Russia/Ukraine conflict

[nativewolf]

Surovikin doesn't have that much to work with anymore. And everything is happening in a much more fragile Russia.

We'll see what he can accomplish.



Everything I have seen about the Jewish oligarchs is almost all of them live outside Russia. These oligarchs are not in the inner circle, they are allowed by Putin to keep their wealth in exchange for Russia using them sometimes for covert ops. Otherwise they are mostly out of the loop. The internal oligarchs have more power in the Russian system and other than Prigozhin, I don't know of any inner oligarchs who are Jewish.



The tactical nuclear weapons may be in Belarus, but we don't know where the fuzes for these bombs are. They could be back in Russia.

The purpose of putting those weapons in Belarus were to try and scare western countries into holding back aid for Ukraine because they thought Russia might start a war with them. It didn't do its job though. All the NATO countries saw through the ruse from the start.

I can't find the article now, but several years ago I read about the problem that the smaller the bomb, the more difficult it is to keep it viable. One reason the US retired the suitcase sized bombs and why it uses dial-a-yield today is that the small bombs had a shelf life of around 12 months.

Prigozhin is on record condemning nuclear weapons. His troops were close to at least one nuclear weapons storage facility and there is no evidence they made any effort to break in. They did loot conventional weapons from places they captured. I was concerned about Prigozhin gaining power several months ago because he has demonstrated a fair bit of ruthlessness, but with his anti-nuclear stance I am less worried. Not completely because people can and do lie, but from what I've seen recently, I would not put him in the highest risk group

If Girkin was to come to take Putin's job, things might be different. Girkin is of the opinion that everything is fair game for Russia. Though he would also likely bring the entire system down around his ears by trying to initiate full conscription.



I have never seen any evidence that the tactical nuclear weapons were outside the standard Russian nuclear security protocols. Where did you see this?

Prig was also led a coup or armed insurection against Putin. If he does that his word is literally worth 0 on any matter whatsoever. 0. Girkin is low level bait put out by the FSB. He's a nothing. Interesting...but in the scheme of things, nothing.

Re surovikin ...just not shooting their own feet would be an improvement from the russian POV. So far a month of fighting and the southern lines have not really been breached and that is with people spread thin as butter on a poor mans toast. That is surovikin ..not much to work with but better than gerasimov and if he would be a truly dangerous person in gerasimovs shoes. dangerous.

 

[nativewolf]

Agreed. But he still made the deal…thus my interest in what was within the offer that he couldn’t refuse, knowing that he will have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

@petit_bateau posted what looks to me like the deal. Shoigu leaves the MOD and Gerasimov with him.

 

[bhzmark]

@Mod: Please PM me with the portion of my post that was out of line so that I can modify behavior. In my eyes the post was relatively mild and the (incorrect) claims made by wdolson are well documented in the early pages (and later pages, and current pages) of this thread.

Instead of making generalized personal attacks and ineffectively referring to “early pages” just quote any specific claim that is relevant and then offer specific and precise facts, evidence and reasoned analysis in response.

 

[petit_bateau]

I can't find the article now, but several years ago I read about the problem that the smaller the bomb, the more difficult it is to keep it viable. One reason the US retired the suitcase sized bombs and why it uses dial-a-yield today is that the small bombs had a shelf life of around 12 months.

The issue is to do with maintaining the safery margin required to get an assured nuclear fusion reaction, rather than a "fizzle". All stages of the process have tolerances, and as the device becomes smaller so the likelihood of cumulative tolerance stack-ups being on the low side becomes more probable. With a larger device one simply makes everything slightly bigger and/or increase the number of redundant things so as to minimise the probability of a fizzle. As the device gets physically smaller the design constraints prevent brute-force assuredness solutions. The most obvious single issue is to do with the decay rate of the tritium boosters, hence needing to pull a tactical weapon fairly frequently (say, every five years) as opposed to pulling a strategic weapon (say) every fifteen years for maintenance. The main task during maintenance is to regas with the right amount of tritium. Tritium has a relatively short half life so when one gets down to the micro-scale nuclear suitcase demolition devices and shell-sized devices, then for sure a safe shelf life of as little as a year might be fair.

The easiest way to get dial-a-yield devices is to choke the amount of tritium involved in the early stages of the nuclear reaction process. That can turn a large strategic weapon into a smaller bang, but it doesn't get round the issue that it is still a large form-factor that is carried on a device that (in the recipent's eyes) still looks like a strategic strike inbound. But I digress.

Tritium - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is not just the tritium, but the tritium is the main thing. Other nuclear materials also decay and get checked during maintenance. So too do the conventional explosives in the system which also have safe life spans. Etc.

I have never seen any evidence that the tactical nuclear weapons were outside the standard Russian nuclear security protocols. Where did you see this?

I've not seen anything to suggest that in reality the Russian nuclear devices on Belarus soil are not fully in control of only Russian forces. If indeed there are any actually on Belarus soil at all - as opposed to there being the relevant bunkers/pads/etc in situ.

 

[unk45]

re Lukashenko’s purported flight to Turkey:
That silenced tracker as his plane flew over Russian airspace between Belarus and Klamydia (ps: I’m still burning with shame I knew nothing, including its existence, of that republic prior to yesterday. And as above, not even its proper name. A Tibetan Buddhist country inside Europe! The mind boggles!) - is it possible it touched down within Russian territory in order to conduct his supposed mediation? Has anyone enough information to determine whether the elapsed time of its silenced mode does or does not gibe with the length of time that leg should take?

Has Lukashenko been sighted in Turkey? In Minsk? Anywhere?

Buddhism in Russia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As an aside a colleague in Moscow was from Buyratia. She had distinct epithelial folds but I learned she was Bhuddist only after she emigrated. Most of her close family were in Saint Petersburg where they moved following 1990. Perhaps less we’ll known is that Russia has great religious and ethnic diversity, most if which was suppressed severely at various times, and much of which thrived in the 1990’s until recently, with rather a lot of emigration since roughly late 2009 when suppression of Islam in Chechnya became notable:

Second Chechen War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the Ukraine war the Jews=Nazi positions have followed the rapid expansion of highly jingoistic Russian Orthodox nationalism, with Aleksandr Dugin as a prophet of sorts.

In short in my opinion few people realize how deep the religious bigotry is as motivation for the Putin regime.
Almost nobody comments on the Prigozhin/Wagner religious basis which is a neo-pagan Slavic nationalism usually equated with Russian nationalism.

From Pagans to Templars: the everyday religious life in the Wagner PMC – English version – Observatoire

obsreligion.cnrs.fr

I attach also an article about the growth of those beliefs in Belarus, Ukraine (notably the Azov) and elsewhere.

Until now I have not posted about this, mostly because it seems far-fetched to most people. It is not!
Religious extremism/jingoism is happening almost worldwide, usually called ‘populism’ even though it is nothing like that.

 

[unk45]

@wdolson you realize that a huge number of oligarchs are Jewish? That none of the oligarchs came out in support of shuigo and gerisimov is aiming to supporting Prigozhin.
…

The Jewish father/orthodox mother combination is fairly common in Russia. Details require some long historical context. Few, very few, have any identity in Jewishness, maybe partly because they are not Jews under Jewish law. The politically successful people in that situation have emphasized Slavic identity, and tended towards extreme nationalism.

Many of the ones who can prove those ethnicities have emigrated to Israel or Portugal, the latter of which has had very generously defined eligibility terms. Not a few have both, wanting to cover options. The ones who’ve taken those options have made their fortunes in the 1990’s and have exited promptly when religious nationalism took hold. That evidence was first evident with the Orthodox restoration project led by the mayor of Moscow, although initially that was billed as restoration and tou development.
The oligarch exodus was planned in 2008 and before, but mostly not executed until after 2014.

Some may disagree with my perspective, mostly because participants try to ‘hide in plain sight’.

 

[SageBrush]

The Jewish father/orthodox mother combination is fairly common in Russia. Details require some long historical context. Few, very few, have any identity in Jewishness, maybe partly because they are not Jews under Jewish law. The politically successful people in that situation have emphasized Slavic identity, and tended towards extreme nationalism.

My daughter was keen to take a summer internship in rural Turkey a few years ago. She was not worried about being targeted for being a Jew because she is secular and atheist. I impressed upon her the reality that it does not matter one whit how she views herself, it is how others label and target.

Anti-semitism is an ideology for extreme right (and some left) political groups. Don't look for logic or reason

----
Outside of ultra-religious Jews, I have never encountered any shunning of kids from mixed religion marriages by mainstream Judaism. If anything, they are encouraged to embrace Judaism and 'convert.' It rarely happens, I think for two reasons: one is that the woman in a marriage tends to set the religious tone and the Jewish man tends to be some variety of a-religious; and second, catholics and orthodox use institutional influence to strongly encourage that the kids be raised in the mother's religion. In my extended family in the USA there is a marriage between a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. The woman demanded the kids be raised as Catholics as a pre-condition of marriage. It is a common story in this country. I don't know for sure, but I would not be at all surprised if similar dictates occur in Russia.

tl;dr
I think it is pretty typical that the man does not really care, while the woman cares a lot

 

[DayTrippin]

looks like Lukashenko is fleeing Belarus if this is accurate. not sure if they aren’t because she’s in this with an earlier flight, or if this is a new development.

Putin ally 'flees Belarus' as Wagner group issues chilling messagePutin ally Lukashenko 'flees Belarus' as Wagner group issues chilling message

 

[navguy12]

looks like Lukashenko is fleeing Belarus if this is accurate. not sure if they aren’t because she’s in this with an earlier flight, or if this is a new development.

Putin ally 'flees Belarus' as Wagner group issues chilling messagePutin ally Lukashenko 'flees Belarus' as Wagner group issues chilling message

This looks like old news, about 60 (?) ish hours out of date.

 

[petit_bateau]

I tend to agree about the first part : Priz had no choice but to launch the not-coup. Not so sure about the rest.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1672991911538196482

 

[BitJam]

I tend to agree about the first part : Priz had no choice but to launch the not-coup. Not so sure about the rest.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1672991911538196482

It all makes sense to me. Prigozhin had avoided criticizing Putin directly. I was very interested in seeing what Putin's reaction would be. I felt there was a chance that Putin would side with Prigozhin and use this as an opportunity to make the MoD the scapegoat for everything that went wrong with the special military operation.

It makes sense that Prigozhin's abrupt about-face was due to Putin's speech. I don't see any other reason for it.

The video below makes the case that the Wagner coup signals the end of the current Russian government. I don't totally buy it, yet. I would certainly not rule it out. ISTM this coup attempt (or whatever) was a big deal. I'd be surprised if there were not significant repercussions.

 

[unk45]

My daughter was keen to take a summer internship in rural Turkey a few years ago. She was not worried about being targeted for being a Jew because she is secular and atheist. I impressed upon her the reality that it does not matter one whit how she views herself, it is how others label and target.

Anti-semitism is an ideology for extreme right (and some left) political groups. Don't look for logic or reason

----
Outside of ultra-religious Jews, I have never encountered any shunning of kids from mixed religion marriages by mainstream Judaism. If anything, they are encouraged to embrace Judaism and 'convert.' It rarely happens, I think for two reasons: one is that the woman in a marriage tends to set the religious tone and the Jewish man tends to be some variety of a-religious; and second, catholics and orthodox use institutional influence to strongly encourage that the kids be raised in the mother's religion. In my extended family in the USA there is a marriage between a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. The woman demanded the kids be raised as Catholics as a pre-condition of marriage. It is a common story in this country. I don't know for sure, but I would not be at all surprised if similar dictates occur in Russia.

tl;dr
I think it is pretty typical that the man does not really care, while the woman cares a lot

Certainly true. Without going into too many details, it is no accident that so many Russian Jewish men, especially in Siberia, married Russian Orthodox women. Historical factors took care of that in the 1940's, among other times.

 

[nativewolf]

@wdolson and @unk45 I appreciate the informative if sad perspectives on the situation of Jewish peoples in Russia. How damn sad.

 

[unk45]

@wdolson and @unk45 I appreciate the informative if sad perspectives on the situation of Jewish peoples in Russia. How damn sad.

A last comment on the subject. Vladimir Zelensky is not only 100% Jewish, but also had his mother tongue as Russian. His biography helps inform what has been an entirely unprecedented career, including his father who has perhaps on of the world's most topical specialities. Look him up!

 

[nativewolf]

So who was on the IL command plane that was shot down? Who was on the special helicopters? several were not ordinary helicopters. Where is the MOD and the top russian general?

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Paywalled?

"...] Sources tell me that as the Wagner forces moved north, the regular army neither followed nor hindered them. [...] Putin couldn’t be sure whether regular army units would obey his orders. [..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/24/putin-prigozhin-russia-wagner-group-coup/

 

[RobStark]

Paywalled?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/24/putin-prigozhin-russia-wagner-group-coup/

I was able to read it for free without registering. But I haven't read a WP story in more than a year.

 

[nativewolf]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1672737054973739010

First public acts I've seen

 

[AudubonB]

Can any Russian speaker vouch for those words? Brave souls: not a one of them masked as far as I could see.

 

[madodel]

Prig was also led a coup or armed insurection against Putin. If he does that his word is literally worth 0 on any matter whatsoever. 0. Girkin is low level bait put out by the FSB. He's a nothing. Interesting...but in the scheme of things, nothing.

Re surovikin ...just not shooting their own feet would be an improvement from the russian POV. So far a month of fighting and the southern lines have not really been breached and that is with people spread thin as butter on a poor mans toast. That is surovikin ..not much to work with but better than gerasimov and if he would be a truly dangerous person in gerasimovs shoes. dangerous.

What are you talking about? It was just a leisurely tour of the Russian countryside.