The Insider released the most curious material, the material of the era, perhaps – a plan for holding
a referendum in the occupied territories.
The plan is dated by June, we already know for sure that, at least in terms of dates, it was not implemented in time.
But it reflects the war better than any analytical article.
From it we understand what the Russian state wants, what it can do, where its limits are, and most importantly,
what to expect next.
We will talk about this today.
The Russian political regime does not know how to fight.
Not in the sense of the movements of the army on the battlefield, but purely
in terms of the infrastructure of the regime itself.
Its propaganda is extremely effective, but it is geared not for mobilization, but for the inaction of the viewer.
The army in Russia is not some kind of important and respected public institution:
hiding from conscription is a social norm, there are no regular military personnel even close
by in the ranks of the highest nomenklatura.
And in the structure of the Ministry of Defense, army generals did not even pass military
service through – completely civilian people.
We see with our own eyes with what creak the transition to a military footing is given to the regime.
How, instead of declaring mobilization and martial law, one has to make some kind of field commanders
out of the governors, gathering the militia.
How absurd all these Nikitins from Kiriyenko's incubator, equally faceless and wearing the same glasses,
look ridiculous in the roles of Minin and Pozharsky.
How the state is not used to waging war and making military decisions, how it wants to return to its usual track.
Where it is not necessary in reality to find 15 thousand volunteers for a crazy salary –
it is enough just to report about it.
Referendums in the occupied territories are, of course, a return to one's own, to the familiar.
To end everything not with a military victory, but with the final protocol of the election commission –
here our autocracy feels like a fish in the water.
They have been perfecting the solution of any problems in this way for 20 years.
For 20 years they have been importing, inventing and honing the technologies of electoral management:
from the most crude – direct forgery of results – to the most perverted and slippery, like electronic voting.
If you want, we’ll draw the results, if you want, we’ll play with the wording of questions,
if you want, we’ll reach the desired result with stuffing, if you want, the social security services mobilize pensioners
with food packages, if you want, the sun instead of a lamp, if you want, the Alps in your window.
Over the past 20 years, and especially over the past 10, we have seen literally everything,
from the most shameless and arrogant to such subtle and vile manipulations,
about which it is somehow embarrassing to complain.
The election fraud system in Russia is perfect, unlike the Russian army.
It is capable of producing any result that is required of it.
It is so effective that, according to Insider's material, even at the planning stage of the referendum,
the question was laid of how and what to write on banners in honor of the annexation of Donetsk
and what kind of concert to hold in honor of it.
However, the most curious thing about the Insider's publication is not the staging of the planned referendums.
We are well aware of Russian electoral miracles anyway.
The most curious thing is the planned date of the referendum.
The presentation was prepared in June, and a referendum 'in the DPR on joining Russia was planned for August.
That is, in two months of summer, the Russian leadership wanted to reach at least approximately
the borders of the Donetsk region.
In general, it is clear what the Russian army was counting on.
Summer is an ideal time to attack when large armies clash in temperate climates.
There is no streak. Soldiers do not need to be protected from the cold.
Equipment does not break down from rain and dampness.
All large offensive armies, from the hordes of the Mongol Empire to the troops of the Wehrmacht,
tried to schedule a large-scale offensive precisely for the warm season.
The invasion of Ukraine was accompanied first by a winter cold, and then
by a spring impassability and, as expected, choked.
The Russian leadership hoped: maybe at least in the summer it would be possible to advance the front deeper.
Just imagine how confident they were that the Russian army would be able to reach the borders of Donbass.
In the material of the Insider, among the possible problems in organizing the upcoming referendum,
the lack of centralized voter lists and power outages are indicated.
However, there is not a word about the fact that by August the Donetsk region may be
under the control of the Russian army only by half.
When it became obvious that it would not be possible to oust the Ukrainian army from
the Donbas before the end of the summer,
the Russian media and officials of the occupation administrations began to talk about
a referendum in September, tying it to a single all-Russian voting day on September 11th.
But here's the problem: the front is still almost not moving.
Then the dates of the referendum were postponed again – according to RBC, to the beginning of November,
just in time for the Day of National Unity.
In short, plans for the annexation of Ukrainian lands will suffer the fate of dozens of unfulfilled promises
of the Russian leadership, along with “catching up with Portugal in terms of GDP”
and “creating 25 million high-performance jobs.”
Most painfully, such promises hit people who remained in the occupied territories, such as, for example,
in Donetsk, because they were actually pulled out of Ukraine.
Then for a long time they were fed with promises of multibillion-dollar investments, high pensions,
good salaries, construction of schools and hospitals.
Each time they said that tomorrow a wonderful future as part of Russia would come,
that they just had to wait, but they kept the occupied lands in the state of occupied territory.
Now autumn has begun.
Soon the weather will again act against any offensive action.
This means that the withdrawal of Russian troops to the borders of Donbass, and even more
so Kherson region and Zaporozhye, as well as some kind of referenda, should not be expected in the near future.
As a result, the Russian leadership first planned to capture Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Chernigov in a few days.
Then they moderated their appetites to biting off a couple of areas in a few months.
But it fails even such a minimum plan – and frantically searches for new war goals along the way,
and contradicts its own words, said yesterday.
ADS
What is the most important thing we can take away from the material?
The most important thing is the answer to the question “what is the Kremlin’s plan for this war?”.
And it simply doesn't exist.
There is no plan – the system just really wants to return to its usual mode
of operation and acts according to circumstances.
By the end of spring, it became clear that the idea of ​​ occupying all of Ukraine simply would not work.
This became obvious by the time Mariupol was taken, only by completely destroying it and suffering huge losses.
At this rate, you can fight until the mid-30s and still not reach Kyiv.
Then it seemed like a good idea to fix the status quo: we, of course, will not capture all of Ukraine,
but after all, the Russian army will be able to at least reach the borders of the partially occupied
Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions in a month or two.
We will establish a stable enough regime there to make it possible to hold some kind of plebiscite,
which at least on camera will look like a civil event.
A whole summer passed, and it turned out that no: the Russian army controls one region – Lugansk.
Offensive in Donetsk has completely stalled. There are fights and sabotage everywhere.
Nowhere can the occupation regime be called stable.
It obviously didn't work out with stability.
It is impossible to conduct an electoral procedure when all its participants are in mortal danger.
It is impossible to arrange a plebiscite on the frontline territory.
Why did this trick work with Crimea in 2014?
Because by mid-March it was clear that Ukraine had no ambitions and resources to return Crimea by military means.
And now, in the occupied territories, everyone, in general, understands
that the Ukrainian army will come at any moment.
And this is a completely different mood.
There will be no silent loyalty and no quiet changing of flags.
The plan is changing again.
The referendums have now been postponed indefinitely. Postponed again.
What conclusion does this lead us to?
To a very simple one: it is not the Kremlin that sets the rhythm of the war.
The Kremlin builds its plans based on the front-line situation.
Every time and at every stage, the bureaucracy asks itself the question: what can we do right now?
In February, it seemed to them that they could take Kyiv and occupy the whole of Ukraine.
The Presidential Administration took on tasks like these in all seriousness: where can we get
so many qualified managers to govern the Ukrainian capital?
This was not in the leaks, this was not reported by the sources,
but it is easy to imagine that the interested people have already divided contracts
for laying tiles in the Khreshchatyk area.
When it became clear that this issue was irrelevant, they decided that at least the army would not
give up its current positions and that referendums could be held there.
The army did not show outstanding results this time either: it became clear that even the most ridiculous,
Crimean-level procedure would be very difficult to carry out, and most importantly, very dangerous.
The Russian army has already retreated more than once during this war,
more than once it has taken “steps of good will”.
Each time they were explained by the fact that they didn’t really want that: these territories,
they say, are not included in the plans of the special military operation.
But what to do when you have formally declared some territory to be part of the Russian Federation?
The plans for a special military operation now do not include the retention of their own
(well, according to the official position of the Russian Federation) lands?
Will the rejection of their territories be a gesture of goodwill?
To conduct an electoral procedure, something more is needed than insuring that a shell does not fly
into the polling station and that the chairman of the commission is not killed by partisans.
You need to be more than 100% sure that this territory will never come back under the control of Ukraine.
Where is the guarantee that Ukraine will not be able to return what was lost in 2014, not to mention 2022?
Now no one can bet on it.
And to lose territory that you have already declared your own is political suicide.
The plans for referendums in the occupied territories teach us not to look for any consistency in the actions
especially long-term ones.
Both the military and civilians are simply always looking for a way out, and the way out is selected
from the arsenal that is available.
We have one of the most powerful machines in the world for simulating electoral procedures.
It can be launched even tomorrow and get any result in any territory, regardless of the opinion of voters.
Any result can be obtained even in relatively real elections and even in Moscow, not to mention
the territories of occupation.
The apparatus of the Central Electoral Committee is ready at any time – the problem is only in the war itself.
During the six months of which the Russian army did not establish stable control over any new territory.
The Russian state wants to act with the methods it can, but it is placed in circumstances to which it is not adapted.
In circumstances where everything really depends on the war.
And the war develops according to its own logic, it does not obey political technologists with their presentations.
The answer to the question of what will happen next is very simple.
Russia is not ruled by the military, Russia is ruled by bureaucrats and political strategists.
They cannot change the situation at the front.
All they can do is to participate in the competition of ideas: how can the situation as of such and such
a day of such and such a month be passed off as a victory?
There is no way to win: because there are simply no people in the Russian leadership who could do it –
there are no military men there.
But how to make a victory out of what is available..
Everyone understands that the war must end as quickly as possible.
In March 2024, there will be presidential elections, drawing the results of which just “head on”,
like referendums in the occupied territories, is a bad idea.
They need some real support.
If someone doubts that they do, let them ask Lukashenka.
This war was clearly just a pre-election event.
By March 2024, it was supposed to come to a new “Crimean consensus”, with new gifts for dear Russians.
Coming to the elections with a war that has been going on for more than two years,
which, at the current rate of losses, has already claimed fifty thousand lives on the Russian side alone,
with catastrophic consequences of sanctions and without any victories, is a huge problem.
Putin needs to not just end the war – it needs to end with a clear result.
And be sure to finish ahead of time: some, quite a long time before the elections, in order to separate
them as much as possible with the blood and horror of war.
Solving all these tasks for the Putin administration will be very difficult, if not impossible.
And in the very foreseeable future, great turbulence awaits us inside Russia.
See you tomorrow.