The past few days have been active in Russian politics relative to usual warmongering/war-shilling that the Kremlin has been doing regarding in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has proceeded to rig another election to give himself another few years as President of Russia (gasp!), Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that the nation of Latvia doesn’t exist implying that an attack into the Baltics is next on the agenda after Russia finishes in Ukraine, and a terror attack in Moscow has ruined the optics of Putin’s celebration as a concert hall was attacked. Let’s get to the stories.
Starting off with the rigged election, everyone knew this was coming. In a country where Vladimir Putin almost certainly killed off his political opposition like he has Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin, and others, a rigged election showing Putin as the ruler for the next few years is unsurprising if not horrendous for the future of Eastern European sovereignty. However, what has spoiled the celebrations so far has been the fact that Russia is suffering from two uniquely negative metrics happening concurrently: a declining birth rate and a rising casualty rate in Ukraine that hasn’t slowed since 2022. For those who haven’t been keeping track, the Russians have been trying to invade Ukraine for over two years now and have sustained between 315,000 and 435,000 casualties according to CIA and Ukrainian estimates depending on which source you prefer to trust. Regardless, with the number of babies in Russia continuing to decline every year and the population in Russia declining naturally over time, the population available to throw at Ukraine becomes scarcer when accounting for Russian ambitions in other NATO countries where the resistance is likely to be even more determined and concentrated.
This brings the conversation to the Baltic country of Latvia which announced that it was suspending the purchase of Russian agricultural products for the foreseeable future, something that harms the Russian economy further when realizing that the coffers from oil purchases in Europe have dried up as other suppliers such as Norway have stepped in. This may be the catalyst for Dmitry Medvedev to announce that Latvia isn’t a real country in a usual, historically distorted account of Nazism and the Russian effort to remove those factors from Eastern Europe. While it is no secret that Latvia is part of the larger target of Baltic states that the Russians want on the global stage and those regions hold significant Russian populations, the ability of the Russian military to seize those countries is severely diminished having their military being drained of resources fighting a years-long war in Ukraine that is bogged down in stalemate and sustaining thousands of casualties in the process.
Finally, Vladimir Putin’s regime depends on a combination of terror and order to sustain his rule. The terror component is where his control over the country’s military, police, and political system reigns over everything while the order component is where only his rule is the dominant force controlling the gears of power. Thus, whenever something like the 2023 march to Moscow that Prigozhin attempted against Putin gets close to happening, Putin is at his most vulnerable because his rule is being challenged when his support among the people may no longer be forced by fear. Having a terror attack performed by a few men that harmed over 100 people in the nation’s capital city is the type of destabilizing event that paints Putin as incompetent in keeping out trouble. While the suspects have been captured, the fact that ISIS was able to claim responsibility and claim a symbolic strike against Putin ruins the coronation of another term for Putin as it reminds the Russian President that he is encumbered by mounting foreign policy problems of his own beyond the usual issues in Ukraine.
Sources: Putin Ally Makes Sinister Threat to NATO Country (newsweek.com)
Russian invasion of Ukraine – Wikipedia
The ghost of Russia’s past wars comes back to haunt Moscow (msn.com)
Latvia Becomes First in EU to Ban Russian Agriculture Imports (bloomberglaw.com)
Putin ‘wins’ rigged Russian election with 87 percent of the vote – POLITICOBirth Gauge on X: “While we eagerly wait for the first data for 2024 (will it be even worse?), here are the latest figures on the number of births for 2023. As announced, I have now added the Philippines as well. https://t.co/CfF2zuAqUH” / X (twitter.com)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-dies-prison-rcna79718
The Conservatarian Millennial 