Putin Cleans House as Volchansk Comes to the Brink – Sitrep 5/15/24

Events continue to develop rapidly.

Putin has sealed his new government, with Belousov given his first marching orders.

Before he could hardly step foot into the Duma hall, news broke of a further MOD official being cuffed for corruption: high ranking Yuri Kuznetsov, as well as some affiliated underlings swept up in his alleged corruption scheme.

Meanwhile rumors fly that deputy of Shoigu’s inner circle Tatyana “Chief Accountant” Shevtsova has resigned, first deputy minister of defense Tsalikov, and others—though they appear likely to be an uncorroborated information attack from hostile 5th/6th columnists.

But just given the arrests of big wigs Kuznetsov and Ivanov alone, with attendant underlings, makes it an unprecedented ongoing purge, with further rumors of other MOD-linked officials to potentially be taken down in the near future as part of the widening dragnet.

It’s playing out like the end of Godfather 1. Under the hymnal anointing of the newly sworn-in savior, a host of the corrupt legacy cankers are hoisted by their own petards and dragged off to jail. Even as cell doors were still slamming shut, as if by design, Belousov quite symbolically proclaimed “You can make mistakes, but you can’t lie” to rousing Duma cheers:

It’s feeling more and more like a Spring renewal after all.

Here is how informed, albeit 6th columnist, channel ChK-OGPU filled in the blanks about the proceedings:

“The system could no longer withstand the prohibitive level of corruption in the Ministry of Defense, which led to the arrest of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, the removal of “builder Sergei Shoigu” and the promotion of economist Andrei Belousov. It is known that deputy ministers Ruslan Tsalikov and Alexey Krivoruchko, the former owner of the Kalashnikov concern and a big fan of Miami, have written reports on the resignation; there is talk about the resignation of Yuri Sadovenko. We expect in the near future a radical cleansing of Shoigu’s “Augean stables” and possible new high-profile cases and arrests. Just yesterday, the head of the personnel department of the Ministry of Defense, Yuri Kuznetsov, was detained.

The “dark horses” in Shoigu’s stable remain Deputy Minister of Defense Tatyana Shevtsova, who is responsible for finance, who, by definition, due to her job responsibilities, should know more than anyone about possible abuses and misappropriation of funds, Alexander Fomin, Viktor Goremykin.

Alexander Fomin was appointed “supervisor” by Igor Sechin, who knows Fomin from the time he served as a two-year student in Angola after graduating from Leningrad University, so there is a high probability that Fomin will retain his position.

Another Deputy Minister of Defense, Viktor Goremykin, who is responsible for political work and personnel, had close friendly relations with Timur Ivanov, played hockey with him in the Red Stars team. Searches and interrogation of Viktor Goremykin’s subordinate – head of the Personnel Department Yuri Kuznetsov, who was taken in his immodest mansion right in his bed, can lead to serious problems for the boss.”

This was all followed by news that Putin has elevated both Patrushev and rising star Aleksey Dyumin to be his personal ‘presidential aides’.

At the end of December 2020, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky named Dyumin one of the politicians who could become Vladimir Putin’s successor as President of the Russian Federation

Again check the physiology and physiognomy: young and hale, alert and sharp-eyed—not slovenly, disheveled, and geriatric, like has become so sadly commonplace amongst too many of Russian elite’s upper crust.

In short: Putin appears to have effected a coup in cleaning out a very diseased strain within the MOD, fortifying his executive station with a cadre of ultra hardline loyalists with proven track records. And right on time, there are now rumors that Surovikin has finally arrived in Moscow, for real this time—or so Rybar claims; a meeting in the Kremlin was allegedly being carried out. This could portend a big coming appointment for him, if true.

Scott Ritter published a new Twitter post that so succinctly and thoroughly summarizes developments, I post it here in lieu of my own breakdown:

ER insert:

A New Revolution in Military Affairs

The appointment by Russian President Vladimir Putin of Andrei Belousov goes beyond simply trying to bring economic structure and discipline to an expansive and expanding military industrial base.

True, the rapid growth of Russian defense…

— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) May 14, 2024

Scott Ritter

A New Revolution in Military Affairs

The appointment by Russian President Vladimir Putin of Andrei Belousov goes beyond simply trying to bring economic structure and discipline to an expansive and expanding military industrial base.

True, the rapid growth of Russian defense industry over the course of the past two years has created concerns that a fragile yet expanding Russian civilian economic sector still recovering from the shock of stringent U.S. and European sanctions in the aftermath of Russia’s initiation of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine could find itself held hostage by unconstrained defense spending that artificially skewed supply chains and pricing in a manner which could see the Russian economy go the way of its defense industry-heavy Soviet predecessor.

Belousov, an accomplished economist in his own right, has been brought in to manage the intersection of defense and civil economies to make sure that civilian industry remains viably healthy even as the need for robust defense industry output remains high.

But perhaps the most important aspect of Belousov’s appointment is his role as an industrial innovator.

Russia is heading toward a new Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which will be defined by the nexus of a Technological Development brought on by the experiences of the SMO (drone warfare, electronic warfare, increased lethality of munitions), b) Doctrinal Innovation that has emerged as the lessons learned on the SMO battlefield are studied, and required changes incorporated into formal military education systems responsible for producing up-to-date doctrine; and c) Organizational Adaptation which involves major structural and intellectual changes that reflect the reality of new technologies and doctrine.

Under Sergei Shoigu, the Russian military made important progress in the first two legs of the RMA trio. But the kind of structural innovation needed in the Russian military to transform systemic changes into a true RMA are Belousov’s forte. Russia is on the cusp of implementing a new RMA that will be every bit as transformative to the modern battlefield that the German Blitzkrieg was to the conduct of the Second World War.

This is good news if you’re Russian. For the collective West, facing the prospect of undertaking an expensive expansion of NATO, a Russian-driven RMA would be tantamount to disaster.

On the front, Ukraine is facing one of its most rapid collapses of the war thus far. There are no two ways of mincing things: Russian sources report catastrophic losses for AFU who are woefully understaffed and underarmed. The largest scale of POW captures in the past year is currently ongoing, with over a dozen new videos just from today alone showing dozens of Ukrainian prisoners, including many Kraken:

Even the Ukrainian female paramedics are pleading for help with the losses:

As of this writing, the Ukrainian General Staff has announced a withdrawal of Volchansk, the largest city and stronghold of northern Kharkov region, though it’s unclear as of yet if it’s a full or partial one, as the wording is ambiguous:

Frontline troops are frothing with anger at command:

Russian forces have now even gotten within artillery range of Kharkov city itself, and there are reports they are hammering AFU positions on Kharkov outskirts from about 22-24km in Glyboke/Hlyboke.

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Featured image source: https://puntomarinero.com/belousov-andrei-removich-assistant-to/

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