Russian elections this month - exciting!

[Spoiler alert - contains election result]  

The exciting prospect of a Russian election is upon us!  Not the Presidential this time, but the Duma and lots of regional governors.  Who will win?  Can United Russia cling on to power?  Despite an approval rating in the 30's, down from 42%[1] earlier in the year ...

Well, yes.  

Firstly, the authorities have taken the precaution of banning the only previously-tolerated 'opposition' party, which had the temerity to oppose the Special Military Operation almost from the outset.  Up until now this had been allowed to pass, but not any longer.  Secondly, the Fix is In.  

Putin has declared that he's looking for United Russia to get 85%.  (Long-time readers will recall that my sources gave the Presidential result to within the percentage last time around[2]: they are good, these election-fixers!  Eat your heart out, Donald.) 

The only small cloud on the horizon is opposition from an unexpected source - the Orthodox Church.  His Holiness the Patriarch is firmly onside, but a schism has emerged within the ranks of the bishops, among which there is a 'peace party', apparently.  And just a little bit less easy to suppress, when they've reportedly each had a dream/vision that tells them peace should be declared.

But hey - how many divisions has the episcopy?

ND

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[1] the authorities in Russia carry out extensive social-survey polling.

[2] I had reported - in advance - that the result would be 87% for Putin.  In the event, it was declared as 87.3%.  But later, inexplicably, it was re-counted(!) and the official record now says 88.4%.  See, L'il Volodya really cares about his ratings!  And I'm guessing that 85% satisfies amour propre all round - high, but Not As High As His ...

Economic & unconventional warfare against Russia

Things are getting quite ugly for Putin - who faces "elections" shortly - and Russia generally.  High on his list of irritants is the ever more visible and effective campaign of economic and psychological warfare being waged from the skies by Ukraine, adroitly conceived and impressively executed.  The initial phase of this was targeted against oil and gas infrastructure, which has had the desired two-fold effect: genuine economic harm, and extremely visible with it, in terms of both enormous and persistent plumes of black smoke, not least around major cities, and the pockets and P&Ls of all who need to buy oil products.  (We had a truly risible troll BTL a few weeks ago suggesting the Ukrainians were histrionically putting a tank of kerosene in with the drone warhead to create a more photogenic explosion.  Errr, and better combustion on the target, maybe?)

The even more cleverly conceived campaign is that being waged against the mega-depots of the WildBerries chain**, often likened to Amazon.  If anything, relative to the Russian economy WB is even more economically significant than Amazon, because a vast number of Russia's extensive raft of small businesses uses WB as not only a route to market in marketing terms, but also as their sole storage and distribution means.  The impact is every bit as big and more, as would be systematic disruption to Amazon in the West; and, again, the smoke plumes are black, enormous, and visible to much of the population, either first-person or extensively on social meejah.  Needless to say, with enormous, combustible, static targets like refineries and depots spread across the vastness of the Russian land mass, there's not much realistic prospect of shooting down everything that is coming their way, much as efforts are being made.  

From studiously ignoring it all in the early phases, pre-election Putin has felt obliged to make oblique references to indicate he does really know what's going on as it affects the Russian in the street, and that it's all being brought under control.   Right.

So much, so obvious - to even the casual watcher of the BBC News.  But there's something else going on that you may not be aware of.

A clever little psychological campaign has been running for several months now, using social meejah in Russia to suggest that bank deposits will inevitably be frozen once the "elections" are over.  It's been nicely understated: a word to the wise, a tap of the nose, nudge nudge wink wink.  But it's starting to have the desired effect - the early signs of a run on the banks.  This of course could easily become a self-fulfilling dynamic, and it is reported that powers have been taken to effect a freeze whenever L'il Volodya is willing to give the word.  A very high-profile Russian economist has just been fired for having the temerity to state publicly -  in plain but very measured terms - that an economic crisis for Russia is around the corner on a scale that can be survived, but not without extreme steps being taken by the state.  

It is against this background that Putin's posse has announced "there will be consequences" for the UK, our having supplied Ukraine with drones.  Given that we supplied Storm Shadow missiles, very much more effective (and expensive) several years ago, it cannot be said that we've crossed any particular red lines just recently.  The list of Putin's red lines that we and the West generally have blithely crossed since 2022 is long indeed, so this recent huffing and puffing is clearly to be assessed in today's precise context.  My guess would be that right now, they really don't want any more interference on the banking front and are hoping to deter us from anything that might exacerbate the aforesaid nascent run on the banks.  Russia has long been obsessed with the dark powers they associate with the City.  Watch this space.

Finally, and anticipating what might be the trolls' response to this little update; OK yes, Ukraine is suffering badly, too.  Of course it is!  Ukraine has been suffering badly - very badly - every day since February 2022!  As we well know.  The point is, everyday life in Russia is hurting now, in ways that can't be ignored, even as Putin clamps down on the internet.   The introduction of a bit of symmetry is a big, big difference in the overall situation.

ND

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** As ever with big, prominent enterprises in Russia, there is a lot of politics and organised crime associated with WildBerries, by far the biggest of several such chains.  WB itself is run by very well-connected Armenian interests: its connections in very high places are just as well because it is at daggers drawn with the Chechen mafia.  The other, lesser chains have been left more or less unmolested, which stirs up Russian politics even more.

The 'evolution' of the Russian oil and gas industry

Wind the clock back to 2022 and Russia has the biggest oil and gas infrastructure in the world: the country is sometimes referred to sarcastically as a nuclear-armed gas station.  It's fully functional, although not very sophisticated - the amount of wasteful flaring that goes on is legendary (of gas at oil production facilities, and of oil at gas producing locations); and there are few conventional sophistications such as accurate metering and non-return valves.  Nonetheless, it's the primary pillar of the Russian economy.

What a target!

Well, Ukraine started setting about it seriously in 2024.  To start with, their offensive means being rather slight at that stage, they went for plant in the neighbouring oblasts.  Right from the word go, these pinpricks revealed huge, structural vulnerabilities.

Vulnerable ...

Russia immediately realised just how serious it might be, and set about devising counter-measures.  They encouraged oil enterprises to invest in small arms (requiring a change in the law) for local defence[1], and experimented with wire cages and steel gantries to create physical barriers - an utterly futile effort because, even if a drone hits a cable ten metres away from its target, it stands a very good chance of rupturing it anyway.  We know all this because helpful Russian locals are keen on home videos and social media - and of course good old Google Earth provides astonishingly detailed coverage of most of western Russia, filmed closer to sensitive facilities than is allowed in Western countries! 

Then, there's that lack of non-return valves, meaning that a single blazing tank can burn for ten days - there's no way of cutting it off from the pipeline network which then gaily feeds the flames.   Oh, and effecting repairs ain't so easy: any component even vaguely sophisticated comes only from western manufacturers and is under embargo - meaning costly and time-consuming black market procurement. 

Other palliative measures have been tried.  Initially, officials would simply lie about the damage done.   There are strict Russian injunctions against publishing photos of these goings-on - hah!  To this day, every strike is broadcast to the www in realtime.  Then, there are missions by the Orthodox Church, variously to bless oil facilities, to pray for their safety, and to send clerics to attend upon the fire-fighting efforts[2].  Evidently this approach has its limits.[3]

Well.  As Ukraine develops ever longer-range strike capabilities, the list of potential targets gets bigger and bigger.  And of course their location is known rather exactly, and they can't be moved!  Nor, in practical terms, can they be defended.  They are being picked off, one by one - the three most noteworthy being perhaps successive raids on the main Moscow City refinery and one close to St Petersberg, plus Omsk.  The first two of these prime targets bring the war rather close to home for everyone in those cities with a pair of eyes (and a nose); the third sets distance records (getting on for 3,000 km).  And of course, there are serious fuel shortages - in Russia! - to the point where exports have been banned and very large-scale imports are being sought; but the harvest is still under threat, industry is feeling the pinch, and ordinary Russians, particularly in the south and west, are really stuck.

Notwithstanding the Deputy PM's classically euphemistic description of this, ("interruptions in the supply of fuel caused by changes in logistics") even Putin - who likes to keep his hands clean from disasters of all kinds - has been forced to pronounce.  Here are his dicta of yesterday: 

He called the difficulties with fuel "temporary" and associated, among other things, with "the enemy's attempts to disrupt the vacation season".  (Oh yes, the Russian vacation season is uppermost in Kyiv's strategic thinking.)  

"The safety margin of the Russian energy system is one of the highest in the world." (Measured by reserves in the ground, presumably.) 

"The enemy is trying to create a nervous situation in Russian society."  (Trying?) 

He called for a speedy decision to subsidize fuel purchases  (Not clear where the money will come from for that, but let's see.) 

He instructed the speedy deployment of "the capabilities of small and medium-sized businesses in the production of petroleum products". 

This last one is very interesting.  Sure enough, for a country in dire straits, it's a feasible approach to squeeze a few more drops from what's available.  We know from how ISIS conducted its affairs in the areas of Iraq and Syria it once controlled, that home-made micro-refineries are a Thing.  And of course Russians are pretty well versed in home-based distillation!  All this said, at the end of the day a big economy, and certainly one with a huge defence-industrial base on a war footing and trying to ramp up as fast as possible, needs massive quantities of high-grade fuel that only large-scale, uninterrupted, fully industrial production processes can provide - as 1944-45 Germany discovered.

However laughable micro-refineries are as a 'solution' to Russia's problem, one can't rule out a proliferation of medium-sized plant - given time.  But development of this on any scale would be a matter of years, not months, and require skills and components that "medium-size businesses" won't find readily to hand - even if their staff all manage home-made vodka stills on the side.  And it would never be able to produce high-grade product.  And there would be other vulnerable choke-points to be found in such a newly-diversified system.  And individual new targets would be even less plausibly covered by air defences.  Etc etc.  In sum: this is truly desperate stuff.

ND

[1]  As one Russian milblogger put it, "successfully" shooting down a drone with small arms directly over the target is likely to be "a posthumous achievement".  Gotta love Russian sarcasm.

[2]  In one famous incident, a posse of Orthodox clerics attending a tank blaze after three days of futile fire-fighting to assist with their very best prayers, were killed when the tank exploded.  The same fire burned on for another week.

[3]  But clerical efforts continue.  The Church has been ordered to organise a pilgrimage, starting out at the Omsk facility, Russia's largest (now closed following this week's bombardment), and proceeding to join the dots of refineries all along a route ending in Crimea.  Reportedly, the Church has refused to carry out the last bit because Crimea is too dangerous for clerics just now.  But the Church has renewed its demands for the raising of tithes, priority for priests in gasoline allocations, and the banning of abortion and neo-paganism.  See?  Russia is a different world.  

Desperate bluffing by Putin

This post will come replete with major caveats in due course, but let's start with the headline.  Vladimir Putin is bluffing like crazy over the inevitability of his victory, and will continue doing so for the next three months (until after the upcoming "elections") against the seemingly slender hope that Trump will somehow ride to his rescue and force Ukraine to accept something that can be portrayed as "victory" for Russia.  Given that use of nukes is off the table, bluffing plus outright airborne slaughter in Kyiv are practically all he has left.

To sum up:

• the Russian 2026 "spring-summer offensive" has yielded miniscule net[1] territorial gains at the cost of phenomenal Russian casualties.  All objectives remain unmet.
• counting from the front line to St Petersburg and beyond, the Ukrainian medium- and deep-strike campaign, notably on oil and logistics assets, has: seriously incommoded Russian forces at the front (supplies must be brought up by drone and on foot); paralysed transport on major roads in the occupied territories, with critical shortages of fuel - & water - in Donetsk, and Crimea almost under siege; made significant dents in manufacturing facilities of the Russian industrial-military complex across a very wide swathe of the country; seriously hampered telecomms and air movements across western Russia; wreaked colossal damage on the oil industry, with severe shortages resulting (and forcing large-scale imports from Belarus, India and other nations) that must soon have significant inflationary, industrial and food-production consequences; via vast palls of black smoke over Moscow and St Petersburg, demonstrated vividly and demeaningly to the populace that nowhere is safe from highly accurate drone and missile bombardment.
• having thus far failed miserably in the planned effort to censor the internet in Chinese style, Putin faces a populace that can see all this quite clearly.  Not withstanding the existence of some loyalist diehards that will cling to Putin's infallibility as they did to Stalin's, the greater part of the people, realistic cynics as most Russians are, have clocked it all as being at the very least, not at all what they were sold back in 2022, but in fact starting to impinge on them directly.  To call this "unrest" would be to misunderstand how Russia has always been: but it's a near equivalent.
• the economy is in a bad way, and short term relief from Iran-war oil prices has been overtaken by those prices falling back again PLUS the abovementioned actual shortage of oil products.

There are very big decisions pending for after those elections, in two categories:

1. the economy: if nothing changes, really deep measures will be needed;
2. manpower: if Putin decides to soldier on, even just to the extent of trying to capture the rest of the Donbass (and his stated territorial goals extend a lot further than that), he'll need a very large intake of new conscripts - perhaps a million.

So: given that's all 3 months away, during which time Putin doubtless feels he can (just about) maintain a facade of BAU, he sees little downside to giving the Trump card one last play.  Look, we're advancing on all fronts - let me lend you this magnifying glass - and can carry on like this forever!  Get that clown to surrender, now - and cash in your Nobel Prize voucher!!  Yeah, right.  Even Witless-Dumkopf, even Trump himself, have probably spotted the flaws in that line of reasoning.

One other thing, before the caveats.  L'il Volodya also shows signs of losing it a bit.  It's always necessary to enter notes of caution here because he's been written off as a dying man for years.  But in a very high-profile set-piece "interview" he gave recently, he dropped a real Biden of a clanger and declared Ukrainian troops in a town deep inside Russia were only 2 km away from being totally surrounded.  He was obviously mistaking it for some tiny Ukrainian settlement he'd been briefed about but forgotten the name of - commentators have made various guesses because it's not entirely obvious which.  But this in the full glare of prime time Russian TV.  Not a helpful incident.

And the caveats?  It's basically the usual one, with a specific twist.  It's always wise to assume that there is no limit to the suffering that can be imposed on the Russian people, however cynical they may be.  That's one manifestation of "the mysterious Russian soul"[2] that they are so proud of.  And I doubt there are any moral limits to the extent Putin is willing to exploit that, even if there might be some political constraints in an internet age.  So my opening list of how bad things are in Russia needs to be considered in that light.  BUT it cuts both ways: Ukrainians are equally able to take it, as they've proved heroically for over four years in defiance of almost all expectations.  Are they crumbling in the next 3 months?  No, they ain't.  And of course they have the tremendous backstop of EU / UK funding, without which it would have all been up for them some while ago.

The special twist is this: all the evidence points to Putin not knowing in detail what's actually happening.  He uses neither mobile phone nor laptop.  The military accounts he receives are just the icing on the mighty traditional Russian layer-cake of filing "beautiful reports" at every stage along the chain; and we can probably assume the economic and industrial reports he gets are similarly sugared.  It's only occasionally that hard facts seem to get through to him.  This all makes it even more likely that he'll play the game of attrition by infinite suffering.  Scary stuff.

There is one last fallback for Putin - China: because we all assume Xi won't let him "actually lose the war".  But Xi also serves as a restraining influence: he's ruled out nukes in no uncertain terms; and note how the 2024 experiment using 10,000 North Korean troops in front-line roles quietly came to an end without being scaled up, or even just continued. 

And "actually losing the war" may not be a relevant criterion: look how badly things have become for Putin with China notionally having his back!  I don't think he'll be getting any change from the Donald either just now: a(nother) failed "peace process" is the last thing Trump needs before the mid-terms.  

ND

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[1] 'Net', because Ukraine has been successfully counter-attacking on a couple of fronts and re-seized territory of its own.

[2] Here's some more of my attempts to illuminate these big cultural differences. 

Toughing it out: Starmer, Putin, Trump

Toughing things out isn't quite the same as playing for time, although the latter (an intellectually very dull strategy, but often effective) can be part of it.  One reason it can work for the obdurate party is that an awful lot of opponents have read their Sun Tzu and are hoping to gain their victory by manoeuvre and psychology alone, i.e. without bloodshed - which involves the incumbent vacating the battlefield before any clash of main forces.

Well, the other side has a vote in these matters, which all parties need to remember.  We have three prominent examples in play right now.

Starmer.   We've long suggested that Team Starmer has every intention of toughing it out, and in the last couple of days he stated he would contest any leadership election that might be forced upon the Labour Party.  Quite obviously, yer Burnhams and yer Steetings are hoping he'll be driven away without a fight, perhaps out of sheer embarrassment.  Note that Burham said last week that IF there's a contest (and IF he's an MP), he'd stand.  That's a man waiting for a coronation, not one armed with a pre-drafted letter in 81 copies.  

And there's probably quite a few Labour MPs who don't want to be put on the spot, too, when the Whips come round with nomination papers and thumbscrews.  Well, who knows what a few more weeks and Mandy-scandals will bring for TS - but since 'shamelessness' is his second name, he can probably hold on until the last minute.  So there you go, boys: you're gonna have to winkle him out.

UPDATE:  this, from the Graun - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/10/keir-starmer-aides-war-gaming-over-leadership-contest-with-andy-burnham

Trump.   Obviously not in such imminent political peril; but he sure ain't enjoying where he finds himself vis-à-vis Iran and world opinion generally.  (WTF did they go ahead with that Beijing visit for - I mean, either of them, Trump or Xi?  Literally nothing achieved.  At least, though, it doesn't appear Trump gave away the farm this time, which was the danger.  What might he do to cajole Xi to go ahead with the planned Washington visit, though?) 

Anyhow, in what's clearly an orchestrated effort, there has been a splurge of "Trump really knows what he is doing" articles - a demeaning task for the poor writers involved because manifestly he hasn't a f*****g clue.  I'd spotted a few in UK media, and thought it was empty sycophancy: but US contacts tell me it's been a blizzard over there.  The joke is, one of the oft-repeated lines is that Trump is pursuing clearly-stated Original War Aims - and then they cite different ones!  Of course, there have been so many to choose from, sometimes all in the space of a single morning in Trumpworld.  Does it all make the Donald feel happier?  Who can tell.   

Putin.  Ah yes, Li'l Volodya again, with two more humiliations in the past few days: the Ukrainian bombing of St Petersburg, literally casting a dark cloud over the SPIEF-fest; and the Armenian elections, which he had convinced himself had been sufficiently 'influenced' as to give a pro-Moscow result.  (This comes after Victory Day, Hungary, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Azerbaijan, etc etc - and of course the Chinese gas sale debacle.   Not to mention the casualties ... we've done this all before.)

But no: he's refusing to engage with Zelenskyy's insolent letter, and maintaining that Russia is on the path to inevitable total victory & fulfillment of his Original War Aims - however fatuous that sounds to, err, absolutely everyone.  So as we order industrial quantities of popcorn for the months ahead, let's just poke a little more fun by recounting what happened during SPIEF under that dark, oily pall.

• the WiFi failed
• overseas visitors were provided with VPN and SIMs so that they could access WA, etc (banned and 'blocked' in Russia)
• the useless Max messenger (the mandatory replacement for soon-to-be-banned-altogether Telegram) received its official launch - and promptly disappeared from the AppStore
• journalists were asked not to take photos of the lavish parties 
• ditto of the hookers provided for delegates
• residents had their hot water switched back on for the week (in St Petersburg the hot water provided by municipal district heating schemes is switched off in summer), presumably so they could present a fragrant atmosphere in the street 

But still he's not for turning ...[1].  These world leaders, eh? - they're so ... tough.

UPDATE:  reporting within Russia has it that the cyber aspects of Putin's personal security regime have been switched off.  This makes protecting him in some aspects more difficult: but has been occasioned by acute fears stemming from the ease with which Israel was manifestly able to track Iranian and Hezbollah leaders.  As we know, Putin is a physical coward [2] who seriously hopes to live to be 150.  But just because he's paranoid - aspects of which are noted by the FT - that doesn't mean 'someone' isn't out to get him.  (But probably not Mr Z.)

ND

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[1]  Tellingly. however, in occupied Ukraine the Russians are seriously digging in - vast underground citadels being built.  They clearly envisage the need to defend what they now hold, rather than feeling confident of pushing ever further forward into the territory they assert is theirs for the taking, as Putin reckons is happening right now.  It's readily understandable, not least because Ukraine has rendered vulnerable every movement of vehicles and rolling stock, across the occupied territories and a significant swathe beyond, seriously incommoding Russian logistics.  Summer shortages of oil and even water in some of these areas will be acute.  It's truly hard to envisage how the much vaunted Russian "2026 Offensive" will materialize in any manner worthy of the name.

[2]   Let's get ahead of the "how do you know this?" trolling, with (a) his obvious blind terror of covid  - back to SPIEF again, anyone allowed to attend his address & press conference in person had to go through rigorous covid testing, even in 2026 (and he wasn't going to kiss them anyway); and  (b) seemingly, a new-found terror of hantavirus (sic!).  It has seriously been floated in Russia that the Special Military Operation should be brought to a conclusion swiftly, because of ... wait for it ... the risk of hantavirus running riot among front-line troops.  WTF?  There's only one reason why that sort of arrant nonsense appears: it's because someone who wants a prompt end to the SMO knows which of Putin's buttons to press.

2 surprisingly interesting reads: Zelenskyy - and AEP!

A couple of worthwhile calls on your time today.  Let's take the lighter one first.

From the mercurial AEP, whose regular output on energy-related issue is Pollyanna-ish net zero bilge, a lengthy take-down of the deep impracticalities of the putative AI boom as it is currently envisaged.  The energy aspect is of course one major strand; cooling-water is another, and the emptiness of "OK, well we'll just build our own gas-fired power plants instead".  And then the financial implications!  Somewhere in there (or maybe it was BTL), though, there is a hint of how things may progress in subtler ways.  If AEP is correct on the brick wall of physical limitations to AI's currently-planned trajectory, it'll need to be a subtler approach.   Otherwise ... bubble is bubble.

From Zelenskyy; an open letter to Putin, suggesting face-to-face negotiations - which is worth reading in full, not just some newspaper summary.

At the very least, this is a useful and pretty comprehensive tour d'horizon from the Kyiv perspective, and a summary of just how many cards Mr Z holds right now.  Interestingly, though, whether by design or accident it's also pretty insulting to Putin.  Maybe Z has inadvertently overdone the projection of the (current) strength of the Ukrainian position - which you might argue he was always going to do at the start of a putative negotiation.  Well, but better done in the proposed face-to-face meeting, hmm?  

Or maybe (since, at his best, Z is pretty sharp) the intended audience is Trump and the ROW anyway, if he knows Putin has no intention of negotiating with Ukraine anyway.  Remind the Donald that Z does actually hold several cards right now.

Or maybe, like the "permission" graciously given to Putin for his 2026 Victory Day parade (another sharp slap from Z), it's purposefully intended to humiliate Putin on the eve of today's big St Petersburg address to the SPIEF - if indeed he deigns to turn up in person after the impressive warning shots fired in that direction earlier in the week.

Or maybe it's to bring to Putin's attention the long list of things he doesn't seem to know - cat among the pigeons.  Putin's people say he "is being briefed" on the Z letter.  Yeah, they'll be dead keen not to let him read the original in full - they lie to him consistently about the true situation on many fronts, and wouldn't want him firing off the obvious supplementary questions.  And they may well succeed, since by repute he never so much as touches the keys of a laptop, still less knows how to log in or access the www for himself.  Old-fashioned red telephones for L'il Volodya ...

ND

How long can Russia keep this up?

An odd barb sometimes thrown in this blog's direction (from who-knows-what troll factory) is that since Russia's invasion of Ukraine four years ago (four!) we have been predicting the imminent collapse of Russia itself.  Well, we haven't.  Ever.  In fact, right from the start we have said that ultimately there's nothing to stop Putin taking Ukraine if he really wants to - which, if anything, was far too generous to L'il Volodya and his ramshackle army.  Further, we've always remarked that the Russian capacity for enduring privation and general suffering should never be underestimated. 

But it is beginning to look as though Putin's stamina is waning.  There are so many straws in the wind: in no particular order -

• the 'victory' parade, hugely-reduced in scale and betraying obvious fears for its security, to the point where Putin could be humiliated (the word used by Russian milbloggers) by Zelenskyy's gracious 'permission' to go ahead with the parade
• widespread and debilitating fuel shortages, courtesy of Ukraine's remarkable drone campaign ...
•  ... which, incidentally, has - yet again - blithely crossed one of Russia's stated nuclear red lines in terms of its scale ("the massive launch / take-off of aerospace attack weapons ... and their crossing of the state border of the Russian Federation")
• Russia's re-engagement with US negotiators, with the usual risible sabre-rattling
• the background PR planning for a sudden 'declaration of victory' - even based on today's status quo, if necessary
• serious domestic discontent at frequent blocking of the www and the (supposedly) imminent closure of access to Telegram, all in the name of 'security'
• internal dismay at the Hungarian election result, adding to keenly-felt impotence over Syria / Cuba / Venezuela
• serious economic issues, macro and micro - see below
• angst over the pitiful battlefield performance thus far in 2026 - zero net progress** in the spring/summer offensive campaign (intended to capture the remaining Donbass territory by autumn: Kkarkiv, Kherson and Odessa are rarely mentioned these days); casualty rates exceeding enlistments; and Ukraine has achieved, at least for now, superiority in the 'battlefield air interdiction' (BAI) stakes, courtesy of its swarms of very smart drones and their equally smart deployment in Russia's immediate rear, over and above the deeper oil refinery campaign 
• etc etc: I could go on.

Oh, and on the global scale, no joy from Xi on the long (very long)-awaited deal for more gas sales to China, a farce that we've often written about here in the past - check the 'Gazprom' tag - another serious strategic disappointment.

Even so, I still don't reckon on near-term "collapse", or defenestration of Putin.  He has plenty of tools to prevent either.  But I do say he's now beginning to think seriously in terms of an off-ramp: and many powerful people in Russia are even more seriously trying to get this to the top of the agenda.

In the midst of it all, the IISS has published this sober analysis.  It doesn't predict imminent collapse either; but it does set out the genuine problems and major dilemma Putin faces.  Between now and Xmas, I'm guessing we'll see recognisable, tangible movement taking place - in one direction or another.

ND 

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** Ukraine has in fact started making systematic small-scale territorial (re)gains all over the front, which in recent weeks have been larger than Russia's own small territorial gains.  On both sides these are to be understood in context: they are trivial in extent - largely infiltration sorties - and essentially opportunist in nature.  But there's a big difference: Russia's are intended, and indeed celebrated, as purposeful steps towards the taking of the Donbass; i.e. they are meant to be strategic.  Ukraine's, by contrast, are tactical spoiling measures - highly disruptive for any coherent Russian offensive this year.  But if they do indeed have that effect, they add up to having an important strategic consequence.

Trump and Putin: making up war aims on the fly

You don't need to be a second Clausewitz to know that wars of choice should have well-defined goals before even the planning gets underway, let alone the execution[1].  In saying this, nobody is advocating total inflexibility thereafter; but to launch a war without proper goals at the outset is just buccaneering adventurism.

It's a commonplace observation that Trump hasn't a clue what he's doing in the Middle East, beyond representing a vague, atavistic American fixation with Iran, and harbouring a ludicrously and dangerously false equation between Venezuela 2026 and Iran 2026.  To the extent he sometimes feels the urge to state one or more war aims, he's issued so many over the hours, days and weeks that it merely goes to reinforce his brainlessness.  (To its credit, the intelligentsia in the USA is gradually shaking off its paralysis of 2025 and is ready to call him out in scathing detail -  see this from the estimable Ryan Evans.)  Already we can offer his Iranian adventure as a perfect illustration of the principle given above: and we haven't remotely seen the full downside potential yet.

But there's another perfect illustration bubbling away somewhere north of Iran, where Putin still conducts his own ill-conceived war on Ukraine.

At the very outset, he articulated two war aims, plus a long list of gripes and grievances.  They were: (A) to "de-Nazify" Ukraine's body politic; and (B) to "demilitarise Ukraine".  In the same announcement he declared he had no territorial claims on Ukraine (sic), although it's fair to note that at the same time he was asserting that Luhansk and Donetsk were independent countries.  And of course he assumed that after his lightning war, there would be a puppet regime in Kyiv, Belarus-style, that would render territorial conquest irrelevant.

[In the runup to the "special military operation" (which was "defensive, in aid of Luhansk and Donetsk"), he had of course demanded that NATO and the EU shun Ukraine, and that the former must withdraw to pre-accession borders.  But those were hardly war aims: he hoped they'd fall into his lap at the negotiating table when Ukraine was, errr, defeated.]

Given A and B above, manifestly he has completely and utterly failed even by his own lights; and everyone in Russia knows it.  There has been no regime change in Kyiv, whatever childish political label he wants to attach to it.  And demilitarisation?  Pound for pound, Ukraine now has the best army in the world, a thriving defence industry, world-leading expertise in drone warfare, etc etc; and is reducing a vastly larger force to ruinously costly advances through unimportant hamlets at snail's pace.   Oh yes, and on the other side of the front line it is degrading Russia's mighty energy industry to a material degree; periodically grounding its civil air movements; blocking its ports; sinking its ships; and (in conjunction with sanctions) hobbling its economy.   

Here's where it gets interesting for the theme of this post.  Reports from fairly reliable Russian sources suggest Putin is under tremendous internal political pressure to find an off-ramp before the economy nosedives.  Those oligarchs still have some sway, if they conduct themselves cautiously.  One major thrust of this exercise[2] is to come up with some - wait for it - War Aims, such as can plausibly be declared duly accomplished.  Then it's "home for tea and medals" as we say in the British Army.

What, then, do we imagine his newly-forged war aims will be?  It's a serious question, notwithstanding  that sarcastic suggestions come quickly to mind.  

We'll take both kinds BTL - let's see what we can come up with to help L'il Volodya with Project "Absolute Victory26".

ND 

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[1] Long-time readers will know I often laud George HW Bush (Bush Snr) for his adherence to this principle when setting out to evict Saddam from Kuwait, 1990-91.  More on that conflict by following the 'Kuwait' and 'Saddam' tags on that post.

[2] Another is to keep plugging away at Trump, trying to persuade him that utter Ukrainian defeat is just around the corner, so why not tell Zelensky to surrender?  Yeah, right.  I have a feeling the moment for this gambit has passed.

Trump screws up as bigly as Putin

From the outset of Putin's crassly conceived invasion of Ukraine, this blog has consistently criticised the sheer military and strategic incompetence of it.  We can hardly forbear to do the same for Trump.

The Donald's theory of victory appears to be this:

• prolonged, well-telegraphed buildup of forces
• decapitate[1] the leadership
• tell Iran to install new leader acceptable to Trump
• new leader to hand over lots of oil via some splendid "deal"
• walk away after a couple of weeks, handsomely in profit
• not crow too openly about having tweaked Xi's nose
• approach the mid-term elections as the Man Who Brought The Mullahs To Heel

In short, the 'Venezuela' gambit, attempted on a country that only a complete moron would mistake for Venezuela[2].  Another lightning "deal": it's the only trick he knows.  Not a breath of strategy worthy of the name.  Not a braincell in evidence.  Tariffs all over again, with actual explosions.

We needn't dwell on how the reality is best described as Netanyahu coopting[3] the military might of the USA to make real Bibi's longstanding wet dream: it's how the whole world openly discusses it including, belatedly, 99% of the American public, which until now had been either (a) hoping Trump might somehow work out for the best (Maga Republicans) or (b) not daring to oppose Trump openly, for fear of some vaguely defined domestic retribution (Democrats plus liberal elites of all colours[4]).

If you want to lose sleep seriously this weekend, have a read of this.  Small-boat crossings on the increase?  We haven't seen a tenth of it.

ND

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[1] Well, tag along with Netanyahu's decapitation plan & pretend to be in control - read this, too.

[2] Funnily enough, the Venezuela gambit was working quite well, and Cuba was being lined up for a "quick deal" too, which could have played very nicely for the mid-terms[5].  Not any more.

[3] Did I say "coopting"?  How about "hijacking and expending"?  All Hesgeth's blather about "effectively unlimited magazine depth" was always, even a week ago, absolute nonsense.  Stocks are already being drawn down from US forces in S.Korea.  Taiwan looks increasingly like a lost cause, and S.Korea will presumably be readying its own nuclear programme.  Indeed, probably the only reason L'il Kim doesn't chance his arm right now is the recognition that DJT is capable of anything. 

[4] It was really noticeable how The US Establishment (media, judiciary, academia, NGOs, think tanks, institutes etc - even those that are essentially on the right) - initially went completely silent after November '24, and withheld much-needed criticism all through last year.  Presumably they all feared for their funding (or worse) - and rightly so in many cases.  That winter of silence has been thawing of late.

[5] The Dems had better not be complacent in their approach to the mid-terms: conventional wisdom of the "don't worry, it'll all be over soon" kind has been the downfall of many a lazy politician.  The whole of the British left thought that about Thatcher in 1981.  And we must be very cautious before assuming the US military will "refuse to obey illegal orders", as some spineless Dems have been urging.

Crossing Putin's Red Lines

It's an observation often made, here and elsewhere, that the Ukraine-supporting West (as well as Ukraine itself) has many times crossed a large number of Putin's soi-dissant 'Red Lines' [1] since he mounted his inept, failed full-scale invasion of that country exactly four years ago tomorrow.  Before and during this string of Putin-prodding acts of lèse-majesté, there was a head of steam building up among the weaker hands that he would respond with nuclear retaliation.  Well, he never has - despite waving his wiener in that direction very demonstratively, several times.[2] 

Well now.  Last week, Ukraine's extremely effective campaign of deep strikes - sometimes very deep - into Mother Russia itself moved into new territory.  In the past they've blown up entire ammunition depots (with explosions registering on earthquake detectors); seriously incommoded the Bear's very large petrochemical industry; and made some telling attacks on selected hi-tech armaments manufactories.  Not to mention the astounding Operation Spiderweb.  Oh, and very probably a handful of assassinations in Moscow.  

But last week they excelled themselves: 

... a FP-5 Flamingo missile strike against the Russian state-owned Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Votkinsk, Udmurtia Republic (roughly 1230 kilometers from the international border). The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Votkinsk Plant produces Yars-series intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched Bulava ballistic missiles (SLBM), 9M723-1 type Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and 9-S-7760 Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles.  Russian opposition outlet Astra and a Ukrainian open-source intelligence project reported that the plant also produces Topol-M missile systems and Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM). Geolocated footage published on February 20 shows smoke rising from the Votkinsk Plant.  Udmurtia Republic Governor Aleksandr Brechalov acknowledged that Ukrainian drones struck and damaged an unspecified facility in Udmurtia.

Here's the thing: as part of the sabre-rattling, a couple of years ago Putin updated his public policy on use of nuclear weapons, in a manner designed to convince the West that the threshold for a Russian nuclear response is now quite a bit lower.   The new doctrine states that the use of nuclear weapons is possible in the event of the disabling of critical nuclear facilities, or massive attacks that pose such a threat.

So how does he classify last week's attack?  If he was looking for an excuse to go nuclear - in the middle of the current "trilateral negotiations" - it rather looks as though he might find one.

I say this simply as an observation.  Let's see if we all have further 'observations' in the course of the next days and weeks.

ND

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[1] Too many to list them all, but here are some (NOT including the demands that NATO withdraw from the 'new member states' etc etc made before the invasion):

• No Western arms of any kind to be supplied 
• No MiG 29s from former E.Bloc countries
• No former USSR tanks ditto
• No weapons whatsoever from Germany
• No HIMARs
• No Patriot missiles
• No Storm Shadows
• No Western tanks
• No F-16s
• No strikes inside Russia
• No Ukrainian counter-offensives into territory already captured

He probably would have included "no 6-month incursions into Kursk" - if he'd imagined for one instant that the Ukrainians were capable of it.  (Or given reliable reports by his ever-mendacious military.)

[2] Of course, Xi has told him to wind his nuclear neck in - an injunction that is probably still in force.

Venezuela through Russian and Chinese eyes

In the previous post I suggested: 

... the Venezuela adventure is ... forcing Putin to eat more shit as he is lamely reduced to asking that his tanker crew will be nicely looked after.  Yep, lots of random shit happens on Planet Trump ... both Russia and Xi are utterly dismayed, as ever, by the casual ease with which perfidious western nations sweep away years and even decades of patient strategic effort: this time Venezuela, the latest in a long series  

- that series including Libya, Syria and Iran-as-Middle-East-counterweight (and supplier of arms to Russia).

Taking Russia first: Putin really had set a lot of strategic store by Venezuela - proportionately, a lot more than Xi, for whom these things are merely road-bumps, however annoying and tactically unpredictable.  Ditto Syria, ditto Iran.  Putin is beholden to N.Korea, FFS, at the same time as trying to project a superpower profile, so these setbacks are pretty hard to swallow.  The Bear with the sore head is unlikely to cut anyone any favours on its western borders, witness the performative missile strike on Lviv; but he'll be watching Iran with an awful sense of déjà-vue doom.  Where to parade his plonker now, except in the Donbas?

China looks very different.  Xi pretty much believes in regional hegemony!  So Venezuela may be a bit of a setback to a maturing long-term plan, and oil is oil; but hey, Taiwan is the only thing he really cares about, period.  

Also, he's looking forward to wiping the floor with Trump - again - this year.  He played Trump brutally last year.  You say 'tariffs', Mr Trump?  Nope, and we raise you rare earth metals.  Now, hand over your very best chips, lots of them, before we reduce your remaining industries to rust and dust ... That's the way, Donald, there's a good boy.  Now run along.

And 2026 is the mid-terms ...  Venezuela, pffft.  Trump and Xi are scheduled for a couple of summits this year, and the Chinese will be expecting to ream him again.  What else of gigantic strategic value will Trump give away this time?  The dawning of the Chinese era stands to be accelerated materially in just a few months. Scary stuff. 

ND

UPDATE:  see thread below - this is getting complicated !  

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/17/china-blocks-nvidia-h200-ai-chips-that-us-government-cleared-for-export-report

Ukraine - more first drafts of history

Last year's Predictions compo invited short essays on Ukraine.  I largely ducked this one but there was a very decent effort by Caesar H, including: 

Trump comes up with a Big Deal that makes sense to him, Zelensky signs off on it begrudgingly, Putin doesn't. Trump, having paper thin skin, takes this badly ... by year end some of Russia's gains will have reversed, and there'll still be an embedded Ukrainian presence in Russia, and Trump will start suggesting giving them nukes in response to Russia's usual bellicosity about using them. Think of the geopolitical version of "I offered you a way out asshole, you slapped my hand away, so I'm going to crush your nuts until you cry like a little bitch".    I expect this theory to disproven by February of course 

Putting aside the nukes bit, it was actually a very fine prediction.  Putin seemed at first to be playing a decent hand with Trump, but his early political gains have been squandered (does anyone really know how to play Trump?  Even Netanyahu?).  I believe Ukr still holds a few square meters of Russian soil to this day; and although none of Russia's gains as of Jan 2025 have been reversed, several of their advances during 2025 have indeed been reversed - though the definition of "advances" changed during the year**.   

I have no idea what the collective western brainpower around the most recent "coalition of the willing" table thinks they've come up with this week.  They all know, for 100% certain  - even, or perhaps especially Witless, who's had several lengthy in-person lectures from L'il Volodya - that the idea of NATO boots on the ground / air patrols in Ukr airspace are an absolute Red Line for Putin, despite the endless red lines of his that the west calmly breezed through in 2022 / 23 / 24.  

Is it a Cunning Plan?  Designed to get a wholly predictable 'Неt' that will enrage the Orange One?  If so, the parallel Venezuela adventure is reinforcing the C-Plan nicely, forcing Putin to eat more shit as he is lamely reduced to asking that his tanker crew will be nicely looked after.  What a piece of serendipity that is!  Yep, lots of random shit happens on Planet Trump.

I don't have a conclusion on Ukraine right now, because a massive and fairly binary pivot-point looms (and of course may fade away again, as have several before).  Just a few observations:

• while there's still nothing to stop Putin having what he wants in terms of the Donbas (as I've said all along), he doesn't seem willing to pay the price (or at very least is understandably reluctant), and still hopes to get it on a plate via a 1-1 with Trump
• the only possible way he'll get more than just the Donbas (in terms of territory or in any other dimension) is also from Trump
• once again, both Russia and Xi are utterly dismayed, as ever, by the casual ease with which perfidious western nations sweep away years and even decades of patient strategic effort: this time Venezuela, the latest in a long series

We'll shortly have another post on this last point.

ND

_________________

** Russia has more-or-less given up on even small-scale armoured thrusts (they all get eliminated piecemeal), or even the motorbike / quad-bike "dragoon" charges of 2024, settling instead for a pretty feeble doctrine of "infiltration on foot in 2s and 3s".  Sometimes this is genuine recce, but mostly it is simply for the sake of probing, and often for no more than raising a flag, having a quick photo taken by a drone, then the job's done, the map is updated, and nobody in the Russian command much cares for the subsequent fate of the probers.

On this last point, honest Russian milboggers are incensed by the endemic Russian practice of over-claiming territorial gains, in what they call "beautiful reports" from lower echelons to higher command and even to Putin himself.  They observe that "victories on credit" frequently result in carnage for the troops on the ground: they are either ordered to "make the maps true" by hurriedly and suicidally advancing into the falsely-claimed territory, and/or having resources taken away because, their having already "gained their objective", they no longer need them.  They also observe that promotions and medals are frequently awarded on the basis of "beautiful reports" alone.

Ukraine: Europe must step up, bigly

If taken at face value, the 28-point plan is clever[1].  In my assessment there's only one clause that, pragmatically speaking, should give Ukraine serious pause - and we're still talking "at face value" here, as well as "pragmatic" - and that's the surrender of the territory in the Donbas they still hold: it's militarily crazy.  But - on paper - there's even an answer for that.

BUT.  No-one but an absolute imbecile would trust Trump with their lives - or, likewise, Putin.  Neither man can be trusted to uphold even a full treaty.  We are well into "It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe" territory.

Trump, presumably, will be telling Zelensky he either signs or forgoes US support.  Well, he's a negotiator (of sorts), he expects a bit of to and fro.  

To me, they key is that even were he a man of his word, Trump couldn't deliver the "US side" of this unilaterally - it requires Europe to fall in line.  No Europe, no G8 nor several other clauses in the 28.  So now is the time for Europe to step in with some serious bargaining: we've seen the clear limitations of Team Trump, who evidently can't see the weaknesses in Putin's hand.  Once, it seemed, the EC was capable of pretty hard-nosed negotiating - but that was before the pathetic showing over tariffs.  Surely, there's someone who knows how to play serious, calculating power-politics in the whole of the continent?  Surely?

Trump needs to pay for his Nobel prize, not only with serious ongoing support for Ukraine, but with a conditional set of levers on him and Russia explicitly granted to Ukraine - and Europe[2].  Russia needs to pay for all that territory it has illegally seized with an oversight regime and a structure of tripwires that will keep Putin within his (new) borders.

For completeness, let it be said that the indemnity mooted for Putin and his war crimes sticks in the craw.  But that, I think, is one for Zelensky to chew on.

Finally, you gotta laugh at the implicit belief, written through this plan, that tying Russia closer with TRADE will act as some kind of guarantor of peace.  Ask Merkel about that one.  And - just who was it it who pointed that out to Germany in the UN ..?  Yep, it was the Orange One.

So: where is Europe's unblinking hard man?

ND

___________

[1] 'Clever' in the sense that Witkoff, apparently an accomplished businessman but patently devoid of the slightest sense of geography, history, Realpolitik, naked evil, or his own extreme gullibility, has done a plodding, comprehensive job against a long list of desiderata: there's an answer for (almost) everything in there, provided you make a load of truly heroic and optimistic assumptions about some deeply untrustworthy individuals.  He's clearly in that archetypal category of naïve-but smart Americans who see no malice in anyone and proceed in a purely rationalistic manner to address all difficulties piecemeal and with diligence.  They often achieve big things (vide the grand history of the USA).  But there are some things that are completely beyond them.  

[2] How to define "Europe"?  Well, whatever is the body of entities that is required to deliver all those clauses, that can't be done by the USA unilaterally.  In fact, we could say "the other members of the G7" too, were that not to include China.

More weekend wisdom: understanding Russia

A favourite endeavour of mine.  And this video is really worth watching.  Periodically, we have visitors around here who side with the pro-Russia narrative to a really striking degree.  Well, watch and learn, from someone - Serhii Plokhy - who is genuinely expert.  (Yeah yeah, he lived in Ukraine as a boy.  So what?  Check out what he says, & then read it up for yourself.)  And finish it off with the block quotation at the end of this post.

We might all note, in particular, Plokhy's comments on how Russia can, at the same time, be performing really badly in Ukraine (see this blog passim since 2023) but also be a genuine threat to Europe.  So often we get - from Aaron Bastani in this vid, and from some of our trolls BTL commentators here - "well, they can't be both".  Well, maybe they can: see what he has to say.  And the corollary is both chilling, and food for serious thought for our lamentably substandard political leaders.

Note also how the good Bastani keeps learning things he should maybe have already known, and is consequently amazed by - in this vid, and in others of his excellent interviews.  You might wonder why I regularly cite and link to Bastani's Novara Media, a bunch of supposedly irredeemable progressive lefties, as they would see themselves.  Well, the highly articulate** leadership triumvirate of this bunch are, on their better days, definitely open to argument; and their slow, inchingly slow march to the right since 2017 has been amusing and instructive to watch.  They might even, somewhat reluctantly, admit it.  Bastani in particular is quite clearly a social conservative, and more so with each passing year (marriage, a family, home ownership, and moving out of London can have that effect ...)

[Their problem is, they have so much empty space in their heads where some genuine knowledge of the real world should be, that they - particularly AB again - are inclined to swallow almost anything they are told by people who seem to know.  Their suckering by Gary Stevenson, "once the no.1 [self-styled] trader in the world" (my arse) is highly amusing: and AB has also been well taken in by, e.g., Brett Christophers and that old hippy-rogue Dale Vince: he laps up their stuff in a culpably uncritical way, because it's all so new to him & he has no relevant frame of reference or ability to reality-check it.  All that said, they present some really thought-provoking stuff and, as I said, some of it clearly rubs off on them.]

Ho hum.  Just watch the video when you have 90 mins to spare.  And for good measure, let's add the following, from the remarkable commentator Kamil Galeev, which fits very neatly: 

The Soviet American war was supposed to be fought to somewhere to the west of Rhine. What you got instead is a Soviet Civil War happening to the east of Dnieper.  If you said that the battles of the great European war will not be fought in Dunkirk and La Rochelle, but somewhere in Kupyansk ... you would have been once put into a psych ward, or, at least, not taken as a serious person. The behemoth military machine had been built, once, for a thunderbolt strike towards the English Channel. Whatever remained from it, is now decimating itself in the useless battles over the useless coal towns of the Donetsk Oblast

You would understand the course of this war much better, if you consider that on February 23, 2022, Putin considered Ukrainians as Russians. Perfectly integratable, assimilatable and draftable.   Take control over Ukraine, and increase your Russian population by over 1/3.   Now the next generation of Russian leaders will not see Ukrainians as Russians anymore. The integration of Ukrainians into Russia proper will not be seen as either possible, or even desirable. It will be seen as a hostile foreign country, and a hostile foreign population.   So, this may be the most important final result of this war. The unity of Soviet world, only partially affected by 1991, is now firmly and irreversibly shattered. Too much blood spilled, too much mutual hatred & suspicion arisen. Return to how it used to be is no longer possible

That said, recall Plokhy's salutary point above:  all this can be true, and yet Russia can also still be a threat to Europe.  Make that 'is'.

ND

______

** Again, on their better days

Putin 'apologises': an interesting development

Returned from a couple of weeks away to find interesting news on several international fronts.  One little-noticed development that particularly caught my eye is that Putin has publicly "apologised" to Aliyev for the shooting down of an Azerbaijani airliner last year, and acknowledged formally for the first time that Russian air defences were what caused the disaster.  When it happened 10 months ago, Putin commiserated over the event - well, he kinda had to, it happened over Russian airspace, FFS - but said only that Ukrainian drones had been in the area.  Ever since, Aliyev has been demanding full acknowledgement, apology, punishment of the guilty, and compensation; and only now does he get just the first two of these, along with a statement that the details are still being looked into.   The inverted commas around "apologised" are required because of course it was done in the most ungracious, weasel-like manner.  (Needless to say, the Russian 'patriotic' media space reckons Aliyev is seriously out of order for having the temerity even to mention the matter, and should be subjected to a Special Military Operation of his own as soon as, errr, resources allow.)  

Why apologise now?  We need to take into account something else that happened recently - when Putin went to Beijing for the VJ-Day 80th anniversary celebrations.  Xi engineered things so that as Putin was going into a reception, who should he meet at the door but Aliyev, and was forced to shake his hand as though Aliyev was receiving him into the occasion.  Being bounced like this went down exceedingly badly in Moscow: it was widely viewed as a humiliation for L'il Volodya.  

Which it was.  On massive international occasions where diplomatic choreography is everything - particularly where China is involved and symbolism is paramount - nothing like that happens by coincidence.  Putin was set up then; and afterwards presumably taken aside and told to get on with the public apology.  Much as Moscow likes to big up Putin sitting next to Xi, one couldn't but notice who was sitting on the other side ...  Yep, it was Jong-Un the Wrong'un.  That's Xi saying to the world: meet my two surly stooges - the guys who are wholly beholden to me.

Putin has never been forgiven by China for invading Georgia during the 2008 Beijing Olympics - a truly monstrous breach of protocol.  It would have been against the rules even during ancient times: the Games marked a truce across the whole of Greece.  But for proud, prickly China, it was an outrage.  In the Jan 2008 C@W annual predictions compo, I forecast the invasion but with one erroneous detail: I said it would be after the Olympics.  I mean, what kind of idiot would do it during ..?

ND

The veterans problem in Ukraine

Following on from the earlier post on Russia's fairly comprehensive plans for its future tsunami of troubled veterans, we now turn to Ukraine.  The situation looks potentially to be much, much worse.

On the one hand, whatever the 'outcome', Russia will still be there and Ukraine will not be able to stand down its army.

On the other, its overall manpower problem has been dire from Day 1.  If Zelensky has dropped any balls at all, the biggest has been his failure to crack on with a proper conscription plan: so Ukraine has been fighting the war with men (and women) predominantly of age 30+, some a lot older still, when everyone knows that (infantry) warfare is a business for 18+.  Those 30+'s have fought magnificently - much, much better than the Russian rabble** they have faced - but there is a limit.  Meanwhile, back on the home front, a large percentage of the remaining male population has been (a) bribing the local commissar to keep themselves out of the recruiting office, and/or (b) skipping abroad.  There is only so much that can be delegated to a fleet of drones, across a battlefield as large as Ukraine's.

The demographic problem resulting from this is acute, and can only get worse; and I haven't seen much sign of it being addressed.  Well, there's a helluva lot else going on.

The precise details of how this plays out will depend upon exactly how the current conflict is "frozen".  There are of course many scenarios - too many to legislate for every possibility.  There are just two strands I think will feature in any case.

1.  For many years forward the EU (and prob the UK) will be sending huge amounts of cash to Ukraine for civil reconstruction and societal rebuilding (a dismal proportion of which will be swiftly embezzled, as has been the case throughout) - it's the only thing the EU really knows how to do;

2.  There will be very many violent men roaming the world, offering their services as mercenaries or enforcers for organised crime, either as thugs or as expert hackers and drone operators.  As regards the thugs, go back to the first post: that's what happened after Russia / Afghanistan; it's what galvanises Putin; and that was small beer by comparison.

Per the earlier post again: at least Putin is thinking about it.  He has that luxury.  It will take a worldscale genius to solve Ukraine's manpower issues: and if no such person emerges, the legacy will be long and baleful.  Brave, brave Ukraine deserves something better.

ND

_________________

*  I first met Russian soldiers in the flesh in 1985 at a conference in Potsdam.  They were an unutterable rabble, the officers and men of the proud Soviet Army.  The officers wandered around in public with their tunics raffishly unbuttoned and their hats at rakish angles, a parody of caddish behaviour.  The men were pathetically thin and unsoldierly in their ill-fitting, coarse uniforms and bizarre outsize flat caps.  And this was 3rd Shock Army, the tip of the spear!  Forty years on, nothing much seems to have changed: it was troops like this that were humiliated in just a few weeks in Feb-March 2022, and driven off the field in full rout during Ukraine's Kharkiv counter-offensive in the September of that year.

Russia plans for the return of 'troubled' veterans

Among many dire woes of various kinds, the combatants in the war in Ukraine each have a massive problem brewing: what to do with their armies when fighting ceases.  Any nation does, and always has had.  The details are different in each case: I'll look at Russia in this post.  

The objective diagnosis is this: hugely disgruntled Russian soldiery returning from their 10-year adventure in Afghanistan 1979-1989, brought with them many personal problems, and were not well looked after.  They in turn caused no end of social problems themselves, many of the most violent, brutal and criminal  kind.  Putin knows all about this from his KGB days, in even more detail than every Russian citizen knows anyway.  There will be even more returnees from the 'Special Military Operation' (SMO); and thus far, there has been no large-scale demobilisation (perhaps for this very reason).  Even so, those few who have returned, on leave or wounded or just deserters, have been causing all the expected problems.  This is not least because when they are serving in the SMO their pay is substantially better than anything they'll return to - often their reason for signing up in the first place.  The towns from which they hail (mostly quite a long way from Moscow ...) are trembling at the thought of this happening on a large scale.

Zhukov: definitely not wanted by Stalin in 1946
photo: MoD Russian Federation  Mil.ru

Coupled with this is a particular Russian problem: its post-Tsarist leadership has always feared the military.  Communist parties always do, the world over: doctrinally, they recognise no higher power than the Party - but they have obviously also spotted that large numbers of men trained in violence are themselves potentially a rival source of power to be reckoned with.  Lenin's first actions on taking power were (a) to strike a peace with Germany, quickly followed by (b) disarming the army. Shortly after WW2, Stalin (who had of course eviscerated the Russian army officer corps in the 1930s) dispatched Marshal Zhukov, undisputed victor of the Eastern Front, to effective banishment (ironically, to the Odessa Military District), such was the Marshal's popularity and stature.

Irrespective of the details of whatever outcome in Ukraine, Putin - shaken to his core by Prigozhin just two years ago - knows he has to deal with this comprehensively.  Phase One, as noted above, is probably just to avoid demobilising at all for as long as possible.  Phase Two is the "Time of Heroes" programme being rolled out, that will reserve a range of sinecures in civic society (in government, deputy mayoral posts etc etc) for veterans of the SMO.  Now, word is coming out that veterans will be packed off en masse to build new infrastructure and enterprises in ... Siberia!  (And Murmansk, which is just as cold.)  The pay won't be great but it will be a job ...  As one Russian cynic has it:

"Veterans have already fulfilled the most important task of the state - to fight our enemies. Who, if not them, should perform new tasks, be ahead of everyone in this matter? Veterans, current and future, let's be honest, in civilian life, many of you will not be able to earn as much as in the army. Resettlement in Siberia will be an excellent (and for some, the only) way for you to find yourself in a peaceful life," 

 ... oh, and it won't be anywhere near Moscow.

Still, at least Putin is thinking about it strategically.  Unlike so many other aspects of the SMO.  Well, au fond, his training was KGB.

ND

Darren Jones: a different kettle of fish

In the right hands, the plumb job in Government is Chief Secretary to the Treasury.  Seat in Cabinet.  Just below the radar, but enormous power.  In charge of government spending - everybody needs to be your friend.   The best springboard imaginable: the partial list below is revealing[1].

And now, CSttT Darren Jones has sprung into another such job: CSttPM, no less, invented specifically for him, it seems (and to help dig the Starmermobile out of the rut in which its wheels are spinning idly as the engine races).  Yes - Darren, the sharp, confident, facetious smartarse, is in charge of more than just spending now.  Let's see what he does with it:  because such jobs and such people are in the type of pivotal position that can see significant results along several axes, personal as well as political and practical.

In business, the term once used was "troubleshooter" - a person appointed to get something Big & Awkward done, often away from the corporate centre.  Julius Caesar is perhaps the greatest example in history; there's Wellington and Slim in British military annals (and many other besides, of course).  Douglas MacArthur: the list could go on.  Right now, Putin has Sergei Kiriyenko[2].  It's happened to me three times in my career: being given plenipotentiary powers in the hope I could fix some unexpected, pressing difficulty.

The thing is: you're never sure how things will turn out - with the task itself, and what the Man does afterwards.  Caesar came back in triumph from Gaul - and immediately mounted a successful coup.  MacArthur had a coup in mind himself.  Wellington was a bit more constitutionally correct when he had the whole of Europe at his feet: he still became PM.  But Slim just quietly slipped away[3].

The troubleshooter appointment will always be given to someone believed to be capable - that's the whole point - but often also to someone viewed as maverick, which can give rise to the problematic aspect of what happens after the hoped-for success; the unwanted consequence of the Faustian pact.  And if he wasn't (identifiably) a maverick before the assignment, well, lots of power and a free hand, sometimes exercised way out over the horizon ... it can turn a man's head.  Capable, and hitherto reliable, doesn't always mean predictable.

We shall follow Mr Jones' progress with interest.

ND

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[1] Past CSttT's include: James Callaghan, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Portillo, Alistair Darling, Danny Alexander, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak.  (Oh yes, and Chris Philp, whose ambitious little heart nearly exploded at the prospect he had it made, when he briefly held the job.)

[2]  If you haven't heard of him, well most people haven't.  Aye, there's the wonder of the thing - as Sherlock Holmes said in related circumstances

[3]  Zhukov, of course, was effectively banished to Siberia!  but the CP has always been paranoid about military leaders: when you need 'em, you really need 'em.  But afterwards ...  

Who fares best against Trump?

The Donald is, by his own estimation, a legendary deal-maker and negotiator.  Well, he does get (some) things done, and indeed sometimes gets his own way.  But how much of this is deal-making?  And how good are his deals?  His reputation in the New York real estate sector sucks is, errr, equivocal.

He's been in action quite a bit this year!  So there's something to score: and we can form an early view on his performance as a negotiator up against several prominent counterparties.  

vs China:  Trump is losing, hands down.  The Chinese are playing him like a fiddle, and he's steadily backing down on the tariff war, step by step.  Yet surely, by every standard of US foreign policy as espoused in the past decade by both his and the Democrat party, this is the only game that truly matters.  Sheesh... this really matters!  - did he think he could simply swat Xi aside one spring afternoon while he was mostly busy, errr, earning his Nobel Peace prize, annexing the whole North American land mass, remodelling the White House, peddling his crap merchandise, running feuds against everyone he's ever had a grievance against etc etc etc?

vs Russia:  jury still out, perhaps, but Putin won't be particularly disconcerted by their exchanges to date.  Relative to the extraordinary prior claims made by Trump ("peace in Ukraine in one day!"), and his huffing and puffing about "consequences", the current state of play is pretty demeaning for him.

vs Mexico and Canada:  given how things looked at the start of the whole tariffs round, OK-ish for M & C.  They've mostly stood their ground, and the world hasn't fallen down around their ears by any means.  Makes Trump's early rhetoric look pretty silly - and that's just on trade.  As for annexing Canada ... (I think we can hear the laughter from here - and Greenland probably isn't too worried just now, either.)  

vs India:  jury definitely still out, because India has options.  Trump has dealt his blow - but will he get any pleasure from what happens over the next months and years?  Not at all clear.  How clever is it to send Modi scuttling to Beijing, hmm?

vs Starmer:  surely, 2-1 to Trump.  Starmer has chosen to grovel, in return for some relative 'gains' (negatively defined, which is the only thing we can say) when compared to the EC, see below.  But it has suited Trump to give a little pat on the head to the biggest arse-licker, just pour encourager les autres.

vs the EC:  a seriously bad result for the EU, courtesy of the unelected EC which holds much of Europe's fate in their hands.  Feeble stuff.  A bit of a surprise, given how comprehensively the EC wiped the floor with Cameron and May.  But from this distance, that probably tells us more about them than it does about the EC.

vs Iran:  personally, I can't call this one yet.  Need to keep it in view: could tell us quite a lot.

Crazy man, crazy times.

ND

Some lawyers know the law: some know the judge ...

Well, someone on Team Trump knows their game: gotta love the symbolism of meeting in Alaska!  Yup, Li'l Volodya / L'il Volodymyr, it's real estate.  Sometimes you wish a former territory was still yours - but sometimes that's just history and we all move on.  Great stuff.

While we await the ghastly prospect of Trump and Putin sitting around the map of Ukraine drawing arbitrary lines (and Putin wetting himself with pleasure at meeting the Great Man again), here's the story I promised you'd get.

*   *   *   *

Many years ago I was working for (*gasp*) an oil & gas company, and had planning responsibility for our ops in a certain African country.  A plum piece of offshore acreage was up for grabs and we wanted it: but another company had a rather more compelling claim.  The acreage was contiguous with a play they'd been working very productively for several years, and their geo-data strongly suggested the oilfield they were producing extended into the new block.  It is technically possible for business to be conducted effectively by two separate developers accessing a single field that straddles a licence-line - you need to negotiate a "unitisation" agreement - but it's messy, not least in primitive jurisdictions (are you allowed to say that? - Ed).  So the incumbent was strongly motivated to pitch hard for the new acreage.  We had some neighbouring acreage, too, which thus far had not yielded any discoveries.  But we weren't deterred: the prize was great.

The minister, replete with tribal hat and fly-whisk, decreed that he would make his determination at the end of a grand meeting where he'd hear each side make its case.  Along came the incumbent with a slick slide-show of all their geo-data: a fine technical presentation that was pretty persuasive - judged on its own terms.

But our chief geologist was a canny Frenchman (Basque, actually - we'll call him Vasco), and this was a Francophone country.  When the incumbent's team had finished their polished performance, he strode up to the table with a large map that he unrolled theatrically and plonked down several paperweights to hold it flat.  It was a simple map of the seabed, with few markings: the lines of the various licence areas; and seabed contours.

Now seabed contours don't have very much to do with what lies thousands of feet beneath (OK: nothing whatsoever).  But they made the plot that was up for grabs look a lot more natural a fit with our existing area, than with the incumbents.  Our man's presentation was short and simple, and he concluded it with a grand, sweeping gallic hand-gesture across the map, indicating the perfect logic of his contour-based argument.  Then he sat down.

The minister pondered all things in his heart, and then rose to the table.  He addressed the assembled host with these words:

Moi, je comprends l'argument de Monsieur Vasco

With this, he grandly replicated the sweeping gesture across the map; turned on his heel; and awarded us the licence.

*   *   *   *   *

I think we can guess what Putin's maps are going to look like.  Heaven help Zelensky on 15th.

ND