In Moscow's Shadows 234: PACE’s Picks, Ukraine’s Grid, Russia’s Corruption

Four stories with counter-intuitive implications:

PACE’s new platform for dialogue with “Russian democratic forces” beg the question of whether a handpicked roster, quota politics, and delegates closely tied to Ukrainian advocacy strengthen dialogue with Russians or hand the Kremlin an easy propaganda win. 

Does the much-hyped energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine offer little repair time but plenty of room for Moscow to refill missile stocks and plan salvos designed to overwhelm air defences?

A new report on corruption in the regions demonstrates that, despite everything, there is still a willingness in Russia's academic/thinktank community to tackle tough topics

Finally, a fascinating report from The Bell on who dies at the front -- the poor -- may mean that strategies to degrade Russia’s economy might drive more into the military.

Yes, it's all difficult, with no easy conclusions.

The Bell's work is here (subscribers only), while the Centre for Political Information report on corruption is here.

The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and similar situations.

You can also follow my blog, In Moscow's Shadows, and become one of the podcast's supporting Patrons and gain question-asking rights and access to exclusive extra materials including the (almost-) weekly Govorit Moskva news briefing right here. 

Transcript

Opening And Theme Of Counterintuition

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Please be able to seek fun. Corruption and poor man's war. What unit is? Well really the blessing to be learned from all of them. Hello, I'm Mum Galeotti, 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. So this is one of those episodes which I'm not really at all sure how long it's going to be. On the one hand, it's really about four particular current stories issues, and I have only very short little bullet pointy notes, and I'm also beginning to succumb to the first cold of the year, though it is being held back by the power of lemon tea. But on the other hand, precisely because I don't really have much in the way of notes or whatever, I may well end up rabbiting on at great length, so we'll just have to see. But as I say, the common theme is that in all of these cases I think there are some counterintuitive points to be made. Well, let's start with PACE, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, and its recent decision to appoint 15 delegates to its platform for dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces. Now there are a total of 209 applications, some of them self-nominated, some from various émigré political organizations. And to be blunt, PACE essentially picked the 15 that it wanted. One-third of the overall delegation was specially reserved for so-called representatives of Russia's indigenous peoples. That already has a bit of a problem associated with it. Look, many of the delegates, I absolutely see why they are there, people like Vladimir Karaburza, vice president of the Free Russia Foundation, you know, and a man who's been poisoned by the Kremlin not once, but at least twice, put in prison, etc. Or Aliek Orlov, human rights defender, co-chair of the Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre. Or indeed Lubov Sobol, who's a well, she was an associate of Alexei Novalny's, no longer apparently associated with Febekar, his anti-corruption foundation, but nonetheless someone who has a definite pedigree. Others honestly, it's questionable how far I think their membership truly helps the ostensible cause of this dialogue. And sadly, that has to include Nikhail Karakovsky, the politician and multi-multi-millionaire entrepreneur, who absolutely did stand up against corruption in the Kremlin, was a political prisoner as a result. But he's also nowadays a man behind so much of the Russian emigre political movement. Thanks to his money, there is a virtual Khodokovsky industrial complex, from the Dossier Centre to the new Eurasian Strategies Centre, organizations like the New Generation Europe Foundation that in turn provides funds to structures like Chatham House. There are all kinds of suspicions about Chodakovsky, and although obviously there is a huge amount of envy and hyperbole, nonetheless, I mean I think it is clear that he does represent not just a divisive force within the emigre political movement, but he is also, I think it's fair to say, roundly despised in Russia by those who think of him at all, because he has been made, with some reason, a representative of the rapacious 1990s oligarchs who stole the assets of state and society for their own profit. Others seem to me certainly much more sort of downright potentially problematic. Mark Fagin, and again, all of these are people who actually have, you know, serious track records as activists and oppositionists. But I mean he is apparently, and again, if I'm wrong, I'm I'm I'm wrong and I'm sort of introducing him, but apparently associated with the Forum of Russian opposition in support of Ukraine. He certainly thanked explicitly the Ukrainian delegation to PACE for supporting his nomination. Now, you know, the point at which you look so closely in bed with the Ukrainians is a point at which you begin to delegitimise, frankly, the whole platform. Much the same is true of Andrei Volner, again, a doctor, a truly dedicated volunteer who's performed all kinds of crucial emergency surgery work in Ukraine. But he too is a sort of candidate supported by the form of Russian opposition in support of Ukraine, which many do consider to be a front for Ukrainian military intelligence. I don't know the truth of that or not. Then of course there are these five representatives of the so-called indigenous peoples. Well, in some cases, again, these are people who you know have have strong traditions and track records as activists, and a a real network and a real connection in the country. Then you've got someone like, say, Ruslan Kutaev, former Deputy Prime Minister of the so-called Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which is the rebel breakaway Chechen Republic, which had had some high hopes, but also frankly became a criminalized and increasingly jihadic statelit who has explicitly said, My enemy is Russia. Or I don't think I could go on, and in some ways it's it's terribly unfair. And as I said, I really would want to stress that there are brave and effective campaigners within the 15. And inevitably I'm focusing on the more problematic, but that's because I think the whole initiative, as it was framed from the start, has proven problematic. I mean, it very much was framed by pace rapporteur Erik Niels Cross, who is a former Estonian intelligence chief, a man who publicly advocates the notion that all Russians should be excluded from Europe on the grounds of collective responsibility, and indeed who specifically attacked Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow, when she dared question whether or not all Russians ought to be punished for Putin's misdeeds. Now, he was crucial in directly identifying the so-called key Russian democratic forces, and specifically noted Mikhail Khodakovsky's anti-war committee, Gary Kasparov's Free Russia Forum, and the Free Russia Foundation that Kokara Murza and Natalia Arnaud, who's also on the platform, are associated with. But on the other hand, Fedeka, Navalny's group, was actually excluded. So in some ways, they were already sort of out there. And then, of course, there's also the fact that Pace absolutely bent over backwards to placate Kyiv about this. And Verhovna Rada, deputy and Ukraine's representative in PACE, Olexi Honcharenko. Well, I mean, he was playing quite a significant role. And this not only led to the demand that they emphasize that these candidates must all explicitly highlight their support for Ukraine and so forth, but Honcharenko specifically lobbied hard, apparently, for the inclusion of the Russian Volunteer Corps, the RDK. Now, the RDK is a combat unit fighting on Ukraine's side, recruited predominantly from far right ethnic Russians. And Honcharenko was outraged when the PACE Bureau didn't actually let RDK in, saying, there cannot be a Russian delegation without the RDK. We cannot invite Lubov Sobol and not invite Denis Kapustin and his male and female associates. Now, Kapustin, who's the head and founder of RDK, has been banned from the Schengen zone for his neo-Nazi politics. And this is the guy who absolutely needs to be added. So look, this is a structure which has no democratic mandate. Look, on one level, how could there be? There can hardly be elections amongst the emigre community, let alone amongst Russians as a whole. But we know just because it was chosen by a notionally democratic body does not actually make this process democratic. Let's be absolutely clear. PACE decided on the process and then chose the candidates, the good Russians that it chose to do so. Even so, these people have no real authority within PACE. I mean, they don't even have regular passes into the PACE building, but actually have to apply specifically. But then again, in fairness, PACE itself has no real authority. It's purely a consultative body, bringing together parliamentarians from EU member states and various neighbouring European countries. And Russia was actually represented within PACE until February 2022. The candidates are almost under an obligation, it feels to advocate for Ukrainians rather than, or at least as much as Russians. And again, look, I I get that at the moment Ukraine is the victim of an imperial war. But is this a platform to support and create dialogue with the democratic opposition? Or is this really another way of trying to essentially show support for Ukraine? These are two separate things which have been rolled together. The candidates or the platform members, they're not paid for their time or their travel to Strasbourg. Now, on one level, I get that they don't want to have this spectacle of people apparently just simply looking for a sinecure that pays, but what it means is to be able to actively participate, you either need to have sufficient wealth of your own, or else be backed by a philanthropist hustling for grants and so forth. And yes, unfortunately, who pays the piper often does get to call the tune. The emphasis on decolonization, the idea that all of these people must be committed to the decolonization of Russia, may not be intended to mean the absolute breakup of the Russian Federation. In fact, it tends to mean the so-called re-federalization. In other words, taking what is a federation in name only and making it a genuine federation. But the point is, it will be taken by many outside and inside Russia to actually mean the fragmentation of the Federation, as Putin's propagandists claim. And this means that by definition, going on that platform does make you, frankly, a traitor. And this creates, because it's seen as a route to getting a higher profile, a higher profile may well mean not just an ego boost, but also a greater opportunity precisely to get further political influence, acquire grants or other access and so forth, well, they managed to create all the more grounds for jealousies, for division, for infighting, and for graft within the emigre opposition. So, in the name of creating something that should be allowing greater dialogue with and therefore strength for the Russian emigre democratic opposition, congratulations, Pace. You have just managed to marginalize and demonize the very democratic actors you claim to want to platform. But maybe I'm wrong. I can hope so. And the second thing I want to look at before I take a break is the energy ceasefire that is currently in effect between Ukraine and Russia, in which they agree not to hit each other's cities and energy infrastructure. Now, this is something that it does look like Trump essentially bounced the Russians into, and that they chose to accept it, though they have since reframed it as basically ending today. This is Sunday, the first of February. And on one level, one would think, well, why would the Russians make any kind of concession? I mean, the Russian approach, quite frankly, is um, you know, when someone is down, that is the best time to keep kicking them. So given that Ukraine is suffering terribly from the concentrated series of attacks on its energy infrastructure, why not just simply keep up the quote unquote good work? Well, look, answer number one maybe to not alienate the Donald. Perhaps, though, although I must say, ever since the Alaska summit, I have felt that the Russians have been less bothered about this, less concerned that he's going to throw his weight behind Kyiv. But then again, you know, from their point of view, it's a fairly easy concession to make. The thing is, the damage that has been done, both to the overall energy infrastructure, but also actually things as basic as the radiators in people's houses. You know, a lot of, particularly in cities like Kyiv, you have these great big chunky Soviet cast iron radiators that have cracked because extended period of cold without hot water coming through, in due course, actually the water expands and and and breaks the iron. These are not things that can be fixed or replaced at all quickly. We're talking about months before both the infrastructure and just the in-home heating facilities can be repaired, and that's if the Russians I mean, obviously they can't necessarily hit individual radiators, but that's if the Russians don't actually just simply keep up their campaign with a sort of rolling process of attacks. The head of DTK, Ukraine's largest energy provider, said the attacks have cost his company 60 to 70% of their generation capacity. And Ukrainians have been receiving only three to four hours of power a day as temperatures have plummeted to minus 20 degrees centigrade. That's that's even in the minuses in Fahrenheit, I believe. And yesterday, Saturday, both Kyiv and the Moldovan capital Kishina, because that's connected to the Ukrainian grid, suffered serious power cuts after high voltage power lines failed. Now, that wasn't directly because of a Russian attack, either physical or cyber, it was again just simply because of the cumulative impact. So it could well be that they can offer a few days apparent respite, knowing full well that in practice it didn't mean anything at all. It also could mean that they focus on other targets. Now the most optimistic explanation is that the Russians wanted to create a conducive environment for the continuation of the peace talks, which are meant to resume today, Saturday. And yesterday Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian sort of economic delegate, met his American counterpart Whitkov in Miami. Now I would like to believe that, though again, I do have a sense that on the whole the Russian approach to negotiation is likewise to negotiate from a position of strength, which means essentially demonstrating very vividly what they can do. So, you know, maybe that isn't it. What I would say is, and this is kind of the counterintuitive and the potentially negative bit, maybe I'm just feeling under the weather and therefore prone to negativity, is that this also gives the Russians a pause to restock their magazines. We know from analysis of the serial numbers of some of the drones and missiles that have been fired in in recent days and weeks, that essentially these are ones that have just come straight off the assembly lines. So, in other words, they're producing them and then firing them right away rather than stockpiling. Now, before people think that I'm trying to suggest that that means that the Russians have no stocks, that's not the case. But clearly their stocks are running pretty low because of the intensity of the campaign they've been launched, often aiming to overwhelm remaining Ukrainian air defences. Now, what this means is that if they have a few days in which to, as it were, stock up production, it means that they are in a position to launch all the more massive attacks in the future. And remember, this whole point about overwhelming air defences. The more you send at once, then actually the greater proportion will get through. It's not just simply a case of you know, expect to lose 20% of your or 80%, you know, whatever, of those things you you fire, you will get more a greater share through if you can overwhelm the air defences. So that might be a possibility. From the Russians' point of view, it could be, and here I'm assuming that they are as smart as they are cynical, that they just simply thought, well, look, we can agree to this, even though we may be annoyed that Trump bounced us into it, because the Ukrainians are not going to be able to use this opportunity to really regain much in the terms of power capacity. And what reconstruction they've done, well, we can hit it as soon as the truce is over. It can make us look as if we're keen on negotiations, and in the meantime, we can build up stocks for a stonkingly big attack afterwards. So, on the one level, yes, of course, any kind of ceasefire is a good thing, especially for the people who've been suffering under constant air attacks. But in practice, this doesn't really do much for the Ukrainians, and could lay the groundwork for even more devastating attacks. Wow, I really am a little ray of sunshine today. So let me take a break, see if I can get in touch more with the optimistic side of myself, and then let's come on to, well, what could be a more optimistic topic than corruption in Russia? Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conducto, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and the like. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash inMoscow Shadows. And remember that patrons get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian. And you can also follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or on Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. Now back to the episode. Okay, and before I start moving on to corruption, let me just mention that this Thursday, the 5th of February, I will be speaking at an evening event at School of Slavonic and East European Studies about Russia and China, along with Bobo Low and Julia Shorati, who know vastly more about China, so that's definitely the part that they'll be filling in. And then the Thursday, the week after, Thursday the 12th, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood of Kiel University, the place that I had my first permanent academic job. I still remember it very fondly. Anyway, I'm speaking at their World Affairs event, which is actually an amazing institution. But anyway, so that's the 5th and the 12th, two successive Thursdays. So moving on, corruption. Alexei Mukin's Centre for Political Information has just recently released a report, The State of Corruption and Anti-Corruption Activity in the Regions of the Russian Federation during the special operation. Okay, not exactly the snappest of titles. But although at times a little bit uh rough and ropey, both because it acknowledges that there are issues with the data, particularly from certain regions, and also sometimes in its findings, but nonetheless, it is interesting because it does explicitly address the way that in the circumstances of the war, the special military operation, the corruption landscape in Russia has changed. First of all, a whole series of new corruption schemes which have emerged. In particular, but not exclusively, relating to evading the partial mobilization that took place in autumn of 2022, attempts made by people to leave the country, paying bribes and the like, or to evade that. But also, no more generally, people let's say trying to get out of commitments that they had made to the military or similar. And just the emphasis is this is this is about petty corruption, this is local bribes. I mean, it might be significant amounts for the individuals concerned, but it's the everyday corruption rather than the large scale, what they call violations at the highest levels of leadership. Words, the kind of huge organized embezzlement and so forth that comes in. So that's what's happening at the grassroots level. But of course, then secondly, they don't shy away from the fact that the war has exposed official abuses that in many cases predate the war, but certainly have significantly hit Russia's combat readiness. Think, for example, of the degree to which the forces that went in in February 2022 often didn't really have the equipment they were meant to have. Their fancy frequency hopping radios turned out to be just cheap Chinese walkie-talkies. The big tyres on their supply trucks, instead of being solid ones, were again cheap Chinese ones because people in the logistics arms had been skimming off huge amounts of money. Or more recently, one could think about the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk and the way that that demonstrated that a lot of the money that had been earmarked for building defences along the border actually ended up being not spent, stolen, or again that substandard substandard materials were used and the like. And they recognize, the report's writers recognize that this clearly has led to a major government effort to crack down. And a lot of regional authorities actually have become increasingly vulnerable. They note the number of cases of corruption uncovered at the level of high-ranking officials has leached what they call unprecedented levels. Though one has to recognise that this is also skewed by the purge that has taken place within the Ministry of Defence after the departure of Defence Minister Choigu and the lifting of his Krisha, his roof, his protection. Now, it's going to be interesting to, in due course, discover how far this leads to less corruption, or how far it just simply means that corrupt opportunities are taken over by a new bunch of embezzlers. We we wait and see. But nonetheless, obviously that has had a significant impact on the overall figures, but nonetheless, they do note that it also has taken place at a regional level, and that this is the focus of increasing law enforcement activity. To give a quote, corruption crimes during the special military operation have been linked to embezzlement in government procurement through the Ministry of Defence, violations in the procurement of defence equipment in border areas, they mentioned the Kursk region, and embezzlement in the procurement of personal protective equipment. Almost all of these crimes involve the giving or receiving of bribes. It's significant that bribery has become more organized by 2025, according to the Prosecutor General's office. More and more crimes are being committed by organized crime groups and criminal organizations. Little asterisk there, I'll come back to it. Compared to 2024, this figure increased by 46.5% in 2025. Consequently, statistically, the size of bribes has also increased significantly. Now, the asterisk that I mentioned, when we talk about organized crimes and, you know, basically that they are organized groups are involved, we have a tendency to assume that that means what we think of as mafias, you know, bunches of gangsters. That can be the case, but again, one if one looks at the definition that the Russians used, it actually in these cases tends to mean organized long-term criminal conspiracies within the apparatus. So, you know, it's it's not mafiosi as such, it is just basically cabals of corrupt officials. Some might be wearing uniform, others wearing fancy grey suits. But nonetheless, you know, the there's no way of getting away from the fact that what this report is saying is precisely that not only has there been a huge level of corruption before the invasion, which did have a serious impact on the prosecution of the war, but that it continues, and in many ways by 2025 it is getting once again more organized and regularised. Years worth of flow, you know, increased flow of resources into the war effort has created the opportunities and therefore the incentives for these criminal conspiracies to form. And again, it says something about the actual weaknesses of this notional police state and the degree to which corruption is embedded, and indeed the degree to which corruption is one of Ukraine's secret weapons, secret defenders. And the third base point that they they make is that the transparency of government agencies has decreased. Now, they say this is because of the risk of sanctions, um, and when we say sanctions, we're talking about obviously foreign sanctions to simply the amount of data available. And we've got to remember that actually the Russian government had got, well, the whole Russian system, had got increasingly transparent. There was a huge amount of information which was publicly and openly available, and in part this was driven by Prime Minister Mishustin's mania for automated government, in effect, trying to actually sort of gather and make available data and then base governance on that rather than on fallible human beings. But of course, this has meant that there was information that was available for hunting down who has what assets, who's involved in what, and so forth. And the government has kind of reverted to type, quite frankly, and increasingly taken information out of public view. But I would suggest that actually one could also say that the sanctions in question are not just international sanctions on Russians and Russian institutions, but also sanctions in the sense of the risk of prosecution. I think there is a reason why you also have regional authorities which are often deeply corrupted. And for me, one of the interesting parallels with late Soviet times, particularly late Brezhnevism, is the degree to which increasingly you saw the emergence of local circles, which united not just local party officials and business people and criminals, but also the local security agencies, the people who are meant to be there to be Moscow's eyes and ears on the ground. But nonetheless, these corrupt local circles, in effect, began to work together to drain assets from the centre to enrich themselves at the centre's expense. And I think we're beginning to see that in Russia. And in part that reflects a lack of social mobility. If you are an ambitious regional Federal Security Service officer, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if you were good and kept your nose clean and everything else, you had a decent chance of making it into the big time, which basically means getting to Moscow, either the Moscow Regional Directorate or the central elements of the FSB. Now that's getting harder and harder because if you are already in those, you make damn sure that you only recruit and promote people within your own circle, your family, your clients, whatever. So if you are out there in Yekaterinburg or Chabarovsk or wherever, and you know that you're not going to be able to make it to Moscow, actually your route to respect, money, a good life, is probably more on a local level. It is marrying your son off to the daughter of the mayor who also happens to own the major local factory or whatever else. It is getting into bed with local businessmen, getting into bed with local gangsters. So for all of these reasons, I think that this is one of the reasons why the regions themselves are quite keen on minimizing transparency, not because they're worried about what the what Westerners and investigative journalists and everyone else might make of it, but also because in the process it helps, if not blind, but certainly obscure Moscow's view of what's going on locally. This report has an anti-corruption league table, though it admits that there are serious problems with the data, particularly for the so-called new regions, which, surprise, surprise, they're all right at the bottom of the table. Who are the worst of the rest? Well, the Udmurt Republic, South Ossetia, the Jewish Autonomous Region, sorry, Republic, though there are precious few Jews there these days. Siberia and the Far Eastern regions, the generally poor regions. So in some ways that's no surprise. More striking was the lack of an obvious pattern I felt, to who's at the top of the table. Voronezh, Altai, Chelyabinsk, Krasnodar, Tatarstan, Arkhangelsk, North, South, East, West. Relatively rich, relatively poor. There is to me no immediately visible pattern. And if we're talking about wealth, after all, Moscow was something like, I can't remember now, fan, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, something in that order. So no clear pattern. If you know of one, please let me know. So in other words, it's not just that corruption is becoming more of an issue, which frankly is unsurprising, but also, this is the kind of counterintuitive bit, it's a reminder to us that there is still real research being done on sensitive topics inside Russia. Not always necessarily or the most penetrating research, but not afraid to tell quite hard truths. And remember, Mukin, the head of the centre, he's he's no fluffy liberal uh critic of the regime. He has endorsed, for example, the the whole line about how the Brits are behind Zelensky and so forth. He's on the State Duma Council of Experts. He is, from the point of view of the regime, I think, considered a relatively safe pair of hands. And yet, here we have him coming up and noting, or him, his his centre, coming up and noting serious problems that are arising that goes against the kind of hurrah patriot war has forged, this new Russia in which everyone is committed to victory and such like. I'll leave a link to the report in the programme notes. It is in Russian, obviously. But nonetheless, as I say, I think that's that's a useful reminder, just as reading the Russian presses, that this is not totalitarianism. This is a personalistic authoritarianism, but it is one in which there are still all kinds of pockets and areas in which people are still doing what they ought to be doing, talking about the realities of the country and trying to analyze what's really behind it. And finally, on the poor man's war, I wanted to highlight an excellent report that came from Alexander Kolyander of The Bell. And as I mentioned in the past, you really ought to follow the Bell for the most penetrating research on the Russian economy. And also one that is written in such a way that even relative morons when it comes to economics like myself can understand it. But anyway, this report has crunched the data on who is actually dying in this war, based on the studies that are sort of information collected by Mediazona and BBC Russia. And look, on one level, no surprise. The ratio of people killed on the front lines varies from region to region, often by orders of magnitude. Moscow, rich, relatively comfortable Moscow, has the lowest fatality rate with just 0.02% of residents, or one in 5,000.

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Poor Man’s War: Who Dies And Why

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Petersburg is also at the bottom end with 0.03%, and so too is Chechnya. Now that last one is actually quite interesting. It could be that one could say, well, the Chechens, they're just so hard that they're virtually bulletproof. So they're going in and they're fighting, but they're not dying. However, I don't actually believe that's the case. And certainly I remember from my own research on the Soviet war in Afghanistan, actually the casualty, the fatality rates, was basically the best correlate we had to show the level of participation in the various from the various republics in that war. Doesn't tend to be that any particular ethnicity is any more bulletproof than the other. No, instead, I think what this does demonstrate is precisely what most people assume and what Ramzan Kadirov fiercely denies, is that the Chechen troops are largely so-called TikTok soldiers. In other words, they're more interested in filming social media videos of themselves shooting rather than actually going into the front lines and doing real shooting and being shot at. But on the other hand, at the other end, the death toll in, for example, Buriatia is 0.4%. In other words, not one in 5,000 of the residents like Moscow, but one in 250. And in Chukotka and Tuva, it's even higher at 0.5%. So people from those regions are 25 times more likely to die in battle than a Muscovite. Now you would think that this directly relates to regional wealth, and it sort of does, but not directly, as as they as the report study shows. It's not the case that in every time a poor republic equals a high fatality republic. In Gushetia and Karachay Cherkesia in the North Caucasus, and this is the one particular example that Koliander raises, two of Russia's poorest regions, comparable to Chukotka and Tuva, but they actually have a low casualty rate. So, look, it doesn't look like there's any kind of deliberate targeting that either Moscow is trying to send any particular ethnicities into battle. There's always this conspiracy theory notion that, oh, they're trying to bleed our particular people. Well, no, that doesn't seem to be the case. Frankly, they'll they'll take anyone who's willing to volunteer. Nor is it because of ethnic stereotypes, our people are more martial and brave and they volunteer. No. Essentially, there seems to be one very clear correlation. And that is not republican poverty as a whole, but the number of people who live below the poverty line, which is now officially set at around 19,000 rubles, which is$250 a month. So Goliandra concludes, let me just quote, Russia's war on Ukraine is being fought by impoverished people from its far-flung regions. Analysis of who is dying on the front highlights the Kremlin's strategy of keeping the cost of its war as far away as possible from regions that have traditionally been key to domestic security and public order, namely Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the North Caucasus. Poorer eastern regions with large populations of ethnic minorities are being left or encouraged through huge payouts to bear the brunt. The vast majority of Russia's dead come from poor backgrounds. But then they add the kicker, if I say they. The report adds the kicker. As the economy slows and wage increases stagnate, pushing more people into poverty, this trend will only increase. So in other words, the more people who are below the poverty line, the more people likely to be willing to consider volunteering, even as the casualties mount. Because I suppose they feel they have very few options for themselves and arguably even more importantly for their families. So bear that in mind. Especially the next time someone says sanctions and further damage to the Russian economy is necessary to end the war. Because in practice, the worse the economy, yes, on the one hand, maybe the less money that is available for the government to hire these volunteer Kantrakniki contract soldiers, but also maybe the less money that is needed to do so. Now look, I'm not arguing that sanctions don't work or anything like that. Well, sectoral sanctions do work. I'm deeply skeptical about the value of most of the personal ones. Instead, I just want to highlight that economic warfare, and that is what sanctions are. I mean, let's let's not be mealy-mouthed about it. Sanctions are economic warfare. Anyway, economic warfare is complex and difficult and can't be encapsulated into glib slogans and easy assertions. Yes, while sanctions contribute to grinding down the Russian economy, they also contribute to grinding down the assets of many Russian families. And instead of driving them to protest, at the moment it may well drive them to volunteer for the war. So? Okay, that that that's the end. Yes, I managed to keep it to a relatively compact length. For particular issues where, in some ways, we we have to realise that in that the kind of the re the real through line of the story, in my opinion, is not the obvious one. That PACE's platform for dialogue with Russian democratic forces, however well meant, may well undermine that very process. That the energy ceasefires, again, however welcome they are at the moment, risk actually leading to even more serious energy attacks in the future. That even within Russian think tank communities in the current environment, it's still possible to talk about what in some ways one would have thought of as relatively taboo topics. In other words, the level of corruption within the system and the degree to which the war has actually exacerbated it, and the extent to which sanctions and generally the degradation of the Russian economy perversely, in some ways, makes the war more affordable. In all of these cases, they're really just a reminder that it is worth wonking out. It is worth digging into these issues and thinking about the multiplicities of potential meanings. None of these counterintuitive responses necessarily mean that the base truth, the the mainstream truth, shall we say, is wrong. It doesn't mean that sanctions never work. It doesn't mean that there isn't a huge level of not just censorship but self-censorship within the Russian academic and think tank community. It doesn't mean that it's not worth talking to often very brave and principled democratic activists. It doesn't mean that it's not worth trying to push for energy ceasefires. It just means that it's all a little bit more complex than that. Thanks anyway for listening to my ramblings. Now I return to, and I really ought to actually get this podcast sponsored by makers of tea bags and chocolate. But anyway, now I return to my lemon tea. Well, that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow Shadow Podcast. Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called In Moscow Shadows. Follow me on Twitter at MarkGaleotti 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 inMoscow 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.