Some excellent blasts accross the energy grid in Ukraine this morning. Trump is completely out of his depth here, if his ambitions are to bring an end to this.

Posted by: Night Tripper | Nov 17 2024 8:31 utc | 203

I’d judge these posts to be as close to the truth as can be hoped of a short form analysis of public domain information, far more so than the rigidly pro-system happy clapping that most anglophone Russia watchers swear blind is an adequate account of affairs.
https://t.me/pes_prizrak/252

New Deal. New national project “Defense”
The choice of Belousov as Minister of Defense is one of the rare meaningful appointments in recent years in the Russian Federation System. Under the leadership of the Manturov-Belousov pair , the defense industry is essentially turning into an undeclared national project. In fact, this means a New Deal – a new economic course around which the Russian economy will be built. This is our unambiguous response to the strategy of deliberate ambiguity of the West, with the help of which it wants to confuse itself.
The logic of Belousov’s appointment is absolutely pragmatic. The candidacies of Dyumin, and at an early stage of other figures, such as Rogozin and the same Manturov, were rejected; others did not have enough apparatus weight. Dyumin would not have become a purely civilian minister, Rogozin would have been busy increasing his political capital, and Manturov is too connected with the defense industry and the main arms manufacturer – Rostec. As a result, the Augean stables of layers of problems will be cleared by an economist-conductor who has built relationships with both the Kovalchuk-Kiriyenko group, with Chemezov, and with the Security Council party.
The search for a driver of economic growth for the Russian Federation has ended. The Grail has been found – the defense industry will be the core of Russian prosperity and sovereignty. In November 23, Belousov explained that the defense industry is growing at a high rate and is pulling related industries – metallurgy, chemistry, as well as sectors that provide import substitution, including equipment production, mechanical engineering, and durable goods for the population – along with it by 5-7% per month. The share of the defense industry is already more than 5% of GDP. The plans are to reach 10% – no less than oil and gas.
Shoigu’s MORF (ed: abbreviation – Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation) was a brake on the development of the military economy. And it is not about the “family” malice of the ex-minister or the special corruption of his entourage, but about the lack of economic vision (of) Shoigu’s team. On many issues – the formation of technical specifications, the definition of priority areas, interaction with industry – the approaches from the Soviet non-market system remained, and the consideration of the inter-industry balance was brushed aside as a magic spell. The answer to all comments was – we are talking about security, and for economics, contact the government. At the same time, while covering the needs of the SVO, the role of the Ministry of Defense as the main customer of the defense industry has increased many times over. In the context of sanctions and active work by the United States since 2014 to knock Russian products out of the arms market, exports have become more difficult, and in some areas, have decreased. The role of the military receiver no longer corresponds to the new realities. The model, when the defense industry was viewed as a vending machine – you select the desired product and press a button, began to carry strategic risks. In addition, financial support for contracts was lagging behind in time, sometimes very significantly. With such a policy, a non-payment crisis would have occurred sooner or later and the defense industry would have burst like a soap bubble, having been overextended by chronic underinvestment.
In this regard, Belousov’s tasks are as follows:
1. Reform the state defense order . Make the Ministry of Defense a modern customer, translate the military’s wishes into adequate economic language and remake them into long-term plans
2. Organize balanced relations between the Ministry of Defense and the defense industry , jointly defining a development program
3. Create a structure, similar to DARPA, that will identify prospects, develop and implement military innovations.
It is worth noting that the division of the Ministry of Defense into civilian and military parts had already occurred de facto in the fall of 22. Then the General Staff received autonomy from Frunzenskaya Embankment (ed: ministerial-administrative centre) in making military decisions and gradually increased it, and since July 23, after Prigozhin’s putsch, almost all decisions have been made at Headquarters in Rostov. The Chief of General Staff worked directly with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. In this regard, Belousov will not have to change anything, but rather institutionalize the current configuration.
The tasks set before the new head of the military department are grandiose, and whether he will become the reformer McNamara or the destroyer Serdyukov, we will see in a few months.

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/05/11/2023/6547a80b9a7947796fa9b435

Belousov stated that Russia’s economy is growing not only due to the military-industrial complex
Deputy Prime Minister Belousov: The thesis about GDP growth due to the military-industrial complex is only partly true
Russia’s economic growth is provided not only by the military-industrial complex, but also by import substitution spheres, Belousov said. The Ministry of Economic Development previously estimated GDP growth by the end of 2023 at 2.8%. Putin said that Russia had withstood the “sanctions onslaught”
Statements that the growth of the Russian economy is provided by the military-industrial complex (MIC) are only partly true; significant growth in the country is also demonstrated by the spheres of import substitution. This was stated by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov at the exhibition “Russia”, RIA Novosti reports .
“They often say that all our growth is due to the defense industry. This is not true, it seems to me that this is only partially true. Indeed, the defense industry is growing at a high rate, and it is pulling related industries along with it – metallurgy, chemistry and a whole range of other industries. But our sectors that provide import substitution are growing at a very high rate, 5-7% per month, taking into account seasonality,” the Deputy Prime Minister noted.
Belousov included equipment production, mechanical engineering, and the production of durable goods for the population among such sectors.
In 2022, according to Rosstat, Russia’s real GDP fell by 2.1%. Growth is expected by the end of 2023, as the Russian economy has gone through a period of “adaptation to external challenges,” Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at the end of October. In the first nine months (January-September) of 2023, the country’s GDP grew by 2.8%, according to a preliminary report from the Ministry of Economic Development.
The head of the department, Maxim Reshetnikov, also predicted economic growth of 2.8% for the entire 2023. The Central Bank expects the figure to be between 1.5 and 2.5%. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), GDP should grow by 2.2% in 2023.
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the economic recovery from sanctions was complete. Russia, he said, had been able to withstand the “sanctions onslaught” of unfriendly countries, and GDP had reached the pre-sanction level of 2021.
Against the backdrop of the special operation being carried out in Ukraine, Russia has seen a significant increase in the production of goods needed for the defense industry. There is no precise data on production volumes in the defense industry, but the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said in July that more weapons are now being produced in a month than in the whole of 2022.

Posted by: anon2020 | Nov 17 2024 9:23 utc | 205

Ukraine now approaching the Sudan in terms of organic GDP.
De-energize dat dump!

Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Nov 17 2024 12:54 utc | 207

re: Aslangeo @ #205
Leaks expose secret British military cell plotting to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’ via training assassins and saboteurs. A Banderist terrorist speciality. Excellent Grayzone News article by Kit Klarenberg, well worth a read.

Posted by: John Gilberts | Nov 17 2024 13:21 utc | 209

HB_Norica | Nov 15 2024 12:54 utc | 125

I was in my early 20’s at that time and my interest in WW2 in the east was still a decade away so I didn’t know the difference between the SS and Wehrmacht. I know now that the only German units Ukrainians were allowed to join were the waffen SS because they were slavs therefore Untermensch.

Complete crap ! To be SS you had to be of pure (or almost) pure aryan stock ! Those ‘ukrainians’ were galicians & I forget the others vol-somfing of prussian pomeranian, austrian stock. It was a deliberate seeding of such peoples by the local empires to cause just the problems we see now !
And don’t think the Poles weren’t aware either. The “hyena of europe”, indeed !
Sorry for the rant but . . .
I’ll get me coat.

Posted by: Sarlat La Canède | Nov 17 2024 15:41 utc | 211