The Real Russia. Today.

Friday, September 16, 2022

Latest news

• 👮 Russian authorities move to seize office of human rights group Memorial International
• 🪖 Russia is reportedly transferring fresh conscripts to within 20 miles of Ukraine’s border
• 🚫 Russian lawmakers want to ban maps that reject Moscow’s claims on Ukrainian lands
• 🪖 Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan struggle to reach ceasefire amid fresh border clashes
• 🪖 Armenian General Staff: Azerbaijani army advancing towards Armenian town of Jermuk. Two hundred total killed, so far.
• 🗳 Parliament of Kazakhstan renames Nur-Sultan to Astana and increases presidential term to seven years

Feature stories

• 🪖 ‘If you didn’t follow instructions, they shot you’: A Russian convict recruited by the Wagner Group tells his story (5-min read)
• 🪖 ‘Anyone could be taken captive at any time’: Residents of the Ukrainian town of Balakliya describe life under Russian occupation (6-min read)

Opinion and analysis

💀 Russians shouldn’t cheer their compatriots’ deaths

Grigory Tumanov, media manager and podcaster (Holod Media): Elaborating on a recent (not terribly popular) tweet, Tumanov says Russians who celebrate the deaths of their compatriots in Ukraine and fellow civilians living near the Ukrainian border are not supporting Ukrainians but “appropriating” their national tragedy to avoid confronting Russia’s own unique situation. As evidence that Russians are also victims of the war (albeit differently), he points to investigative reports showing that the military specifically recruits impoverished ethnic minorities and pressures many conscripts into battle. Tumanov notes that Ukrainians are too busy trying to survive to “reflect” on their glorification of violence, but he says Russians should begin this process now.

▻ Saying the quiet compassion out loud: Like other columnists and social-media pundits who argue about which Russians deserve to suffer for the invasion of Ukraine, Tumanov tries to demarcate innocence in this conflict (or shades of innocence, at least). This debate has played out ad nauseam when it comes to Russian civilians (especially those who travel to Europe), but Tumanov treads on thinner ice by suggesting that reports about Russian troops killed in Ukraine shouldn’t be considered welcome news by Russian liberals because (1) many of those soldiers are manipulated and coerced into combat, and (2) killing is not something to celebrate. This latter trouble is timeless, but his attempt to evoke compassion specifically for Russian victims of the war is the (admittedly divisive) subtext in a lot of Russian war commentary since February 24.

🌾 The grain deal is Putin’s last leverage over Europe

Alexandra Prokopenko, policy analyst (Carnegie Endowment, RU/EN): Russia only agreed to allow the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports to get another “pressure lever” against Europe. Now, amid Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive and reports that Europe has stockpiled gas supplies for the coming winter, Vladimir Putin is using this leverage as his last chance to negotiate from a position of strength. So far, it’s working: In just the past few days, Putin got concerned telephone calls from Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and António Guterres.

Prokopenko argues that Russia never stood to gain much from the grain deal, while the rewards were always immense for Ukraine. (She says Putin’s recent complaints about the grain exports reaching too few “hungry nations” in Africa and the Middle East are both misleading and disingenuous, given that fact that Moscow didn’t demand any stipulations about export destinations when signing the agreement.) Meanwhile, Russia’s grain and fertilizer exports have plummeted, even without formal sanctions, due to the general “toxicity” of the country’s entire economy. Bankers, insurers, and shipping companies don’t want to risk doing business with Moscow. A strong ruble, high export taxes, and storage shortages have also reduced the competitiveness of Russian grain, explains Prokopenko.

▻ But what will Putin do? One question that Prokopenko doesn’t answer is whether the Kremlin will ditch the grain agreement. Based on this article, Moscow must now choose between depriving Kyiv of vital revenue and losing its own last leverage over Europe. Overlooked in this calculus, it seems, are the people around the world who want to eat the grain.

🛢 Don’t rock the oil boat, Westerners

Ivan Timofeev, policy analyst (Valdai Discussion Club, RU/EN): The U.S.-led effort to cap the price of Russian oil exports will take effect at home, but the campaign outside the West will rely on sanctions against any noncompliant services related to the industry, including transportation, financial transactions, insurance, refueling ships, maintenance, and so on. To avoid secondary sanctions, many businesses — even in countries that don’t observe the price cap — will obey the new rules.

Timofeev warns that this political interference in price regulation will inevitably create uncertainty, which could raise prices. Also, he says the price cap on Russian exports will drag down oil’s price globally, harming other oil-producing nations. Timofeev adds that another result of U.S. and European bans on Russian oil is that Moscow sells to Asia as discounted prices, and the cheaper fuel raises the competitiveness of those economies against the West.

🕊 Russia is losing its arbiter’s seat in Nagorno-Karabakh

Kirill Krivosheev, journalist (Riddle, EN/RU): Russia’s failure to offer more decisive support to Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan will likely cede the diplomatic initiative to the European Union, which is standing by and ready to mediate a settlement that gives Baku what it wants (and what it’s capable of grabbing thanks to its military superiority). Though Russia has maintained stable relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia alike since the USSR’s collapse, Moscow and Yerevan have the better ties, as they both seek “to maintain the status quo for as long as possible.”

For Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh is a “reminder of its past greatness,” says Krivosheev, adding that Russia’s agenda in the region is to lead negotiations that “confirm its own presence.” But the ceasefire Moscow supervised two years ago has lost Baku’s faith, explains Krivosheev, because Russian peacekeepers have not disarmed the NK army.

▻ Past greatness or compatriots under fire? While Krivosheev is careful to point out that Yerevan’s close relationship with Russia is largely a friendship of necessity (“Armenia simply has no one else to rely on heavily”), many Armenians would likely reject his characterization that their present-day concerns about Nagorno-Karabakh are rooted in an obsession with “past greatness” (a characterization that resembles criticisms of Russian revanchism in Ukraine). Determining the fairest description of Armenian motives, however, is a messy task that will never satisfy everyone.

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