The Smoke Eater for Oct. 11, 2022
A birthday tractor and flying cats.
Good morning, this is The Smoke Eater for Tuesday, October 11, 2022, and let’s all hold hands and chase the pricks away.
NOTE: Apologies for the lack of a post last week. I was kind of sick and working on a few other projects. One of them is now available on Patreon. I hope this extra long edition makes up for it!
The Smoker Eater is still poorly edited, mobile friendly, ad-free and supported by awesome readers. If you want to be super awesome, tip me, or subscribe to my Patreon!
ABOVE THE FOLD
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not have a good birthday.
At the overripe age of 70, his war in Ukraine has not gone well. A ceremony to illegally annex portions of occupied Ukraine was undercut as his soldiers abandoned large swaths that same territory to Ukrainian forces. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country to avoid conscription. His enemies have demonstrated that they can strike targets close to home, and even penetrate his inner circle. Public bickering among his top lieutenants could trigger a nuclear war. His mini-NATO is in danger of collapsing. And the latest Russian COVID booster, "Sputnik Light," might be more worthless than China's Sinovac vaccine.
And if accidentally starting a nuclear holocaust during a global pandemic wasn't bad enough, he can't go on vacation after being banned in half the world thanks to his Stalinist vanity project(s). He, his daughters, his mistress, and all his favorite minions had to spend the summer at secret, multi-million dollar dachas on the Black Sea.
Putin tried to throw a septuagenarian soiree, but nobody showed up for cake and vodka. Instead, he had an “informal” meeting with only five of the nine former Soviet states in the Commonwealth of Independent States still regularly talking to him, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
It's like the whole world is against Putin.
BELOW THE FOLD
To put it mildly: the mobilization of Russian citizens to fight in Ukraine has been bad.
Estimates vary, but it’s suspected as many as 800,000 have fled Russia since the start of the invasion, the majority leaving shortly the after the mobilization decree. Widespread reports of conscription orders being sent to the elderly and disabled caused Putin to issue a rare public apology, saying, "mistakes" needed to be corrected.
Stories of the chaos persist. There are reports people being conscripted without prior military training or medical examinations, drunks wandering around military bases, beatings and mysterious deaths. Some have complained to families about a lack of food, uniforms and basic supplies, and basic training courses lasting only two days.
MORE: The New York Times has audio of Russian soldiers pleading with friends and family, complaining about looting and the slaughter of civilians. The audio was recorded in March.
Videos have emerged of conscripts being told to ask girlfriends, wives and mothers for body armor, winter clothes, and basic first aid, like common and prescription painkillers, cough medicine, antihistamines, and menstrual pads and tampons.
NOTE: I've long been a public supporter of the tactical tampon. Aside from their advertised purpose, they're a cheap alternative to expensive hemostatic bandages, great for plugging wounds and starting fires. I've proudly carried at least one in my kit for years.
State-media’s RT editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, complained on social media that the screw ups were embarrassing, saying, "They're infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if they'd been sent by Kyiv."
Simonyan's complaint comes as the Kremlin tries to shore up support among Russians who are suddenly experiencing the reality of Putin's war in Ukraine — which is officially still a, "special military operation." A string of losses to Ukraine in recent weeks have seen Kremlin officials (but not Putin) facing scorn from hawks and hardliners demanding the Ministry of Defense (MoD) take a scorched earth approach in Ukraine.
On Oct. 1, Putin invited military bloggers to the Kremlin in an effort to butter them up and calm them down.
Until this weekend, criticism that made it to the masses came from fringe voices, or militant social media psychopaths. Hawkish, pro-Kremlin types like Vladimir Solovyov bitching about the military brass' fuck ups were kind of an outlier (kind of). That prominent talking heads felt safe complaining on state-run TV news outlets suggests Ukraine's gains have led to anxiety among the Russian elite.
Even some corrupt, pro-Russian puppets in the former Ukrainian government have tried rebranding themselves as patriots.
On Friday, The Washington Post cited US intelligence sources when reporting at least one person close to Putin had directly criticized his war. The Guardian similarly reported about infighting among Putin's most loyal henchmen.
Any reporting on dissent inside the Kremlin is notable. State media struggling to rationalize staggering losses in territory, logistics and lives should give pause. And when officials like Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Ramzan Kadyrov grouse in public it’s exceptionally…and probably a bad omen.
Kadyrov is the defacto head of Russian-controlled Chechnya. He's often derided as a bit of a poseur, cult leader and warlord rather than a military strategist, politician or charismatic celebrity. Even if he comes off as an obnoxious man-child obsessed with money and sports, he's still a ruthless bastard.
Kadyrov seems to spend most of his time shitposting about his wealth and athletic prowess despite a history of embarrassing failures. He's been mocked for a tendency to stand next to piles of rubble in ill-fitting fatigues and body armor, the Chechen warlord's equivalent of stupid assholes ranting in trucks at fast-food parking lots. He likes claiming to be fighting in locations that geo-locators have found to be staged. Kadyrov recently dunked on himself after revealing his Louis Vuitton punching bag, and boasting he would be sending his three sons, aged 14, 15, and 16, to fight in Ukraine as child soldiers (which, if true, is a war crime).
However, Kadyrov isn't a critic of Putin, he's a bootlicker. The targets of his angry shitposts are lesser officials — those whom he could replace.
Yevgeny Prigozhin raised a ton of eyebrows when he broke with years of denials and admitted he helped found the private military contractor, Wagner, that Putin has used all over the world to fight proxy wars.
In the past, Prigozhin has gone out of his way to portray himself as a quiet businessman as opposed to a convicted thief who spent 10 years in prison, then began building a shady business empire as Putin's personal chef. He's sued journalists for linking him to Wagner and other ventures, like the Internet Research Agency, which attempted to screw with the 2016 US presidential election by spread BS and misinformation on social media.
Prigozhin has (allegedly) spent the last few months personally recruiting prisoners for Putin's war in Ukraine. That he suddenly walked into the spotlight at all is alarming, that he's done it while violently swinging his dick in a pissing contest is troubling.
**Note the date in both posts**
With Kadyrov and Prigozhin openly critical of senior military commanders, it's not surprising that Putin began shaking things up over the weekend.
It's possible both Kadyrov and Prigozhin are attempting to seize power. Both are warmongers in a klepto state, both hum the same patriotic tunes, both are attempting to frame themselves as ultra wealthy leaders, strategists, and both still come across as creepy Euro trash. And nobody knows what they’ll say next.
BONUS: Kyrgyzstan suddenly withdrew from the 2022 Indestructible Brotherhood military training exercise on Oct. 9, a day before the whole shebang was about to kick off. The exercise of Putin's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) states was scheduled to start this week in Kyrgyzstan and include members Belarus, Russia, Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Armenia, as well as aspiring members Serbia, Syria, and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan's bail out means everyone has to head home. Over the years, physical conflicts between member states have left people wondering if Putin's neo-Warsaw pact is viable. There are "border disputes" between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the flight of Russian “peace keepers” as left its BFFS questioning their relationship.
ONE MORE THING...
With Russia's right-flank more vocal and blood thirsty than usual, it's no surprise that Russia began bombing civilian targets on Oct. 10. Ukraine scoffed at Putin's redlines, taking back territory he illegally annexed, and showed just how deep they can hit back.
The assassination of propagandist Daria Dugina, daughter of Russian ultra nationalist, Aleksandr Dugin, pissed off a lot of people inside Russia. The Kremlin was quick to attribute the attack to Ukraine — something which many (including myself) felt was a stretch considering Putin's history with false flags — but The New York Times reports the US believes it was indeed Ukrainian forces who assassinated Dugina.
Ukraine steamrolled Russian forces on their way towards the Dnieper River, inching their way to Kherson and Luhansk at the same moment Putin was attempting to claim them as Russian territories. This has been seen as yet another black eye for the Kremlin. It forced them to to issue wishy-washy statement clarifying that exact territory Russia attempted to claim as its own was, in fact, still in dispute.
But this weekends bombing on the Khersk bridge linking Crimea to Russia poses not just a threat to Putin's attempts to create the appearance of stability, it jeopardizes their logistical capability throughout the region. A signature achievement for Putin, the bridge has been a vital logistical route that connects Russia to the territory it stole during its first invasion in 2014.
BONUS: Russia has touted the security of the bridge, with checkpoints on both ends that scan for explosives, even going so far as to claim the waterway was patrolled by militarized dolphins.
Ukraine has officially denied the attack, but The NYTimes cited an unnamed Ukrainian official who claimed that Ukrainian intelligence services carried out the attack. War Twitter has been dissecting what public evidence exists, the most likely scenario suggests suicide bomb — in this case a semi-truck full of fertilizer, or possibly thermite from unexploded Russian missiles — being detonated alongside a fuel train traveling on an adjacent bridge.
Russian state media was livid, demanding Blood for the Blood God in the wake of the attack. When Putin finally got around to making an address, he called it, "terrorist attack."
Russia responded with a large bombing campaign aimed at civilian targets. Dipping into their dwindling supply of cruise missiles and other long range munitions, leaving at least 19 people dead, and over 100 injured.
One of the targets, a pedestrian bridge, used to see scores of civilians — primarily students and families — traversing the bridge as part of their morning commute before the war. When it was struck a little after 8am, there were far fewer casualties because most of the students have either fled, or are fighting.
In a social media post, Russian war reporter Alexander Kots said of the attacks on Ukrainian civilians, "One has to hope that this wasn't a one-off act of retribution, but a new system for carrying out the conflict. On the entire depth of the Ukrainian state. Until it loses its ability to function."
The attacks did spur Germany to (finally) send send air defense systems to Ukraine. In a statement, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said, "Russia's missile and drone attacks primarily terrorize the civilian population. That is why we are now supporting them with anti-aircraft weapons in particular."
Additionally, the G7 is meeting today to discuss the attacks, and a possible response. On Wednesday, the UN will vote on a draft resolution condemning Russia’s missile barrage. A number of European Members of Parliament and officials were Ukraine when Russia began bombing, and some diplomats are still stuck in Ukraine.
In speaking about the attacks, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola tells Politico, “Appeasement has never worked, and appeasement will never work. These are war crimes and the response has to be proportionate.”
Despite all this, the outcome is still very much in question. Support for Ukraine in the US has begun to wane, even after Russia’s threat to use nuclear strikes. Ignorant isolationists on the far-left and far-right are bitching about arming Ukraine, feeling the price of gas and the death of the $1 double-cheeseburger are more important.
In response to Russia’s missile strikes, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed Ukraine was planning an attack in Belarus, adding that Russian forces will surge into Belarus in response. Lukashenko, often derided as one of Putin’s lapdogs, has been hosting Russian forces in Belarus since before the war.
And to think people laughed when Lukashenko gave Putin a tractor (voucher) for his birthday.
OK, here's your cute critter video!
Follow Dominic on Twitter and Instagram.
The Smoke Eater is mobile friendly, ad-free and relies on your generous tips. It takes a lot of time and energy to put each issue together, so consider tipping me on Ko-Fi, the Cash App, Venmo or PayPal. You can also subscribe to my Patreon for special perks and bonuses!
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Shoot me an e-mail or send me a DM!