Dimitri Simes Jr.
@DimitriASimes
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Host of New Rules podcast. Proud 🇷🇺, born and raised in 🇺🇸. Posts about geopolitics, history, and technology. ☦️
Joined January 2019
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Iran’s state-run shipping company has stated it has successfully completed the first transit of Russian goods to India, using the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
The entire journey from St.Petersburg to Mumbai took 24 days.
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🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russia and Iran are moving to strengthen energy, industrial, and logistical ties as the two countries seek to ease the burden of U.S. sanctions against them.
A brief 🧵 on the latest developments:
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I try to stay away from editorializing on here, but I will make an exception for this New Yorker interview with Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin.
Kotkin makes some bizarre claims about Russian history which should be addressed. Let's begin 🧵
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Important 🇺🇦🇷🇺 Update: Growing signs that Russia is preparing to declare a partial or general mobilization.
1) Russian lawmakers in the State Duma passed legislation introducing the concepts of “mobilization, martial law and wartime” into the criminal code.
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The exit of McDonalds from Russia has led to a boom in new Vietnamese and Korean food joints in Moscow.
All of the sudden food courts at malls have become far more international and interesting. My hope that we will also see more cuisine from other parts of Russia.
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🇷🇺🇮🇳 Indian Prime Minister is set to give a video address to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok tomorrow.
Now is a good opportunity to take a closer look at India’s interest in the Russian Far East, a resource-wealthy but underdeveloped region. 🧵
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#BREAKING
: Russian President Vladimir Putin declares a partial mobilization, which will allow Russia to replenish its fighting force in Ukraine by drawing upon its estimated two million military reservists.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t always have such an estranged relationship with the West. In fact, Putin got his start in politics by working for Russia's pro-Western liberals during the 1990s.
A 🧵on an often overlooked chapter in Putin's biography.
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🇷🇺🇨🇳 China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu said that China “fully understands and supports” Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
“The US and NATO forced their way directly to Russia’s doorway,” he said. “In such case, Russia took the action that should be taken and China comprehends it.”
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UPDATE: Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to address the nation later this evening.
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A brief Russian history lesson:
Catherine the Great expanded the Russian Empire’s borders by 520,000 square kilometres through a series of wars
Elizabeth Petrovna mauled Frederick the Great during the Seven Years War, captured Berlin in 1760.
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On a concluding note, I will say just say that is very disappointing as an American to see Kotkin, arguably our country's most Russia historians, make such caricatured readings of Russian history.
With experts like that, no wonder we struggle to understand Russia. END
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Huawei appears to be on a hiring spree in Russia.
Kommersant newspaper reports that Huawei has increased its open job spots in Russia by 49% during the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year (814 versus 545).
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Buildings in central Moscow were lit up with images of the Indian flag to commemorate the 76th Independence Day celebration.
This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this. Perhaps not too surprising given India’s newfound importance for Russia.
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Here is a visual comparison between INSTC (~7,200 km) and the standard route between Mumbai and St.Petersburg that goes through the Suez Canal (~16,112 km).
Based on the figures I’ve seen, INSTC is expected to reduce transport costs by 30% and travel time by 40%.
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🇷🇺 Russia’s logistical pivot to Asia
Container imports through the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok has increased by 150% over the past three months, up to 28,000 TEU per month.
Russia’s export and import flows are being re-oriented to the Far East.
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Back in 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to establish the Vladivostok-Chennai maritime corridor (10,300 km).
The new route cuts transportation time between India and the Russian Far East from 40 days to 24 days.
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🇨🇳🇮🇳🇷🇺 China and India have announced that they will send troops to take part in Russia’s Vostok-2022 strategic military exercise in the Russian Far East.
We don’t know the exact scale of the exercises yet, but from a political symbolism standpoint, this is a big deal.
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The reason I wrote this thread is because Kotkin's argument is not just historically nonsense, it also distorts our thinking about the situation today.
If we assume Russia was and always will be an anti-Western, militaristic autocracy, then conflict with her is inevitable.
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3) President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with members of Russia’s military-industrial complex earlier today. He called upon Russian arms manufacturers to ramp up their production.
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Let's begin with the "suspicion" of Westerners part.
That claim doesn't really hold up scrutiny for the Russian Empire, which was modeled by Peter I on European absolute monarchies. Post-Peter, Russian monarchs spoke numerous European languages and had European relatives.
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As I reported last year for
@NikkeiAsia
, India is looking to 1) Gain more access to the Russian Far East’s natural resources, such as oil, gas, coal, timber, and agricultural goods; 2) Counterbalance China’s economic influence in the region.
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2) The Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics announced that that they will be holding referendums to join Russia from Sept. 23-27.
Russian-installed authorities in Kherson and Zaporozhia have also declared that they plan on holding referendums soon.
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Some interesting rumblings from Belarus as well…
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko instructed to begin preparations for the defense of the state according to wartime standards.
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Finally, India has expressed interest in helping Russia develop the Northern Sea Route as an alternative to Suez Canal route.
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Huawei has been acquiring elite Russian IT talent for years, now they’ve hired one of the stars of Russia’s 2021 International Collegiate Programming Contest gold medal team. Expect this trend to continue and even gain momentum over the next few years.
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The correct answer to this claim is compared to what?
Plenty of European states were militarized autocracies during the 17th-18th centuries. Just think of Prussia under Frederick the Great, France under Louis XIV, or Sweden under Charles XII.
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From this we can draw the following conclusions:
- A clash of civilizations between Russia and the West is not inevitable
- Our actions do have consequences and we can't shift all the blame for the current state of Russia-West relations on Russia's shoulders
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Moscow city authorities will begin recruiting foreign citizens into the Russian armed forces at city’s main migration complex.
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Such a move could serve as a pretext for the Kremlin to upgrade its “special military operation” in Ukraine to a formal declaration of war, which would then allow it to begin military and economic mobilization.
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So to repeat: Peter I modeled Russian Empire after the West, his successors maintained close familial and cultural ties to Europe, the Russian elite was very much Westernized, and Westerners occupied high government/military positions in the Russian Empire.
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Kotkin is clearly wrong. Russia doesn't have a fixed anti-Western nature. History clearly shows that Russia is very much capable of "being part of the West" or at least appreciating the merits of Western civilization.
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If you enjoyed this mini thread and would like to learn more about how Russia is adapting to sanctions, I recently published a feature on the subject in
@amconmag
. For the story, I interviewed Russian businesspeople across different industries.
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Trade between Russia and India has been gradually increasing in recent years and has experienced an additional boost due to the Ukraine crisis.
Proper logistics is key to boosting trade volumes, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the new routes. END
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Let's start with the second claim first. I don't think it's a secret that most rising powers try to frame themselves as exceptional, or pursuing a unique path. We can see a similar trend in both the German Empire and the United States in the 19th century. See Manifest Destiny.
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Some background first: Editor David Remnick asks Kotkin about the role of NATO expansion in causing the
#UkraineConflict
.
Kotkin goes on a weird essentialist rant in which he claims that Russia has always been an aggressive, autocratic power that hostile to the West.
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As you can see in the chart below, with the exception of the 1850s, the percentage of Russians serving in the army was comparable to that of the other European great powers.
So clearly the argument that Russia was uniquely militarized isn't correct.
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The same applied to members of the Russian aristocracy, who were often taught by European teachers in their youth and who later traveled across Europe. 19th century educated Russians were fully plugged into European political and cultural trends.
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🇷🇺 Economy Update:
Russia's is expected to earn $337.5 billion energy from its energy exports this year, a 38% rise on 2021, according to Reuters.
The Kremlin has relied heavily on energy revenues to ease some of the burden of Western sanctions.
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The law introduces jail terms of up to 15 years for wartime acts such as desertion, surrender, and looting.
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So we can conclude that:
- For a big part of its history, Russian elites actively embraced the West
- Russian Empire was comparable to other European absolute monarchies
- Bolsheviks ruptured Russia's ties with the West, but they were also Westernizers
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Needless to say, if Russia plans on mobilizing tens of thousands of additional troops, it will also have to produce enough weaponry, equipment, protective gear, and communication devices to equip them
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In Kazan, there is a fast food chain called Qistibi that serves Tatar cuisine. Time to open some in Moscow.
I also would love to see more Yakut and Buryat restaurants. Why do we need Burger King or KFC?
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During the Napoleonic Wars, officers from all across Europe served in the Imperial Russian Army. The Russian commander-in-chief during that war was Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, a Baltic German of Scottish descent.
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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russian missile and drone strikes across Ukraine this morning. I’m seeing estimates that more than 100 missiles have been fired.
This is the largest air strike effort since the start of the conflict back in February.
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That doesn't really square with Kotkin's argument that totalitarianism is an inherent Russian character trait, a sign that Russia is irrevocably alien from Europe.
After all, Karl Marx was a German philosopher who died in London.
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Talk about good timing! Just days before
@Peter_Nimitz
published his English translation of "85 Days in Slavyansk" by Alexander Zhuchkovsky, my review of the book came out in the print edition of
@amconmag
.
I strongly recommend getting a copy.
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Circling back to Kotkin, it's clear that his point that Russia has always been paranoid about the West doesn't withstand the least bit of scrutiny.
What about his claim that Russia has always been a militarized autocracy ?
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When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, they obviously took Russia in a much more totalitarian direction.
But it's important to note that the Bolsheviks were led by Westernized intellectuals who spent a significant time abroad. See Lenin, who spent many years in Switzerland.
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In fact, that's the argument Kotkin explicitly makes in his New Yorker interview: NATO expansion doesn't matter because Russia is Russia -- the country was going to become an enemy of the West again regardless of our actions.
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I could go off on a separate tangent about the evolution of the Russian Federation from a pro-Western state in the 1990s to Adversary
#1
in 2022, but I will save that for a future article/thread.
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I also unironically think that Vkusno i tochka (Russia’s McDonalds replacement) is superior to the original both in terms of taste and spirituality.
That being said, the name is definitely lame. They should have gone with Uncle Vanya.
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The other key development is that Russia is moving to rapidly step up its investment in the Iranian energy sector.
This is noteworthy because Iran is second-largest natural gas reserve holder in the world, behind Russia. Most of Iran's gas reserves are undeveloped, however.
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But what about the uniquely autocratic/repressive claim? Let's circle back to what we discussed earlier.
Peter I modeled the Russian Empire after fellow European absolute monarchies, so politically Russia was pretty much in the norm at least in 18th century.
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2) Russia and India signed a memorandum to establish a direct maritime corridor between Vladivostok and Chennai. The new sea route was expected to cut the shipping time for goods between Russia and India to 24 days, versus 40 days via a European route.
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Let’s start with energy:
Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji recently announced that Iran and Russia were close to finalizing a natural gas swap deal. Basically, this deal would allow Iran to import Russian gas and then deliver a certain amount of it to third party countries.
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🇷🇺🇮🇳 Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, will open a new office in India next year.
Having a greater presence on the ground in India will make it easier for Sberbank to facilitate cross-border settlements between Russia and India.
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Namely, even though Russia was an absolute monarchy, it was also a society that had an aristocratic class with established legal and historic rights/privileges. The Tsar could not just bulldoze or purge them the way Stalin did with his high-ranking officials.
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By 1913, under Tsar Nicholas II, Russia was a constitutional monarchy with a politically influential parliament, relatively free press, and active trade union movement that succeeded in winning real political concessions.
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U.S. and Russian troops have a tense encounter in northeastern Syria.
Credit:
@RVvoenkor
on Telegram
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The two most powerful countries in Asia are refusing to side against Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Now that the US and Europe are imposing new sanctions, Putin’s “Pivot to Asia” will gain even more urgency. So far, Russia has gotten diplomatic dividends for its efforts.
India and China stay on sidelines as Russia invades Ukraine
1/ Dissatisfied with the so-far lukewarm response from India, Ukraine's envoy to New Delhi, Igor Polikha, on Thursday said he was "pleading" for Modi to intervene.
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Russia and China appear to be closing in on a deal for Power of Siberia-2 -- a new gas pipeline that industry watchers say will reduce Moscow's dependence on European markets & Beijing's reliance on maritime routes controlled by U.S. warships. My latest:
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We start seeing some divergence in the 19th century, since whereas many European monarchies embrace some form of parliamentarianism, Russia holds onto the absolute monarchy model.
But there are some important nuances.
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What about Kotkin's idea that Russia has always been a personalist despotism? And his argument that Russia has always been driven a sense of exceptionalism?
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First, a bit of background on the Russian Far East. The Far Eastern Federal District is the largest of Russia’s federal districts, accounting for over 40% of the country’s landmass. The region is also home to vast oil, gas, coal, mineral, and timber reserves.
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That's a major reason why Tsarist Russia had more freedom of expression than the Soviet Union.
Beyond that, however, although Russia was slow to embrace constitutional reform, it adopted various other political and socioeconomic reforms throughout the 19th century.
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In other words, Iran would become a middleman for the delivery of Russian gas.
Last year, Iran signed a gas swap deal with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, so we have a possible template for how a similar Russia deal would work in practice.
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Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom, introduced elected judges, and experimented with local self government.
His son, Alexander III, rolled back some of these political reforms while simultaneously taking steps to industrialize Russia's economy.
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As 2022 comes to a close, Russia finds itself at a crossroads.
To better understand what is likely to come next, I spent a month interviewing combat veterans, businesspeople, intellectuals, and volunteers. Here’s what I found:
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That began to change in 2019, when Modi attended the Eastern Economic Forum. Two major developments came out of that visit: 1) Modi announced that India would provide a $1 billion loan to help aid the Russian Far East’s economic development.
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Semyon Pegov, a Russian war correspondent with good connections in the Russian military, reports that his sources tell him that a general mobilization could soon be declared.
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One of these alternatives is the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200 kilometer network of ship, rail, and auto routes connecting Russia and India through Iran. According to some estimates, the INSTC is 30% cheaper and 40% shorter than Suez Canal route.
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Last month, Moscow and Tehran signed a $40 billion deal under which Russia agreed to help develop seven oil and gas fields in Iran. The two sides are reportedly looking to sign a joint development deal for another 14 Iranian oil and gas field soon.
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Fast forward to 2022: Russia sends troops into Ukraine, the West sanctions Russia, and India goes on a buying spree for heavily discounted Russian oil.
Much of this oil is coming the Russian Far East, a market China has traditionally dominated.
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The exit of Western energy companies could provide an opportunity for their Indian counterparts to fill the void. For example, India’s ONGC reportedly wants to buy Exxon’s 30 % stake in Sakhalin-1 and Shell’s 27.5 % stake in the Sakhalin-2 project.
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Putin is expected to give his speech sometime within the next hour and a half:
⚡️Выступление Путина ожидается сегодня в период с 18:00 до 19:00, сообщают наши источники
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Just months after these ambitious plans were announced, however, COVID-19 swept over the world. This unsurprisingly delayed both initiatives.
Yet New Delhi continued to express interest in the Far East and even tried to bring Japan on board.
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🇷🇺🇿🇦 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives in South Africa — his first stop in a week long trip across Africa.
Video source: BolotskySputnik on Telegram
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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia is unlikely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine unless NATO puts boots on the ground, two retired Russian generals have told me.
My latest for
@AJEnglish
:
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🇷🇺🇨🇳 China’s popularity is growing in Russia as a result of the Ukraine conflict.
A Levada Center poll found that 88% of Russians have a positive view of China, a record high. China is most popular among Russians aged 18-24, 95% have a favorable view of the country.
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Despite this natural resource wealth, however, the Russian Far East contributes only about 5% to Russia’s GDP and has lower living standard standards than the rest of the country. The region has also suffered from substantial depopulation since collapse of the USSR.
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There are some signs that India could further increase its footprint in the Far Eastern oil market. Last month, an Indian delegation visited Moscow to discuss greater energy cooperation with Russia in the Far East (and the Arctic).
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That’s all I have to say for now. I will update this thread following Modi’s speech at the Eastern Economic Forum and once we have more info about what negotiations the Indian delegation is holding there.
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For the past decade, the Kremlin has sought to revitalize the Far East by establishing special economic zones in the region, launching multibillion dollar mega-projects, and even offering Russians free land in the region.
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There has been a lot of speculation on here recently how the
#UkraineConflict
will impact Russian-Chinese relations.
Prominent Russian sinologist Alexey Maslov recently wrote an interesting Telegram post on this issue. English translation is below 🧵
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Some Indian analysts have argued that in addition to economic calculations, buying additional shares in the two Sakhalin oil and gas projects would allow India to better counterbalance China.
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Russia and China are holding a joint naval exercise in the Arabian Sea.
🇷🇺🇨🇳
The two countries have been conducting regular naval drills since 2012. In recent years, they have also begun holding trilateral naval exercises with Iran.
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🇷🇺🇦🇪 Russian President Vladimir Putin is meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in the Kremlin right now.
The meeting comes less than one week after the OPEC+ oil production cuts. Both Russia and the UAE are part of the organization.
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Congressional Research Service estimates that even before the Ukraine crisis and Western sanctions, Russia imported 70% of its technological goods from China.
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I’ll be tweeting and writing far more about Russian-Iranian relations going forward since this is clear a fast-developing space.
In the meanwhile, if you want a more easily shareable of this thread, I covered most of its points in a recent article:
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Now let’s return back to India. Although India was the first country to open a consulate in Vladivostok after the collapse of USSR, it maintained a low economic profile in the Far East. Only significant investment was purchasing a 20% share in Sakhalin 1 project in the 90s.
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There has been a lot of debate about the impact of sanctions against Russia, so I decided to interview a number of Russian businesspeople across different industries to see how their lives have changed.
Some of their answers will surprise you.
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🇷🇺 Sanctions Update:
Kommersant newspaper reports that Chinese smartphone brands have seen their sales in Russia soar over the past six months.
For example, Tecno, Infinix, Realme and Xiaomi registered more than 100% year-on-year growth.
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China-Russia trade reached a record $146.88 billion in 2021, up 35.8% from the previous year, according to China's General Administration of Customs. Trade between the two countries has increased by 167% since 2010, with the most significant growth in the past several years.
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Based on the reporting we have so far, the top priority for the Indian delegation at the Eastern Economic Forum will be to expand energy ties with the Russian Far East.
Will be interesting to see if anything about Sakhalin-1 or Sakhalin-2 comes up.
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🇷🇺🇨🇳🇮🇳 China, India, and several other countries have joined Russia for the Vostok-2022 military exercise in the Russian Far East.
The exercise will reportedly feature over 50,000 troops along with thousands of units of military hardware, including aircraft and warships
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Russian business newspaper Kommersant reports that sales of Chinese smartphone brands in Russia doubled between February 28 to March 13.
Huawei was the biggest beneficiary of this swing, seeing its sales increase by 300% over the past two weeks.
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This raises an obvious question: How did Putin and his associates go from being pro-Western liberals in 1990s to being completely estranged from the West in 2022? Why did their relationship with the West change so dramatically?
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I also think that we could see some discussions about resurrecting the Vladivostok-Chennai corridor. Since Russian-Indian trade is on the rise, getting the proper logistics in place will help both sides to reduce costs.
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Update on Battle for Mariupol:
Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, which is stationed in the city, writes on Facebook, “Today will probably be the last battle, as the ammunition is running out.”
The brigade added that around half of its men are wounded.
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