- Hubert Walas
The specter of collapse.
A full month has passed since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps the most important month for the global order since the end of World War II. The war is local only geographically. Strategically, it is already a global war as it commits resources and forces fundamental changes in all the world's major players.
Although also the threat of activating frozen conflicts and territorial disputes is growing in many parts of the world - especially on the periphery of the Russian Federation. Following Japan's renewed claim to the contested status of the Kuril Islands or the Northern Territories as Tokyo calls them, Russia has announced military exercises on the islands. But does the number of 3,000 troops expected to take part in the exercises represent sufficient deterrent potential?
Secondly, the media are reporting of renewed Azeri attacks on Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh. The guarantor of security in the region was supposed to be the Russian "peacekeepers" present there. Baku is testing Moscow, while Armenia's main security guarantor - Russia, is bleeding in Ukraine.
How, on the other hand, looks the operational situation in Ukraine? No breakthroughs. At this point, everything is heading towards a devastating positional war. Both sides are losing the ability to carry out quick, powerful land attacks due to increasing human, equipment, weapons, and fuel problems. However, there are a few developments worth noting.
First, on March 24, the Ukrainians sank a Russian Alligator-class ship in the port of occupied Berdyansk, probably by a missile attack. Two others may have been damaged. Interestingly, the day before, the unloading from the Saratov ship was depicted by Russian media, which may also have been a clue to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The attack shows that Russian logistics lines are not fully secure even in such key hubs as occupied ports.
Second - the Ukrainians are carrying out pinpoint counter-offensives in various directions, as we previously reported. The Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated the village of Lukyanivka, which is located as far as 50km east of Kyiv - this would be the easternmost location in the Kyiv region where the Ukrainians pushed the Russians out. While, on March 27, Ukraine carried out one of its most important counter-attacks - recapturing the town of Trostyanets with a prewar population of 20 000, thus unblocking the supply line between Poltava and the besieged Sumy. Fighting for Kherson continues, the city is contested, and, let's recall, it is the only district capital that remains in Russian hands. The beating of Kherson would reverberate throughout Ukraine and among the Russian troops, further hurting their morale. It is likely that there are no Russian troops in the Mykolaiv region, which made the district's governor Vitaly Kim's Sunday pleasant.
Mariupol still has not fallen, but unfortunately, there are first reports of civilians starving to death and of people trying to escape the besieged city being deported deep into Russia. This is a practice often used in the history of Russia - the forced relocation of the local population, e.g. to Siberia. Poles, Ukrainians, and Balts have experienced this. Sporadic rocket attacks affect Western Ukraine, and they act as signals to the West. Such was the purpose of Saturday's attack on the fuel depot in Lviv, when only 400 kilometers away, in Warsaw, Joe Biden was giving his speech condemning the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin
The Russian offensive is primarily focused on the Donbas. There, the Ukrainians are further threatened with encirclement. This is no coincidence, as on 25 March we saw an official change in the Russian narrative on the "Special Military Operation in Ukraine." During the briefing, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the success of the first stage of the fighting in Ukraine, which, according to the Russians, resulted in the reduction of the military potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and it is now entering the second stage. At the same time, the generals pointed out that the main goal of the operation was always the liberation of Donbas, and all other movements were subordinated only to this goal. This is so far the most emphatic admission of operational failure in Ukraine by the Russian command.
This is causing Russian elites to begin to panic. Increasingly, we hear the narrative that Russia's very existence as a state organism as we know it is under threat. Someone may - not unreasonably - ask how an invasion of another country can directly threaten Russia. However, the way the Kremlin elite understands it and the structure of the Russian state means that this may indeed be the case. Let's look at this from 2 perspectives.
Let us begin with the ideological sphere. On 4 March, Alexander Dugin gave a short lecture on the Russian invasion to Western journalists. Dugin is a Russian political scientist, who considers himself a geopolitician and the founder of the modern Russian geopolitical school. During the 30 years following the collapse of the USSR, Dugin was to exert a powerful ideological influence on the Russian power elite. It is worthwhile, therefore, to study Dugin's speech in order to understand the Russian way of thinking. Dugin also shows how the misuse of a geopolitical tool can lead to tragic consequences. Here is a short summary of Dugin's speech. Let’s begin.
Dugin says that we, Russia, tried to speak the language of the West, but it failed. Now we speak our own language. Russia is a civilization in itself, it is an isolated island, a very large island.
The Russian admits that Halford Mackinder, a British geopolitician at the turn of the 20th century, was his greatest inspiration. He opened his eyes, in particular his concept of the clash between Sea Power and Land Power. Dugin points out that the difference between one force and the other is not just geography, but also the values that are central to it. For Sea Power, he lists modernism, technologies, capitalism, market society, or materialism. In contrast, he identifies Land Power with dignity, military strength, tradition, conservatism, national interests, family, and the Christian religion. Our commentary on these issues follows later on.
On this basis, in the 1990s Dugin began to develop the Russian geopolitical school. This school was to have a very strong influence on the Russian leadership. In the 1990s he began giving lectures at the Russian General Staff and, as he points out, was heard. The Russian believes that he provided the Russian elite with a logical explanation of what was happening after the collapse of the USSR as they were confused. This was the beginning of Mr. Putin's secret rise to power," Dugin continues.
20 years Putin tried to achieve the independence of the Land Power by peaceful means, but nobody cared, nobody understood it. While the Sea Power took advantage of the moment of the collapse of the Soviets and took control of part of the post-Soviet space. Putin's goal became to reverse this course of events. Dugin emphasizes, several times, that this was a "geopolitical catastrophe." The same words were used by Putin.
The territories that were "taken" "logically belonged" to the Land Power. There is no neutrality in geopolitics. Putin responded to the Ukrainian Maidan of 8 years ago, which according to Dugin was regime change by the West, by seizing Crimea and Donbas. It was a defensive heartland action, against Sea Power. Dugin goes on to quote Zbigniew Brzezinski, who clearly made an impression on the Russian: "Without Ukraine, Russia cannot be an empire again. With Ukraine it will be". Dugin says - "this is the law, it's nothing personal". Btw. Brzezinski is the father of the current US Ambassador to Poland - Mark Brzezinski.
Dugin continues - the West sees itself as the only player on the global chessboard. Putin also wanted to be a player, so we attacked Ukraine. As a subject, as a sovereign player. We broke the rules of the single-player game. It's hot, it's brutal, it's bloody, but this is the real end of the unipolar world where decisions were made only in one center. Welcome to the tri-polar world, where there is the West, Russia, and China.
It is possible that there will be more centers. An opportunity opens up for Europe to boost its independence. The number of players is not limited. Humanity will decide. The war on Ukraine is not about whether you are for Ukraine or Russia, it is a choice of whether you are for a multipolar or unipolar world. Putin, on the other hand, is the least ideologically motivated person we can imagine. He is simply a geopolitician, a realist-pragmatist. This concludes Dugin's argument.
Dugin's speech illustrates how the misuse of the tool of geopolitics can lead to devastating consequences. Especially if the fact is that Dugin has most influenced the worldview of Putin and the Russian elite. A number of statements by leading Russian politicians can in fact attest to this, as they speak exactly in this vein, e.g. Sergey Lavrov's recent statement.
First, Dugin uses geopolitics as the ultimate and only tool to analyze the world. However, geopolitics has never been and never will be the answer to everything. Of course, it is useful for grasping the big picture. But in Dugin's eyes, it reduces people to a more or less brainless mass whose fate is predetermined by geography and by an unspecified elite. Because, according to Dugin, even Trump was not a decision-maker. In the eyes of the Russian, countries close to Russia would never have the basis for self-determination.
Even if Dugin's reasoning may seem logical - "we are only defending our values", the basis of this reasoning is based on falsehood. Let us remind what values the Land Power is based on according to Dugin - dignity, military strength, tradition, conservatism, national interests, family, Christian religion. Virtually all these values are rotten in Russia, and earlier in the Soviet Union. They all mean nothing in reality.
Human life for the Russian autocrats was never worth anything. The power of the Soviet Union was built on the exploitation and death of millions of its own citizens. This can also be seen now when young boys without proper training are sent to the front and their bodies are left on the battlefield without burial. Where is the dignity of which Dugin speaks? On the other hand, religion in Russia is not subordinate to God, but to the Tsar. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow supports the war against Ukraine, encourages the fight, and is a loyal subject of Putin. We could enumerate examples like this for hours, but it is obvious to anyone who watches Russia. Each of these values is steeped in falsehood, corruption, and indoctrination.
Of course, there are overriding geopolitical currents that are hard to stop. Everyone (except perhaps Walesa) in Poland knows that the Solidarity movement alone would not have been enough to break communism without the sheer power of the United States and the West. But that power did not come from nowhere. To use Dugin's narrative - free societies will always defeat corrupt ones. Just as the truth always triumphs over the lie. This is a basic geopolitical principle that Dugin failed to take into account. People will always choose freedom over slavery. We Poles and other nations who suffered under communism and escaped the Russian sphere of influence know something about this. Now Ukraine is striving for the same thing. And it is the true desire of the Ukrainian people aided by the free world that causes Russian imperialism to fall.
Of course, the West also has its problems. Although it should be noted that these are the same problems with which Russia has always been thoroughly indoctrinated. That is the far-left, which was the “religion” of the Soviet Union, or the far-right - as it is in contemporary Russia. But the problems of the West are nothing compared to the situation in Russia. There is a reason why Russians who can afford it (like the oligarchs and their relatives) live mostly outside the Russian Federation. They exploit their own nation for financial gain, and at the same time enjoy the freedom of the Western world.
If it were Russia that promoted freedom of speech, freedom of choice, or freedom of individual throughout its history, and the U.S. vice versa, all free people would be eager to join, to put it after Dugin, the "Russian civilization." But this civilization is doomed to collapse because of the enslavement of its own citizens. In geopolitical terms, it is freedom that ultimately gives real power and agency.
And here we come to the second point of view. The more tangible one. This is where Kamil Galeev, an independent researcher and fellow at the Wilson Center, comes into the picture. Galeev recently presented a logical cause-and-effect analysis of how the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens to tear apart the Russian Federation internally. The following analysis is the result of Kamil Galeev's work, and he deserves all the credit for it. Although it should be noted that part of the expert community is critical of Galeev's work, I leave the evaluation to you. Let us begin.
Galeev writes that Western analysts tend to greatly overestimate Russia. Meanwhile, even Russians themselves talk about the potential end of Russian statehood. The Western assumption that Russia would quickly win in Ukraine was based on 3 elements. First, on the myth of WWII. Many have forgotten that Russia fought side by side with the world's largest economies, most notably - the US, which kept them alive. Now it is fighting against those economies.
Many analysts talk about Serdyukov's military reforms. But he quickly exposed himself to interest groups and was fired. In his place came Shoigu, who mainly cared about good PR, not army reform. It is also a myth that the Russian military has gained war experience in Syria. Putin, the generals, and Western experts believed it. Only not the Russian soldiers, as confirmed by a member of the Wagner Group. The fact is that experience was gained by the air force, air defense, but not infantry. While Ukraine became much stronger than in 2015. The entire Ukrainian military underwent heavy, 8-year war training in the fighting in Donbas.
This is why the Russian military is so pessimistic about the prospects for war in Ukraine, as evidenced by Strelkov's statement, who bluntly says that for 29 days Russia has not achieved any strategic success in Ukraine, in any direction. "Many of the worst fears are becoming a reality, we are trapped in a long, bloody, and very dangerous war."
It's also the answer to why Russia is losing so many generals. Why are they on the front lines? Because Russia is losing and Putin knows it. He is furious and sends his generals to the area of direct clashes and they die there. Putin started the war expecting immediate victory. Russian propaganda leaflets indicated that Kyiv would be taken in one day. This is propaganda, of course, but they reflected the general belief that the Ukrainians would not resist.
What will be the consequences for Russia? Galeev believes that Putin will not be able to achieve an outcome that Russians will consider a victory. Any treaty will be considered a Russian defeat. Therefore, the more sneaky ones are beginning to flee the sinking ship. This is Russian oligarch Anatoly Chubais withdrawing money from an ATM in Istanbul. Galeev profiles Chubais as the chief architect of the Russian oligarchic system that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Privatization was carried out in such a way that special wickets were created to allow many people - later oligarchs - to get rich. The Chubais plan did not include a parliament or a democracy to watch over their hands - that would have been problematic. They needed a Tsar to protect them from public opinion, which is how Putin came to power. According to Galeev, individually Chubays is probably the most responsible person for what Russia looks like today. Now, Chubays made the only right decision - he fled when he could. The rest are trapped in Moscow.
Now we are moving to a collapse scenario. Sanctions will destroy Russia's supply chains. Many think Russia is self-sufficient - it is not. It is a trading federation, entirely dependent on imports. The first victim is the machinery industry. It relies entirely on foreign components. Therefore, sanctions are destroying: the arms industry, transport and communication lines, and the production of consumer goods.
The sanctions will not deter Putin and will not spark a domestic rebellion in the form of mass protests across the country. But they will leave a strong imprint on a more local level and encourage separatism.
Particularly dependent is paradoxically the arms industry. Why? Because it is complex. For example, it is the main customer of precision machinery in the country - 80% of these machines fall to the armament industry. All this is sanctioned. The first blow was sanctions after the invasion of Crimea, as Economy Minister Sergey Perestorin admitted. New types of Russian armaments came to a standstill, as exemplified by the new-generation T-14 Armata tank, whose mass production was supposed to start in 2015. It remains a prototype to this day.
Another aspect of this problem is the engineering workforce. Unlike the Soviet era, Russia has lost many technological competencies. In Soviet times, an engineer was a prestigious, highly paid profession. Engineers were the kings. Today in Russia, as Galeeva calls it, they are losers without respect or a good paycheck. As a result, design offices have no young, competent engineers. The average age of engineers in the tank industry is 55-60 years. Many competencies of old engineers die with them, and skills are not passed on to the younger generation. Therefore, all production at Uralvagonzavod, Russia's only tank manufacturer, came to a halt. The sanctions of 2014 did not allow the production of modern tanks, those of 2022 do not allow any production.
Traditional industries are also dying. Due to a lack of components, car factories are standing down. Workers in these factories are being laid off. Airlines and railroads also have problems. The Russians can produce their planes, but again using parts from abroad. That is why the aircraft factory in Rostov was shut down. Within a few months, it will not be possible to repair any aircraft in Russia, either of Russian or foreign made.
The railroad is even more important. It constitutes the basic bloodstream of the Russian Federation that connects the country. Meanwhile, for example, the 3 factories that produce cassette bearings, which are an essential component of the Russian trains, are foreign-owned and dependent on imports.
Finally, we turn to consumer goods. Everything is in short supply and prices are rising. People are fighting over sugar, for example. More and more people take advantage of the situation and, having access to the desired goods, stockpile or even steal, as evidenced here. And then try to sell it on the black market. Now let's take a broader look. It's not just individual people trying to stockpile supplies. The governors of the various regions of Russia are trying to do the same thing.
Why? Out of fear for their own skin. Because for the average Russian, the culprit for his tribulations resulting from the sanctions will not be Vladimir Putin - the Tsar is always a saint. It will be the local governor, who will be blamed for everything. Whose fault will be the lack of food in the stores? The corrupt local administrator. He will be blamed for everything. Now, what can they do to protect themselves from the outrage of the people?
Some encourage backyard farming, but that culture is largely dying with the older generation. Besides, it is highly unproductive. So what are they left with? Making provisions, whatever they have on hand. The Stavropol Kraj, for example, has no problems with the availability of sugar. Why? Because it has blocked exports to other regions.
According to Galeev, this may be the main reason for Russia's downfall. The local authorities will not suddenly declare independence, at least not now. However, they will try to act in the interests of their regions, as they will be blamed for all the evil that now befalls the Russian people in a tangible way. As a result, they will halt regional exports, take stock, thereby breaking intrastate supply chains. When the country's connectivity suddenly deteriorates, this will be even easier. As Galeev writes - Russia will not collapse because of collective, morally justified action. But its cohesion will be compromised by its own officials who want to avoid a catastrophe in their own region. This will be de facto economic separatism; the political will come much later. The best model for Russia's collapse is not Yugoslavia or Austria-Hungary, it is the collapse of the Spanish colonial empire with all its Creole and Peninsular divisions. Russia is much more of a Latin American country in terms of politics, economy, and culture than many think, concludes Kamil Galeev.
To recap, we have - an ideologue who has reignited the imperialist thinking of the Russian elite, whose corruption has brought the country to the brink of self-destruction, and the war against Ukraine is the great catalyst for this process. Not surprisingly, many Russian policymakers today speak of Russia in existential terms. This is acknowledged by Medvedev, Medinsky, Naryshkin, or Russian propagandists such as Soloviev or Yaakov Kedmi.
But we must realize that it isn’t the existence of the Russian people or Russian culture that is at stake. What is at stake is the Russian imperial project, which over the years has fed on the Russian elite’s corruption, while at the same time taking advantage of Russian society, the country's intellectual and natural resources. Therefore, defending this state of affairs, its own power, wealth, and imperialistic aspirations, the Kremlin is now threatening the world with the use of nuclear weapons. But a process has begun. A process that not even Vladimir Putin has under control. A process that is taking place in his own backyard. A process that he himself has triggered. A process that, instead of restoring Imperial Russia, may lead to its collapse.
