How Rayon Reform Have Led to War in Ukraine

 

Sometime before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine passed a land reform that reduced number of second tier subdivisions from 400 something to only 136. It was a long overdue reform that reduced number of bureaucrats and streamlined the government. Other territorial subdivisions too needed similar reforms.

Reform was mostly a success with most common citizen think it was for the best. However, reform left one group unhappy, that is bureaucrats who lost their jobs as a result of the reform. However, what could fired bureaucrats do about it? Turned out they could convince Putin to invade Ukraine in an attempt to restore them. Putin annexed 4 oblasts, restored their rayon boundaries and numbers to their pre-2020 parameters and placed people, fired by Poroshenko and Zelenski, back into their old jobs. 

Ukraine burns from constant Russian shelling; Russia is chaffs under sanctions and broader world suffers from inflation and cost of living crisis. All so that some rayon robber baron boss could get his petty little job back and then use it to extort bribes from citizens. If you put it this way, no one in their sane mind would support such a war, in Russia as well. So, they did what they always do, lied. As of now no one yet figured this rather banal reason that keeps war going.

Some might wonder why Russia would care what happens to petty bureaucrats in Ukraine? That is because Russia is a captured state, and bureaucrats have undue control over it and Putin. Far from being public servants, bureaucrats in Russia see themselves as masters of the state and shamelessly exploit their position of power to parasite off the backs of common citizens.

Citizens do not like that and occasionally protest against it, but bureaucrats use riot police to suppress them, keeping bureaucrats in charge.

Bureaucrats are like a caste who has de-facto special privileges over common citizens. The caste could trace its origins back to Soviet times, so all post-Soviet bureaucrats have good relationship with each other and see themselves as colleagues and part of common socio-economic group. That is why what happens to bureaucrats in Ukraine or Georgia matters to Russian or Belarus bureaucrats. 

What bureaucrats fear most however is when citizens win against bureaucracy, like for example during Ukraine's Euromaidan, Ukraine local government reform or Saakashvili rule in Georgia. That reminds them that their special status and privileges are not eternal and can vanish in a flash if a wrong person takes power. 

Thus, on one hand, bureaucrats double down on domestic oppression to shore up their power at home. On the other hand, they want to reclaim what was once theirs and restore their colleagues to power in post-Soviet states. They believe that restoring bureaucratic order across post-Soviet states could solidify their grip on power at home and make challenging them impossible in future. 

Imagine if the Unites States, public servants, fired by Elon Musk's DOGE will ask China to invade the US to restore them back to their jobs. That is unthinkable, yet in Russia its normal.

Anyhow, if Putin needs to somehow placate these useless bureaucrats, then he can simply carve out 300 or so more rayons across the Russia to employ them. No need to fight wars. Or he can poison them and say Ukraine did it.