Russia Is Changing Strategy in Ukraine

Russia Is Changing Strategy in Ukraine

in recent weeks there have been Titanic changes in Russian politics changes that would determine not only the evolution of the war in Ukraine but also the future of the Russian Armed Forces we are talking about a new strategy a new vision with which Putin now hopes to turn Russia’s military power around in this video we will tell you all the details so let’s get [Music] started let’s begin with what could be one of the soap opas of the Year in Russian politics Serge shyu the previous Minister of Defense the man in charge of the war the strong hand and Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man was dismissed on May 12th Putin replaces defense minister in rare cabinet shakeup Shu had been at the head of the Russian Armed Forces for almost 12 Years a time during which he was far from standing idly by quite the contrary he has been Russia’s key figure in four of the country’s major military operations in recent years the invasion of Crimea in 2014 the operation in support of al-assad in Syria in 5 the execution of the mega plan for military reform and modernization and of course the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 so the question is why was he dismissed it certainly wasn’t because he doesn’t exactly get along with Putin the Russian president has summered played field hockey gone fishing and even sunbathed in the Siberian tiger with the man shyu has been perhaps Putin’s best friend in the cabinet and yet all of a sudden Wham out of government barely 2 months after the Russian presidential elections in which unsurprising ly Putin once again swept the board with 87% of the votes votes it is true that the president has repositioned shyu as Secretary of the security Council but logically this position in an advisory body is much less important than leading the Armed Forces so the Crux of the matter why on Earth did he dismiss him well let’s see at the moment there are many theories circulating one of them even suggests that shyu could be involved in a corruption scam bribery case puts Russian defense minister shy goo in the crosshairs yes I know that power and corruption in Russia almost go hand inand that’s true but there are limits to everything in case you go too far and make the big boss look bad especially if they accuse you of stealing the money that should go to the military on the front that would be too much well just a few weeks ago the police arrested shuu’s closest defense Ministry Deputy teer ianov ianov who was in charge of such important projects as the Reconstruction of marol in Ukraine has been accused of receiving bribes but of course whether this is the real motive is still a bit of a mystery to us after all shyu is not even of and let me stress we are talking about Russia here a country we’re not being corrupt makes you a suspect normally when a high-ranking Russian official is accused of corruption it is usually because someone above him in this case Putin wants to get rid of him and I wonder could things like this have anything to do with it yes okay I know that Russia is far from being at its weakest on the front in fact the Russians have regained the initiative and even counterattacked in the H region but that doesn’t mean things have stopped being a mess Russia continues to have huge problems in supplying its Soldiers with weapons and in any case it’s still Carnage on the front in fact if Russian pressure is being upheld it is only because more and more young people are being sent to die in Ukraine there seems to be no end to the Russian meat grinder strategy and in that respect things have not improved much Russia loses over 8,000 troops and nearly 80 tanks in a week Kev Russia had sustained 1,260 casualties in the past day kev’s Armed Forces said okay surely the Ukrainian armed forces are not the best source of information I think we all know that neither the Ukrainian ones and certainly not the Russian ones but what is certain is that overall there is a very broad consensus among the intelligence services and assessment teams that are monitoring this war Russia is still shredding men at full speed this has been and continues to be a major problem firstly because it means that troops without combat experience are constantly having to come in and secondly because there comes a point where it could greatly undermine the popularity of the war within Russia in fact this issue is by far what has worn shyu down the most PR goin’s video accusing him of practically selling out soldiers because of his incompetence was in fact devastating To His Image but now to what extent is shyu to blame for the poor performance in Ukraine is this really the cause of his dismissal or is there some other reason for Putin to have made this decision and by the way when we talk about sensitive topics like Russia every word matters and each media outlet has its own perspective and editorial analysis that’s why today we want to introduce ground news a tool that analyzes hundreds of media outlets for you allowing you to compare different perspectives quickly and easily take a look at this new story mosco warns it will Target UK military sites if British weapons are used in attacks against Russia this has been covered by more than 60 media Outlets with very different ideologies thanks to the graph on the right we can see that the coverage is distributed almost evenly from left to right and yes I know what you’re thinking how does ground news work it uses a methodology combining three Independent News monitoring organizations the key feature is that we can compare the different headlines each outlet uses for a story understand their perspectives and assess their veracity for example keev independent and Politico Europe two left-leaning news outlets emphasize the military threat to the UK and Ukraine after Cameron’s comments while rights leaning sources outside Russia focus more on the UK Ambassador in Russia and now the million-dollar question how can you access ground news you can do it through the QR code on the screen or by going to ground. newws SLV visual politic we leave you the link in the description with this code you’ll get a 40% discount on their Vantage version with full and unlimited access to all features including information on media ownership and Reporting objectivity with that said many thanks to ground news for supporting this video try it out and let us know what you think and now let’s continue with today’s video shy goo the culprit it’s no secret the invasion of Ukraine is not going the way Putin wanted it to I know what you’re thinking there you go visual politic is added again raging against Russia and okay you may have a point but what can I say that’s just the way things are it’s not propaganda from one side nor the other the initial intention of the Kremlin was to take the neighboring country in a matter of weeks and that it is clear it did not succeed those weeks have already turned into more than two years and everything indicates a third and who knows maybe even a fourth and that was not something that was in the plans on top of that Putin’s government has almost from the beginning of the war placed all state resources in shu’s hand hands and the fact is that since shyu has been defense minister the Russian military budget has shot up by about 60% shyu is the minister who has handled the most money since the fall of the Soviet Union nevertheless we’ve all seen the result terrible and keep in mind this is probably something Putin himself has thought about at times don’t believe me well take a look Putin literally turned his back on his loyal defense minister on Russian State tv however despite everything Putin did not dismiss him at that time and little by little things were well somehow getting better after the unexpected Ukrainian resistance the Russian defense Ministry began to reorient his strategy and shigu changed the ship’s course the military could have had a budget of nearly $100 billion by 2023 according to cpri estimates a Honeypot that the ministry takes advantage of to boost the Russian military industrial complex the Armed Forces needed more bullets more grenades more weapons and many vehicles and logically all these supplies and equipment had to come mainly from local industry for cost for agility and also because of the sanctions the result of all this effort well according to the Russian government the efforts of the ministry led by shyu enabled the Army to receive 1,500 tanks 2,200 armored combat Vehicles 1,400 missiles and hundreds of thousands of new artillery units and weapons over the course of 2023 well at least that’s what they say of course because according to various analyses these figures could be very very inflated not to mention the accounting tricks that apparently passed off imported weapons and components as Russian equipment be that as it may what is certain is that Russian military equipment increased sharply in 2023 and that this managed to save the poor reputation of shyu who had been badly bruised after the huge Fiasco of the war and that is not all on top of that under shu’s leadership Russia has quite successfully managed to Dodge international sanctions so when push comes to sh the Russian bear has continued to by military components and Supplies on the international market I think this chart makes it quite clear here on visual politic we’ve already told you how they are doing it they have done it thanks to a complex network of shell companies and using Allied or nearby countries as a kind of frontman but it goes further than that this sort of survival economy that was implemented in 2023 in order to be able to continue to nurture the military has begun to Bear certain fruits fruits such as these Ukraine Warren’s Northern front has significantly worsened as Russia claims capture of sever Villages by integrating Elite and conventional forces increasing the number of troops deployed improving its defenses and Target detection capabilities as well as massively increasing the use of drones Russia has managed to regain the initiative in Ukraine and naturally all this has happened under the leadership of Sergey shyu as the Minister of Defense yes things started badly for them but then at least they have improved so doesn’t it seem a bit odd that he is being dismissed just now why risk everything with profile changes at this point in time well you see this is where the story takes a 180° turn shyu was most likely not even pushed aside due to the Russian military’s performance in Ukraine and you will say let’s see Josh get it straight if it’s not because of corruption not because of Ukraine not because Putin doesn’t like him why on Earth has one of Russia’s great power Brokers been removed well the key seems to lie not with shyu but with his successor and this brings us directly to another of the major changes taking place in Russia’s Armed Forces listen up [Music] the military chanism Andre belov in a nutshell since 2020 and until days before his appointment as Minister of Defense he was the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia of course it’s not that he didn’t have very significant influence in the regime at least not as far as the war was concerned but then who the heck is this guy does he have any success as a military strategist behind him maybe he comes from military intelligence cold cold freezing none of those things none of that bov is an economist yes just as you heard Putin has swapped a general for an economist to head the defense Ministry in the middle of a bloody war I’m sure you weren’t expecting that one but why profile that in principle we might think is so alien to the world of war well this change has a lot to do precisely with this Andre belov has conducted several pieces of economic research on the collapse of the Soviet regime and the fall of Soviet industry at the time and not only that in 2000 he founded the center for macroeconomic analysis and shortterm forecasting where he published a lot of analyses on the Russian economic situation well all this work helped him to become a consultant to the Russian Ministry of economy gaining more and more reputation but okay I’m sure right now many of you are thinking I don’t understand anything what the hell can a profile of a technical Economist bring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ministry of defense well Putin thinks a lot and this time he might not be wrong let’s see much of bov’s work has focused on the state of Russian industry and its lack of competitiveness which is precisely one of the Achilles heels suffered by the Russian military industry well actually the entire National economy in general and that’s where his contribution could be absolutely crucial especially now that efforts are being focused on trying to survive without Western Technologies now why just now which is not precisely Russia’s worst moment on the front is there a U-turn to put such a guy at the head of the ministry well first surely because Putin never believed that the war would drag on and on and second because after the initial disaster what was most urgent was to stabilize the front and reorganize the Army’s deployments defenses and operations it was a job that necessarily had to be piloted and supervised by a military officer however once that goal was achieved then it was time to enter a new phase preparing the Russian economy to face a long War reorganizing Logistics and working primarily with the military industry and that’s where the economist comes in you can see the point can’t you the point is that Putin might have understood that Wars are not one exclusively with military strategy but also with the ability to resist distribute and replenish forces changing the defense Ministry leadership signals that Russia’s president is preparing for many more years of war Putin’s priority is war war of attrition is won by economics and in this he is not wrong what’s more Putin could have an important Advantage here when it comes to squeezing the Russian economy to increase military resources what am I referring to any ideas exactly that Russia is in practice a dictatorship you see Putin doesn’t care at this point what the Russians think all the shortages and hardships that ordinary people will go through because of a war of attrition that could drag on for several more years and what’s more he is counting on that opinion in the west to be totally different that as long as Russia manages to resist the West will end up getting tired of Ukraine something that in a way is already happening the best example is undoubtedly the United States a country that yes has just approved a huge Aid package for Ukraine but nevertheless spent months with Aid suspended due to disagreements between Republicans and Democrats and indeed headlines like this one are becoming more and more frequent American public support for assistance to Ukraine has waned but still considerable this is true in the United States but also in Europe over the last 2 years backing for EU actions related to the war has decreased as compared to Spring 2022 humanitarian Aid maintains the highest approval dropping by only 3 PP support for financial and military aid have decreased by 9 PP and 8 PP respectively so politically speaking Putin’s strength in winning a war of attrition may be greater in the long run and that is probably what explains bov’s appointment even so what lies ahead for the new minister is no small matter blof will have to reform the entire military industry while fighting a tough War of Attrition it’s a bit like serving a restaurant full of customers while there’s a fire in the kitchen and no we’re not exaggerating check it out in the last 20 years Russian military spending has increased almost fourfold with clear Peaks after the annexation of Crimea and The Invasion against Ukraine and make no mistake that it is very frustrating for Putin to see huge amounts of money being resped on weapons equipment and Industry that are not up to the task now changing that is precisely the challenge of the new Minister of Defense in fact as early as January 2024 balov gave the first hints of what has ultimately ended up being his new work earlier this year he promised that the country would succeed in producing more than 32,000 drones each year which would mean tripling Russian drone production we are talking about a promise that anyone would find very difficult to achieve with the sanctions that Russia is enduring a country that has been forced to import Iranian drones for use in Ukraine nevertheless Putin seems to see bof as a guy capable of ramping up arms production in the coming years it turns out the new Minister of Defense has been described by several economists as a fan of military keynesianism and you will say military keynesianism but what on Earth is that are you sure you didn’t make a mistake with the visual economic content well I give you my word no I am referring to precisely this Bel Lov keenly believes Innovation happens because the government invests in Innovation and that economic growth happens because the government forces businesses to make investments belov believes that state intervention is key to getting the military industry to embrace Innovation and improve its production levels and standards this would enable them to better Supply the military and even increase their sales to the rest of the world which is usually a very important source of income for Russia and one that has been in the doldrums lately well in his view Russian companies are plagued by corruption bureaucracy and inefficiency and it is up to the state to put things in order and let’s see he’s not wrong about the companies the problem is that the state in Russia doesn’t measure up either it’s even more corrupt but that’s the challenge ahead but that’s not all bov is also a strong advocate of Russian technological sovereignty and that is something he has advocated since long before the war in Ukraine began for the new Minister it is absolutely key to reverse the country’s dependence on North Korean missiles and Iranian drones as well as to replace all foreign Technologies in everything to do with defense visual politic Community I am sure that now you understand perfectly well the beheading of shyu the appointment of the new Minister and the changes that are taking place in the Russian military but of course we are talking about Russia and that means doubts many doubts if shu’s term as Minister was plagued by cases of corruption and influence pedaling this will probably not change much with the new one either basically because we’re talking about a structural problem it is plain and simple how Russia works Works a country where everything works with favors and where all favors are usually bought with money but wait a minute because it’s not just about Ukraine Putin is probably also thinking much further ahead Russia’s military is already preparing for its next War top polish General confirms Russian preparations for conflict with NATO Putin not only wants his soldiers to be able to subdue Ukraine but his obsession is also that his Armed Forces should be up to the task of a war with NATO and that is a huge challenge especially given the sorry state of Russia’s Armed Forces after more than 2 years of war that have wiped out much of the best military equipment available to them the question is could Andre beluso be the man to bring moscow’s Armed Forces back up to speed well only time will tell and of course visual politic will be there to tell you all about it in the meantime the questions are for you what do you think of shu’s dismissal as Minister what are your theories do you think belov will succeed in meeting Putin’s expectations well leave us your opinions Below in the comments and let’s launch a debate and very important if you liked this video hit the like button and subscribe to visual politic if you haven’t already done so as always thank you very much for being there best regards and see you next time [Music]

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