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Day: May 13, 2024
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- Photos
- Russia’s New Offensive
- Ukraine’s Air Defenses
- Putin’s New Defense Minister
- Rebuilding Ukrainian Villages
In his first public appearance as the newly appointed defense minister, Andrei R. Belousov spoke about veterans’ benefits and overcrowded hospitals rather than a new offensive in Ukraine.
Andrei R. Belousov, the newly appointed defense minister, at a hearing on Monday in the Russian Parliament, in a photo made available by the Russian Federation Council.Credit…Russian Federation Council, via Reuters
To President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, appointing a new defense minister provides a new building block toward fighting a long war.
That was evident in Moscow on Monday when Andrei R. Belousov, the economist who was Mr. Putin’s surprise pick to lead Russia’s sprawling defense ministry, made his first public appearance in his new role and spoke about bureaucracy rather than the battlefield.
It reflects an acknowledgment that the military production that is supplying Russia’s war, and heating its economy, must be carefully managed to sustain a war of attrition with Ukraine.
At the same time, Russia is playing the long game on the battlefield. In northeastern Ukraine, Russian forces mounting a new offensive are pushing forward slowly rather than attempting major breakthroughs to big cities, as they did at the beginning of the war — with disastrous results.
In televised remarks at Russia’s upper house of Parliament on Monday, which is expected to rubber-stamp his nomination, Mr. Belousov emphasized the bureaucratic details of the fast-growing military effort, and made no reference to the situation at the front. He described his priorities as improving standards of care and living for soldiers, veterans and their families.
The excessive paperwork that fighters faced in obtaining benefits, he said, ought to be addressed “in the framework of interagency electronic coordination.”
“It’s absolutely unacceptable” that soldiers are redirected to overcrowded hospitals when on leave, Mr. Belousov said in televised comments. “This issue needs to be resolved.”
The brief hearing was a snapshot of how the sudden rise of a soft-spoken expert on economic policy to the helm of an enormous military apparatus waging its biggest conflict since World War II has emerged as a new component in Mr. Putin’s strategy of defeating Ukraine and the West through a war of attrition.
Mr. Belousov’s appointment signals Mr. Putin’s focus on subordinating the country’s economy to his military needs, in the expectation that a war in Ukraine, or at least a militarized standoff with the West, could shape Russia’s future for years to come.
“Putin’s priority is war, and war of attrition is won by economics,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official now at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
Over more than six years serving as Mr. Putin’s economic adviser, Mr. Belousov developed a reputation as a strong supporter of a dominant state role in the economy and of high public spending. The war has already led Mr. Putin to enact some of the proposals that Mr. Belousov has been advocating for years, such as higher taxes on big business and greater use of the country’s oil savings.
In Moscow, Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of the upper house of Parliament, said Mr. Belousov was the best choice to find ways to procure “new, modern weaponry, new technology and new innovations” for the military.
Sergei Mironov, an ultranationalist lawmaker, welcomed Mr. Belousov’s appointment, adding that “the servicemen are not the only ones fighting today, but so are economies.”
When his nomination is finalized, Mr. Belousov will replace Sergei K. Shoigu, a long-serving minister who was fiercely loyal to Mr. Putin. Many analysts said that, despite his close ties to the Russian leader, Mr. Shoigu’s days were numbered ever since the spectacular failure of the initial invasion in February 2022, when Russia’s troops appeared shocked by the resistance put up by Ukraine’s forces.
But rather than fire Mr. Shoigu as Russia was struggling to stay in the fight, Mr. Putin chose only to replace him now — as Russia appears to be in its strongest position in the war since Mr. Putin started it more than two years ago.
“Putin is seeing that a lot of things were not done right — there were very grave mistakes,” Sergei Markov, a Moscow political analyst and a former Kremlin adviser, said in a phone interview. But, he added, “you don’t make personnel decisions in a crisis.”
“Now the crisis has been resolved — the Ukrainian offensive was stopped and a new army has been formed,” Mr. Markov said.
The appointment of a methodical bureaucrat to oversee Russia’s war effort also meshes with the consolidation of a slower-paced Russian strategy on the battlefield.
The failed attempts to stun the enemy into submission in the first month of the invasion in 2022 with armored thrusts and paratrooper drops have since given way to systematic pummeling of Ukrainian defenses along most of the frontline.
This strategy has allowed Russia to exploit its manpower and firepower advantage to gradually inch forward against overstretched and exhausted defenders.
Last week, Mr. Putin doubled down on the strategy of attrition by opening of a new front in the northern Ukrainian border region of Kharkiv.
Russia had tried to capture the region of Kharkiv in the early weeks of the war when its armored columns streamed across the border and headed for the regional capital of the same name along the highways. The attack quickly collapsed after encountering determined Ukrainian forces, who later forced Russia into a hasty retreat.
With the element of surprise now gone, Russia this time has used small units of infantry supported by artillery to filter across the border and slowly push forward, one village at a time.
Military analysts said the new offensive stands little chance of capturing the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest metropolitan area. But the attacks appear to have succeeded in drawing Ukrainian reinforcements from other sections of the front, at a time when the country is struggling to recruit enough fighters and obtain new weapons from its Western allies.
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The News And Times Review #NewsAndTimes #NT #TNT #News #Times#World #USA #POTUS #DOJ #FBI #CIA #DIA #ODNI#Israel #Mossad #Netanyahu#Ukraine #NewAbwehr #OSINT#Putin #Russia #GRU #Путин, #Россия #SouthCaucasus #Bloggershttps://t.co/O0SIgLVWzM…— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 13, 2024
The Ukraine War showed the need for the high tech modernization of the Russian Military Machine which lags like always; Belousov was recruited to fill the gap – GS https://t.co/xEPsOs6MHr –
The Russian War Machine – Wilson Centerhttps://t.co/uHWdeXdcPS › blog-post ›… pic.twitter.com/47KKGL35Ge— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 13, 2024
The Ukraine War showed the need for the high tech modernization of the Russian Military Machine which lags like always; Belousov was recruited to fill the gap – GS https://t.co/xEPsOs6MHr –
The Russian War Machine – Wilson Centerhttps://t.co/uHWdeXdcPS › blog-post ›… pic.twitter.com/Z2vuIJm5LJ— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 13, 2024
The Russian War Machine | Wilson Center https://t.co/5E4fipLu0x
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 13, 2024
The Russian War Machine
As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, fatigue has set in in all the countries directly or indirectly involved. It is difficult for politicians to decide to increase military spending: there are always domestic problems that voters prioritize. It is difficult for companies to increase arms production quickly. In both Ukraine and Russia, there is an obvious shortage of people willing to fight.
However, Russia’s political and economic system is far better prepared for war. Its politicians are independent of the electorate’s sentiments and can continue to fulfill their delusional fantasies, working to destroy Ukraine and create a permanent threat to Europe. Corporations, having received military contracts and freed from competition from imports, are eager to join the arms race, seeing it as an opportunity to increase their profits.
Russians are beginning to see the war as something that is pointless and dangerous to resist. Despair prevails, and we will not see a Russian “march on the Pentagon,” a 1967 event during which protesters against the Vietnam War confronted military police in Washington, D.C. Russia’s Defense Ministry is capable of recruiting hundreds of thousands of contractors a year. This will allow Putin to keep up the military pressure on Ukraine, which is now experiencing a shortage of weapons, ammunition, and soldiers.
However, Putin will also be happy with the option of “winning” through a ceasefire agreement that would allow him time to regroup for the next attack. This would ease the burden of mobilization on the population without reducing the military spending that fuels weapons manufacturing.
War as Incentive
Putin is now interested in making the war permanent, notes political scientist Nikolai Petrov. The war justifies the complete elimination of political competition, deprives the economic elites of their autonomy, and strengthens the influence of the security apparatus. The spectacular assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a private military commander who started a mutiny, and the slow assassination of Navalny in prison have eliminated Putin’s most dangerous rivals.
The war has become a chance for many people to significantly improve their standard of living. The monthly salary of a contract soldier is around $2,300, more than four times the median salary in Russia. The worse a person’s life is, the easier it is to persuade them to go to war. According to official accounts, the army recruited about half a million contract soldiers in 2023.
The rate of recruitment of contract soldiers in 2024 is likely to be half that. The army has already picked the low-hanging fruit in 2022–2023 by mobilizing large numbers of prisoners and people from poorer regions. The Russian military expect this to be enough to dictate the situation on the front, especially given the problems of rearmament in Ukraine, the slow growth of military production in Europe, and the difficulties of supplying Ukraine with American weapons.
Serious incentives have also been created for those employed in the military-industrial complex, which accounted for most of last year’s GDP growth. The factories working on army contracts have raised wages sharply and increased hiring, and continue to recruit new workers. Many civilian industries have reoriented to meet the army’s needs. As a result, the total number of beneficiaries of the war, who might therefore be interested in its continuation, may reach 15–20 percent of the population.
A Soviet Model: Improved Edition
Putin has created an improved model of the Soviet system. Back then, the army was supplied by sluggish state enterprises. Now there are many private companies operating with market incentives. Capitalist production is more efficient than a planned economy, and autocracies find it much easier to wage war than democracies. Modern Russia, which combines capitalism with a regime of personal power, is very well adapted to war.
Of course, Putin is not free from the many difficulties that come with waging wars of conquest. The main drawback is ordinary Russians’ reluctance to die or to kill. There is a growing movement of relatives of those who have been mobilized. Relatives of the dead and missing are trying to get information from officials about their loved ones.
Over the course of 2023, according to the Chronicles project, an independent polling outlet, the share of those in favor of continuing the war at all costs has fallen from 22 percent to 12 percent, while the share of those opposed to ending the war if Putin’s stated goals are not achieved has fallen from 47 percent to 31 percent. For the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion, there are more supporters of such a decision than opponents. According to the Russian Field poll, the number of Russians who want to end the war is almost an order of magnitude greater than the proportion of those who want to achieve total victory.
More than half of Russians cannot formulate a clear position toward their country’s war. On average, respondents are more concerned about health and income than war. The majority do not want to know anything about the war, do not want to receive any news about it, do not want to think about it. Powerlessness, apathy, depression, unwillingness to do anything on their own—these are the most widespread feelings among Russians when it comes to war and politics.
War fatigue is fueled by the accumulating inflation that is overwhelming the growth of Russians’ real incomes.
Putin Needs to Feed His War Machine
The median Russian voter would simply like to return to some pre-war normalcy. At the same time, 56 percent of respondents fear that if Russia withdraws its troops from Ukrainian territory, Ukrainian troops will enter Russia. In addition, 54 percent are sure that the end of the war will not affect their lives at all, as if the war were taking place in some parallel reality.
Russian war fatigue makes the ceasefire scenario more attractive to Putin. At the same time, the incentives for him to end the war are not strong. Putin may well continue the war, counting on the weakening of Ukraine and its supporters. However, the main thing is that none of these scenarios would mean stopping the military production pipeline, reducing military spending, or liberalizing domestic politics. It would only be a tactical pause.
With Ukraine, Putin knows how to play the long game, waiting for the right moment to strike. Therefore, a permanent state of war, exhausting and persistent, is with us for a long time. Do not think that you can appease the aggressor. The feeling of satiety will not last long. The Russian war machine is assembled and ready to grind for a long time to come.
The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute