Russia has moved missiles off isles disputed with Japan: expert
Kyodo News skrev:Multiple air defense missile systems deployed by Russia on two disputed islands off northern Japan in 2020 have been moved off the isles, an analysis of satellite images showed Thursday, raising the possibility that Moscow is repurposing weapons from its Far East for use in the war against Ukraine.
Yu Koizumi, a lecturer at the University of Tokyo, made the analysis based on satellite images of the Etorofu and Kunashiri islands taken by U.S. space tech company Maxar Technologies Inc.
Koizumi said he is also convinced that old tanks and artillery previously stored at a military facility in Sakhalin are being sent to the frontlines in Ukraine.
Den ryska avmilitariseringen fortsätter, men är dessa vapensystem från Fjärran Östern anpassade till de fullständigt annorlunda förhållandena i Ukraina?
Enceladus skrev: ↑torsdag 31 augusti 2023 20:05
Nu börjar utrensningarna på riktigt. Även militärbloggarna Romanov, Zhivov och Saponkov
arresteras.
Fler ukrainska styrkor har
tagit sig in på ryskockuperat område öster om floden Dnipro. Ryska 205:e motoriserade skyttebrigaden sägs ha stora problem.
Prigozhin’s Death Shows Ultra-Patriots Are No Threat to the Kremlin
Carnegie Politika skrev:Russia’s ultra-patriots—fiercely pro-war figures and bloggers who are sometimes critical of the Kremlin for seemingly refraining from an “all-out” war against Ukraine—are not one cohesive force with ideological unity or close coordination. They are more like a motley crew of amateur groups that coalesce around individual leaders who are ambitious, jealous, and incapable of working with each other. The authorities understand this only too well.
[...]
Girkin (nom de guerre: Strelkov) is even further from being a popular hero. His arrest last month did not prompt any significant protests and was the first sign that the ultra-patriots were no real threat to the Kremlin.
[...]
Going forward, it seems likely that the pro-war part of Russian society will remain loyal to the authorities and Putin. They are in no rush to go and fight themselves, and were never enthused by Prigozhin and Girkin’s ideas for a full-scale mobilization or turning Russia into another North Korea in order to defeat Ukraine.
[...]
Seeing this weakness, officials will likely ramp up pressure on those who criticize the authorities from a radical pro-war position. This is an old Kremlin tactic: test the resilience of an opponent and, if it’s found wanting, press home your advantage. At the same time, the discombobulated ultra-patriots are a convenient prop for the authorities. Their radicalism makes the Kremlin look relatively moderate, while repression against those of them calling for full mobilization reassures ordinary people.
Hädanefter måste ultranationalister i första hand vara lojala mot Putin, och bara i andra hand mot sitt land. Girkin kunde uppenbarligen inte klara av det.
Wagner After Prigozhin & the Next Putsch Attempt
Julia Ioffe skrev:Another member of the elite told me that, despite their personal preferences, there was even some satisfaction in Prigozhin’s demise. It was reassurance that, as the Kremlin liberal put it, “the machine still works.”
[...]
This person continued at length: “The idea that Prigozhin acted the way he did—that he played such an active and externally notable role—it was important to do something with him, especially since it was seen abroad as weakness and a crisis of power. Many people around me say that if he had behaved himself a little more modestly, then it’s possible he wouldn’t have had any problems. But he behaved provocatively—especially after the mutiny. He put Putin in a very uncomfortable position, he put the government in a very uncomfortable position, he put the military and General Staff in a very uncomfortable position.”
[...]
Others, like Christo Grozev of Bellingcat, believe that any future mutiny will be one led by the siloviki, possibly in cooperation with the oligarchs. “The takeaway is that the next putsch cannot be half-baked and reactive,” Grozev said. “The next person who does it must have planned it all the way to the offices of the Kremlin, because they know otherwise they will be dead.” And because Grozev accurately predicted, here in Puck, when the Wagner mutiny would take place, I asked him when we could expect the next one. “I expect some major confrontation to come in October, November,” he said. “The elites fear they can be next, they feel they need to act now. The fear of being purged is what will drive it. But they also need to prepare, so that’s what I base my timeline on.”
But Grozev cautioned the wishful thinkers in the West who hope that a putsch against Putin would end the war in Ukraine. “Unfortunately, the people who I’ve talked to, the insiders, they’re saying don’t hold your breath about an anti-war coalition taking power,” Grozev said. “Whoever comes to power will feel obligated to continue the war because of the ingrained belief that if we lose the war, Russia will disintegrate. Even those that hate that Putin started the war don’t want to be responsible for Russia’s disintegration.”
[...]
Dobrokhotov had an interesting response, by the way, to the opinion voiced by some Russia observers that Prigozhin was taken out not because of his treachery, but because someone else wanted his business. “That’s a theory, but from everything I know about Putin’s world, the money is always secondary,” Dobrokhotov explained. “The primary thing is power and politics. It’s not if you have money you have power. It’s if you have power you have money. It’s never the opposite.” The money, which is taken as profits skimmed from companies whose operating expenses are covered by the federal budget—“the babushki,” as Dobrokhotov put it—is there to secure people’s loyalty, so that Putin can stay in power. “Putin allows people like Kovalchuk and Prigozhin to earn and secure their loyalty,” he explained. “Putin doesn’t need money. He doesn’t spend it. He already has everything he wants.”
[...]
From the Kremlin’s point of view, however, the business was never really Prigozhin’s to begin with. Wagner had been a G.R.U. project. Wagner fighters trained on G.R.U. bases and were often armed and commanded by the G.R.U. It’s a reminder that nothing in Russia ever really belongs to you. You own something until the state decides to take it away. Prigozhin was just the manager until he proved himself untrustworthy.
Putin sitter emellertid knappast säkert. Å andra sidan är det högst oklart vilka förändringar ett maktskifte skulle innebära.
