Dear Readers:
Since the early beginnings of the Russian Empire, in medieval times, the Russian government has been forced to allocate a vast amount of resources defending its equally vast borders. In his book “The History of Russia”, published in 1643, English diplomat and historian Giles Fletcher the Elder described the system that had been created under Ivan IV (the “Formidable”) as a type of early Territorial Defense. Fletcher wrote that the Godunov clan (Boris Godunov, who served as Regent during the rule of Fyodor Ivanovich) managed many of the border towns personally. The four major border towns at the time being: Smolensk, Pskov, Novgorod, and Kazan. The first three needing to be protected against Poland and Sweden; and the latter against the Crimean Tatar Khan.
To govern these border towns, the Tsar appointed four Dukes of high-ranking nobility who also served in his privy council. These Dukes were rotated out every four years and were paid 700 rubles a year for their service. This amount included a bonus for hazardous duty, even though the Dukes themselves lived in Moscow, while the Dyaks (the “Deacons”) lived out in the field and did the actual work. And everybody also knows about the Cossack units which defended Russian territory in the various borderlands including “Ukraina“, the name itself being “borderlands”.
Despite this history of vigilance, necessary for a vast land power controlling such a big chunk of the Eurasian continent, Russia really slacked off in the post-Soviet era, thus leading to the current horrendous situation. In which this land power is hemmed on all sides by hostile nations intent on destroying it; and NATO nukes positioned within 7-minute range of hitting Moscow. Something obviously went terribly wrong at some point.
And then things got even worse in the past year. Now Ukrainian/NATO battalions feel comfortable launching cross-border raids on Russian soil, completely confident in their own impunity. This is nothing Russia has not seen before — Fletcher, for example, describes how the Russians got used to seasonal Tatar raids and could almost set their clocks by them. But now the time has come to finally do something about this dire situation. The issue is the beefing up (and not exactly proactively) of the Russian Territorial Defense units.
To discuss this issue, I have this piece by reporter Andrei Rezchikov. His headline reads:
Russian Territorial Defense Is Ready to Arm Itself
Alluding to the surprising fact that the Territorial Defense units guarding the Russian border, are not allowed to carry guns. The lead paragraph:
The Governor of the Belgorod Oblast has proposed to arm the Territorial Defense detachments, in order to provide a more “professional and not amateur” pushback to the enemy. However, within expert society, there are those who do not share this idea and foresee certain complexities in trying to implement it. What are the pros and cons of this initiative, and what changes in the existing legal system would be necessary?
All of this, of course, has to do with the recent “invasion” of Belgorod Oblast by the Ukrainian army. Even though the “invasion” was quickly repulsed, some lessons were learned from the initial confusion that ensued. A few hours were wasted initially, while the authorities tried to figure out who was in charge and how to coordinate the various entities, such as the Border Guard service, the police, the Territorial Defence, the Emergency Responders, and the Russian army. Such confusion would never have existed during the reign of Boris Godunov. Every man there would have known exactly what he had to do, and to whom he reported, had, say, a group of armed Poles or Swedes barged into the Russian province swinging their pikes and muskets.
Meanwhile, according to Rezchikov, the regional Belgorod government has created on the border with Ukraine seven Battalions of Territorial Defense, comprising a total of 3,000 men. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov avers that the units are already fully capable, they have been in training since November 2022. Training with what, I don’t know, because Gladkov goes on to say that the men are not armed. The Oblast government would like to change this situation and give the men some automatic rifles. “It’s time to go professional and not amateur.” However, such changes must be implemented fully in accordance with the law. Certain laws might need to be amended, Gladkov adds. According to Article 22 of the Russian Legal Codex, Territorial Defense is implemented only during wartime. The job of these men is to defend important objects which secure the well-being of the population; for example, guarding bridges and patrolling certain areas; protecting the transportation system, communications, the energy system, etc. They also assist the Internal Organs (such as police) with keeping public order in times of crisis.
In addition, however, Territorial Defense has to deal with diversionary groups and illegally armed formations which invade Russia from time to time. Headquarters of the Territorial Defense are being created in the various regions and in territories subject to wartime conditions. Regional heads of government are in charge of these assets.
The issue of arming these units arose after the major raid into the Belgorod Oblast. For almost an entire day, a state of emergency reigned in this area, as the counter-terrorist operation (CTO) proceeded to liquidate 70 Ukrainian terrorists. Governor Gladkov clarified that the Territorial Defense units themselves were not involved in this CTO. As I would imagine not, since they don’t have guns. What were they supposed to do, throw cream pies at the Ukrainian terrorists?
Last April a man named Andrei Turchak met with President Putin. Turchak is an important member of the ruling party, United Russia, and heads a working group on issues related to the Special Military Operation. One of Turchak’s proposals was that members of the Territorial Defense Units start packing.
The Gladkov/Turchak initiative was supported in the Russian Parliament (Duma). Alexander Borodai, who represents the Rostov district, is very much in favor of this idea: “I am very much in favor of the government, in a completely legal fashion, arming those who are prepared to defend our Motherland. This would be an absolutely correct decision,” he states.
Borodai said that he recently traveled to Belgorod and met with the leader of the local Territorial Defense. “In my view it is disturbing that these people, to this day, are not allowed to carry guns. This is a kind of relic from the Soviet epoch.”
Now we have heard the “pros”. But in the continuation to this post we will hear the other side of the story, the “cons”. The people who think this would be a bad idea, and why they think that.
[to be continued]
Awful Avalanche 
Russia must prepare for the extension of the war of terrorist attrition with attacks in the Siberian region from bases in Alaska and the western colonies of Japan and South Korea.
The way things are going, if the West arms and finances Ukrainian neo-Nazism, it can also rent territory.
The current shamelessness of the mercenary war for hire and those that will be added will only stop until the Russians totally destroy some European country and then they will say that it was Russian terrorism.
Because in the end the hatred against western Russia will deliver the nuclear weapons to the Ukrainian Nazis because they are far from that area and not even the radioactive cloud will affect them.
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La estupidez politica suele tener su matemática recompensa .
La recompensa social por causa de estupidez no suele ser agradable, pero no existe duda de que es matematica recompensa .
Pobres todos, ( los no pobres de espiritu ), ante la tirania que llega .
Y peor aun , ( o tirania o continuos disturbios civiles , la cual esta ultima solucion seria . entre ambas , y entiendo, la mejor), ¡ pobre Rusia !
_____________________
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Throwing cream pies could kill the nazis by clogging their arteries with fat! Didn’t you think of that?
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No, I did not think of that, but it is a good point!
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Ukraine already demonstrated both the advantages and disadvantages of arming the general public to fight invasions.
25,000 weapons were distributed to civilians in Kiev.
The net net:
1. very little military effect, the Russians rolled in, Ukrainian proper troops had to leave the area in front of Donbas to protect Kharkov and Kiev, and Russia succeeded in the primary goal – get enough artillery in place between Ukrainian dug in artillery and the Donbas civilians to defeat the main threat to Donbas.
(probably Russia’s task would have been much harder if there wasn’t all the pretence – fake news – about Russian troops massacring civilians)
2. Fantastic PR opportunities for Kiev to create fake news and fake victories, thus achieving US goals in the Info Wars* that win elections as opposed to the Actual wars where people get killed.
3. A lot of civilians died quite unnecessarily and historians (if not current news) will explain how futile attempts to attack tanks with rifles were stupid and actually a war crime committed by Kiev on its own people.
* Increasingly I believe that there are 2 key ways to better understand the world. 1. The US has already lost hegemony to China and Knows it. MAG again is a 2016 slogan. So US acts out of spite, not to delay the moment. 2. For US and many allies the Info War which translates into votes is far more important than the actual war which only translates into deaths of foreigners.
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* * * * * *
The fact is that China’s astonishing progress showed that the failure of development programs in emerging countries was not the result of the incapacity of their leaders, that it was rather Western financial terrorism applied against them and that it was not used with China for believing that the Chinese would be victims of greed.
And that was a bad example for the world that today is reborn with a new confidence in its own efforts and ideas, without the sense of inferiority instilled since colonial times.
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Very good point. For centuries the Western elites had brainwashed their colonies and people in the so-called Third World that they (the latter) were inferior and incapable of ruling themselves. And all along it was mainly the financial terrorism (as you term it) applied to them, which kept them down. That, plus a deficit of qualified cadres, which is easily remedied through education and training.
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That is why the gringos say that the Chinese deceived them, but everything was more than an assumption from the western monetary mentality.
In the end, in forty years the Chinese achieved the development that it took the USA two centuries to achieve and they achieved it without killing anyone, without robbing anyone.
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It also helps to have a robust state sector in the economy, with economic planning and that sort of thing; and not as much waste when there are fewer oligarchs to steal all the wealth.
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michaeldroy, I agree with you about arming civilians. I don’t know if the Russian Territorial Defense is on the same level as civilians, but after reading the article in full (you’ll see the continuation in tomorrow’s post), they are not much above the level of mall cops, from what I can see. I mean, a lot of them have prior military service, but it might be as long as 20-30 years ago. Probably better to leave them unarmed, but I’ll give both sides of the debate and let people make up their own minds. As a compromise, I might support giving them handguns for personal protection, but knowing quite well that it wouldn’t stop a Ukrainian tank.
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I reckon if they are as old and untrained as you say, then giving them the latest up to date integrated communications would probably be a better idea.
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I agree. I think a compromise could be reached, these guys can be retrained and re-certified in communications technology; and maybe allowed to carry sidearms, at best. Just for personal protection, without the expectation that they can take down a tank.
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Well, this issue has come up before, hence that catchy phrase:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
It’s pretty dang hard, in spite of what DC’s malingering-draft-dodgering-pols say, to arm/train a local militia in at a moments notice and…large standing armies also have had social issues from time to time; search “recent coup attempts” for more details.
That in mind, the founders came up with the nifty idea to use ordinary citizens personal weapons when forming up an impromptu militia. Of course, if the government has previously taken the citizens firearms away, which often happens when governments seek to rule without the consent of the governed, it takes months to train men/women to proficiency in firearms and then, depending on the breaks, years to arm a local militia, making the idea of an impromptu militia moot. And if a militia can’t form up at a moment’s notice, it’s not a really a militia is it?
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Is Switzerland the only country in the world that actually keeps a successful militia in fairly good trim?
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Dunno Y,
But, I will point out that the ability to reign down accurate fire from fixed cover onto an approaching squad does not require the same kind physicality required of the attacking soldier. It also forces an attacker to take losses more in line with the traditional 3:1 ratio, which makes attacking civilians not nearly as attractive to those “soldiers” psychologically predisposed to killing unarmed non-combatants.
And considering that the leadership of Ukrainia is drafting men well into their late fifties and sixties…I think the point may be moot…eh?
Anyhow, I would rather take my bullet defending my patch of this country, to the best of my, now limited, ability, than kneeling over some ditch waiting to be shot at a foreign army’s convenience. Each to their own.
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I hear you, S. I know some guys who belong to the NRA, and they are decent people, not the nuts as portrayed in the American media. I like their responsible attitude towards firearms. However, I think they operate from a flawed logic. Their argument is that, if everybody carries, then the good guys win. (Since 99% of people are good, and only 1% evil.)
It sounds logical on the surface, but I came to realize that reality doesn’t actually work that way! Most of the time, the criminal minority will wield power over the decent majority.
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For regular crime, I disagree entirely, where I live, street addicts know all too well, you break into a house you’re going to be shot and the homeowner will NOT BE PROSECUTED and should Soros fund a suit the local jury will not see the criminal as a victim. Home invasion, robbery any major crime is an extreme rarity. Where I have lived in the South the same principle applies, deterrence works.
For the minority of well publicized “mass shootings” that do not involve gang activity. Mental illness and the use of prescribed psychotropic drugs by the shooter describe the overwhelming majority. A small portion involve victim who have been bullied and neglected by their family.
We can’t talk about big pharma [Big DC lobby], we can’t address bad parenting [no DC lobby], we can’t address how drug addiction feeds into or cause mental illness and we can’t build humane asylums [no Dc lobby]. Cue the moron who will bring up Reagan…yes bad…yes, over sixty years ago…yes, nothing done by Dems since except…to yap about Reagan for over sixty years!
We need humane but, mandatory drug addiction facilities financed at the Federal Level and we need humane but, mandatory mental health facilities financed at the Federal Level.
The biggest mass murder did not involve guns at any level. Seize all the guns and you will still have mass murder by bomb, car/truck, chemical, fire…et al…AND you will still have 98% of the street crime problem to deal with plus a new set of victims, elderly who previously were able to defend themselves.
In the stats above the case of Mexico is illustrative of what’s to come with gun seizures, Mexico’s gun laws allow only the wealthy to own guns and criminals murder without restraint. Gun siezure advocates having been using false propaganda not facts to sell a doctrine that has led many countries to disaster.
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Should have been:
“..In the stats [below], the case of Mexico is illustrative of what’s to come with gun seizures..”
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That’s a bad idea. Russia already has the regular Russian army, the national guard, the Chechens (who have some kind of state contract to provide military assistance) as well as Wagner and other PMCs. Also, the brave warriors from L/DPR aren’t all likely to return to peaceful peasants on the day of victory.
Russia simply needs to strengthen their regular forces. You don’t want an overly militarized society. And you definitely don’t want an American style society where every madman has a gun and there is no way to change the situation since the ruling authorities are even madder. Just hinting that there may be a connection between American warmongering politicians and their sick gun-toting society will make your average American wanting to point a gun at you.
Russia needs their brains to focus on improving civilian life, just like most Asians do.
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Interesting to read your unsupported speculation; here are some facts that are not congruent with the supposition presented in your non-reply-reply argument:
1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country#Table
2] 10 countries with the highest homicide rates:
El Salvador – 52.02 per 100k people
Jamaica – 43.85 per 100k people
Lesotho – 43.56 per 100k people
Honduras – 38.93 per 100k people
Belize – 37.79 per 100k people
Venezuela – 36.69 per 100k people
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines – 36.54 per 100k people
South Africa – 36.40 per 100k people
Saint Kitts And Nevis – 36.09 per 100k people
Nigeria – 34.52 per 100k people
3] Murder Rate by Country 2023 from:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country
the interactive map is, for lack of a better term, killer.
And the reason the numbers don’t jive with western media is because, when DC/London media report the murder rate in the US, they ALWAYS INCLUDE SUICIDES which more than doubles the US “homicide” rate.
And that’s why this blog is so valuable, it serves to counter the endless propaganda spewed by western media. Remember, friends don’t let friends watch mainstream media outlets!
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The fact that the 2023 figures for El Salvador are false calls into question the source of the information.
The prison for gang members since March 2022 has reduced the crime figures to almost nothing.
The measure can be criticized but it has been effective.
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How about taking a few seconds to find a source to support your dismissal? If you’re saying I’m BSing, fair enough, ante up and let’s see the cards in your hand?
And I can agree with you that the consolidation into massive prisons of El-Salvador convicts would make some kind of a dent in the crime, how much…don’t know , western media hyped the heck out of that story. But the question is, as always with western media, do the results match the hype?
BTW, I can list 3 more sources that say pretty much the same thing so…even if a country’s numbers are a year out of date I don’t think your curt dismissal has merit.
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“And the reason the numbers don’t jive with western media is because, when DC/London media report the murder rate in the US, they ALWAYS INCLUDE SUICIDES which more than doubles the US “homicide” rate.”
Really? I took a look at suicide rates worldwide from Wikipedia, together with your World Population Review homicide “killer” interactive map, and see no signs of the truth of your assertion whatsoever. 16,214 per annum homicides in US, and about 23,000 suicides from Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia entry has an interactive table on suicides by country; clicking on USA leads to an article which says there are 65 to 75 suicides per day on average in the USA. That’s how I got 23,000 per annum approximately, from the low figure.
You cannot include 23,000 suicides in 16,200 murders in any math system I know of.
The US and Canadian suicide rates are similar, US is about 40% higher — the 9th leading cause of death in Canada, 7th in the US. We have a lot of hunting rifles and shotguns in Canada, far more per capita than most countries, but few handguns by law, and I like it that way, thanks all the same. The murder rate is three times higher in the US than Canada. And lets not count in police executions of innocent citizens, or crazed nitwits shooting up schools — that’s a US specialty included in some other index, like “Weird deaths by country”.
Meanwhile, again using the World Population Review interactive map you proffered, in 2018 Russia had a murder rate about 60% higher than the US! Who knew? The Russian suicide rate used to be sky high, but has come down to below US rates now, and is at Canadian levels — about 10.5/100,000 in 2021 versus 14.5 in the US in 2019. Yes, you have to click on Russia in the table to get the latest stats, because it’s lower than the table figures from a few years ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Time to get your explaining cap on.
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First you need make a concise argument* not an apples to oranges rant…nothing wrong with ranting but it hardly requires a response…and nothing wrong with you expressing yourself…just don’t demand that I respond to you…k?
Here’s a direct example of what I am talking about:
“CDC’s recently released data on 2020 U.S. gun deaths show a stunning spike in gun violence in this country. Some numbers make an immediate impact: When we see 45,222 gun deaths—the highest number ever recorded—we know there’s a problem.”
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/making-sense-of-gun-death-data
Now, I’ve shown you more respect than you’ve earned.
*I have yet to make it through one of your entries due to your convoluted writing style. When you infer the promulgation of falsehoods, make your case directly and find a source that directly confirms your position not an implied inference that requires mental contortion.
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And another:
“Gun deaths in the U.S. have reached a record high, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the research, 39,773 people were fatally shot in 2017, a figure that has grown by more than 10,000 people since 1999. CDC data going back to 1979 shows that last year had the highest rates of gun deaths in nearly 40 years.”
https://time.com/5479993/gun-deaths-us-cdc/
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