on the Northern Caucasian railroad because they can’t travel across the Crimean bridge, and some of them have been sitting there for 6 months 14e. Russia decided to violate the Weapons embargo on North Korea. The LARGEST port structure on Russia’s east coast (Pacific Ocean) participated. So the United States sanctioned it. Now Russia’s biggest port with some of the most modern and efficient infrastructure will not be used by most legitimate major shipping companies. This will likely cause complications as they will have to switch to OTHER Pacific port that are less well equipped. 14f. Everyone in a while some people blow up the railway in the middle of Russia where there is a bottle neck 14g. There are a lot of places in Russia that are accessible for shipping BY TRAIN because the roads suck. There are NO ALTERNATIVES 15. Russia tried to make a commercial plane domestically, they keep pushing the deadline back and their current work in progress is WAY too heavy. And it’s really bad when a plane is too heavy. 16. Russias telecommunications infrastructure is falling apart. Russian telecom operators were searching for USED parts to try to keep in running as sanctions are kicking their butt. There’s no 5G in the country and Russian companies finally had to admit that they CAN’T manufacture equipment domestically. 17. Russia isn’t buying medicine. There’s a shortage of vaccines, even basic childhood vaccines. The Russian Ministry of Health turn around and tells everyone they’re mistaken and Russia had (insert number) packages of (insert missing medication) so that will last months! There have been measles outbreaks that the government has then blamed on migrants instead of the lack of vaccines. And the Russian Government cut 10% from the Russian Healthcare Budget for 2024 so they could fund the war 18. Russia’s demographics get worse as the Russian government hasn’t yet provided meaningful funding to promote the birth rate. Peskov decided to tell everyone that they should make it “fashionable” to have large families as if they will solve the problem. 19. Russia was reported to have a seed shortage. But what was more telling is that several countries refused to answer their calls when trying to procure seeds from them. International relations are not going well. 20. Putin has an ICC arrest warrant, so there’s a LOT of places he can’t travel. It’s been making BRICS meetings…awkward. 21. Russia’s space program isn’t going well. Not only did Luna-25 crash and burn, which was followed by India successfully landing on the moon, but much of the contracts they had also disappeared. Now Roscosmos is selling off real estate assets. 22. Soldiers that were pardoned as part of the prison program continue to anger the population as dangerous criminals are released and they are continuing to commit crimes. In ADDITION it appears that if wounded soldiers manage to get their physical wounds treated, which is often a challenge itself, PTSD appears to be widespread and untreated. And even the soldiers that WEREN’T taken from the prisons are committing violent crimes in Russia. 23. Many people still aren’t getting paid. 24. Alcoholism is on the rise! 25. Inflation is out of control, even as the government manipulates the data to make it appear like it isn’t! 26. Russia’s efforts to create a “Sovereign Internet” led to a crash and during the massive internet outage people had issues with payments on the railways among other things. 27. Chinese experts wrote up document panning the Kinzhal missile, pointing out all the things we pointed out and that Putin was lying when he described its capabilities. I enjoyed the heck out of reading about it! 28. Businesses continue to pull out of Kaliningrad, many declaring they’re moving to mainland Russia. One wonders what the region will do if there’s no employment. 29. Russia is actively sabotaging its education system as it tries to instill its ideological narratives. Declaring many “foreign agents” and that people shouldn’t have books about them in libraries or reference them in their papers. 30. Remember all the dangerous people returning from the war? They’re also putting them in positions authority and installing them in schools. Putin is telling people that they should be the new elites. I’m sure that will go well! 31. Kadyrov endorsed collective punishment a few months ago saying: “if one of the relatives has done wrong and the criminal cannot be found, their brother, their father would be killed” Which seems like a disaster waiting to happen. 32. The entire country currently seems to be focused on whether Russia will legalized the death penalty. Of course Russia is already executing people, but that’s not “official” and many are very concerned about it. 33. Russia continues to scold and shame those who chose to leave Russia, when they desperately need them to return. The longer these people are gone, the less likely they are to ever return. And MANY of these people are highly skilled & educated. Other countries are happily scooping these people up and suddenly countries like Uzbekistan have an instant IT industry simply by seizing the opportunity. 34. Kazakhstan has seized the opportunity to further separate itself from Russia. The president told Putin on stage to his face a SPIEF that he would recognize the Donbas regions as independent. The country has continued to remove Soviet and Russian symbolism. It has pushed back against Russian propaganda, flat out banning several propagandists from the country. This widening gap between Russia and Kazakhstan is especially problematic because of things like the Baikonur Cosmodrome Baikonur Cosmodrome - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikonur_Cosmodrome 35. Relations with Armenia have completely deteriorated as the Russia’s CTSO has proven to be a complete failure. When Armenia called Russia for help, they left Armenia high and dry. Collective Security Treaty Organization - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Security_Treaty_Organization 36. Russia never could get Belarus to fight on Ukraine. And as Russia for years looked down on Belarusian military, Russia had to turn to BELARUS to train some of mobilized soldiers. 37. They lost a submarine to Ukraine. A SUBMARINE! Sure it was in dry dock, but they still lost it. 38. NATO is now bigger than ever as Sweden and Finland have joined the alliance 39. Wagner is gone, everyone knows who killed Prigozhin. 40. Even if a Putin shows up, nobody is confident it’s THE Putin, leading Peskov to tell everyone that there aren’t any Putin doubles. And once Peskov denies something they’re even more confident it’s is true. All of this makes Putin look weak, just like his giant tables.
Tracking the Iranian attack on Israel. These drones are easy to intercept but still require an intercept eating up resources. Will Iran launch the cruise missiles as well?
3rd wave confirmed launched uk and us fighters helping intercept over Iraq First wave seems to be headed for golan 400-500 drones is an expectation I’ve seen a few times but obviously speculation
Yeah combined attack with drones, cruise and ballistic missiles from Iran, Iraq, and Yemen, from what twitter clips have shown. Will be interesting to see how Israeli IADS work against this saturation
If they get drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles going simultaneously there will be a lot of hits in Israel. just too many
If all of this is true then this seems like a major escalation and not a proportional response from Iran. I don’t see how this doesn’t result in a massive response from Israel us etc…
Edit: removing this one about Saudi and Jordan helping shoot down stuff. Haven’t seen it anywhere else.
Twitter consensus seems to be that the attack is mostly over now. won’t know for sure until the morning but it seems like damage was limited and potentially no loss of life seems ideal for everyone? Let’s hope Israel can stop here
Iran made their response as easy as possible for Israel to intercept and limit damage and for things to stop there. Unfortunately BiBi and his cronies are war hungry psychos and will probably escalate things.
He lost me a little with his U.S. empire talk and reference to a bad economy, but I think most of his analysis of the general mindset of ME actors is pretty spot-on.
Pretty spot on IMO. Unfortunately Bibi and co might be the most irrational actors in the world right now. Hopefully Biden saying Bibi is out of leash with us is enough of a deterrent.
I am eager to see what percentage of interceptions were done by the US, UK, Jordan, et al. I don't know that there would be a substantial regional war if Israel goes deeper into rogue state status and claps back when being given an off-ramp and a warning by the US. Iran has enough to make less restrained volleys if things escalate, so maybe listen to international law for once (just once) and cool down.
Putin-Loving Texas Man Abducted in Eastern Ukraine—Allegedly by Russian Troops https://nz.news.yahoo.com/putin-loving-texas-man-abducted-113105486.html
first good news for ukraine in a while Things have really been trending down for Ukraine since their failed offensive. They are essentially out of artillery shells and air defense interceptors are super thin. Outlook is very unfavorable for Ukraine in current state. f-16 training and transfers are dragging on (but they won't have a huge impact- primary use case is likely going to be air defense to intercept drones/missiles) Strong indications Russia is gearing up for another offensive in may or june. Congress has to get this aid passed ASAP