Ukraine Blog 10 - Lets talk Rosgvardia
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
Today the
Russian forces seem to prepare for a push on the capital. They are resorting to
a tactic that I expected them they would initially deploy: They are bypassing
towns or driving straight through them, seemingly heading in the direction
Kyiv. Various mainstream news reports state that the forces include
1. The more capable part of the Russian
ground forces
2. Wagner mercenaries
3. Chechen Kadyrovksy
When these
are indeed the forces positioned to take on the capital, we can expect a very
bloody fight. Besides the Ukrainian army, there are an additional 30.000 armed
civilians. They will likely be held back by the military till the last moment
because they are a liability when it comes to maneuverability. However, in the
event the invading forces achieve battlefield dominance, they will very likely
be unleased against the invasion force, causing a lot of confusion among the
attackers in addition to deaths.
The
Southern front sees only very limited advances and finally some fierce
Ukrainian counterattacks. Around Kherson, Ukrainian special forces reportedly
destroyed close to 30 helicopters (waiting for satellite footage) and destroyed
a 250 million EUR patrol boat with an MLRS system. This would undoubtedly
constitute the most badass anti-ship action in the history of naval warfare.
Although
the Russian army and air force both have suffered heavy losses, I still think
it’s plausible the Russians will go for a big push on the capital. And this
really has to with the fact that Putin simply can’t go back.
The most
interesting development, and today’s main topic, is the deployment of Rosgvardia
(the Russian National Guard) in the cities that are now quite firmly under
Russian control, Kherson, Melitopol and Berdyansk. A deployment that can have
very serious implications with regards to riot control in Russia itself in the
future.
But first
some history. With regards to this topic we need to go back to 1989 when
Ceaucescu, longtime lunatic dictator of Romania was overthrown in a violent
revolution. Ceaucescu made one catastrophic mistake: he deployed the army in a
riot control mode. This is the worst mistake you can make: because the army
will sympathize with the people and turn against the riot police. We all know how
old Nicolae ended.
BBC news report on Romanian revolution, December 1989 - YouTube
Thing is:
dictators around the globe took notice of this and it were the Iranians who
created the blueprint for modern riot control in a modern dictatorship. Very
little has been written in the academic world, but this is solely based on my
observations from studying years of conflicts and revolution attempts.
The Iranian
realized that in case of any unrest, they army would sympathize with the
people. That’s why they created a very specialized para-military unit with the
best anti-riot equipment to counter unrest. The unit is led by the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its members enjoy good salaries, living
conditions, cars and benefits for family. The Iranians developed a very
effective tactic where the assemble a large force of riot police on motorcycles
who circle around groups of protesters and continuously beat them. This is very
effective, they can strike hard and remain very mobile.
More
interestingly, many dictatorial regimes started to copy this approach, most
notably Venezuela:
Also in
Serbia, Turkey, Belarus and Russia, special crack police units were created
that are so effective in riot control that the deployment of the army is no
longer needed in suppressing protests. In all of those countries, I witnessed uprisings
and near revolutions over the years, but you simply won’t see taking those riot
police taking flowers from girls. The simple reason is: their lives are
entirely catered for by the state, they don’t have to fight wars and they will lose
everything when their regime falls.
Serbian Zandarmerija
in Action
The Russian
over the past ten years also modelled their anti-riot police to this model. They
consolidated various security forces under the Rosgvardia umbrella:
-the Internal
troops
-SOBR
-OMON
These new consolidated
troops have been at the forefront of successfully suppressing any protest within
Russia (most notably the pro-Navalny protests), continuing the trend of modern
protest suppression in modern authoritarian states
Russia
right now seems to have made a very serious deviation from this approach (and a
colossal error if you ask me). Two things go horribly wrong here
1. In line with Putin’s expectation
that the Ukrainians would welcome the Russian with flowers, he sent in Rosgvardia
from the start and as such, involving them in direct (hard) combat. The Ukrainians
inflicted serious losses on at least a couple of Rosgvardia columns, resulting
in serious battlefield casualties. This means that the Rosgvardia troops simply
did not stick to their usual job of arresting and beating the crap out of
people, but they saw their comrades dying.
2. Rosgvardia now finds themselves exposed
on foreign soil, with an extremely hostile population. Their original job would
have been to establish Russian government control in occupied areas, but they
now find themselves being the main component of the occupation force. The clip below
is from Kherson yesterday and it shows Rosgvardia troops trying to do their all
too familiar job in Kherson, but they are completely alien to the population.
You already see that they hardly have control of the situation. They even allow
the city to continue waving the Ukrainian flag on the main square.
It might
take weeks, a year or two years, but there has to be point that Russia has to
rotate those Rosgvardia troops and they will bring their experience and stories
back to Russia and especially the issue of battlefield deaths won’t be taken
easy by them.
It’s also
important that Kherson is a small city with not even 300.000 inhabitants and Rosgvardia
already has a major challenge here controlling the situation. How will Rosgvardia
be able to control cities with a million inhabitants or more like Odessa, Kharkiv,
Dnipro and most notably, Kyiv?
In case the
Russians go all in (and they still seem to be), they will have to deploy tens of
thousands (perhaps even over one hundred thousand) Rosgvardia in Ukraine. In
case that happens, it will be a giant opportunity for anti-Putin protests in Russia.
There’s no way, Russia can muster sufficient anti-riot police and control the
situation in two countries at the same time.
This is
very important: even in case they DO manage to capture Kyiv, Russia has no resources
available to consolidate their victory. In addition, bringing Rosgvardia in, in
such an early stage, is in my opinion a colossal mistake for which Putin will
pay the ultimate price. Let’s see in the coming weeks and months.
Best
regards and "Slava Ukraini!"
Niels
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