[1]
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
As tactics for warfighting against Russia go, drones are a new one, and if measured by Russian public opinion, they are more effective for the time being than old tactics like Alexei Navalny-type operations, or Trojan Horses like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or Fifth Columnists like Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and the President’s special negotiator with the US, Kirill Dmitriev.
Combine them altogether, as the escalation promised by the G7 and the NATO declarations of June [3] and July [4], and you have another of the strategic miscalculations which have defeated the Swedes, Poles, British, French, Germans, and Americans in the past, the long ago and the right now. Russians learn and recover from their mistakes, no matter how great the price in treasure and in blood they pay.
Just so, the mistakes which President Vladimir Putin has made, grave and costly ones, are now being repaired [5]. Not soon and swiftly enough, to be sure, to avoid the price in treasure and blood which has been paid, goes on being paid.
Notwithstanding, the escalation of the drone war in the Russian hinterland, on the near seas and the high seas, is forcing the Kremlin into an acceleration of the successions of the Putin presidency and of the oligarchy which his rule has represented and on which he and his family depend. From guarded conversations with sources over the past month, it is clear these successions are not those which the Anglo-Americans and Europeans are aiming at; nor are they the forecasts of the US podcasters representing what they imagine to be Russia’s best interests.
These successions will not be signalled [6] by the launch of nuclear fireworks of the kind threatened by Moscow think tankers and media celebrities with safe-haven residences in Germany or Italy.
The Russian successions accelerated by war escalation are starting in the oil sector at Rosneft, Gazprom and LUKoil, and in the associated refining, generating, and logistics – pipelines, railways, ports, shipping. The successions are beginning at the sources of debt and credit finance at Sberbank and VTB. They are under way in the military-industrial complex, especially Rostec. The well-known names which are aging, ailing and passing include those of Igor Sechin, Alexei Miller, Vagit Alekperov, German Gref, Andrei Kostin, Sergei Chemezov.
The fight over the successions under way in the 1996-2026 generation of the oligarchs is already visible in the self-promotions of individuals like the half-witted Andrei Melnichenko [7], and his cleverer peers, Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska. Between them, there is a fight for the profits of what one faction hopes will be a long war, the privateers and red flaggers; and the other faction of oligarchs who want peace now, the capitulationists and white flaggers. Yes, the Putin oligarchy is cracking up into reds versus whites.
Yes, the war aim of the NATO escalation is to trigger a revolutionary situation inside Russia. But no, the outcome is not theirs to dictate by drones, sanctions, or the assassinations of oligarchs recently agreed between the national security advisors in Athens and Kiev [8]. From the inside, when they are happening, revolutions appear to be confusing, chaotic, unpredictable, incredible. We are on the edge of another one in Russia. View or listen to the discussion with Mike Robinson in the new podcast from London on UK Column News [9].
[10]The title is a reference to Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, one of the most popular Russian films of all time, first screened in 1980; to know more, read this [11]. It won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1981, beating films by Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and Akira Kurosawa; and for the time being the American Academy has not withdrawn the award. The film is banned in Kiev.