Moscow political scientist: The fact that the Northern Military District is not going “according to plan” became clear on March 15

Russian officials have long insisted that the special operation in Ukraine is going “according to plan,” although already on March 15, 2022, it became obvious that the initial military plan could not be realized, and the group involved is too small.

Moscow political scientist Alexey Chadayev, a former ideologist of the United Russia party, writes about this in his blog, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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“On February 24, there was an idea that it would be possible to do without war, with a military-police operation. By March 15, it became clear that this idea did not work and you will have to fight. Already at this moment the question of mobilization arose, at least at the level of preparatory measures.

But then the main faults were revealed at the level of hardware layouts. Even then, the RF Ministry of Defense was having great difficulty coping even with those freemen who were “not theirs” from the very beginning - Kadyrovites, Wagnerites, “people’s militias”, etc. And imagine that what will be added to this - inevitably, in the event of mobilization - is a much more powerful player than all those indicated in the form of the internal political bloc of the AP, to which it would inevitably fall (as it fell in the end, but already in the process, after the announcement and chaos of the first days) the task of coordinating this process was a departmental nightmare. That's why, despite the acute lack of strength that had already become apparent in the spring (the same Mariupol was taken with one and a half times fewer numbers than there were in the enemy garrison), the idea of ​​mobilization became hostile, and the top military leadership resisted it in every possible way, trying to cope with the existing contingent until it was completely exhausted by the summer in every sense.

For the same reason, there were difficulties even with the “non-military” aspects of the North Military District, such as volunteer activity and humanitarian aid. As soon as it was legalized, a stream of information about various internal problems and shortcomings of the military machine automatically splashed out “to the top” and in the media (that is, on the second step, again to the top). We would have to admit that the previously stated position - “everything is fine with us, we have enough, everything is enough” - does not correspond to reality.

And admitting this is very dangerous.: I watched how in the State Duma the head of the budget committee, Makarov, was trampling on representatives of the Moscow Region: “tell me, what did we not give you that you asked for in recent years? Show me at least one request that was not satisfied!” And the further development of this topic already smells, you know, of revision.

_{And this, I remind you, despite the fact that, although no one remembers this anymore, the first number on the list of the ruling party in the last Duma elections was precisely the current Minister of Defense.}

Despite the fact that about the objective problems of supplying and equipping even the existing relatively compact the groups were known to everyone who was at least somewhat in the know, easy to imagine multiplying effect in case of any consolidation of this group - be it at the expense of conscripts or especially mobilized ones.

_{We still have to do this in the coming months - a stream of information will go to the public from them about the fact that the machine guns are rusty, the helmets are from the Second World War, and the shoes are basically unusable - and at the same time, in parallel, reports will go up that the mobilized are successfully equipped with everything necessary, and “angry patriots” will immediately attack this gap between the report and reality with greedy lizards.}

My good friends write a lot about “people with fish eyes” who don’t seem to care. I don't share this view. They don't care. They take up a very active, active and proactive defense - no matter what Mariupol or Liman. They defend the established order of things on which their position, status, well-being and, ultimately, freedom are based. The logic of military necessity breaks this order here and there, but they successfully plug the gaps and restore the front line. And the calculation is simple: endure until “this is all” ends, no matter what.

_{The main horror of war for them is that it makes their very anthropotype, which until now occupied and continues to occupy a privileged place in the food chain, unclaimed. And that is why it must be stopped as soon as possible, regardless of losses of all kinds. And, as you understand, the key ideologists and evangelists of this position and this scenario are not at all the kind of generals in uniform.”, admits Chadayev.}

According to him, the ineffective managers mentioned above may even be interested in military defeat:

_{“The only way for them to survive in hardware is to lose the war but keep the existing control algorithm.”}

Chadayev considers it a positive thing that failures at the front forced people to talk about problems.

“I look quite calmly at all the “redeployments” and “taking more advantageous positions” - “the weather is as predicted.” And, with all the tragedy of what is happening, I don’t see why this delays the victory. For my taste, it brings it closer. Because we still couldn’t win in such a way that everything would remain as it is. To win, you need to change. To lose, you need to leave everything as it was,” the political scientist concluded.