[ad_1]
When Gen. Rustam Minnekayev made a sweeping assertion on Friday that Russia’s subsequent navy purpose could be to grab Ukraine’s total southern coast, many analysts have been skeptical, primarily based not solely on the declare, however on its supply.
Why would a comparatively obscure navy determine announce such a significant shift in coverage, moderately than President Vladimir V. Putin, who normally makes such pronouncements, or Protection Minister Sergei Okay. Shoigu, or Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, the chief Russian commander for the warfare in Ukraine?
Basic Minnekayev’s official job is the group of political propaganda work within the military’s central district, which includes an enormous territory from the Volga basin to jap Siberia. His duties usually wouldn’t contain formulating navy technique.
But he advised a gathering of arms trade representatives in Yekaterinburg — greater than 1,000 miles away from the preventing — that Russia was searching for to seize a swath of Ukrainian territory from the Donbas area to Moldova. That may lower off Ukraine’s entry to the Black Sea, Basic Minnekayev mentioned, in response to Russian information businesses, permitting Russia to “affect crucial parts of the Ukrainian economic system” and achieve “one more level of entry” to the pro-Russian enclave of Moldova often called Transnistria.
Based on the protection ministry’s web site, Basic Minnekayev, who’s stationed in Yekaterinburg, has been principally concerned in tasks unrelated to the invasion, akin to discussing the development of an Orthodox cathedral with the clergy or indoctrinating the nation’s youth.
“One among our predominant targets is the work with the veterans and patriotic upbringing of the brand new era,” Basic Minnekayev advised Purple Star, the protection ministry’s official newspaper, final April. “We have to inform the youth the reality concerning the warfare that our ancestors haven’t been preventing in useless.”
Yuri Fyodorov, a Russian navy analyst, mentioned that, on paper, Basic Minnekayev’s predominant line of labor is “brainwashing” Russian servicemen. However in actuality, he mentioned, the overall’s predominant job is to “accumulate details about the officers: their views and moods.”
Basic Minnekayev manages “a system of political management of officers which exists in parallel to navy counterintelligence,” Mr. Fyodorov mentioned in an interview.
In Mr. Fyodorov’s view, the commander was in all probability sanctioned by his superiors to make such an announcement, which was then reported by TASS, a state-run information company.
“Seems like preventing is ongoing amongst varied teams within the increased echelons of energy,” he mentioned.
Tatyana Stanovaya, a founding father of the political consultancy R. Politik, mentioned that Basic Minnekayev “isn’t the one that is meant to make such statements,” and that it’s potential he made it “for propaganda causes.”
Moscow couldn’t deny the assertion, she mentioned in a social media publish, as a result of it will make the Russian conservative faction “enraged.” In a daily briefing, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, declined to touch upon whether or not Basic Minnekayev’s feedback mirrored Mr. Putin’s considering.
[ad_2]
Source link
