FSB Whistleblower Report - War In Ukraine A "Clusterf*ck"...
The war in Ukraine and the latest events in Russia and the world. Insider from the source...
(translated from the original Russian, Deepl Translator is your friend and mine…)
published: 9 Маrch 2022
“Over the past 2 weeks, much has changed in the post-Soviet space, in Europe and in the world as a whole. On February 24, 2022, at night, the Russian army, by the order of Vladimir Putin and in execution of his insidious plan, attacked Ukraine without warning, as a result of the military aggression thousands of people were already killed, communications in dozens of cities were destroyed, hundreds of buildings and thousands of structures were bombed, and over two million Ukrainians were forced to flee to Europe, having lost their homes, jobs and in thousands of cases - families, their children, husbands and parents. The world's response to this cruelty, treachery and war crimes was lightning-fast and unambiguous:
- The world community condemned the war and Russia's illegal actions;
- unprecedented sanctions were imposed on Russia and its leadership;
- Russia is disconnected from all international systems and the country turns into a pariah;
- the ruble's exchange rate collapsed more than twofold, and the shares of many major Russian companies fell in price dozens of times;
- An international investigation into genocide and war crimes has begun;
- Russia is put in the position of a "non-Soviet Union" version 2.0, with the majority of people opposed to the war and perceiving Putin's policies as a planetary catastrophe;
- Realizing the sharp rise in popular discontent, the Putin regime hysterically began to block media outlets independent of the Kremlin and Russian special services, leaving Russians with access only to propaganda in the form of a narrow circle of government mouthpieces with absolutely tendentious rhetoric and the absence of an objective assessment of the situation;
- The Kremlin-controlled Duma produces one surrealistic and repressive law after another, designed to crush the will of the people and force them to acquiesce to government policies, under threat of imprisonment for up to 20 years in torture chambers.
An apocalyptic scenario and hopelessness. It would seem... But the tank only on the outside appears to be something formidable, frightening and powerful. In reality, there is no unanimity and agreement inside the "Putin tank". The power elite, unlike the gullible viewers of state TV propaganda, understands this very well... (more in video)
One of the insiders from the special services of the Russian Federation, I will publish without edits and censorship, because it's hell: "I will tell you honestly: I almost did not sleep all these days, almost all the time at work, my head is a bit floating, like in a fog. And from overwork sometimes already catching states, as if it's all not real.
Frankly speaking, Pandora's Box is open - by summer a real horror of world scale will start - global famine is inevitable (Russia and Ukraine were the main grain suppliers in the world, this year's harvest will be smaller, and logistical problems will bring the disaster to its peak).
I cannot tell you what guided the decision to operate, but now all the dogs are methodically brought down on us (the Service). We are scolded for being analytical - this is very much in my line of work, so I will explain what is wrong...
We have been under increasing pressure lately to adjust our reports to the demands of management-I touched on this topic once. All these political consultants, politicians and their entourage, influence teams - it all created chaos. A lot of it.
Most importantly, no one knew that there would be such a war, it was hidden from everyone. And here is an example: You are asked (conventionally) to calculate the possibility of human rights in different conditions, including a prison attack by meteorites. You specify the meteorites, they tell you that this is just a reinsurance for calculations, there will be nothing like that. You understand that the report will be only for a tick, but it must be written in a victorious style, so there would be no questions, saying, why do you have so many problems, did you not work well? In general, you write a report that in the fall of a meteorite, we have everything to eliminate the consequences, we are good, all is well. And you concentrate on the tasks that are real - we do not have enough forces. And then suddenly really throw meteorites and expect that everything will be on your analysis, which were written from the ball.
That's why we have total fuck-ups - I don't even want to choose another word. There is no defense against sanctions for the same reason: Nabiullina may well be found guilty of negligence (more likely the point men on her team), but what is their fault? No one knew that there would be such a war, so no one was prepared for such sanctions. This is the flip side of secrecy: since no one told anyone, who could have calculated what no one told?
Kadyrov's going off the rails. There was almost a conflict with us, too: the Ukrainians may have planted the lie that we had given up the routes of Kadyrov's special units in the first days of the operation. They were killed in the most horrific way, they hadn't even begun to fight yet, and they were simply torn apart in some places. And so it went: the FSB leaked the routes to the Ukrainians. I do not have such information, I will leave 1-2% for the reliability (you can not completely exclude it either).
The blitz has failed. It is simply impossible to accomplish the task now: if in the first 1-3 days they had captured Zelensky and government officials, seized all the key buildings in Kiev, let them read the order to surrender - yes, the resistance would have subsided to a minimum. Theoretically. But then what? Even with this ideal scenario, there was an unsolvable problem: with whom to negotiate? If we tear down Zelensky, all right, with whom would we sign agreements? If with Zelensky, then these papers won't be worth anything after his demolition. OPZJ refused to cooperate: Medvedchuk is a coward, he ran away. There is a second leader there - Boyko, but he refuses to work with us - even his own people won't understand him. We wanted to bring Tsarev back, but even our pro-Russian ones have turned against us. Should we bring back Yanukovych? How can we do that? If we say that we can't occupy him, then all our government will be killed 10 minutes after we leave. Occupy? And where are we going to get so many people? Commandant's office, military police, counterintelligence, guards - even with the minimum resistance from the locals we need 500 thousand or more people. Not counting the supply system. And there is a rule of thumb that by overriding quantity with poor management you only ruin everything. And that, I repeat, would be under an ideal scenario, which does not exist.
What about now? We can't declare a mobilization for two reasons:
1) Large-scale mobilization would undermine the situation inside the country: political, economic, social.
2) Our logistics are already overstretched today. We will send a much larger contingent, and what will we get? Ukraine is a huge country in terms of territory. And now the level of hatred towards us is off the charts. Our roads simply can't absorb such supply caravans - everything will come to a standstill. And we won't be able to manage it, because it's chaos.
And these two reasons we have fallen out at the same time, although even one is enough to ruin everything.
In terms of losses: I don't know how many there are. Nobody knows. The first two days there was still control, now no one knows what's going on there. It is possible to lose large units from communication. They may be found, or they may be dispersed because they came under attack. And even their commanders may not know how many are running around, how many have died, how many have been taken prisoner. The death toll is definitely in the thousands. It can be 10 thousand, it can be 5, and it can be only 2. Even the headquarters do not know exactly. But it must be closer to 10. And we are not counting the corps of the LDPR now - they have their own count.
Now, even if we kill Zelensky and take him prisoner, nothing will change. Chechnya is there by the level of hatred towards us. And now even those who were loyal to us are against it. Because they were planning on above, because we were told that such an option will not happen, unless we are attacked. Because we were told that we must create the most credible threat in order to agree peacefully on the right terms. Because we initially prepared protests inside Ukraine against Zelensky. Without regard to our direct entry. An invasion, to put it simply.
Further, civilian losses will go exponentially - and resistance to us will only increase, too. We have already tried to enter the cities with infantry - out of twenty landing groups, only one was a tentative success. Remember the storming of Mosul - that was the rule in all countries, nothing new.
To keep it under siege? According to the experience of military conflicts in Europe in recent decades (Serbia is the largest testing ground here), cities can be under siege for years, and even function. It is only a matter of time before humanitarian convoys from Europe get there.
We have a conditional deadline of June. Conditional - because in June we have no economy, nothing left. By and large, next week will begin to turn to one side, simply because the situation cannot be in such overdrive. There is no analytics - you can't calculate the chaos, no one can say anything for sure here. Acting on intuition, and even on emotion - but this is not poker. The stakes will be raised, hoping that suddenly some option will shoot through. The trouble is that we too can now miscalculate and lose everything in one move.
Basically, the country has no way out. There is simply no option for a possible victory, and if we lose - that's it, we're screwed. We 100% repeated the beginning of the last century [the Russian-Japanese War of 1905], they decided to kick weak Japan and get a quick win, then it turned out that the army was a disaster. Then they started a war to the bitter end, then they took the Bolsheviks to "re-educate" them in the army - they were outcasts, nobody was interested in them in the masses. And then nobody really knew the Bolsheviks, they picked up anti-war slogans and they went crazy...
On the plus side: we did everything to prevent even a hint of mass sending of the "fine men" to the front line. Send there cons and "socially unreliable", political (so they don't muddy the water inside the country) - the morale of the army will simply go down the drain. And the enemy is motivated, motivated monstrously. They know how to fight, they have enough middle-ranking commanders. They have weapons. They have support. We will simply create a precedent for human losses in the world. That's all.
What we fear most of all: the rule at the top is to cover up an old problem with a new one. This was largely the reason why the Donbass of 2014 began - it was necessary to draw the attention of Westerners away from the topic of the Russian spring in Crimea, so the Donbass crisis was supposed to draw all the attention to itself and become a bargaining chip. But even bigger problems started there. Then they decided to sell Erdogan on the four pipes of South Stream and went into Syria - this was after Suleimani gave deliberately false inputs to solve his problems. As a result, we failed to solve the problem with the Crimea, there are problems with Donbass too, South Stream has shrunk to 2 pipes, and Syria is another headache (if we go out, they will bring down Assad, which will make us look idiots, but it will be hard and useless to sit still).
I don't know who came up with the "Ukrainian blitzkrieg." If we were given real inputs, we would at the very least point out that the original plan is moot, that we need to double-check a lot of things. A lot of things. Now we are up to our necks in shit. And it's not clear what to do. "Denazification" and "demilitarization" are not analytical categories, because they have no clearly formed parameters by which to determine the level of accomplishment or non-fulfillment of the assigned task.
Now all that remains is to wait for some fucked-up advisor to convince the upper echelons to start a conflict with Europe with a demand to lower some sanctions. Either they lower the sanctions or they go to war. And if they refuse? Now I don't rule out that then we'll get into a real international conflict like Hitler did in 1939. And we would then get our Z's flattened with a swastika.
Is there a possibility of a local nuclear strike? Yes. Not for military purposes (it won't do anything - it's a defense breakthrough weapon), but to intimidate the rest. At the same time the ground is being prepared to turn everything over to Ukraine - Naryshkin and his SVR are now digging the ground to prove that they secretly created nuclear weapons there. They are hammering on what we have studied and analysed on bones long time ago: the evidence cannot be drawn up on a map, and the presence of specialists and uranium (Ukraine is full of depleted isotope 238) is of no importance. The production cycle there is such that it cannot be done unnoticed. "The fact that their old NPPs can give weapon-grade plutonium (stations like REB-1000 give it in minimum quantities as a "by-product" of the reaction) - so the Americans have introduced such control with involvement of the IAEA that it's silly to discuss the topic.
Do you know what will start in a week? Well, even in two weeks. We're going to be so caught up that we're going to miss the hungry '90s. While the auction was closed, Nabiullina seems to be making normal steps - but it's like plugging a hole in the dam with a finger. It will still burst, and even stronger. Neither for 3, nor for 5, nor for 10 days nothing will be solved already.
Kadyrov is hoofing it for a reason - they have their own adventures there. He has created an image of himself as the most influential and invincible. And if he falls once, he will be brought down by his own people. He will no longer be the master of the victorious clan.
Let's move on. Syria. "The guys will hold out, everything will be over in Ukraine - and there in Syria we will reinforce everything by positions again. And now at any moment they can wait there when the contingent runs out of resources - and such a heat will go... Turkey is blocking the straits - airlifting supplies there is like heating an oven with money.
Note - all this is happening at the same time, we do not even have time to put it all in one pile. Our situation is like Germany's in '43-'44. At the start all at once. Sometimes I am already lost in this overwork, sometimes it seems that everything was a dream, that everything is as it was before.
On prisons, by the way, it's going to get worse. Now they're going to tighten the screws until they bleed. Everywhere. To be honest, then purely technically it's the only chance of containing the situation - we're already in a total mobilization mode. But we can't stay in such a mode for long, and our timetable is unclear, and it will only get worse. Mobilization always makes management lose its way. And just imagine: you can run a hundred meters in a sprint, but to go into a marathon race and run as hard as you can is bad. Here we are with the Ukrainian question rushed, as on a hundred meters, and fit into a cross-country marathon.
And that's a very, very brief description of what's going on.
The only cynical thing I can add is that I do not believe that VV Putin will press the red button to destroy the whole world.
First of all, there is not one person who makes the decision, at least someone will jump out. And there are many people there - there is no "single red button".
Secondly, there are some doubts that everything successfully functions there. Experience shows that the higher the transparency and control, the easier it is to identify deficiencies. And where it is unclear who and how controls, but always bravura reports - everything is always wrong there. I am not sure that the red button system is functioning as declared. Besides, the plutonium charge has to be replaced every 10 years.
Thirdly, and most disgusting and sad, I personally do not believe in the willingness to sacrifice a man who does not let his closest representatives and ministers near him, nor the members of the Federation Council. Whether out of fear of coronavirus or attack, it doesn't matter. If you are afraid to let your most trusted ones near you, how will you dare to destroy yourself and your loved ones inclusive?
Ask me anything, but I may not answer for days at a time. We're in rush mode, and we're getting more and more tasked.
On the whole, our reports are upbeat, but everything goes to hell.” (https://gulagu-net.ru/news/2022-03-09-1226.html)
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Here’s another article along the same lines from Farida Rustamova, who formerly worked for alternative media sources in Russia which have been closed down. She was forced to flee Russia for her own personal safety. Her Substack is in Russian, this article was translated by another Substack writer.
"They’re carefully enunciating the word clusterf*ck" - How Russian officials and members of parliament really feel about Putin’s decision to send troops to Ukraine”
by Farida Rustamova, 6 March 2022. (The original article was published March 1, 2022. translation by Ilya Lozovsky)
”Conducting sudden, top-secret special operations is the main pattern of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s behavior. As a former chekist [security official], he always wants to catch everyone off-guard, in order to frighten them and to impress on them that he can do whatever he wants. We witnessed this once again during the emergency meeting of the Security Council three days before the war. The stammering of foreign intelligence head Sergei Naryshkin, the confusion of deputy Kremlin administration head Dmitry Kozak, and the worried face of Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin were evidence enough. The most influential people in Russia sat before Putin like schoolchildren before a teacher who had suddenly announced an exam. And this meeting wasn’t even about a war — they were only discussing the recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics.”
By the outbreak of the war, the Russian political space had been wiped clean to the extent that is possible. In the depths of their souls, officials and legilsators may disagree with the decisions of their leaders — but only in the depths of their souls. There are very few left who can contradict him out loud, directly to his face.
The official comments high-ranking officials are making during the war are uniform and echo what President Putin said when the war was declared: "Russia was left with no other choice," "our army is liberating the Ukrainian people from the oppression of nationalists," and so on.
In reality, the attitude toward the war within the corridors of power is ambiguous. I came to this conclusion after speaking with several members of parliament and officials at various levels. Many of them are discouraged, frightened, and are making apocalyptic forecasts. Andrei Kostin, [head of the largely state-owned VTB Bank], is "in mourning." Some Duma members are thinking of giving up their seats. Two days before Putin announced the start of the "special operation," one of my most ‘in-the-know’ friends thought that it wouldn’t come to war, because war wouldn't benefit anybody. I see that officials, deputies, and even journalists at government outlets who have left their posts are relieved that they no longer have anything to do with this, and are speaking out against the war.
Without any moral judgment of what my interlocutors are saying, I’ve decided to share what I’ve observed as an impartial journalist.
"They’re carefully enunciating the word cluster*ck.” That’s how one person I spoke to describes officials’ reactions to the war. In his words, the mood in the corridors of power is not at all happy. Many are in a state of near-paralysis.
"No one is rejoicing. Many understand that this is a mistake, but in the course of doing their duty they come up with explanations in order to somehow come to terms with it," says another source close to the Kremlin. Some officials aren’t associating themselves with what’s happening at all, viewing Putin's decision as a historical choice over which they have no influence, and the meaning of which no one will understand for a some time to come.
Did anyone expect Putin to decide to go to war? Everyone assures me they didn't. They thought that the president was escalating the situation in order to have more trump cards in negotiations [with the West] on security guarantees, and that everything would be limited to the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” within their administrative borders.
“Everyone had some scattered information that did not provide an answer to the main question: will we start bombing or not?’ said one source close to the government. “Though some acquaintances in the presidential administration were sure that he had already made all the decisions. But everything is happening within one person's head.”
Most likely, my sources say, only the narrowest circle had been informed: Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and the leaders of the counterintelligence service. For example, the head of the presidential administration Anton Vaino, whose role, unlike his more influential predecessors, is more akin to a private secretary, is not informed about such decisions, my sources say. In addition, Vaino has been suffering from a prolonged severe case of COVID-19 for several weeks.
At the enlarged Security Council, which took place three days before the war began, Putin said practically nothing about his decision to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” a source said. The session itself was an attempt at improvisation, to present the image of a real discussion.
"That's why everyone there was fidgeting so much,” the source said. “If they had been told to firmly say ‘Yes, we support it,’ they would have done so.”
[A brief digression: Communication with the members of the Security Council — mostly with the "small Council", that is, with the permanent members of the Council, which is about a dozen people — is what democracy in Russia has shrunk to. In my view, for at least the last ten years, this is how Putin has understood democracy: He talked once a week to the leadership of the security agencies, the speakers of the State Duma, the Federation Council, and the prime minister. And that's it — democracy has been performed — the people have been consulted. The security council session before the war was an example of this Putin-style democracy.]
The government and the Central Bank have been preparing for sanctions, and for some time the financial infrastructure will withstand the pressure. The Bell has reported that, shortly before the war, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov had held several meetings to prepare for possible challenges, including disconnection from SWIFT and a ban on high-tech imports. And Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin let slip at the Security Council meeting that the government had been preparing for sanctions for the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk for several months.
However, the Russian economy is unlikely to quickly recover from the severe sanctions that were actually imposed — and no one was prepared for this, my interlocutors say. Moreover, the U.S., EU and UK authorities have begun to partially limit the Central Bank's access to international reserves. According to data from mid-2021, gold in the Central Bank vault accounts for only 21.7 percent of its reserves. Most of them, 63.6 percent, are invested in foreign bonds and deposits. Head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell said that about half of the Central Bank's financial reserves that are held in G7 countries will be blocked. As of February 18, the reserves reached a record $643 billion.
"If Russia considers itself an empire, why not become attractive to its neighbors by developing the country instead of by forcing their loyalty? Let's build good roads, quality health care and education, and eventually come up with the kind of technology that would allow us to be the first to colonize Mars. That would be quite empire-like," a high-ranking official said brokenly when I asked him what he thought of Putin's motives for starting the war.
Another source— let's call him a good acquaintance of Putin's — puts it this way: The Russian president has it in his head that the rules of the game were broken and destroyed not by Russia. And if this is a fight without rules, then it’s a fight without rules — the new reality in which we live.
“Here he is in a state of being offended and insulted. It's paranoia that has reached the point of absurdity," he says. According to him, Putin sincerely believes that, at least in the first years of his rule, he tried his best to improve relations with the West.
"On the one hand, there’s a really unfair state of affairs, where we are constantly being harmed year after year on various scales, and declared as enemies long before Ukraine,” he said. “On the other hand, there’s our inability to build and execute our policies intelligently, including publicly. And the third thing is Putin’s degradation from being in power for too long.”
“Putin now seriously believes what [Defense Minister] Shoigu and [General Staff chief] Gerasimov are telling him: About how quickly they’ll take Kyiv, that the Ukrainians are blowing themselves up, that Zelensky is a coke addict.”
So far, none of the officials have dared to object to what’s happening in the slightest public way, much less to resign. Among the richest Russian businessmen, only Mikhail Fridman, the founder of Alfa Group, who is now threatened with sanctions, has spoken out in a critical manner. His non-public letter to employees of his London-based company LetterOne was obtained by the Financial Times — but I think it’s more likely that he shared it with journalists himself. Peter Aven, chairman of Alfa Bank's board of directors, was at Putin's meeting with businessmen after the war was declared, and he looked quite unhappy. I was told that Yandex managing director Tigran Khudaverdyan did not want to go to the meeting at all, but in the end he went because of his responsibility for the company's employees, while Yandex's management did not express any position on what was happening even internally.
The president of state bank VTB, Andrey Kostin, is also rumored to be extremely disapproving of military action in Ukraine because of the heavy sanctions. “He is in mourning,” says an acquaintance of his. “He says he's been building the bank for 20 years, and now it's all down the drain because of some stupidity.”
Billionaire Oleg Tinkov spoke out against the war on the fourth day. “Innocent people are dying in Ukraine, every day, it is unthinkable and unacceptable! States should spend money on curing people, on research to defeat cancer, not on war. We are against this war!" - he wrote on Instagram.
Of the Duma deputies, the vast majority of whom have been sanctioned, only three dared to speak out, criticizing Putin's decision on their social media accounts. All three of them represent the second largest faction in parliament, the KPRF [Communist party], which for the past eight years has been insisting on recognizing the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics.” Oleg Smolin, first deputy chairman of the Duma committee on science and education and a member of the KPRF, published a post saying that he had been wrong in his predictions and was shocked when he learned of the invasion. Smolin believed that Russia would not start large-scale hostilities and that the situation would develop according to a much milder scenario of 2008, when Russia, he said, had only helped Abkhazia and South Ossetia defend their independence.
Another Communist, Mikhail Matveev, deputy chairman of the committee on regional policy, wrote that "the war must be stopped immediately.”
“When I voted for the recognition of the [self-proclaimed republics], I voted for peace, not war,” he wrote. “For Russia to be a shield so that the Donbass would not be bombed, not for Kyiv to be bombed.”
Retired colonel Vyacheslav Markhaev, who has criticized the authorities for persecuting the opposition, stated that the Duma deputies had been misled and the intention to wage war had been disguised. "I also condemn the Russian leadership, which began to use the same methods of double standards. Under the auspices of recognizing the [self-proclaimed republics], we concealed plans to unleash a full-scale war with our closest neighbor," he wrote.
Smolin, Matveev, and Markhaev are not among those deputies who have assets or property abroad — at least, the media have not reported this, and their fellow party members with whom I have spoken are not aware of this. In other words, with their statements what they’re trying to protect is their reputation. At the same time, the KPRF’s general line on the war with Ukraine is that the party shares Putin's concerns and understands the decision to launch a military operation.
The point of view of the three brave Communists is shared by other deputies of so-called opposition factions that I interviewed. They blame the Federation Council [upper house of parliament], saying that it was the senators who authorized the deployment of troops, while the [lower house] deputies only wanted to recognize the [self-proclaimed republics] and assist them in self-defense with a limited contingent. One of the Communists says that they really didn't expect anything like a full-scale war.
"No one thought that we would be right by Kyiv," another Duma deputy said. “At first you think it's all a crazy fake, but then it turns out to be real.” According to him, he’s thinking of giving up his mandate, so as no longer to have any connection to the actions of the Russian authorities.
Thanks for reading Faridaily! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.”
Original, in Russian:
Translator’s Substack:
”This is my translation of a March 1 report by Farida Rustamova, an excellent and super-well-connected Russian journalist. Her deep sourcing in top levels of the Russian government allowed her to paint the best picture I’ve seen so far the prevailing mood in the days after the invasion.
She’s got her own substack you can subscribe to. And if you want to support her in very difficult circumstances — she’s had to leave the country — you can donate on PayPal. I encourage you to do so.” - and here’s the PayPal link: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8HNrhNlRqr
(FWIW, I donated 100 pounds, my rule is that if I think a cause is worth supporting, it’s worth $100 or the near equivalent…)
A couple more letters from the FSB whistleblower to the guy at gulagu-net:
”5 Mar. 2022, 23:55 (5 days ago)
To: me
"On Putin and the FSB we have the following picture.
On the one hand, he is supported and respected, but if you dig a little deeper into the analysis, it is a collective feeling for the image that has given the FSB today the power it really has. And for the Service there is one of the unnamed rules (for most people it even seems something natural and self-evident) - to criticize Putin's image is to betray one's interests.
In fact, Putin was not a spy - this is generally a well-kept secret. But here, doubts about the abilities of our superiors are, by default, equated with betrayal.
Who makes decisions? I also see in our work that there is no single decision-making center - there are intrigues and "people who have been entrusted with the trust from above" lobbying their teams, decisions, etc. Facts are sometimes adjusted to this and even events are created. I personally do not communicate with Putin, but if we consider him as an object of development with a situational portrait, then we have in fact:
1) Narcissistic disorders as a possible result of childhood complexes and methods of overcoming them;
2) Non-perception of family life (there is no information about his parents, information about children is hidden, information about personal life is blocked), which requires compensatory mechanisms of the psyche in search of close people. Such psycho-type is prone to "cross-dominance" in relations;
3) he tries to surround himself with people of the type he respected/feared in his childhood psychotype and over whom he has power now;
4) The strongest psychological resistance to personal responsibility for making difficult decisions. This is already a derivative of the first point, but in turn this also leads to a mechanism of denial of one's own guilt/responsibility even to oneself. From this (taking into account point 3) we can say with almost absolute certainty that Putin is psychologically incapable of refusing a proposal with justification to his inner circle. But hence the conclusion that he does not guarantee anyone anything by saying "yes", because to guarantee means to take responsibility. It is highly probable that, in the case of proposals from his inner circle, he will agree to each proposal, delegating execution/control (responsibility) to the proposer. There will be no contradictions with "agreeing" to mutually exclusive proposals psychologically - "it's your own fault if you don't make it."
Let us move on. The situation is now such that no one has reliable information on complex issues anywhere. Reports that come through me, then corrected the leadership in the politically correct way (more positive, less negative notes). On the basis of these rosy reports, an even rosier (and false) picture is created. We are still doing very well, I know this for a fact.
There are several parallel realities at the top of power - they are all real in their own way. Power, like money, is an illusion, existing solely through a degree of faith in it. This is an axiom of the theory of ruling. It's another matter that Russia, as an integral picture, does not exist either.
It is quite another matter that Putin could find himself in a closed "universe" of someone from his entourage - well, for a reason he is afraid to let even his ministers near him. And that's a very closed part of the story, which I don't have the facts for.
But what I do know for sure is that Volodin flew to Cuba before the start of the war, and on the day of the war he wrote that it was very important to fly to Nicaragua. Not a word about the war. The lion's share of people close to the main Towers sincerely believed that there would be no war. And understood that such a war would be a trap for us. Which is, in fact, what we are witnessing. Did Shoigu know that this would happen as the war progressed? No. He is not a career military man. He might have seriously believed in the army, the picture of which he was showing Putin. I personally know the facts of such a brutal fuck-up in the army, at the highest level, that it would be thick even for an anecdote. When, for example, the generals are demanded to make urgent victory reports, they pass the order on with foul language and screaming to the lower levels, until at one level some sergeant asks for a dismissal for "solving the problem", after which he takes a video of American air operations in Afghanistan, mashes up the sound and gives it to his minor superiors. And he passes the video "for the report" a little higher, and there - even higher, until it ends up on the tables of the high command, which in all seriousness believes it and passes it to Shoygu, who passes it to Putin.
It is seriously discussed that Putin has been paying a lot of attention to "mystical meanings" lately. From numerology to shamans somewhere in the north. I can't really say anything about that - it doesn't fit into the analytical analysis.
But the fact that the king is not a king is there. He wants to be king, and here is already a trap of illusion and a field for the manipulation of the object. That is, from all points of view, the prerequisites for this are all there.
About the Internet. To be honest, we can shut down the Internet. Technically. You can stitch up your own mouth too, to stop drinking, for example. Technically, yes, it's possible. There will be attempts to jam it. The worst thing is that different departments will start competing for more efficiency. I say without joking that my superiors sometimes say in all seriousness: "But North Korea lives in such a regime, and nothing happens." In general, military psychosis is scary; it can get us into a lot of trouble. You never know what we could end up playing at. Look a little wider: here we react immediately and according to the facts. For example, they've instituted criminal proceedings for "false reports against the army". Kadyrov reasonably points out that his structures are part of the Russian State Guard, so there is no punishment for the hoaxes against them. We could introduce another law. And then there's justice, and then there are the special services. And there - the tax authorities. This is not a systematic work, but some kind of parody of the case law in the United States. Nothing can be ruled out here.
Why do I believe in your actions. No, I do not believe that they will reduce torture. But the percentage of those who are well aware of the perspective of what is going on is quite high. Among our own people too. And there are such people in the army. You need points of reference in order not to feel like a doomed pariah. If we lose this layer of society now - that's it - the country's coffin lid will be pounded in with hammers.
Soon everything will change. I dread to think how and when exactly - we have simply entered a state of impossibility, "as it was before," and we do not fit into a state of "as we would like to.” We have now received the classic breaking point within the country - as in Messner's "Rebellion" (aka, in its remodeled form, the "Gerasimov Doctrine"). Any points of reference are needed in order to keep at least some particles of adequacy. And those who have lost their minds - yes, they no longer care about anything.” https://gulagu-net.ru/news/2022-03-10-1235.html
And:
"Wed, 9 Mar, __:__ (20 hours ago)
to: me
Vladimir, good afternoon!
This is probably the first time I can write on a weekday afternoon - everything has turned upside down.
Under other circumstances this information would be similar to nonsense, but now, I'm afraid, it won't be the limit.
First, we are seriously considering the version that the ongoing battle on Ukrainian territory is a war of the United States against China, in which the Americans simply set us up and used us. Now I will try to explain in as concise, simple and accessible a way as possible.
A global clash between the United States and China was inevitable. After the start of the war with Ukraine (although I may not use the term "operation" here), the cost of resources, especially - energy resources - went up in the world. The main casualty of such actions is China, which was given guarantees from our side (I can confirm) that everything would end quickly. That is why China used to behave in a tolerant manner. But that was before.
The U.S. has such a specificity that the owners of industry and oil production are essentially the same corporations, so there is a certain internal balance: if oil is expensive, they earn from production, and if it is cheap - from the development of industry. It's a little crude, but it gives the right insight into their approach. And shale, unlike the classic oil rigs, is easy to freeze and unfreeze.
Now the U.S. will negotiate with Venezuela and Iran, Venezuelan light oil they themselves can buy at a crazy discount. The opening of Iranian oil will certainly be received with hostility by Saudi Arabia and the UAE (there is the Yemen conflict and a number of other factors - for the sake of simplicity I will leave them out), but everything indicates that the U.S. was preparing for such negotiations in advance.
The U.S. essentially created a trap for us, almost similar to the Kuwait trap for Iraq, when Saddam Hussein was persuaded that he would not get anything for a "small conflict". He entered Kuwait and Desert Storm began. And with it began the end of Iraq.
They gave us all signs in a similar way, that the USA would not interfere (which proved to be true militarily). China may well give us a tough ultimatum to stop the war to stabilize oil prices. If that happens, I don't want to predict anything - it's over the disaster event horizon.
Russia has such a negative image for a number of countries because of the war that the U.S. will easily sell sanctions against China for Europeans at least, if it risks circumventing sanctions against Russia. China is so dependent on exports that, coupled with its dependence on commodity prices (with their strong rise, there is no chance for the domestic market), this will be almost fatal blow.
Not only that: Xi Jinping was at least tentatively considering taking over Taiwan in the fall - he needs his own little victory to be re-elected for a third term - the struggle within the elites there is enormous. Now, after the events in Ukraine, this window of opportunity has been closed to him, which gives the U.S. the opportunity both to blackmail Xi and to negotiate with his competitors on favorable terms.
In this case, it was our actions that triggered the trap mechanism for China.
We will not be able to admit such a thing out loud, even working out the version in the current circumstances "is not quite appropriate. That is why there is a great desire for the secret to be revealed: yes, this is just a working version, but it is in our structure.
The second is the development of the situation.
Now about our other plans, which go beyond insanity. The sanctions actions against Russia have reached a level that has never been seen before in history. The only thing the GDP is right about is that it is essentially an equivalent war. With this sanctions approach, there is no chance left for today's Russia.
Now it may not be limited to threats to Europe - the likelihood of the outbreak of hostilities, albeit of a localized nature so far, can be considered historically high. Ukraine is a monstrously large front, but there are smaller fronts. For example, if we were talking about Moldova, everything there would really be limited to a military operation of a few hours. With the Baltic States, it would be a few days, but they would be hit by missiles.
It is no longer possible to rule out completely real threats (not a bluff) of missile strikes on Europe in the event of worsening sanctions. Proponents of such an approach (they are among those who influence decisions) believe that otherwise we would simply be crushed, waiting for an internal explosion and collapse from within. Besides, in addition to missiles, we have the possibility of waging the most powerful cyber war - the Internet may be shut down anyway, so this probability exists - with the disabled Internet it will be difficult to respond to us symmetrically. And external warfare, in any case, should reduce internal tensions and throw aggression outward. Although "should" does not mean that it will.
There is another of the fairly realistic (but I would not say good) plans to launch a massive information campaign that we are ready for war and sanctions for years: this should psychologically put pressure on the Ukrainians (it will not end quickly - better to give up) and Western businesses. But we can put a little pressure on our own.
I assume that different representatives of the government can now start to press their options separately. There will be more chaos, that's all.
I won't talk about the economy - it's like discussing the nuances of the sowing season during a nuclear bombing. Terror will intensify - there are no other internal instruments to keep the situation inside the country. But terror is a complicated and expensive thing, and this measure should be temporary. It's like holding your breath because of poisoned air: if you can get out of such an area, then the action is justified. And if you hold your breath "for an hour" - you will be protected from the poison, but...
We do not have any systemic solutions with a positive option. There is not even a Ukrainian political force, which could be delegated power at least for the sake of appearance. If they released Yanukovych, it just shows how bad we have it. Not a single strategic city has been seized. Kherson and Kharkov were considered the most pro-Russian, and in Kherson, even with our military in control, pro-Ukrainian rallies did not subside. In Kharkiv, things are much worse.
I don't go into detail on purpose, but I've laid out the gist of it.
Another important piece of information to add.
The "victory plan" in our Service is currently outlined as follows:
Zelensky will be pressed to sign an outwardly soft peace treaty, where he will recognize Crimea as Russia's, and the Luhansk and Donetsk regions will go to the LDNR. It is the LPRD that our negotiators will focus on: what nuances, etc. But this is a distraction.
The key point should be the point about demilitarization, in which there will actually be a ban on the functioning of the Ukrainian secret services, first of all the counterintelligence.
And here our people already see a much more promising prospect: in a few years, perhaps with some (minimal) help from the GRU, we will have to conduct a total cleansing of the socio-political field. And after that we can bring any of our power to Kiev.
It is very likely that this plan will become the dominant one for the Kremlin when it adjusts its strategy, although no one cancels the scenarios of madness with aggression on other fronts. In theory it has prospects, but how it will be in practice is unknown. There can be no military victory here, only this one.
There are a lot of nuances here, but the main thing is that in fact our people will be able to refuse such agreements after the agreement at any moment, when they have the strength to reverse the situation. But then, for the "second phase," it will no longer be troops that will be used, but purely "black funnels" with arrests of those accused of violations on the Ukrainian side.
This scenario is not as crazy as the others, but everything is again based on some kind of assessment that there is an opportunity to crush Kiev in the negotiations. Now we are working on foreign contacts at the highest level - we are looking for those countries whose leadership could tacitly support our position and put pressure on Zelensky. Perhaps this is yet another bluff, perhaps it is an analogue of Wenok's army in our realities. Overall, we now have, as I said, a fairly high level of chaos.
Economically, we are flying and everything is very predictable: the abyss is winking at us.
We are limited in our ability to verify all the data, but we think it is important to publicize this information in order to prevent threats to world security. No to War!” https://gulagu-net.ru/news/2022-03-10-1237.html
And a bit of an explanation from Vladimir at gulagu-net:
”We publish data from 2 sources. One of them reports that (if the letter is shortened, he asked convincingly not to publish his report) one of the factors for starting the war was... large-scale inspections by the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Federal Security Service and the Audit Chamber of the Russian Federation, which revealed multibillion-dollar embezzlement in the Defense Ministry, the presence of more than 50 "unfinished construction projects" and a huge gap between the allocated budgetary funds under the State Defense Order and the reality. In the second half of 2021, the Presidential Administration and the FSB were actively discussing the possibility of the resignation of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the large-scale searches and detentions of his inner circle (candidate number 1 for arrest - Timur Ivanov and a number of businessmen affiliated with him and Shoigu, Ivanov himself was summoned for questioning over the facts of the theft and manipulation of billions), and Shoigu knew about it for sure and was taking steps to "resolve the issue". It was not only about his political career (Shoigu considers himself the No. 1 candidate to replace Putin), but also about the possible arrest and confiscation of all assets of the clan. In fact, the foreign policy situation and a series of innuendos (one might call them deep fakes) fabricated by Shoigu's subordinates and handed over to an aging Putin (who had lost touch with reality and immersed himself in the world of his generals' files/reports) formed the conditions for the decision to start a "victorious" (in fact, no) war. The logic of the Shoigu clan is "War will write it all off" and "You don't change horses at a crossroads." (The hope is that Putin will not dare to carry out repressions and make personnel decisions about Shoigu and his several deputies.) More on this in the coming days and with evidence of Grand corruption in the Russian Ministry of Defense.” https://gulagu-net.ru/news/2022-03-10-1237.html - this is the first paragraph on the page…
Turns out that the Russians have a corrupt National Security State/Military Industrial Complex, too, just like the US, and people within it just aren’t buying into the BS any more.