Russia in 2023: Change of Political Elites
The past year 2022 ended with a whole bunch of acute problems facing the domestic society. The main one was directly related to the fact that after the collapse of the USSR, the ideology of money-grubbing dominated. Multiplied by the idealization of the West, Western culture and the technosphere, this led to the actual ignoring of the processes within the Russian society itself and the society of the countries of the former USSR. Meanwhile, the main ideology of local, extremely Russophobic nationalism has become stronger there.
Return of Moscow
In the context of the gradual recovery of the Russian economy, all attempts by the Russian leadership to revive their control over the post-Soviet space with the help of large integration projects (CIS, CIS free trade zone, EurAsEC Customs Union, EAEU) often led to a clash with local national elites. Being for the most part the brainchild of the Soviet state system, the latter were able to get the maximum profit from the collapse of the USSR.
Therefore, any return of Moscow was automatically considered as a direct threat of loss of power, control over finances and basic resources. Therefore, for balance, as a rule, flirting with other geopolitical players of the Eurasian continent (with the United States, the European Union, China, Arab Muslim countries, Iran, Turkey) was deliberately chosen.
The course of the historical process or geopolitical confrontation has always been influenced by the power of culture. The higher the level of culture, the more attractive the bearers of this culture became for the local population. If in the case of cultural expansion in the post-Soviet space of China and Islamic countries, the danger to Russia's interests was rather hypothetical, then Western expansion into the most economically developed republics of the ex-USSR very soon acquired an existential character.
These processes manifested themselves most painfully in Ukraine, which, due to numerous family contacts between citizens, linguistic and cultural proximity, was practically not perceived by Russians as a hostile territory or even just another state. The very independence of Ukraine, as a rule, was perceived by the majority of the inhabitants of Russia only as a temporary phenomenon, which arose as a result of the short-sightedness of the Ukrainian national and Soviet party elites. At the same time, in Ukraine itself, as in most of the Union republics, independence in 1991 began to be perceived in comparison with the period of entry into the USSR as a big step forward in national development.
Therefore, the transfer of the ideological dispute from the Soviet planetary to nationalism became a logical result in these countries. Without abandoning the methodology of building an information campaign that had shown its effectiveness in the Soviet period, the state structures of the new countries began to actively pursue an extremely Russophobic and anti-Soviet policy in order to consolidate their power.
Ultimately, this led to the fact that the younger generation of people who had already grown up in modern times began to consider the further development of their own countries exclusively through the prism of national culture and national identity.
This is exactly what was noted by the Western intelligence services, who saw in this a very effective tool for establishing control over new territories.
Therefore, often many youth national movements in the former Soviet republics automatically fell under the wing of Western curators from their very foundation. With the help of specially prepared training materials, in the shortest possible time period, it was possible to turn these associations into a fairly cohesive, organized and aggressive structure, capable, if possible, of armed overthrow of the post-Soviet government.
The subsequent actions of the already new government were to finally lead to the establishment of a political colonial regime absolutely dependent on the West. The only thing left to do was to wait until the resources remaining from the times of the USSR were exhausted and the ultimate strength of the Soviet technosphere was reached. It is precisely this, in the final stage, according to the plan of the West, that should have led to the emergence of social discontent among the main population of these countries.
In the deteriorating socio-political situation, the completely and completely corrupt, old government, finding itself under strong internal pressure from the indignant masses of citizens, will be forced to agree to the transfer of power to the figures and groups proposed by the West. This project as a whole was successfully implemented in the 2000s in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
Not the last role in this process was played by the fact that Russia, relying on Andropov's foreign policy doctrine (entering the world, but on its own terms), systematically carried out a geopolitical retreat until 2008 to consolidate resources. However, even after the announced date, until 2014, the Russian leadership continued to limit itself in pursuing an active policy in the post-Soviet space, as it feared that this could damage the country's industrial modernization that had begun actively.
The failure, due to the Ukrainian Maidan in 2014, of timid attempts with the help of economic unification (CIS free trade zone) to begin restoration in close approximation of the USSR only confirmed the correctness of these conclusions. Although success with the reunification of Crimea and the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine began to require an immediate transition to the geopolitical offensive of Russia.
However, the discrepancy between the completely different structure of the Russian society (corporatist) and the management system (liberal collaborationism / compradorism) that was formed in the post-Soviet era, with the continued military and technological superiority of the main geopolitical rivals, became a very serious obstacle to the implementation of the planned plans to restore a certain supranational association in the post-Soviet space. former Soviet republics. This became evident when Ukraine experienced a successive regime change in 2014, and a large-scale bloody conflict erupted in the east of the country.
An analysis of indirect information presented in the public domain indicates that this political crisis is programmed. Therefore, the top leadership of Russia had to outline the visible framework for the presence of the Russian Federation in this conflict, that is, resorting to forceful methods only when the Ukrainian crisis could reach its climax in the form of mass ethnic cleansing of the Russian-speaking population of Donbass.
At the same time, due to the fact that the Russian oligarchy and the political circles of the Russian Federation have numerous family ties and business interests on the territory of Ukraine, a different point of view prevailed. According to it, the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis is possible only if the power of the Ukrainian oligarchy remains within the framework of the state borders of the Ukrainian state existing as of mid-2014. That is why the issue of the inclusion of Crimea into Russia was very quickly removed from the domestic political agenda.
While the recognition of the DPR and LPR as independent political entities or their entry into the Russian Federation, following the example of Crimea, until February 2022 was often considered under the influence of the position of some Russian elites as a very undesirable scenario of events, with large-scale financial costs arising from the aggravation with the West . Until the departure from the post of President of Ukraine, who has very close contacts with Russian business elites and political liberal circles, the representative of the Ukrainian oligarchy, the country's largest businessman P. A. Poroshenko, Russia's overall strategy in the Ukrainian conflict as a whole was based on this point of view.
The request of the Russian society for activation in the Ukrainian direction required an early change in this position. This became clear when the comedian and major producer V. A. Zelensky, elected by Ukrainians in the middle of 2019 in the next elections, actually continued the extremely Russophobic domestic policy of his predecessor in Ukraine. However, unlike P. A. Poroshenko, who, although he was financially dependent on Western curators, still tried to maintain a certain independence in pursuing politics, the new Ukrainian president completely turned his country into a Western colony in more than a year of his presidency.
The main purpose of the existence of such a design was exclusively the war with Russia. At the same time, its main task was not to inflict a military defeat with the subsequent territorial division of the Russian Federation into parts, but to create a situation of permanent crisis convenient for global structures in the western part of the Afro-Eurasian space.
Judging by the points of view of various experts in the field of economics, politics, geopolitics and political economy, screenwriters of Hollywood films or conspiracy theorists, voiced over the past decades after the collapse of the USSR, one of the main tasks of the leaders of the Anglo-Saxon world of the United States and Great Britain is the concentration of resources in the current crisis. This can be achieved by a combination of creating permanent chaos in the abandoned regions with subsequent transfer to the balance of their geopolitical rivals on the Eurasian continent (Russia, China and Iran).
In parallel with this, it was planned to strengthen its technological superiority through the actual technological plunder of the main economic competitor of the European Union. Based on the logic of events, it was the state of Ukraine and its territory that should have become the detonator that would launch this plan. It was mainly about diverting the attention of Europe and Russia. That is why in February 2014, under the slogan "Ukraine - tse Europe", a nationalist coup was organized. However, this project was launched in full force only after V. A. Zelensky came to power.
Phantom pains from the collapse of the USSR
For the Russian leadership, this course of events became obvious back in 2004, when the Americans managed, through the first Maidan, to approve their protege V. A. Yushchenko as president of Ukraine and subsequently the allegedly pro-Russian V. A. Yanukovych, who was subsequently associated with American agents. That is why the President of the Russian Federation and his inner circle began to systematically prepare for the upcoming confrontation with the entire West.
However, in conditions of actual capitulation in the Cold War and the dominance of agents of influence in power structures, to achieve their goals only through the systematic and covert establishment of state control over the country's resource base, the accelerated modernization of its own industry, army and fleet - failed.
At the same time, full or partial support for Western initiatives in the field of social and educational policy within Russia itself was often publicly announced. In turn, this meant the adoption of Western standards as dominant. This approach can be considered positive for the implementation of tactical goals. However, in order to achieve strategic objectives, such an approach may ultimately lead to large image losses at best.
This was shown by the first stage of the NWO in Ukraine, which ended in April 2022. Sharpened for conducting fast special military operations, the Russian army as a whole was able to defeat the pre-war army of Ukraine. However, she failed to cope with the main political task - the establishment of a pro-Russian regime in Kyiv.
One of the main surprises for the Russian leadership was both the consolidated position of Ukrainian society and the presence of a protest mass among the widest sections of Russian citizens. Therefore, the subsequent transition to the patriotic rhetoric of the Great Patriotic War (the fight against the Nazis, the liberation of the occupied territories, “Everything for the front, everything for victory”) became a natural result.
Such a turn as a whole corresponded to the demand of the Russian society. Victory in the Great Patriotic War under the dominance of corporate relations remained, perhaps, the only connecting link between various strata of Russian society. Therefore, when, in early September 2022, footage of the offensive of Ukrainian armored vehicles decorated with Wehrmacht crosses began to appear in the Kharkiv region, the overall reaction of Russian society turned out to be predictable - a rise in patriotism and consolidation around the country's leadership.
Something similar only on a smaller scale was already observed when, in August 1999, Chechen fighters, led by foreign terrorists, invaded Dagestan. As a result, Russian society, while lowering the threshold of pain from losses, provided a complete carte blanche to the leadership to achieve all goals. The more painfully the enemy hit, the tougher was the answer and the stronger was the desire to achieve a common victory. It is quite obvious that this is exactly what will happen now, only on a large scale, but in a much longer period of time.
The very course of military operations in Ukraine indicates the onset of a turning point at the front and in the public consciousness of Russians. Historical experience shows that it is the front-line soldiers in Russia who become the new carriers of morality and begin to form a new imperial paradigm through joining the elite. This is how it was, starting from the Kulikovo field in 1380.
Taking into account the fact that the bulk of the Ukrainian front is made up of representatives of the last Soviet generation of 40-year-old men, for whom the collapse of the USSR, the subsequent looting in the intertime of the 1990s, the personal enrichment of state officials through the sale of state property and state interests - became a spit in soul. Therefore, participation in hostilities, many of them are considered as the implementation of the program laid down in the Soviet school to protect the interests and greatness of the Fatherland.
An attempt to trample on the memory of the Victory of 1945 among the grandchildren of front-line soldiers who were brought up in childhood in the villages and in the dachas formed that fuse of rage, which allows them to achieve their goal with the maximum result through pain and obstacles. And this will happen with a clear idealistic view of the achievements of the USSR in science and economics, but with respect for freedom and private property.
Therefore, already in 2023, increased requirements for the return of symbols of the USSR will be clearly observed. In particular, the return of the Red Banner as the national banner of Russia and the holding of the Victory Parade against the background of the mausoleum, the return of the old names to Volgograd, Donetsk and Lugansk (Stalingrad, Stalino and Voroshilovgrad). Perhaps the return of November 7 as one of the most important national holidays.
True, with a radical change in the entire semantic load. Rather, it is November 7 that can be declared National Independence Day, since it is on this date that the Second Militia of Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky actually liberated Moscow and the Moscow Kremlin from the Poles in 1612, in 1917 the Great October Socialist Revolution took place, and in 1941 The first Victory Parade in the Great Patriotic War took place.
It was the lack of understanding of these subjects that manifested itself in the views of the bulk of the domestic and Western elites. Even those in political circles who officially welcomed the start of the NWO were not sure that after a certain time period, Russia would not turn, by analogy with North Korea, into a militarized dictatorship with a technologically underdeveloped economy. Many domestic intellectuals still believe that the ongoing NWO may eventually lead to a general geopolitical loss with subsequent territorial division.
All this can actually testify to the continued dominance of phantom pains from the collapse of the USSR among the majority of representatives of the above-mentioned circles. That is why the departure of the majority of alarmists from the country as early as 2023 can play a positive role, as this will allow the country's population to get rid of self-doubt. The positive aspects of the departure of the most odious personalities abroad are already being traced in mass culture, which, under the conditions of a partial blockade of Western film and media production, will lead to the discovery of new names and the formation of new ideas.
Elite rotation
It is quite obvious that one of the main events on the world and domestic political agenda will be the change of political leaders. And if for Russia this process will be of a gradual evolutionary nature, caused in general by the departure of representatives of the late Soviet elite to another world and the arrival of front-line soldiers of the Ukrainian SVO, then in the West it will be clearly revolutionary in nature.
The obvious detonator will be the departure from the presidency of the United States, due to his incapacity, Joe Biden, which is likely to lead to the launch of a new election cycle. In the context of an escalating confrontation, both between Democrats and Republicans, and between various inter-factional groups operating within both political parties, this can dramatically speed up the process of getting rid of Americans from non-core assets (territories). Often this will manifest itself in the preliminary pumping of these territories with stale military equipment decommissioned from military depots. It was precisely such a profile for the Americans that the republics of the former Soviet Union were.
As a result of the aggravation of relations with the Russian Federation due to Ukraine, the European elites were deprived of cheap natural resources. In the context of the deepening global economic crisis, this is fraught with a sharp rise in prices for finished products, the loss of competitiveness of the economies of European countries and, as a result, the growth of social tension and protest phenomena there.
Ultimately, this may lead, if not to a change in European leaders, then at least to the beginning of new electoral cycles after the resignation of the current EU governments. One of the main results will be the coming to power of Eurosceptics and the subsequent gradual collapse of the European Union as a single political and economic space into several hostile state associations. Therefore, the replacement of departing Americans on the territory of the former USSR by representatives of the European Union will be extremely unlikely. Similar conclusions were drawn by the Americans with respect to the representatives of the Arab-Muslim countries and the People's Republic of China.
The only serious players in the post-Soviet space that could have a serious impact on the local population on a par with Russia, the Americans began to consider Iran and Turkey. Therefore, in order to achieve the goals as soon as possible (creating an arc of chaos in the Eurasian space), it was important for the Americans to involve these indicated countries in a major conflict. The choice fell in favor of a military escalation with traditional opponents (Ukrainian Nazis and Jewish Zionists).
Results of the SVO
If we analyze the situation on the fronts of the Northern Military District on February 1, 2023, and this, I note, is about three weeks before the year, as the hostilities are going on, then we can in a certain sense find analogies with the course of hostilities during the Soviet-Finnish wars of 1939-1940 and 1941–1944 As then, the Russian Armed Forces and Navy had to overcome the country's army, actively supported from outside, which was part of the Russian state in the past. As then, the conflict flared up about 20-25 years after the separation of these state entities from Russia took place.
And, perhaps, the main fact that unites the course of both conflicts is the central role of the line of fortifications. Moreover, in both cases, both Ukraine and Finland at one time tried to concentrate the main reserves on this particular line. Therefore, Russia, as the attacking side, has to pay, first of all, attention to the assault actions of these fortifications with the constant attraction of additional resources.
Such an algorithm of warfare, although it is fraught with assumptions on the flanks of painful tactical strikes by the defending side, however, there is no talk of a complete defeat of the attacking side. Based on this, we can say that the resource supply of the industry and the proximity of the repair base will come to the fore. It was in these things that Russia was vastly superior to Finland, and now Ukraine. Despite the losses incurred due to the introduction of hostilities or a simple breakdown during the movement of weapons, the Russian army, with the assistance of industry, was able to increase its strike capabilities by February 2023.
While the Ukrainian side, despite the great support of the West, as the Donbass defensive line is broken through, begins to lose the possibility of even carrying out any offensive. This is mainly due to the mass expulsion of trained personnel, the inability to restore and maintain the available equipment.
In such circumstances, the loss of the Ukrainian state becomes only a matter of time. This conclusion was reached in the Russian leadership already in October-November 2022, when a decision was made to cancel the fast winter offensive. In January 2022, immediately after the capture of the Wagner PMC Soledar, this became obvious to the command of the NATO countries. This becomes clear when, against the background of reports about sending tanks to Ukraine in the Western media there is a flurry of articles, the authors of which speak very negatively about the Ukrainian army.
For the Ukrainians themselves, this will become obvious when the fortifications erected in the Slavyansko-Kramotorska agglomeration fall, and in the steppes of Zaporozhye in the region of late April - early May 2023, the last strike units prepared with the help of NATO will be defeated. It is after this that large-scale operations will begin to cut off Ukraine and Kyiv from Western supplies.
In fact, we are talking about three separate major operations of the Russian troops (liberation of the Left Bank, landing Odessa-Nikolaev and Central Ukrainian). After that, it will become possible to establish control over 2/3 of the territory of the former Ukraine.
However, even after that, for the Russian Government at the end of 2023, the issue of establishing a peaceful life in the liberated territory will be acute. Mainly, this will be fraught with an abundance of terrorist acts and attacks by armed gangs. That is why there will be a replacement in Ukraine of parts of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation with the Russian Guard.
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