Peace talks, mobilization, Russian hand in blocking Ukrainian trucks, drones and spartan families in of Kremlin

Peace talks “a la Russia” - having it all

According to polling agency Russian Field half of the Russians still support war, or as it is officially called in Russia “the special military operation”. While it is no real sociology in totalitarian regime, Russian Field tends to ask questions not directly but rather “around the corder” and is considered to have quite correlating to reality responses. So according to the latest sociology 65% of Russians think that Russia is going in the right direction and just 21% don′t share this view. This despite the fact that 43% of Russians believe that their wellbeing will suffer. This is the famous national “passionarism” or readiness to suffer “for the sake of some grand national ideology that are more important than “little people” and their lives”. But then again the “going in the right direction” is supported by belief of 56% that Russia is successful in war and just 25% would oppose them. And half don′t believe in official information while they still believe that Russia is doing well. Talking about information war. 61% of people support further offensive,? 67% holding positions and just 32% would support withdrawing troops. Meanwhile there is dissonance in the heads and 58% of people would not support the second wave of mobilization. Ad as a culmination - 74% would support signing a peace agreement tomorrow but only 3% agree that it should be done so by returning all Ukrainian territory.

To summarize - people would like to return to their normal lives and not have any more mobilizations but only by Putin signing a peace treaty keeping all the occupied lands. Kremlin knows that and this is the card Putin is playing right now - appealing to peace talks and signing peace by keeping all it has. And this is why peace talks are not on time - there is nothing to discuss - anything less than keeping everything is not “in demand” by Russians, hence the Kremlin. Anything else would be defeat and Russians do not like losers. Putin knows that.?

Russia lacks hands?(literarily)

While the mobilisation would face (most likely passive) resistance from Russians, the silent mobilisation has not stopped. Some of the 130 000+ conscripted this autumns Russians will find themselves on the frontline, despite promises by the Kremlin, and silent mobilisation is causing unexpected problems for the Russian economy. While most economists have been observing oil prices and the course of the economy, it might have gone unnoticed that Russia is experiencing a significant lack of workforce, the information that the head of the central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, kindly shared. Nabiullina has shown herself as a cool-headed and professional economist, keeping the Russian economy floating against all sanctions. A few weeks ago, she raised the alarm that the Russian economy, especially private companies, is facing a huge challenge with a lack of workforce. While the economy has shifted to “war trails,” the workforce has shifted to military contracts, part of the brains has immigrated, and over a million pairs of hands have been mobilized during the last few years. This leads to an unemployment rate of 3%, and in some regions, it is even truly 0%, meaning that there is no workforce whatsoever. Lack is most felt among “blue-collar workers” in factories, warehouses, etc. It does not help at all that Russia has launched a new wave of raids on companies employing immigrants who have just recently received Russian citizenship. Last week, the biggest Russian e-commerce company, Wildberries, was raided by special forces, and hundreds of immigrants were called to military commissions. In the past year, Russia has already mobilised over 3000 Wildberries employees. causing significant challenges to the company. The company allegedly does not mind, with the 99% shareholdership of the 7-billion-dollar company belonging to Tatyana Bakalchuk, who is herself from the Koryo-Saram family. In 2021, Ukraine imposed sanctions on Tatyana, Vladislav Bakalchuk, and Wildberries for selling Russian military uniforms and anti-Ukrainian literature.

Russian footprint in Polish-Ukrainian strike

Jaanika, stop blaming everything on Russia, right? Well, it happens that when events happen on different "cold or hot" frontlines in Europe or the Middle East, they either benefit or harm Russia or Ukraine. The current Polish strike does harm Ukraine and benefit Russia, even if it is coincidental that the organizers of the strike are ultra-nationalists and pro-Russia.

Since November 6, Polish truck drivers have blocked three main roads and border crossings between Ukraine and Poland. The argumentation is that before the large-scale war, there were quotas for Ukrainian truck drivers, but since February 2023 all quotas have been removed, and Polish drivers are saying it harms their market as “Ukrainian drivers are not only importing and exporting but carrying out wide-scale operations that were before limited to non-EU members". Btw, I was for? 5 years an advisor to Ministers (2 actually) of Infrastructure and Transportation of Ukraine and very well remember how the constant issue was the need to increase the number of quotas for Ukraine.

Anyway, now protesters are demanding renewed restrictions on the number of Ukrainian trucks permitted in Poland and calling for a ban on transportation companies from outside the European Union.

Demand as such might even be understandable from a Polish perspective, but there is something else that is raising questions: the origin of protest. The protest is intended to be carried out until February 1. I find it unprecedented to sanction or allow a two-month-long protest that blocks all the roads to Ukraine. They have as well almost blocked? other countries as no border-crossing point is ready to replace the biggest transportation hub, Poland. The protest, organized by "The Committee to Protect Transporters and Transport Employers," was first publicly mentioned in September this year. Meanwhile, one of the drivers of the protest is transport company owner Rafa? Mekler, who, coincidentally, is also the head of the Lublin branch of the Confederation, a Polish far-right party with radically anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and ties to Russia. In 2015, Mekler called to approve the annexation of Crimea by Russia and even met with separatist Russian puppet Sergei Aksenov. As well, the companies organizing the protest, Rafael Mekler Transportation, Kam-Trans, Jata-Trans, Bor-Tom, Glt Polska, KMS Logistyka, and Peo-Trans, have, according to Guidhall, demanded for quite some time to cancel sanctions on Russia. Those are just a few examples.

Besides the rhetoric that humanitarian and military cargo is let through, this is not the case in reality. Transportation companies are not ready to head to Ukraine today, risking being stuck until February. Already, two Ukrainian truckers have died of colds in the line of thousands of trucks. While it is a constitutional right in Poland to protest, it is not when it hurts national safety. The Polish government should step up and declare that enough is enough—protest paralyzes even humanitarian aid and cannot be justified in this form and extent, even with good intent. In this format the main beneficiary is once again Russia, which enjoys the quarrel between allies as well as blocking traffic and creating chaos and mess. As you remember, chaos is one form of hybrid war that Russia has openly waged against the West.

Russia upscaling drone production

Meanwhile, Russia launched this week the most extensive drone strike on Kyiv since the beginning of the large-scale war. Out of 75 drones, 71 were downed by Ukrainian air defense, but unfortunately, the winter will bring more drone and missile attacks as Russia has been hearing rockets target Ukrainian heat, water, and energy infrastructure during the winter. Ukrainians are ready, though, as they remember that after winter comes spring.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is launching its own drone factories in an efficient private-public partnership where Ukraine provides its infrastructure for private drone producers. While Ukraine has said it needs tens of thousands of drones per month, Russia is also upgrading its on-site drone production, and a factory in Tatarstan is assembling more and more Shahed-136 drones in Russian territory. Unfortunately, it is at a good pace to reach a capacity of 6,000 drones per month by January 2025. The producer is, meanwhile, still not sanctioned by the USA. Read more.

Poor rich girl

Meanwhile, Team Putin has decided how to profile the eternal president as more appealing to people. The "special military operation” was not really in demand, as the municipal elections showed in the autumn, so Putin will be profiled as a caretaker for the people, families, and conservative values, well aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, which two-thirds of people trust. The same church that blesses missiles and war. According to the new manual, the team of Putin tries to display themselves as “close to people,” so spokesman of Kremlin Dmitri Peskov did his best, sharing the tough life of his family, particularly his eldest daughter Lisa. “Lisa had a very difficult life and a difficult educational path. She studied not only in Russia but also in France. And there she always lived in poor and spartan conditions. She had to overcome many difficulties and search for herself for a long time. Thank God everything is fine now,” sighs Peskov. Reality check: Lisa has been the "golden child” of the Russian elite and has never been hiding it. She was educated in an elite boarding school before attending the prestigius EDC Paris Business School in France, where she lived in a 180-square-metre apartment worth 2 million dollars in the centre of Paris. Lisa is currently being sanctioned by the US. Probably bad example of "spartan conditions", news try. Hint, Shoigu is not better (to be followed).