re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Moscow’s exiled chief rabbi says Jews should leave Russia while they still can, before they are made scapegoats for the hardship caused by the war in Ukraine.

“When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses towards the Jewish community,” Pinchas Goldschmidt told the Guardian. “We saw this in tsarist times and at the end of the Stalinist regime.”

“We’re seeing rising antisemitism while Russia is going back to a new kind of Soviet Union, and step by step the iron curtain is coming down again. This is why I believe the best option for Russian Jews is to leave,” he added.

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Russian and Ukrainian sources continued to discuss whether and when an imminent second wave of mobilization in Russia will occur.

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Russian and Ukrainian sources continued to discuss a likely and imminent second wave of mobilization. Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov inadvertently confirmed an upcoming second wave of mobilization during a December 29 press conference about mobilization in which he stated that Chechnya overfulfilled its mobilization requirements by 254% and therefore Chechen residents will not be mobilized in the second wave of mobilization.[40] Chief of the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Kyrylo Budanov stated in an interview with BBC that Russian authorities have made the decision to start another wave of mobilization on January 5, or potentially January 9, because they lack manpower.[41] Senior Kremlin officials have denied claims of a second wave of mobilization as recently as December 21, as ISW has previously reported.[42] ISW assesses that a second wave of mobilization would not fix the shortcomings of the Russian military as the Kremlin’s force generation efforts are contingent on its ability to invest time and supplies in its personnel, requirements that are fundamentally at odds with the Kremlin’s failures of long-term strategic planning.[43]

Russian authorities continued efforts to crack down on military personnel who refuse to fight. BBC’s Russian service reported on December 29 that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) developed and published a draft presidential decree that would legalize extreme punishment of Russian personnel who have committed offenses against the Russian military by creating “field guardhouses.”[44] The report stated that the Russian military would place the misbehaving personnel into isolated field guardhouses designed to be worse than other military holding cells.[45] The decree reportedly forbids the creation of guardhouses in dungeons, basements that do not have windows or adequate ventilation, various containers, and pits "with the exception of cases due to the preservation of the lives of military personnel.”[46] This decree does yet appear to have been signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. ISW has been unable to locate the originally published draft of this presidential decree.

The Russian government has not prepared itself for the consequences of its soldiers returning to Russian society. Independent Russian news outlet The Moscow Times reported in early December that Russian soldiers who are trickling back to Russia after time on the Ukrainian front are struggling to reintegrate into Russian society.[47] The Moscow Times reported that many Russian veterans have not received proper mental health support, despite the government’s claims of providing up to thirty days of medical and psychological rehabilitation after demobilization.[48] A Russian grass-roots support group called War Veterans told The Washington Post “there are no rehabilitation programs” for veterans in Russia.[49] The Russian Federation government has reportedly abandoned and forgotten its veterans of other recent wars and it appears that veterans of the current war are unlikely to be better off.[50] ISW previously reported on the failures of the Russian government to pay its troops, provide land plots to veterans of the conflict in Ukraine, and meet the basic needs of Russian troops.[51] The Washington Post noted that reports of violent altercations in Russia involving returned soldiers have already increased.[52] A Russian milblogger reported on December 29 that a Russian veteran in Petrozavodsk shot his wife upon his return to Russia from Ukraine and called the police on himself.[53] Although issues with the reintegration of combat veterans are by no means unique to the Russian case, it is likely that the lack of material support and attention by Russian officials to this issue will serve as yet another point of domestic friction as the war continues.

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Moscow’s exiled chief rabbi says Jews should leave Russia while they still can, before they are made scapegoats for the hardship caused by the war in Ukraine.

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I would have left the day the curtain came down.

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Production capacity is a separate issue. They simply don't exist. There was a program to build a new production line for "Armata", but alas. The money was allocated, and, moreover, rather big money (they say the figure is 64 billion rubles), for which workshops were erected and contracts were concluded ... with Western manufacturers of machine tools. They took the money with great pleasure and did not supply equipment, as they included sanctions. That's all: the plant seems to be there, but there are no machines.

Therefore, all that UVZ can offer is the manual assembly of the T-14 piece by piece in the semi-handicraft conditions of the experimental workshop.

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MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin used his annual New Year’s address to justify Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and flayed the West for what he said were its attempts to use the conflict to divide Russia, in a speech that appeared intended to signal his resolve to prolong the war.

Mr. Putin described 2022 as marked by “difficult but necessary decisions” to secure Russia’s full independence and, he said, strengthen the cohesiveness of Russian society, which many Kremlin supporters say has been eroded by the influence of the West.

It was a year of truly pivotal, fateful events,” the Kremlin leader said in remarks that were recorded during a visit Saturday to the command of the Southern Military District staff headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. “They have become the frontier that lays the foundation for our common future, our true independence. This is what we are fighting for today, protecting our people in our own historical territories, in the new regions of the Russian Federation,” he said

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Mr. Putin has also hinted at escalating the war by using nuclear weapons, casting the fight as an existential struggle against what he says is Western imperialism while positioning himself as a defender of traditional values.

“The moral, historical truth is on our side,” Mr. Putin said in his address.

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Mr. Putin, in his New Year’s address, accused the West of being deceitful about its intentions to help secure peace in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which had been trapped in a slow-burning conflict for eight years, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Instead, “the West was lying about peace, while preparing for an aggression,” he said. “They are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia. We have never allowed anyone to do so, and we will not allow this to happen in the future,” he said.

The conflict, however, has helped strengthen Russian society, Mr. Putin said, drawing the support of loyal Russian—while others, including many young professionals of fighting age, fled the country to avoid being drafted.

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This is the year that put many things in their proper place, clearly separated courage and heroism from betrayal and cowardice, and showed that there is no higher power than love for one’s family and friends, loyalty to friends and comrades-in-arms, and devotion to one’s motherland,” he said.

Still, the economic costs are mounting. Russia’s central bank earlier this month said it was concerned that the redirection of manpower and resources to support the campaign in Ukraine could spark a fresh surge in inflation in the coming year after it had largely been contained. In November, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development said the economy contracted by 5% year-over-year in September, and by 4.4% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.

In his New Year’s address, Mr. Putin played down the impact of Russia “living under sanctions,” insisting that the country had defied those in the West who “expected the complete destruction of our industry, finances, and transport,” he said. In recent months, the Kremlin has also tried to cast Russia as a bulwark against what it says are liberal elites in the West who aim to dominate the rest of the world. Mr. Putin has strengthened ties with countries such as Belarus, Iran and China, whose President Xi Jinping has said he is willing to work with Moscow to safeguard their sovereignty

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