Ukraine Blog 45 – The Rise of the Warlord
Dear Friends, Family and Colleagues,
What a day
to wake up! Ukraine just delivered a very beautiful birthday gift to Vladimir
Putin by destroying the Kerch bridge. It’s still not clear how the Ukrainians
did it, either by ATACMS missile or an attached explosive device on the fuel
train that was also on fire on the bridge. It really doesn’t matter, both
scenario’s belong in a James Bond movies. Hitting a fuel train that’s making a
bridge collapse with a long range missile is really hard to do as is smuggling
charges on a fuel train.
The
Russians already had a couple of very hard defeats to swallow, but destroying Putin’s
most important prestige project during his presidency the day after his
birthday is the first time he’s really deeply humiliated out in the open. But
the attack on the bridge is not what we need to talk about today. Putin’s deep
humiliation by destroying the Kerch bridge and the Ukrainian battlefield
victories of the past weeks are a bridge (“bridge” got it?) to today’s main
topic. I already gave an indication when this war will end for Ukraine (my estimate
is still December 2022/January 2023), but today we will talk about HOW it will
end for Ukraine and how a very dark period will BEGIN for Russia.
It all has
to do with the fact that after Ukrainian battlefield victories in Kharkiv,
Lyman and Kherson, for the first time, big fights between Russian commanders started
to happen out in the open. And we start to see the camps that are being formed
here.
The fight
started with the leaders of the two main non-military armed forces in Russia, Chechen
leader Ramzan Kadyrov who leads the Kadyrovtsy and Yevgeny Prigozhin who leads
the Wagner Group mercenary group, launching fierce criticism on the Russian
commander leading the Lyman front, Aleksandr Lapin. Over the past month, the
main generator of criticism from the hardliners towards the Russian military
was Igor Strelkov “Girkin.” Now his remarks finally found an audience.
This resulted
in Lapin launching a very intense PR campaign where he can be seen in combat
outfit “leading” the troops on the front.
However, I’m
not convinced that Lapin is the target here. I think that Kadyrov and Prigozhin
have opened a frontal assault on the head of the snake of the Russian military,
defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov. Most important
indication of that is the extremely hard reaction of the Russian military
towards Wagner with the very high profile arrest of Wagner commander Aleksey
Slobodenyuk.
So far Putin
himself is still not under the criticism radar (he should be number one target)
and I see strong indications that Putin is leaning in favor of the Kadyrov/Prigozhin
camp. They are the more hardliners (or are they?) and indicate that Putin is
also moving in this direction. The clearest sign of this, is Kadyrov’s
promotion to a three star Colonel General.
Putin may
try to signal that he wants to keep his warlords close to him, but what he
actually does here, is giving the finger to the Russian military. By promoting
a reckless lunatic like Kadyrov with no real military experience to the rank of
three star general, Putin shows that he no longer is aiming for professionals
in his military organization and that the formula for appointing military
leaders will be based on clan loyalty.
But to understand
better what might be going on, we need to have a look at the motives of Kadyrov
and Prigozhin for trying to move up the ladder. I doubt that they are really the
hardliners when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
Kadyrov: I always suspected that Kadyrov one day will
stab Putin and the whole Moscow establishment in the back. I think he’s just
waiting for the moment when Moscow is weak to start a new war to separate Chechnya
from Russia. But Kadyrov is a really problematic individual. He never made a
secret of his desire for a giant Trans-Caucasus federation that includes, Ingushetia,
Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and North-Ossetia. You can imagine that this may
suit well with the Chechens, but not with other North-Caucasus peoples and
tribes. Therefore, Kadyrov is saving his strength. Yesterday he posted a video where
the message was that if needed 70.000 Chechen soldiers would go to fight in Ukraine
I have studied Kadyrov over 15 years. The real
message of this video is directed towards Moscow: Behold I’m gathering forces
right now at the moment you guys are very weak. I really doubt Kadyrov wants to
make a career in Moscow, but he wants to cement himself as future ruler of the
North-Caucasus.
Prigozhin: That leads us to the second rebel that’s
currently in play. Until a few weeks ago Prigozhin denied that he was connected
to the Wagner Group. Now he admitted that he was in fact the founder and you
can actively see him recruiting in Russian prisons. Prigozhin always looked
down upon the Russian military. Now that the Russian military is everywhere
being defeated in Ukraine, the Wagner forces still hold the line around Bakhmut
in Donetsk Oblast. This resulted in Wagner and Prigozhin being looked upon very
favorably by Putin (despite this front having zero strategic value in the
current phase of the conflict). I highly suspect that Prigozhin is making a
push to convince Putin to remove Shoigu and Gerasimov and to claim the post of
the minister of defense.
Both Prigozhin
and Kadyrov present themselves as hardliners and talk about nuclear weapons.
Their appointment on senior military positions would mean bad news for Ukraine.
However, this is the moment the Russian military and intelligence services will
likely fall apart in different factions. There are important factions in the
FSB and other intelligence agencies that are sympathetic to Prigozhin and
Kadyrov. On the other hand there are also more military oriented factions based
in those agencies. The main problem for these two gentlemen will be the Russian
military.
1. Especially Kadyrov’s promotion to
higher ranks is problematic. Being a Chechen and as such part of a Muslim
minority that fiercely resisted Russian rule twice in the past 30 years, makes it
very hard for Kadyrov to position himself in the halls of the Kremlin.
2. Both the militias of Prigozhin and
Kadyrov seem to have largely escaped the mobilization that Putin announced on September
21st. I suspect that both Prigozhin and Kadyrov are preparing their
forces for a bigger game that will take place on the territory of the Russian
motherland.
There will
be a moment (and this is approaching fast) that there will be an open military
attack by Prigozhin and Kadyrov on Shoigu and Gerasimov. This will be the
moment when the Russian military will have to fight for its position and as
such we will arrive at a moment that we will see the war in Ukraine ending.
What’s the incentive for the Russian military to keep forces in Ukraine when
there are far bigger things at stake in Russia itself.
This will
be the moment that the war in Ukraine will end and this is one of the main
reasons I don’t think it will end with a nuclear bang. It will also signal the
start of a very brutal civil war in Russia. Besides the militias of Prigozhin
and Kadyrov there are multiple other factions that will come into play. Groups
like the far right neo-nazi Russian Imperial Movement and the Night Wolves
motorcycle club. All have them have different sympathizing factions within the
Russian military and intelligence agencies. I can only see this ending in a
civil war the world hasn’t seen before. Expect Somalia of the nineties on steroids.
For now Putin
seems to have successfully evaded criticism, but the moment that he will come
under direct public scrutiny for the first time is approaching fast. There’s
only one actor that can still accelerate this process and that’s Ukraine. Every
battlefield victory of Ukraine is an exponential acceleration of this process.
We already saw what Kharkiv, Lyman and Kherson did to the Kremlin ranks. I’m
currently reading Russian Telegram channels with regards to the Kerch bridge
and they are spitting fire, anger and frustration on level I haven’t seen
before. A total defeat in Kherson and an Ukrainian offensive towards Melitopol
will make the Kremlin shake on its foundation.
Слава Україні!
Niels
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