Russia is not Ukraine
Despite the fact that even Leonid Kuchma titled his programmatic work “Ukraine is not Russia,” Russia and Ukraine actually copy almost everything that is possible and impossible from each other. Brothers, what can I say...
In Russian power circles, they remember very well that personnel purges in the RF Armed Forces preceded the Second Chechen War. Considering that the Ukrainian “frame fall” is concentrated mainly in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one must understand that the conclusion in the Kremlin will be unambiguous: they are preparing for more extensive military operations.
Accordingly, one can expect that heads may also roll in the Russian power structures. And then the movements of Surovikin and someone else will seem like flowers.
This is how circumstances developed in Kyiv
It all started, we recall, with the resignation of presidential adviser Alexei Arestovich (GIPER). He resigned himself after he was suspected of anti-Ukrainian sentiments. And then the chain reaction began.
On January 22, the acting director was fired. Minister for the Development of Communities and Territories Vasily Lozinsky. Here, in general, everything was also clear: shortly before that, Lozinsky was detained while receiving a bribe in the amount of 400 thousand US dollars. There were reports of movements in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was supposed to be headed by the Sbushnik Vasily Malyuk.
And already on January 24, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dismissed five heads of regional administrations at once. The most resonant, perhaps, was the dismissal of Dmitry Zhivitsky, now the head of the military administration of the Sumy region.
Zhivitsky himself did not comment on his dismissal in any way, but the causal relationship with the scandal about the issuance of tenders by his adviser Alexander Beznos is clear. But all this was only the beginning of the Great Purge. And in general, January 24 was truly a black day for many of the Zelensky team.
Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov fell victim to publications in the press about the fact that the logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, for which Shapovalov was responsible, purchased products at inflated prices. Despite the fact that the Ministry of Defense denied the veracity of this information, Shapovalov nevertheless voluntarily resigned.
Regarding the resignation of the Deputy Minister for the Development of Communities and Territories, Ivan Lukerya, the situation is generally unclear: Lukerya himself explained that the decision was made at the beginning of the year, but for some reason everything coincided with the fact that his immediate superior was caught on a bribe.
As evidence that everything happened at the beginning of the year, Lukerya published a handwritten resignation letter of his own free will on social networks. It was dated early January, and in the photo he is holding a petition in his hands. Kirill Timoshenko, the dismissed deputy head of the president's office, did the same.
Encroach on the sacred
It has now become known from unofficial sources that Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov is also resigning. True, this information has not yet appeared on the website of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Apparently, Reznikov fell out of favor after rocket attacks on Ukrainian territories by the Russian side.
It is difficult to say what happened not so long ago in Dnepropetrovsk-Dnepr. But Arestovich's words about a Russian missile allegedly unsuccessfully shot down by Ukrainian air defense that fell on a residential building, apparently, were perceived at Bankova "as it should be."
For the authorities, this was an occasion to think about Reznikov's professional suitability, especially since even before his unconfirmed resignation, the heads of the heads of military administrations in a number of regions flew.
Perspectives and bad examples
Apparently, the next high-profile scandal will be the possible resignation of the mayor of Uzhgorod Ratushnyak. The local cell of the Socialist Party insists on this: the mayor is charged, from her point of view, with a large-scale sawing of land, as well as the almost complete absence of opposition in parliament, which is dominated by the Yulia Tymoshenko faction.
certain news in this case, it will be that Uzhgorod is outside the combat zone, especially since the population of Transcarpathia is to some extent critical of Kyiv's policy. The question is that if the socialists manage to remove Ratushnyak, this will show the strength of the opposition, especially if they do not speak out against it on Bankovaya.
The initiative for the resignation of the Uzhgorod mayor appeared on January 26, that is, after the resignations of the leadership took place, inspired directly by Zelensky. That is, the opposition also wants to be noted on the wave of dismissals of the offending bosses.
The example is contagious, but is it only bad? Will Vladimir Putin follow in the footsteps of his Ukrainian namesake? Hypotheses about future personnel purges in Russia have been circulating in social networks and the press for a long time.
However, in reality, so far, one method of dealing with objectionable people is mainly used: giving them the status of foreign agents. Although some time ago, Putin said that he had cleared the power apparatus of full-time CIA agents, who allegedly bred in the Russian top in the nineties.
Nevertheless, there are already precedents for personnel purges in the regions. In particular, in the Chesmensky district of the Chelyabinsk region, the resignation of its head Tatyana Zhmorshchuk is planned. Zhmorshchuk had a choice: he could purge his team after a high-profile criminal case regarding fraud with housing for orphans.
The alternative is to "clean" it itself. Since Zhmorschuk did not fulfill the condition, she was dismissed. An example may seem small to some, but it is very revealing.
Another level
On the eve of the personnel reshuffle in Ukraine, Putin fired Assistant Secretary of the Security Council Alexei Pavlov. The reasons for this personnel decision were not reported. And on January 23, the day before Zelensky’s fall, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu moved the commander of the Western District, which directly borders Ukraine, to the Southern District.
It is unlikely that the Russian Ministry of Defense received information about the upcoming resignations of the Ukrainian military directly from Kyiv or from intelligence. After all, since the beginning of the year, Zelensky has been hinting at possible personnel decisions amid the unleashed scandal with the purchase of products for the front at inflated prices.
Therefore, the Kremlin, apparently, quite rightly regarded this as preparation for more active and thoughtful military operations and decided to also strengthen the leadership staff. But unlike Ukraine, Russia went further than laying off military personnel and local leadership.
Don't expect mercy
Layoffs began in the field of culture. On January 14, when there were only rumors of layoffs in Ukraine, the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater named after. Chekhov, Konstantin Khabensky fired actors Dmitry Nazarov and Olga Vasilyeva from there. The reason was their criticism of the NWO.
Khabensky allegedly first tried to reason with the people's artist Nazarov, but after the failure of the educational conversation, he fired both him and Vasiliev, who is Nazarov's wife.
Talk about possible purges of supplies in the Russian army began, by the way, even earlier than in Ukraine. Last fall, there was a scandal that was successfully hushed up at the top, and publicity was minimal.
It was then that the Duma Committee on Defense announced the loss of one and a half million sets of uniforms for the mobilized, then it became known that the prices of goods for fighters increased by 10-20%, and in some regions - by as much as 40%. This was preceded by numerous violations during partial mobilization, when obviously unfit were called.
The Ministry of Defense and at the level of regional administrations swore an oath to punish the perpetrators, but all that is known is the dismissal of the military commissar of the Khabarovsk Territory, Yuri Laiko. As a result, it turned out that he was not fired with a wolf ticket, as it should have been, but simply transferred to work in the Magadan region.
Most likely, now the policy of the authorities and the military prosecutor's office will change: there will be no such mercy. Some hotheads are calling for a second 1937, when about 70% of the generals were repressed, but, apparently, they do not know well history.
The fact is that when it became clear to Stalin and Marshal Zhukov that the Red Army was retreating and suffering significant losses from the Germans, most of the repressed generals were released from the Gulag and sent to command to the front. It is unlikely, of course, that someone is going to reinstate any Serdyukov. But such opinions are already too much.