Dear Readers:
After yesterday’s interruption for Breaking News, we return to our debate about whether Russian Territorial Defense units should be issued automatic weapons.
Previously we heard arguments on the “pro” side of the ledger. Recall that these battalions are charged with guarding critical infrastructure on Russia’s borders. For example, they will patrol a key bridge both night and day. But, by law (Article #22), they are not allowed to carry weapons. If they see something amiss, they would have to call for help. Many officials, including Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov and Russian politician Andrei Turchak, argue that it is time to amend these laws.
Reporter Andrei Rezchikov goes on to give the other side of the argument, as there are people who believe the law should be left as it is.
For example, Retired Police Colonel Oleg Ivannikov believes that more of the “druzhiny” (people’s militias) should be created, similar to municipal militias that were created in the 1990’s for specific purposes. Ivannikov heads an organization “Law and Order”, and in his spare time is studying for his Doctorate in History.
The Russian “druzhiny” have a worthy history, going back to medieval times. Their legal status is unquestioned, but the idea of arming them “requires special study. In the majority of cases, the Territorial Defense units are staffed by former associates of the police organs, the armed forces of Russia, and other such entities. Usually, for health reasons, or because of their age, these personnel cannot be expected to serve in the Special Military Operation, but they still wish to serve their native regions honorably, and to be of use to society, by defending their loved ones against the unlawful actions of the criminal Ukrainian regime.”
Vladimir Vorozhtsov is a member of the Council on Foreign Defense, and a retired Major-General of the internal security services. He reminded the reporters that Russian history has seen many examples of people’s militias coming together at times when they were needed. For example, the militia created by Minin and Pozharsky during the Time of Troubles. Not to mention the War of 1812. “However, we must clearly define the functions of these formations. The issue of arming them with guns, should be one that is raised only towards the end of the discussion. In many nations throughout the world there are volunteer forces who maintain public order, and in the main they perform the fucntions of observers, spies, and informants.”
Vorozhtsov believes that, while creating new units, it is necessary to resolve issues of legal status, military preparedness, troop placements, interactions with the regular army units, police, and special services. “Only after all these issues have been decided, should we even begin to talk about weapons.”
Ivannikov agrees that the right to bear arms brings with it, a heightened risk. “These units need to be under somebody’s control. Therefore, when thinking about amending the law, we need to limit the term of the right to carry and use weapons; it should be limited to the duration of the Special Military Operation.
Ivannikov says that some critics of arming the Territorial Defense, point to the extra expenses of purchasing weapons; but he himself does not believe this is an important factor. “We also need to discuss issues such as where the weapons will be stored, and who will maintain them.
“In general, these units will work in tandem with the National Guard, the police, the Federal Penitentiary Service, the FSB, and the Ministry of Defense. In other words, they will provide a serious supplementary support to our struggle against a criminal regime which has declared war against the peaceful population of the territories of Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk Oblasts.”
Vorozhtsov: “If a person served 30 years ago, then he probably is not familiar with modern weapons. Hand him a Shmel flamethrower or an anti-tank guided missile — do you honestly think he will know how to use it? [yalensis: goodness, I thought people were just talking about giving them rifles….] Each man will need to undergo supplementary training, receive additional certifications [in the use of these weapons], and only then can we talk about arming them.”
Ivannikov thinks that, if it turns out the lawmakers decide not to arm the Territorial Defense units and druzhiny, then these units should be pulled into serving in the interior of the region, where it is safer, freeing up police and National Guardsmen who can then be dispatched to defend the border.
Vorozhtsov adds: “In which case, we won’t get away with passing just one federal law. These changes will affect dozens of acts of legislation. Including the “Anti-Terrorism” law, the law “On Defense”, the law “On Weapons”, and so on.
yalensis, In conclusion, I honestly don’t know which side of the debate I am on. If these Territorial Defense units actually are just glorified mall cops, then it seems it would make sense to move them to the interior and replace them on the borders with armed-to-the-teeth soldiers. Guys who know how to use a Shmel against incursionary terrorists or invading NATO troops.
Awful Avalanche 
It is not a new type of war, it was already practiced in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, payment of mercenaries who avoid taking the corpses home and that makes them clean wars for those who program them.
But the main thing is that they are aimed at punishing the population, with the same idea of sanctions, the civilian population is punished trying to make them rebel against their government.
As a curiosity, what was said at the beginning of the blockade against Cuba that still exists:
April 6, 1960 by Lester D. Mallory Under-Secretary of State-USA:
“The majority of Cubans support Castro. There is no effective political opposition. The only possible means to annihilate internal support [for the regime] is to provoke disenchantment and discouragement due to economic dissatisfaction and hardship. All possible means must be expeditiously employed to undermine Cuba’s economic life. One measure that could have a strong impact would be to deny all financing or shipments to Cuba, which would reduce monetary income and real wages and lead to hunger, despair and the overthrow of the government.”
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And yet Castro outlived them all!
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But the consequences of the democratic prank have cost Cuba more than a million dead.
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sanctions are very mean spirited, which i think reflects very poorly on the country that regularly imposes them… it seems all the usa foreign policy people all the way down to madeliene albright and victoria nuland, are all cut from the same cloth and it ain’t pretty..
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America has, what, just over 300 million people? And yet, somehow they have managed to bully and terrorize the entire planet, consisting of 8 billion people?
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many americans are oblivious to it… i blame the leadership that has been taken over by a group who are furthering the interest of corporations… eisenhower warned of this in the 50’s and it indeed came to pass.. other countries in positions of power need to be wary of this as well..
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Brian Berletic had a good piece on his podcast recently, he was talking about the Thailand elections and the victory of the pro-American opposition.
In every nation of the planet in which they wish to gain influence (and Thailand is important to the Ameris because they want to use it as a proxy battering-ram against China) they spent decades patiently building up shadow institutions to the native ones; shadow governments, NGO’s, think-tanks, even universities. All of the cadres of which are brain-washed zombies dedicated to serving the interests of the U.S., even against the interests of their own people.
Just like the German government!
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yalensis!
so true!! brian berletic lives in thailand, and knows first hand… great analysis and coverage from him on a regular basis..
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What is the problem? In Canada about 25% of all households own a gun of some sort. You have to be licensed and the guns have to be stored in a lockable container.
To establish a militia, added training for persons already owning guns is needed on how to respond in conjunction and under the command with other forces, and basic military tactical training. That could be done in weekend courses throughout the year, and a week or so of maneuvers in the field (yeah, I know, and utterly un-woke noun now) each year the members serve.
What honestly is a militia for if it cannot defend itself or hold the Fort till the cavalry arrives? Wave the white flag and beg for mercy not to be shot by insurgents?
If that is your stance, you don’t need a militia, maybe have a battalion of housewives beating pots, while the men are whistling in the dark or mooning the enemy?
Having served in the German Bundeswehr for two years, I cannot understand how an unarmed militia would be of any use to anyone.
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There was some vagueness in my source article. First they are talking clearly about Territorial Defense units, which already exist (and are unarmed).
Then the experts start talking about building a people’s “druzhina” as existed in the times of Minin/Pozharsky, only without guns. But I am pretty sure that both Minin and Pozharsky carried muskets and pikes. So yes, it is confusing.
Also, Russians are not exactly people who are afraid of guns, I am pretty sure most (or a lot of) households out in the countryside own shotguns; and people do a lot of hunting as well. Hunting has always been an important part of Russian peasant culture. So yeah, I honestly don’t know what the issue is, myself.
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PS:
I think part of any real democracy is the capability of the population to be able to defend itself, which means the army always should be a national service, and the militias should be formed by reservists of that army.
At the present time I try to find “real democracies” that act in the interest of the majority of the population, and whose governing bodies would not be willing to engage heavy propaganda to use against non violent dissidents.
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In theory, I agree with you (but maybe not in terms of America, for various reasons). I hate to admit it, but I think the Finns have the right idea. They have compulsory military service and reservist training; and everybody there carries a gun, from what I understand. They always brag about this, when they boast that they can beat back a Russian invasion. I don’t know about beating back an invasion, but there is probably less crime there, when people know how to take care of themselves.
Again, I don’t think this applies to America which is a vast, sprawling cesspool of organized crime and violence, not to mention all the ethnic tensions.
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That’s a pretty broad brush you used there. Chicago, Los Angeles, NYC, and other blue run cities are not the norm for most of us living here in the USA. They do get most of the attention though.
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Well, maybe I use a broad brush. There are some very nice areas, agreed.
But have you visited Detroit recently? You drive down the main road, and it’s miles and miles of what almost looks to be bombed out buildings.
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I agree with your point. The greatest portion of violence in the US is largely restricted to certain zip codes within urban areas although, that has been diffused a bit since blue states began exporting the problem through state funded public-housing into surrounding rural areas.
Caveat added; there is violence in the de-industrialized towns in the vast Mississippi watershed, an R + D project spanning Carter to Obama. I add, for those ready to pounce with a “whataboutism” both Bushes were critical to the decades long impoverishment of the American working class. And when I say “impoverishment” I mean both physical and spiritual…as nothing takes more from a man spirit than to disallow him the dignity that comes from a journeyman applying himself to his trade. [This applies to women as well…a gender-neutral sentence being a bit clumsy in the writing and reading].
What has been done to the working classes of the USA by urban elitists is a shameful display of anti-Christian greed that has had the effect of enfeebling the nation, if not in perpetuity, certainly for generations to come.
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Agree wholeheartedly. The satisfaction of learning a useful trade and earning an honest day’s living from said trade, is at the very heart of what it means to be human; and at the very core of human dignity.
S, we will make a Marxist of you yet! [just kidding, but that is a core Marxist principle, i.e, the value of honest labor].
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I do not see a problem – the territorial defence forces or home guard will be a part of the armed forces or the national guard
– members of the home guard would be volunteer former soldiers -so already trusted
– they will be given refresher training
– they will be given uniforms and arms – many swiss reservists have rifles stored at home & I think Finnish reservist may also do so
– The home guard will be commanded by regular officers and integrated into the chain of command
Maybe a generation in the future there will be a Russian version of Dad’s Army with Captain Manveringski, Sergeant Vilsonov and Corporal Ivanov who will tell people not to panic
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You also have to take into account all the consequences that may occur. Effectively, they would have to be treated just like any other member of military, ie. If killed or badly injured, there is the question of compensation and support. So, they have to be trained to a high level such that they instinctively know when to abandon positions and not play a hero, etc. They would have a restricted role yet they could be as expensive as full members of military. It is not surprising that some are against this.
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I’m with what I believe is the majority of commenters on this one. An unarmed “home guard” is no guard at all!
Venezuela has done well with its own citizens’ militia approach, which managed to scuttle at least one US mercenary invasion, “Operation Gideon[??]”. The planned coup was overthrown by a group of loyal Bolivarian fishermen!
Naturally, HOW armed is a serious topic for debate. But no arms at all would risk being a fiasco that would simply endanger the participants.
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Russia can build this type of defense, if at first it prepared to face the thousands of soldiers that the West had been training since 2014 to “kill Russians”, but that stage was left behind, as was the case of the Western volunteers who were also going to ” kill Russians” for money.
In the memory of the Russian people there is the preparation for the defense of the time of the cold war and in the background of that memory there is the war against the German Nazis who were worse murderers than the current Ukrainian Nazis.
The Soviets helped Cuba build its defense with the people and they were good teachers.
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Russia already has an independent National Guard separate from the army. Quoting the ever popular Wikipedia: “The National Guard has the stated mission of securing Russia’s borders, taking charge of gun control, combating terrorism and organized crime, protecting public order and guarding important state facilities.[3]”
So it’s somewhat ambiguous that the Territorials are “charged with guarding critical infrastructure on Russia’s borders”.
It seems as though these old Territorial codgers have been “subcontracted” to do part of the National Guards work in a specific area, critical infrastructure along borders, whatever that actually means in practice. And are allowed to wave semaphore flags and blow whistles, and oh yes, call 911 equivalent for the National Guard to come and rescue them when marauding Ukies come barging across the border right at them.
I think the answer stands out for itself. Train and arm those Territorials stationed at “critical structures” along hostile borders. They’re either part of the overall internal security apparatus of the National Guard or they’re really not.
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That sounds about right. One of the analysts spoke about the “amateurish” nature of some of these units, and how they needed to become more professional. Reality is, in peace time, such “amateurs” were fully adequate to, say, patrol a bridge at night. Like aging boy scouts. They performed their duties adequately. But it’s wartime now.
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If they’re only to be armed will rifles they would be committing suicide if the try to fight off a nazi armoured battalion. If they’re to be given weapons to fight off said armoured battalion they’d take so long to retrain that they might as well not be armed at all. So it’s better to organise them for observation and warning purposes, evacuation if civilians etc but not arm them.
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100% agree. Only thing I’d add would be first aid and triage training.
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ditto… i jive with fiendlys viewpoint as well..
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So far, none of your esteemed commenters have brought up the macroeconomic and macro-political ramifications of arming-up the border defence personnel. Coz there’s a lot more involved than handing out AKs to a bunch of middle-aged comradeniks and saying “go to it, boyars.”
Gunz costez moneyz. That will have to come from a government budget at some level of the State. As Eisenhower pointed out in one of the two decent speeches he made as Preznit, every dollaruble spent on a tank is one less that can be spent on a school. So do the local oblastofficials pay for restocking the bullets that were used in the last readiness exercise, or do they buy a new mudplow blade for the tractor (actually a repurposed BMP that was made surplus when the new anti-gravity models were added to the army) so they can clear the mucky spots on Route 442 that flood in the new torrential climatechangerainstorms? These guys are going to need training (which costs money). Are they full-time, one weekend a month, and how much of a permanent bureaucracy will have to be hired to oversee all that?
And what do you give them? Ukronaz saboteurs aren’t going to be turned back by paintball guns. They’re likely to be attacktive even after the hot war ends, as witnessed by the CIA-sponsored partisans in the parts of the USSR that weren’t happy to be reabsorbed into the communist empire Post WW II. Vorozhtsov pointed out the potential need for heavier weapons like that thermobaric bazooka. You wouldn’t want THAT in the hands of a noob who might point it wrong and incinerate Farmer Bobolinkov’s cow barn. Do the border boyz get (non-antigrav) BMPs with 30-mm cannons? You’re gonna need a maintenance depot with trained mechanics to change the turret lube, etc. More money, and people who have to be doing that instead of driving the mudplow.
Getting political here, what power do you give the gunned-up border guards? It all goes back to The State’s Monopoly on Authorised Violence, as _________ theorised about. Are they authorised to drive the BMPs through Bobolinkov’s corn field willy-nilly if someone reports they saw some suss characters out that way at 2 a.m.? Who are they allowed to shoot, and when? These are small considerations off the top of my head, but there are undoubtedly a lot of doctrines and protocols that will have to be devised.
In the Big Picture political realm, an armed border force sets up a new power centre. Could that be a threat to established government power centres? Maybe not on the level of the Rapid Reaction Force in Sudan that’s battling against the official government there. But consider the “Constitution-free zone” that stretches 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico dividing line. Border Patrol and other Homeland SSeKKKurity forces can yank you out of your car for any excuse “because we think you might be carrying illegals or drugs.” What dynamics might play out in a Russian context? “We shot up that convoy of Chechens’ cars because they’re not FROM here, and everybody knows those people are all organised crime.”
There’s already the issue of gunned-up private military companies in Russia. Not just Wagner. Oil companies have their own armies? NA(zi)FO twats are rubbing their sweaty hands together in glee because they think Prigozhin can be a political challenger to Putler. (They don’t realise that The Chef is the organ-grinder’s monkey designed to deflect attention from Uitikin, the quiet-but-scary guy who really runs that show.) Another militant group adds to the complications.
I’m not saying that any of these factors (and lots more that I haven’t even thought of) are insurmountable. However, be aware that when you drill deeper, there’s a lot more to consider than just gunz 4 guardz.
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You raise a lot of interesting points, Bukko! So yeah, the world is a lot more complicated now than it was back in the days of Minin and Pozharsky.
Although, to be honest, many of the issues were the same. The Tsar at the time was not always so keen about Minin/Pozharsky running around doing what was supposed to his his (the Tsar’s) job.
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Vaguely related. Remember “The Addams Family”? Well, it seems that the UkraNazis sent a vicious squad of Polish “Cousin Its” into Belgorod:
SOURCE: “Polish Mercenaries Took Part In Attack On Russian Border Region”
https://southfront.org/polish-mercenaries-took-part-in-attack-on-russian-border-region/
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And if a squad of Cousin Its can’t get the job done, well, then, Zelensky will have to send a platoon of “Thank You Things!”
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