In Moscow's Shadows 257: A Tale Of Two Systems

Zelensky sacks a defence minister, then removes his commander-in-chief, and suddenly the question is not “who is better?” but “who controls the politics of war?” 

I use this as an opportunity to explore the systemic warfighting capacities of Ukraine and Russia defined not so much in military but political terms: political focus, generating and motivating soldiers, and learning. Russia can concentrate resources and recruit with money longer than many expect, but morale, discipline, and selective adaptation bite hard when reforms threaten the regime’s control. Ukraine looks more politically contested, yet its civic autonomy and bottom-up innovation can translate into faster learning and stronger buy-in. Which matters more in the end, mass or legitimacy?

The books I discuss are:

Serhiy Kudelia, Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine (Oxford UP, 2025)

Edward Crowther, War in Ukraine, Vol. 1: Armed Formations of the Donetsk People’s Rep 2014-2022 (Helion, 2022)

Illya Sekirin, Rise of the Machines – Drone Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine War, edited by Andrew Simms (Helion, 2026) 

The articles I mention are:

Balász Jarábik, 'Control Above Reform: What’s Behind Ukraine’s Government and Security Reshuffle?,' Carnegie Politika, 24 July 2026

Fabrizio Minniti & Giangiuseppe Pili, ‘Russia’s Selective Adaptation: Command, Control and the Limits of Learning in War,' RUSI, 22 July 2026

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Transcript

Cold Open And The Question

MG 0:00

To lose one senior defence official may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness. What can we learn about the respective systems in Ukraine and Russia from Zelensky's dismissal of his defence minister and military commander in chief?

unknown 0:16

Hmm.

MG 0:38

Hello,

Hiatus Update And Back Catalogue

MG 0:39

I'm Mark Galliotti, and welcome to my view of Russia in Moscow Shadows. This podcast, of varying length, frequency, and format, yet always reassuringly low production values, is supported by generous and perspicacious patrons like you, and also by the Crisis Exercise Software Company Conductor. Well, welcome back after a one-week unplanned hiatus and a warning that dare I say it, I'm actually taking some time off, so there will not be a podcast next Sunday either, though as per usual, for paying patrons you will be getting something else in in compensation. And by the way, it's something that I mentioned on social media, but uh if you find yourself missing next week's podcast, why not take a look at the back catalogue? I say this because obviously this is and I thank you very much for it, this is a podcast that the audience has increased quite substantially over time. But what that does mean is there's a whole bunch of earlier podcasts, some of which I think still withstand the test of time quite well. Anyway, you might want to just go back and have a little browse something there.

Zelensky’s Dismissals And Political Control

MG 1:51

Anyway, so today going to be talking again, not so much really about the Ukrainian system as such, because remember, I'm not a Ukrainianist, I'm a Russianist, but nonetheless, I you know I do want to take a look at the news that Zelensky dismissed first his defence minister Fyodorov, and then his military commander-in-chief, General Syrsky, amid considerable public rushion. And in some ways to look at aspects of systems that affect its their capacity to fight wars, and what we can say therefore about comparisons between the Ukrainian and Russian ones. And I want to start with a good point that Balash Yarabik made on X. The dispute with Syrsky was never just personal. That's Fyodorov's. It reflected two competing answers to the same question. Who takes political responsibility for mobilization, force generation, and the costs of a long war? Zelensky's answer was siding with neither, but political control. And this is really sort of rooted out of an excellent piece he wrote for Karnigi Politika, and as is usual, I'll leave a link in the programme notes to it. And it it's perfectly true that having first sided with Sirsky against Fyodorov, when essentially each of them had reached the stage where they were more or less directly or indirectly demanding the other's dismissal, nonetheless, ultimately Zelensky had to bow to political pressures, which is the sort of the crowds on the streets, in order to essentially shore up his political strength. And I know I'll be putting later to see how Russia copes with some of the same sort of questions. But let me also throw in something else that I heard this week, and it came from a pretty well connected direction. But hav as I haven't heard anything to corroborate it, take it with extreme caution. But anyway, I heard the suggestion from Kiev that Zelensky was still likely to have dropped Syrsky eventually, but that he hadn't wanted to do it at the same time as Fyodorov. But in many ways, what really happened is this the crowds forced his hand.

A Prigozhin Parallel On Power

MG 4:08

And when I heard that, it brought up a what for me was quite an interesting, if admittedly distant parallel with Bear With Me, the Prigozin-Shoigu feud. And there you again you had a disruptive rivalry that the president had been unable to resolve between his mercenary commander, Yevgeny Prigoshin, and his defence minister Shoigu. He was reluctant to lose either, but on the other hand, nor was he able to resolve the crisis, which in many ways really is about control over the Wagner mercenary group. And it reaches a fever pitch with one contender demanding the removal of the other, and frankly, Shoigu, if not necessarily demanding Prigoshin's removal, but essentially wanting him defanged by having Wagner brought under the Defence Ministry. And you know the ultimate issue is not so much whether either of them was doing a good job in their own terms, but that at this stage the thing had become the rivalry had become too disruptive, too much of a direct challenge to Putin, since he had to ultimately resolve it, and that Putin felt that he couldn't really back one or the other safely. When I say safely, I don't mean in terms of because it would lead to his ouster or anything like that, but that again the wider implications for for the war. Now of course this is a very, very different situation. Fyodorov was not marching on Kyiv, and he's been offered a new job, not a one-way plane ticket. But nonetheless, it it does help explain, firstly, why Shoigu still had to go after an interval to make it seem as if no no no, it's nothing to do with Prigozin, but also when ultimately these kind of decisions are about politics, not about professional performance. When you challenge the head of state with in effect a back me or sack me ultimatum, and frankly this is where we were at, then this is a political challenge. And in the Ukrainian case, I mean Zelensky was already under pressure, not least because of lingering corruption allegations and cases, and Zelensky had to assert himself. Now we have an acting defense minister, Yekven Khmara, formerly head of the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine, but more on the sort of commando slash covert operation side of things, and a new commander-in-chief, 43-year-old Mikhailo Drapaty, whom some see as a brilliant younger officer of a new post-Soviet generation, and others as a divisive figure who in particular has no answer to the whole mobilization dilemma. I mean, look, we'll we'll see. Needless to say, Russia is making much of the fact that in a 2023 interview, Drapaty says that Russia is, quote, a nation, leadership and all, that has no right to exist. And also nothing civilized has changed there in the millennium, neither in mentality nor in imperialist ambition. So needless to say they are painting him as some kind of rabid Russophobe. Well, we'll have to see how this all pans out, and whether what was politically necessary actually also proves to be militarily valuable. But it is a useful reminder of the fact that all conflicts require both military capabilities, but also the political legitimacy, leadership, and national morale to apply them. And this

Donbas 2014 And How States Form

MG 7:41

came out very clearly in, and I want to touch on a few recent books in order to sort of illustrate my issue in this podcast. Anyway, it came out very clearly in Serhi Kudelia's Seize the City, Undo the State, the Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine. She's an Oxford University Press book from 2025. Now, this is again, obviously this is about the earlier conflict, the undeclared struggle in the Donbass and how it emerged in 2014-15. But anyway, it's a very, very interesting, very granular study of those early days. And there's always this big debate. Was this a genuine insurrection, local and organic, which Russia then subsequently backed, or was it from the first, a covert, undeclared Russian intervention? Of course, look, the truth is that these crude binaries always failed to capture complex realities. It was neither, both, and much more. It was rather a messy mix of local discontent at what was happening in Kyiv with the Yerom Maidan. Remember, you know, many in the Donbass had actually voted for the ousted President Yanukovych, without any real thought though, of independence. It was a local insurgency aimed essentially at bringing regional autonomy within Ukraine, nothing more. There was a handful of extremists who did want independence, or indeed to join Russia, but with pretty limited popular support. There were also nationalists and extremists, adventurers from Russia, eager to stir up trouble and support the locals, even as they thought they knew best what the locals needed. And of course, in the early stages in general, this was not with the active support of the Kremlin, but rather a kind of passive acceptance of let's see what happens. It's not that Putin, after all, was in those early days looking to take Donbass, but he was willing to give the ultranationalists some degree of scope. And of course, amongst them there were some genuine agents of the Russian state, who at first were more interested in using the chaos as an opportunity to build networks of agents and sympathizers, but many of whom then became invested in as they saw this struggle, and actually tried to leverage Moscow into greater support. So in short, it's complex. Now, on the basis of not just the usual materials, but also lots of interviews, participant memoirs, municipal documents, town newspapers and the like, as I said, very, very good granular study. Kudelia's take is that the uprising required both internal and external factors. Local actors had the grievances, shall we say, laying the ideological groundwork. But on the other hand, the actual seizure of towns tended to depend not just on the support of local elites, though often there was there, even if it was just passive, you know, not doing anything to prevent it, but also actual Russian agents, whether Kremlin dispatched or not. And remember, when Strelkov, Igor Gyrkin, sort of brought his first consignment of troops over the border to go and take Slavyansk, he did so with his phone switched off, precisely so that A, he could not be given, sent orders to not go over the border, and B so that he was less trackable. So you know, even at that point he was doing something that he thought was potentially something that the Kremlin would try to stop. So, when local communities actively resisted, or when there were no local separatists to legitimise the insurrection, then state control remained intact. And in particular, Kudelia identifies two phases, what he calls state founding, which is where you sort of establish coercive control over a territory through muscle, and state building, where, yes, if need be using external assistance, but primarily administrative capacity, local legitimacy, you turn that coercive control into actually being able to genuinely administer the territory that you've taken. In in Mariupol, for example, he sees the first that you know briefly insurgents were able to take control of the city, but they never had enough local support to be able to hold it. So the Russian intervention, even before the summer, when you know the mask is ripped off and Putin has succumbed to the sort of sunk cost fallacy and felt he had to deploy troops openly rather than let the insurgency be defeated by the resurgent government. Anyway, the intervention is significant as, quote, Russian mercenaries and undercover agents possessed crucial organizational and military skills to turn protest actions into an armed insurgency. In other words, again, it it took both. You couldn't create an insurgency out of nothing, but nor was the insurgency or protests and like likely to actually successfully displace state control without that external support. As I say, it's a very strong scholarly study. I think it's very compelling in its argument, dense, but not by any means unreadable, which is always a plus when it comes to a scholarly work, and I'd very strongly recommend it to anyone who's interested in what these days might seem like ancient history, but is really part and parcel of the current conflict. And the interesting thing is that Kudelia's Nuance take on the Donbass conflict as something with its own dynamic, neither wholly controlled by Moscow nor wholly independent of it, is also echoed in Edward Crowther's War in Ukraine Volume 1, Armed Forces of the Donetsk People's Republic, 2014 to 2022. I mean, this is the first of a growing series from Helion, which has been rolling since 2022, which I think is now up to just checked, volume 11, The Battle of Chernihiv, February to March 2022, by Mikhailo Žirakov. Now, look, it might seem strange that I'm actually adducing this series in the context of kind of wider political discussions, because essentially these are very much kind of deep dive military studies. Big format paperbacks, lots and lots of illustrations, photos, maps, pictures, and they cover not just specific engagements but also thematic topics like artillery systems and the air war. And they're clearly pitched for the military enthusiast as well as the professional audience. But they are very detailed, extremely useful books, again, very impressive turnaround, and frankly a testament to the new information environment. You know, that it is now almost possible to write comprehensive and authoritative studies of conflicts in real time, not to have to wait for years to be papers for papers to be declassified and memoirs published and so forth. I've got a whole bunch of these um, you know, war in Ukraine books on my my bookshelves. But anyway, as I say, what has that got to do with the subject in hand? Well, because even buried within the details of this engagement or that technological enhancement, what comes out from these all these studies is the issue of the qualities of the political system behind both sides. You know, how far were they, you know, for example, able to respond innovatively on a tactical or operational level? How far were concerns about the political leadership manifest in what tactical decisions were made, what kind of recruitment decisions are made, and so forth. Time and time again, what comes through is implicitly the fact that actually all military actions, however much we focus on the shooty bang bang side of things, are really extensions of the political struggle that is taking place behind the surface. Political also being manifest in the economic and technological base. It's about finding resources, it's about, as I say, rapidly adapting and innovation. It's just simply about ensuring that those who end up at the front line are willing to fight, and those who command them have been rewarded for being successful and are removed or sidelined if they are failing again and again and again. So it is about national morale, but it's also about systemic capacity.

Drone Warfare And Fragile Supply Chains

MG 16:18

And again, in terms of how it manifests itself in what otherwise seem to be rather sort of technical issues, it's also something that struck me while reading Rise of the Machines, Drone Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine War by Ilya Sekirin, edited by Andrew Sims. Now, again, this is this is published by Helion, but this time in partnership with I never know quite how to pronounce it, is it Shakar or whatever? Anyway, it's the British Army's Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research. Came out in 2026, and again I will include the details of all the books in the programme notes. Anyway, Sakirin is a Canadian citizen of Ukrainian origin who then volunteered to fight, and he was a drone pilot, he was a translator for Western units, and in due course an advisor to the Ukrainian general staff. So this is very much an insider's perspective and a highly technical perspective. It's a very detailed military study that sets up, firstly, how the author sees drones changing warfare, but then runs chronologically through a series of major milestones of the war, from the initial invasion in February 2022 through the meat grinder of Bakhmut, the Kursk offensives, and then the fight for southern Donbass. And obviously, very much from his point of view, he's looking at how drones influenced and became crucial within these conflicts. Now, on one level, one could argue that Sakirin isn't saying anything that we haven't heard before, about the new transparent battlefield where everything can be seen and what can be seen could be killed, about how 20th century staples like the tank and the helicopter struggle in an age of cheap, precise, and perhaps most importantly, expendable FPV, first person view, attack drones, and that kind of thing. And as a result, Sakirin highlights what he sees as dangerous institutional inertia within Western militaries, that, you know, basically we need to address to reshape procurement, training, etc, etc. But for me, what really distinguishes this book is, yes, the depth and the detail. I mean there is a hell of a lot here, making it invaluable for anyone who wants this kind of fine, fine focused study of the battlefield, enriched with a lot of maps, diagrams, appendices. Although I have to say that the lack of an index for such a detailed, micro-scale book is pretty close to a war crime in and of itself. Um the book is a little self-aggrandizing. Sekiri never seems to miss an opportunity to demonstrate how far-sighted he was and who he was advising, and does tend to feel that most Ukrainian reversals came when people ignored his backstreet generalship. Okay. And obviously, inevitably it's from a very Ukrainian perspective, so you from this you'd almost never believe that the Russians ever come up with any innovation of their own. But obviously I totally get while this is. I'm not really making a true negative point here. But nonetheless, as I said, from this very detailed analysis of the role of drones in the Ukrainian Ware War, a couple of points that come up that aren't so much about the sort of core theme of of that, but more broadly. Firstly, about disruption. Drones, like cyber attacks, like the kind of sabotage and subversion that Russia was carrying out in Europe as well as in Ukraine, they've made the front line almost invisible. Or in some ways one could say they made the front line so broad that it covers the whole country. And the thing is that modern, especially Western societies, don't do disruption. Decades of peacetime economic logic has reshaped our systems to be lean, to be minimalist, essentially to be as cost effective as possible. It's all about the bottom line, it's all about profit. And that means you don't necessarily have huge stockpiles held just in case. You don't have multiple redundancies if you think you can get away with it. It's an age of just in time provision rather than sort of these, again, these massive standing stockpiles. It's an age of outsourced and out-of-area services. In short, it's an age of a distinct lack of what we could think of as buffers and safety margins. But what's efficient in peacetime may well be dangerously fragile in war. So that is something that we do need to be considering. You know, we're very much focusing in the West, for example, on rearmament in terms of buying more teeth, more sort of combat capacity. But it's the depth of the magazines and the depth of the economic and political structures behind them that we should be thinking about just as much. And it's something that Ukraine has had to deal with, and indeed to a degree Russia is now having to deal with as Ukrainian drones sort of range further and further and start hitting logistical supply lines and the like too. And secondly, it's the issue of reinvention, or the capacity to do so, and in some days the wisdom of doing so. In Sakirin's book, it has to be said that both Zelensky and Sirsky come in for some serious critique here. While, perhaps predictably, Fyodorov is portrayed much more favourably. Now, this is not just the affinity of one tech bro for another. It's also about what Sakirin sees as the willingness of respective individuals to grapple with how new technologies are changing old assumptions. Now, in this context, there is absolutely no doubt that Ukraine, and indeed Russia, have built formidable twenty first century military capabilities. And indeed, it's not just on the drone front. Obviously, Ukraine has been vastly more imaginative in how they develop them, how they use them. But both in their own ways are adapting and modernizing. But the point is, again, the hard technological solutions, what kit do you need to buy and what kit do you need to use? In some ways these are the easier ones to fix. What are rather more intractable are the soft human ones embedded within the political system. And this is by no means the only ones, but there's three that I want to dwell on.

Three Tests For Warfighting Systems

MG 22:37

First of all, political focus. Can you maintain the necessary focus on victory and indeed essentially build your entire system around what you need to achieve that victory? Secondly, the soldiers, can you just recruit enough soldiers? Because no, you cannot fight a war just with drones. And having recruited them, can you motivate them? And thirdly, learning. Can you reconcile the old hard-won military knowledge, which in some ways Sirsky representative represented, with the new ideas that was really Fyodorov's bailiwick? Because you can't assume that everything that those experienced old timers learned is out of date. And this is again one of the dilemmas that Ukraine has been facing in this whole Fyodorov versus Sirsky issue. So, what I want to do is after the break, I want to look at how Russia answers these questions and compare it with Ukraine to provide some kind of balance sheet. On what I said, I must stress, are not the only questions, but they are three for me key ones about, in effect, how the system is geared for successful warfighting. Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conductor, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, and civil affairs. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows. And remember that patrons, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian, get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, including articles I've written, the most weekly Gavarit Moskvar press briefing, and other bonus content like the Chronicles of a Different Russia alternative histories. And you can also follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or on Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. Now back to the episode. So, three questions to address. Oh, and by the way, look, I am aware that this episode is a little bit in the weeds. Not exactly a light-hearted romp. Fair enough. Unfortunately, sometimes I do feel the need to dig in a little bit deeply. Try and have something a little bit more whimsical for next time. We'll wait and see.

Political Focus Putin Versus Zelensky

MG 24:58

Anyway, so the first question is precisely about political focus on victory. And look, on the one hand, you've got in Russia a presidential authoritarianism which has accumulated over 26 years. And on the other, a country which, in some ways, has become increasingly hyper-presidential, but really that's more than anything else because that's what happens in the pressure of total war. And there is clearly there the urgency of being on the defence, even if I think it's fair to say that this is no longer an existential struggle for Ukraine. It's a struggle over the eventual line at which the war ends, and then the terms on which it ends, rather than anything else. And we should also add that, look, despite the talk of the protests that forced Sirsky's removal as being presented by some as a kind of victory for bottom-up democracy, I'm really not convinced. I think there's a danger sometimes of people just simply, you know, again, for entirely understandable reasons, wanting to characterize everything that happens in Ukraine in unambiguously positive terms. I mean, we also can think of this, after all, as the legitimate president, and whatever the Russian claims otherwise, of course Zelensky is the legitimate president. Forced to do something by what are substantial, but you know, not huge crowds. I mean, I think the the largest of the various protests, I think, peaked at 5,000. By no means inconsiderable, but again, we we have to keep it in context. But anyway, he was forced to do something that he didn't want to do, and that constitutionally there was no requirement for him to do. Now, look, it may very well be that removing Sirsky will prove will have proven to be the right thing militarily in due course. But that's not the point here. So, two very presidential systems. But nonetheless, Zelensky is more politically embattled than Putin, and the fact that he was forced to sack his commander-in-chief is a reminder that there are weaknesses within Ukraine's temporary hyperpresidentialism that are not, or at least not yet, evident in Russia's established authoritarianism. And that's both good and bad for Ukraine. It's good in that it still provides it with a great deal more flexibility and above all a lot more legitimacy. It's bad in that it introduces new, complicating political factors into decision makings. You know, I mean, what if after all Kumara and Dropati turn out to be a worse team than Fyodorov and Syrsky? But it is a useful reminder that like it or not, both sides are indeed influenced by politics. Obviously, it's less visible in the Russian context, but it certainly is there, and again, the classic example being the fact that Putin is still holding back from mobilization, something he knows that will be incredibly politically disruptive and unpopular. But the point is, a system like Putin's can absolutely maintain focus. Focus on obviously victory, on focusing national resources on his priorities, so long as there are no greater calls on Putin's attention. This is the plus and the minus, after all, of these highly personalistic systems, that it all depends on the capacities and the attention of the man in charge. I've sometimes used, and again, I know there's a bit of a cliche about using the parallel of Mordor, because Russia is not Mordor and Russians certainly are not orcs, but nonetheless, if I may be allowed a certain amount of nerding out on Tolkienry, there was this a notion of the eye of Sauron, that the big bad guy, in case you don't know Lord of the Rings, you know, who is basically sort of activating and commanding and driving his armies forward, but nonetheless, he's only going to be able to focus on one particular theatre of operations at any one time, hence challenging his armies outside Minas Tirith and then outside the Black Gate, precisely so that he's folks there, and not on the couple of hobbits who are trying to drop the ring into Mount Doom's fiery furnace. Okay, fine, I I've explained the context, we we can move on. So the idea is essentially that you have extraordinary focus where the eye is looking, but often a certain degree of neglect elsewhere. And also when you have such a powerful focus, there is no challenging there is no way in which you know could easily be, for example, that some Haradrim general at the Battle of Pelinor Fields, when the forces of Mordor were then caught by surprise by the riders of Rohan. Well that general might well have thought it would have been a good idea to have a scout screen out to the rear which might have prevented this surprise. But who was going to tell the which king of Angmar, who was commanding the hosts, a spirit animated by Sauron's magic and malice? The answer is no one, so nothing was done. Now, I imagine that given a free hand, maybe even chief of the general staff Gerasimov might do a better job of the war, though he might well not. But certainly there are other commanders, like Colonel General Mordichov, head of the ground forces, who, and I'll come onto this a bit more in a moment, you know, would have great eye excellent ideas, but so long as Putin and political considerations take absolute precedence over military considerations, this focus is going to be a strength and a weakness. There is more room within the Ukrainian system precisely for the initiative and ideas further down the chain of command to be fed into policy than the Russian ones. So the Ukrainian model may sacrifice a certain amount of focus for precisely legitimacy and initiative and broader buy-in. The Russian system puts all the burden, frankly, on that one man at the top. And remember, Putin is getting older, has no military experience, clearly has at best distorted information flows to him, and quite frankly, he's not demonstrating himself to be a particularly successful war leader. And therefore, all of the strengths, but above all, all the weaknesses of the Russian system become magnified in this conflict. And obviously, that is manifest through the guys on the ground. So let's talk about

Recruitment Money Mobilisation And Morale

MG 31:36

the second question. You know, are do you have a system which is able to generate and motivate a sufficiency of soldiery? Now look, the current Russian model is under pressure. You know, for a long time it worked fine. They would offer these huge sums of money, and they would get enough volunteers every month to make up for, in some cases, more than make up for any casualties. This is no longer working so well. They to a considerable extent have drained the pool of potential manpower. It's interesting that they're now talking about reducing some of the rules which actually banned criminals who had been charged with the most heinous crimes from serving. So yeah, you're going to get a lot more nasty guys heading to the front, it's likely. But that's a sign, frankly, of a degree of desperation. And again, privileging numbers over quality. There just isn't the capacity to scale up the sums of money that are being offered enough. So we're instead we're seeing pressure being brought to bear on regional governors, on certain industries and such like to come up with volunteers, to be with universities, to find people who are willing to be drone pilots and all that kind of thing. Now, the Kremlin does have options. It could scale down the level of assaults it launches, because it's in the attack really that the greatest number of casualties are taken. It could adopt, and I've talked about this in the past, rolling mobilization. So instead of a you know, a big bang, we're going to mobilize 100,000, 300,000 people, instead you just mobilise smaller numbers, it's much less noticeable. It doesn't give you that hit of extra soldiers all at once, but it may allow you to make up the shortfalls. Or indeed, exactly, you you have a mobilization wave. Some people are suggesting that a decision has been made for a mobilisation, whether it's before or more likely after the September elections. I don't think it's clear. I mean that there are there is obviously the fact that once some people start hearing about it, they get worried and you've got people already trying to leave the country, fearing mobilisation. Because after all, the system currently is now geared so that when call-up papers are issued electronically, then at that point you're no longer able to leave the country, according to the exit control passport database. But the idea is therefore people try and get the hell out beforehand. Much has been made of a report in Vyurstka on proposed amendments to current laws on the National Guard, which do mention mobilization, which is kind of being framed as proof of it. In fact, digging into the detail, this actually is there's much less to this than might meet the eye. It just simply is a reframing of the circumstances in which the Roscovardia has to protect its own personnel and assets. But the point is, you know, although this is by no means a smoking gun, the Orska, which is a sort of an emigre outlet outlet which is pretty consistently hostile to the Kremlin, very much sort of framed it in mobilization terms, and everyone, again, tends to basically follow the headline, not the actual story. So, you know, it's not quite clear. Nonetheless, at present, the tr the sad truth of the matter is that the Russian system is honestly providing better answers to half of the equation, thanks to its resources, thanks to the fact that it can indeed offer this amount of money. So you do have a system which is still capable of recruiting a lot of people to the war without having to rely on coercion, the way that the Ukrainians are. Increasingly, after all, their controversial bussification is basically press ganging people off the streets and sending them straight to fight. Even though both sides, again, showing that they're aware of the political considerations, have avoided forcing people, you know, young men below the age of twenty five to go and fight. However, the key question is then also of morale. Now, Ukrainians may not like being bussified, I'm sure they don't. But on the other hand, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that once they are in the front line, they're fighting not just because obviously the alternative is what, to surrender, to die or whatever, but rather they they do feel a much greater adherence to their cause. The Russian system is more able to get recruits, but again, beyond just simply fighting because what else are you gonna do, there are clearly issues to do with morale. Yes, there may still be a certain gut patriotism at work, but at the same time, as we see with the problems of indiscipline, of drug taking, of looting contrary to orders, all of these things, they are all symptoms of a military machine that does have genuine issues of mil morale and discipline. And that therefore means again, even on the soldiery issue, we have mixed mixed mess messages, shall we say. The Ukrainian system may not be as good at generating soldiery, but on the other hand, is better at then motivating them. With the Russian system, it's the other way around.

Learning Fast From Tactics To Industry

MG 36:52

But then the third and perhaps most complex issue, which is of adaptation, of learning the lessons of conflict, and then taking those lessons to the battlefield, but also to the factories and to the political decision-making chambers. Now here, broadly speaking, Ukraine is clearly doing so much better. But nonetheless, you know, there are tensions, as evident in that whole Fyodorov-Sirsky split. And arguably one of the problems with that split was that both of them ended up articulating over extreme positions. Syrsky kind of basically doubled down on in some ways the Soviet lessons that he learned as a junior officer. Remember, Sirsky is of that generation, whereas Fyodorov went too far the other way, almost saying that precisely a war could be fought without soldiers. We'll just have to see how the new team works out. Now, Russia obviously overshadowed by Ukraine, but nonetheless we've seen a huge amount of tactical adaptation, and not just on the battlefield, but even now increasingly on the sort of the rear area battlefield, as I said, the the front line no longer truly exists. To give just one very, very specific example, I was browsing the other day the uh overheard from the Russian National Guard, the Kontaktia social media feed, you know, as you do, and lots of posts on recruitment, which again is not really surprising when the National Guard, the Roskvardia, is 20% under strength. Things like recruitment is open for various positions in units of the 127th, 123rd, and 40th brigades. One-time payment of up to 3 million rubles monthly salary from 275 to 300,000 rubles, which by the way is more than double the average Russian salary. I mean, still less than what fighters in the special military operation are paid, but you know, it's a it's it's a fairly substantial fee. Um then again we had uh the 251st separate battalion of the Russian Guard in Shakti, Rostov region, is recruiting. And that last one was particularly interesting because it mentions that if they are sent to the Special Military Operations Zone within three months, and by the way, remember, Rostov region is right on the border, sent not for assault duties but to guard something, they will get an additional 205,000 rubles a month, which is about £2,000. I mean, that's no small amount. But yes, this is about recruitment generally. But quite clearly, within all these various announcements of recruitment and so forth, it's worth noting that there are also a lot of posts about people saying, Oh, I want to join, but I'd like to join this unit or that, what are the chances and such like? Nonetheless, embedded within that is clear evidence of the increased recruitment for units that are intended to be anti-drone forces. Units that around Russia will be in place near oil refineries or maybe these days, wild berries, logistics centres, or whatever else, places that the Ukrainians have been or might be targeting, armed and ready to try and shoot the drones down at the last minute. Because we see a lot of these drone forces being set up, or anti-drone forces rather, whether it's the Roskvardia, whether it's by corporations themselves, whether it's raised by local governors. Because the sheer size of Russia and the huge expanding range of targets now that Ukraine is hitting civilian infrastructure, is absolutely overstretching military air defence. So look, this is an example of adaptation that is taking place on a small-scale, grassroots, ground-based level. This kind of adaptation is by no means so evident at the strategic level. And let me mention, and I promise, this is the last footnote, but again, I'll provide a link in the programme notes. There's a very interesting piece on the Russi website by Fabrizio Miniti and Jan Giuseppe Pili, Russia's Selective Adaptation, Command, Control, and the Limits of Learning in War. And it presents the Russian system as one that, quote, learns selectively, within limits it cannot cross, not necessarily because it lacks awareness of them, but because crossing them would threaten the regime itself. In that sense, Russia's military rigidity is not a military problem, it is a political solution. And I think that's a really good way of framing it. Although there's lots of technical and tactical ad innovations, adaptation on an operational, doctrinal, strategic level risks being politically corrosive, risks beginning to bring into question certain political precepts. I mean to go on again another quote Russia is operating according to a different strategic logic built around endurance, mass, and the absorption of loss, not around precision and speed. A system that accepts inefficiency as the cost of political control can sustain operations that a more optimized, less politically constrained force could not. This creates an asymmetry in time horizons. The West seeks to shorten wars. Russia prepares to outlast them. It might sound out of fashion, but only results tell the difference. And this is not just about Russia versus the West, I mean it's much more clearly and immediately about Russia versus Ukraine. Ukraine would love to end the war as quickly as possible, though clearly successfully. Russia, or at least Putin, is still working on the assumption that time is on his side, resources, manpower and so forth mean that he can afford to let this war roll on and just grind away towards a victory. Now, as I've mentioned in previous podcasts, there are those who are trying to convince him that in fact that's not quite the case, or at least that a long war might be a victorious one, but would also be a pyrrhic victory, in which actually the damage done to Russia outw outweighs any kind of potential gain. But the point is, at present they don't seem to be able to convince him. So, you know, we do have different political considerations.

Russia’s Selective Adaptation And Doctrine

MG 43:12

But at that point about the fact that inefficiency is the cost of political control, I think is absolutely crucial. And again, this is the reason why the eye of Sauron still predominates. And is also one of the reasons why I think we're still seeing a lack of real work at the doctrinal level. In other words, this kind of basic uh sort of intellectual assumptions about how Russia, or indeed any country, expects to fight wars under what circumstances and how it anticipates winning them. And having this kind of doctrinal work, certainly an update of the pre Ukrainian invasion thinking, is going to be absolutely crucial. Not just for war fighting, but also for about military reconstitution. Because in other words, if you don't know how you're going to fight a war, you Don't know the shape of your army. And at present, frankly, that thought isn't really being put in. And okay, look, I appreciate that it's very difficult during the war itself, especially because, again, they have to wait and see about whether or not it works, their current way of war. But the point is beyond that, it has seemed to me that this kind of discussion is pretty much being actively suppressed, or at least until relatively recently. And in part this may reflect a difference between the two main gatekeepers to new military thinking, Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov and Colonel General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, who is a commandant of the General Staff Academy, which is essentially not just a place of training, but also a place of thinking, and is also the place where such crucial military journals as Vojana Emisel, military thought, essentially emerge from. And these are the main fora in which this kind of thinking tends to be sort of played out and the debates argued out. Now Gerasimov, well look, he's he's a bit busy at the moment, and he's not really the guy, frankly, you would turn to for theoretical innovation or the like. For all the talk, his talk of non-military operations and oh god, yes, that whole notion of the Gerasimov doctrine, which doesn't exist. Essentially, he's a conventional tank officer, who, frankly, I think is appreciating the opportunity of this war to use it to expand the size of the military. I mean, although frankly, they're not going to be able to achieve it until after the war, but you know, the plan is to raise it up to 1.5 million, and indeed build up his tank forces. Russia has more modern tanks now than it does, than it had back in 2022, because it's still building these tanks, but it's not at the moment largely deploying them in the war. Even though it's distinctly unclear just how useful these tanks are going to be, but that's a whole other issue. Zarodnitsky's position is a bit trickier. I tended to think of him as a rather conservative figure, not so much kind of a Soviet-era thinker, but just certainly not one to kind of buck the trend. And back in 2021, he wrote in Vojenai Misel, the struggle to gain and hold territory has been replaced by control over critical structures of undesirable states through governments under control, created in parallel with the ruling power. Now, a fairly opaque sentence, but essentially this is the kind of thing that Garasimov was also saying, about the fact that almost like the old notions of warfare somewhere where you know armies roll in and take territory have now become dated, and it's all about hybrid war and subversion and all that kind of thing. This is the sort of thing that said that Garasimov was also saying at the time, but none of them necessarily meant it. It just this was just reflecting the pre-2022 Kremlin concerns. Remember, these are you know the old men around Putin were still paranoid about Western Gibrydna Vojna, Western hybrid war, and the sense that Western subversion agitation was trying to bring down the Russian Federation or at least the Kremlin. And the political leadership had to say the right things just to stay in line. But then in another article in 2022, he actually argued that Russian military science was lagging behind practice and developing too slowly, although he still framed this in strangely Marxist terms about it being rooted in the dialectic. But the point is, by late 2024, he and other senior military thinkers were producing articles in Vajanay Missel offering operational level analysis of lessons from the special military operations. So, in other words, not just that kind of small picture what do you do with uh an assault platoon in these circumstances, but you know, big picture thinking about actually this whole war. And what's clear is that the old idea of what was called deep battle, whereby essentially you would try to punch armoured, highly mobile forces deep behind the Russian, the enemy's lines, so that the Russians could kind of disrupt their supply lines, attack their command centres and the like. Well, that an awareness that this doesn't isn't really going to work in an age of the transparent battlefield, where you can't mass your forces without that being obvious, and where your forces will be degraded throughout their assault, and that you can't prevent it. And that therefore, instead we have a new age of dispersed forces and dispersed strikes. The sort of thing, in fact, that Sekirin is talking about is now beginning to crop up in even in the writings of people like Zarodnitsky. So there is clearly some kind of broad-level thought that is now actually happening. But actually connecting that to policy is the problem in Russia. Adapting to this thinking would be politically subversive. Firstly, in the sense of, you know, it would undermine for Gerasimov the kind of reconstitution that he favours, with drones really, frankly, as kind of a bolt-on additional capacity, an adjunct to a traditional almost Soviet-style military where mass is king and the bigger division is again the building block. So it's military politics at work, but also higher level political adaptation. Because it adapting to this kind of battlefield and this kind of thinking would mean revising and questioning not just military, but also political orthodoxies. About, for example, well, firstly, it would imply you'd have to ditch Gerasimov. There's no way that he could actually carry through this kind of new military revolution. And Gerasimov seems to be the one guy whom Putin seems to trust at the moment to keep the army in line. But also, it means raising all sorts of other questions about the relationship of the defense industrial complex and what they produce, about perhaps decentralizing a lot of buying power. And remember, control over the purse is control overspiel, sawing, taking your corrupt, embezzled cut of any state contract. So there's a lot of people who would have a lot to lose. But it also takes away from this notion of the grand strategy as defined by the one man at the top. You have to allow in this new model a lot more freedom and flexibility further down the chain of command. And if you allow that within the military, why don't you allow that within the political system too? I mean, it might sound rather extreme to be saying that the military is in some ways a microcosm of society, though the old Soviets did say that the army and the people are one, but nonetheless it is perfectly true. It is the particular features of the Ukrainian system and the Ukrainian state which are manifest for worse but usually for better within the Ukrainian military, just as is the characteristics of the Putinist state that are manifest sometimes for better, but more often for worse, within the Russian armed forces and the Russian way of war. So this is why, although it might seem to be that I have taken a rather sort of bizarre wandering path from the dismissal of the Ukrainian Defense Minister and Commander-in-Chief through some various seemingly scarcely collected books to these three particular political questions. But the point is, my hope is that I illustrate the degree to which this is actually a systemic struggle. And I don't mean that in this kind of rather crass caricature that, oh, this whole war is because Putin cannot allow democracies to flourish or anything like that. No, this is about rather more sort of fundamental issues than that. But once the war has happened, what we find is Russia and Ukraine grappling with the same dilemmas, but with a very different political context that create distinct asymmetries. Asymmetries which bring into question the political systems behind them. I mean, Ukraine has, again, I would stress, like any, I mean, whether it was Britain in World War II or whatever, like any democracy in in facing such a serious challenge, it has become less democratic. It has become more centralized and more authoritarian. But nonetheless, it is still heir to a very vigorous and dynamic culture of civic autonomy, which is manifest in anything from the way you have people in their sort of kitchens and garages coming up with new drones and technological innovations all the way through to the morale of the soldiers on the ground. Whereas the Russian system under Putin has prior prioritized the whole notion of the sort of the power vertical, which allows for a certain degree of focus, but also an alienation, an alienation of many in the country, and also on the front line, from a war that is notionally being launched in their name.

What The War Proves About Regimes

MG 53:03

Which one of these systems is actually going to do the job? Well, this is a laboratory experiment, and the two sides, after all, are mismatched in terms of resources. Not just in terms of, you know, we tend to think of that as the mismatch being, well, Russia has a larger population and a larger economy. Let's not also forget the degree to which actually Ukraine is increasingly in this day sort of the warfighting element of a wider alliance. It is after all being bankrolled by a rich Europe. So, you know, there are there are different asymmetries there too. Only when this terrible war ends can we really do some kind of systemic balance sheet. But the key thing is this the Ukraine system, Ukrainian system, for all its stresses, one could argue is being proven in this war. While the Putin system, for all its potential advantages, is being degraded and delegitimized. So there is still this chance, to get to go back to the issue of a Pyrrhic victory, that Putin might perhaps be able to one day declare triumph in Ukraine. But win or lose, there is no question that in the wider scheme of things, this is a defeat for Putinism. His model and his personal leadership have both been tested by this war and are failing. Well, that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow Shadows Podcast. Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called In Moscow Shadows. You can follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by generous and enlightened patrons, and you too can be one. Just go along to my Patreon page, that's patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows, and decide which tier you want to join, getting access to exclusive materials and other perks. However, whether or not you contribute, thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.