The latest events in Crimea and frontline territories have exposed a profound systemic crisis of governance in Russia. While official channels, certain bloggers, and deputies compete in praising regional authorities for «holding the situation,» reality delivers a harsh and sudden blow.
The introduction of a total ban on the sale of gasoline to the civilian population and guests of Crimea (and before that, in Sevastopol), where fuel is now dispensed exclusively to security forces and state structures, is not merely a logistical failure. It is a crushing political and administrative collapse that highlights the main disease of the modern Russian system: the absolute dominance of clan interests over state ones and the total absence of personal accountability among officials.
The Zaporizhzhia Precedent: How Departmental Clans Destroy Initiative
A telling story unfolded in the Zaporizhzhia region. The head of the region, Yevgeny Balitsky (formerly a military pilot), found a breakthrough solution to protect logistical routes from Ukrainian drones. He mobilized civil aviation resources, utilizing small training aircraft and pilots who, after coordination with the Ministry of Defence, were integrated into the Aerospace Forces and began knocking down hostile drones in the frontline skies with extreme efficiency.
It would seem that this successful experience needed to be scaled up. However, the military establishment simply removed these pilots and equipment from the region and redeployed them to other directions.
Why does this happen? Because under a clan-criminal system, the interests of specific departmental corporations and generalship cliques rank higher than regional security and common sense.
Someone «at the top» pulled a lever just to meet their own bureaucratic KPI, completely stripping the logistics of a warring region. In Stalin’s time, such actions under wartime conditions would have been instantly classified by SMERSH as sabotage and punished by firing squad. Today, no one bears responsibility for it.
Ignoring the Kremlin and the Fuel Paralysis: Novak, Kapotnya, and the Lessons of History
The Crimean fuel crisis did not emerge yesterday. More than a year ago, a detailed proposal was sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin: to rapidly lay flexible plastic pipelines to the peninsula, which could be deployed in the shortest time possible. This would have completely eliminated Crimea’s dependence on vulnerable bridges and railway lines regularly targeted by the AFU.
Putin signed the document and assigned it to the profile Vice-Prime Minister Alexander Novak (who was even rumoured in the corridors to be a successor). Novak, who had for years successfully negotiated with Saudi Arabia and OPEC, proved completely professionally unfit for crisis planning domestically. A year has passed—there is no pipeline, and Crimea and the frontline regions are left without gasoline.
Russian history knows fundamentally different examples of mobilization:
- The Siege of Leningrad: Under conditions of a brutal blockade and constant bombing, Soviet engineers laid a fuel pipeline along the bottom of Lake Ladoga in just two weeks, uninterruptedly supplying the city and the front.
- The Kapotnya Phenomenon (1941): The Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya was one of the Luftwaffe’s primary targets alongside the Kremlin. An unprecedented air defense and civilian alert network was created around the plant. Furthermore, two kilometers away, they built a fake dummy plant out of plywood and barrels, which absorbed the strikes of German aviation. The real plant in Kapotnya did not stop for a single day, supplying the defense of Moscow with fuel for its hardware. If the director had allowed a stoppage, a tribunal awaited him.
Today, however, there is a total absence of both strategic planning and an elementary fear of punishment among the top bureaucracy. The Kremlin and Putin are ignored, and this is done openly without fear of retribution.
Why Did the West and Zelenskyy Believe in the Possibility of Victory?
It is precisely this administrative chaos and the impotence of the Russian elites that give Kyiv and the West that very hope, which is gradually turning into confidence.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy understands perfectly well what a dire situation Ukraine and its demographic resources are in. He is being pushed toward peace, but he deliberately chooses escalation, ultimatums, and personal insults directed at the Kremlin. Why? To derail negotiations. He sees that the Russian state machine is working highly inefficiently from within, and he gambles that systemic paralysis in Russia’s rear will set in faster than Ukrainian potential runs dry.
A Global Crisis of Systems: From Moscow to London
This problem is not uniquely Russian or Ukrainian. We are witnessing a worldwide crisis of political systems that have proven incapable of reproducing adequate leaders and managers.
- In the UK: Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s positions are so severely undermined that his own Labour Party is forcing him to resign. The system has hit rock bottom: those in government admit that Starmer is a political corpse, but there is simply no one to replace him. The talent shortage at Downing Street is catastrophic.
- In Germany and France: The political paralysis of Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron demonstrates the same impotence of elites who are unable to offer their societies a coherent strategy to pull out of the tailspin.
The post-Soviet space, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe are all sick with the same disease—their institutions of governance have ossified, serving only themselves and losing all touch with reality.
