/ world today news/ “Whispers of an ‘evil force’ could be heard in the queues in front of dairy shops, in trams, shops, apartments, kitchens, suburban and long-distance trains, in large and small stations, in dachas and on the beaches . Needless to say, truly mature and cultured people did not tell these stories about the visit of an evil force to the capital. In fact, they even mocked them and tried to reason with those who told them.”
Mikhail Bulgakov, “The Master and Margarita”
To quote Dylan, who might have been Bulgakov’s epigone: “So let’s stop talking falsely now / the hour is late.” By now, it’s abundantly clear that the fallacy of a “peaceful” deal in Ukraine is the latest wet dream of the usual suspects, “capable of disagreeing”, always addicted to lies and robberies, while skillfully manipulating selected liberals among the Russian elite.
The goal would be to appease Moscow with a few concessions while retaining Odessa, Nikolaev and the Dnieper and preserving NATO’s access to the Black Sea.
All this while investing in an angry, resentful Poland to become a heavily armed military militia of the European Union.
So any “negotiations” of “peace” actually mask a desire to postpone – just a little – the original master plan: the dismemberment and destruction of Russia.
There are very serious discussions in Moscow, even at the highest level, about how the elite is actually positioned. Three groups can be roughly identified: the party of victory; the “peace” party – which the “victory party” would describe as the “surrender party”; and neutral/undecided.
The victory party certainly includes key actors such as Dmitry Medvedev; Igor Sechin of Rosneft; Foreign Minister Lavrov; Nikolay Patrushev; the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin; and – even under fire – certainly Defense Minister Shoigu.
Neutrals/undecideds will include Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin; the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin; the chief of staff of the president, Anton Vaino; first deputy chief of the presidential administration and media czar Alexei Gromov; Sberbank CEO Herman Gref; Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller; and – the particular bone of contention – perhaps the top head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov.
It is fair to say that the third group represents the elite majority. This means that they strongly influence the entire course of the Special Military Operation (SMO), which has by now metastasized into an Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO).
„The Counteroffensive” fog of war
These differing Russian views at the summit predictably set off wild speculation among US and NATO think tanks.
Hostages to their own excitement, they even forget what anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows: Kiev—crammed with $30 billion worth of NATO weapons—can achieve less than zero effect from its much-vaunted “counter-offensive.” Russian forces are more than prepared, and Ukraine lacks the element of surprise.
Collective Western spokespeople, after frantic head-scratching, finally discovered that Kiev must launch a “combined military operation” to get something out of its new deluge of NATO toys.
John Cleese noted how Charles’ coronation looked like a Monty Python sketch. Now try this as a follow-up: The hegemon can’t even pay off its trillions in debt while the Kiev PR gangs complain that the $30 billion they got is a pittance.
On the Russian front, the irreplaceable Andrey Martyanov – a maelstrom of wit – observes how most anxious Russian military correspondents simply have no idea “what kind and volume of combat information is pouring into command posts in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don or the headquarters of front-line formations”.
He stresses that “no serious operational-level officer” will even talk to these guys, gleefully described as “war whores” (roughly, “military bitches”), and simply won’t “disclose any operational data that is top secret.” .
So, as it stands now, all the hype and fury surrounding the “counter-offensive” is shrouded in a thick fog of war.
And this only serves to add fuel to the wishful thinking fire of America’s Think-Tankland. The new dominant narrative in the Beltway is that leadership in Moscow is “fragmented and unpredictable.”
And it could lead to the “conventional defeat of a major nuclear power” whose “command and control system breaks down.”
Yes: they actually believe their own silly (copyright John Cleese) propaganda. They are the American equivalent of the Ministry of Silly Rides.
Unable to analyze why and how the Russian elite have different views on the method and extent of SVO/ATO, the best they can come up with is “protecting Ukraine is a strategic necessity as the Russian threat increases if Moscow wins in Ukraine. “
What lies behind the noise and fury of Prigozin
The trademark American arrogance/ignorance doesn’t erase the fact that there seems to be a serious power struggle among the silovaki.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a security official, actually denounced Shoigu and Gerasimov as incompetent, implying that they only kept their posts out of loyalty to President Putin.
This is as serious as you can imagine. As it relates to a key question asked by several educated persons in Moscow: if Russia is widely known to be the strongest military power in the world with the most advanced defensive and offensive missiles, why haven’t they finished all the work on a Ukrainian battlefield?
A plausible answer is that only 200,000 members of the Russian military are currently fighting and about 400,000 to 600,000 are waiting in reserve for the attack in Ukraine. While they wait, they are in constant learning; so waiting works in Russia’s favor.
Once the famous “counter-offensive” is over, Ukraine will be hit with massive force. There will be no negotiated settlement. Only unconditional surrender.
What is happening now – the drama with Prigozhin – is subject to this logic, running parallel to a rather complex media operation.
Yes, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) has made several serious mistakes, as have other Russian institutions, since the beginning of the SVO. Criticizing them publicly, constructively, is a useful exercise.
Prigogine’s tactics are a gem; he is manipulating a degree of public outrage/dissatisfaction to put pressure on the MoD bureaucracy by essentially telling the truth.
He can even name names: officers who leave different sectors of the front line. In contrast, his Wagnerian “musicians” are portrayed as real heroes.
Whether Prigogine’s noise and fury will be enough to fine-tune the entrenched Ministry of Defense bureaucracy is an open question. Still, media coverage of the whole drama is essential; now that these issues are in the public domain, people will expect the MoD to act.
And by the way, this is the essential fact: The Higher Power (the St. Petersburg connection) allow of Prigozhin (my italics) to get where he wants. Otherwise, he would be in a renewed Gulag by now.
So the next few weeks are extremely important. Putin and the Security Council surely know what everyone else does not – including Prigogine.
The key takeaway is that the groundwork will begin to be laid for the US/NATO to eventually turn a failed Ukraine, the Baltic Mad Dogs, a rabid Poland and several other additions into a sort of “Fortress Eastern Europe” engaged in a war of attrition against Russia with potential to last for decades.
This may be the best argument for Russia to finally move towards a solution, as soon as possible. Otherwise, the future will be bleak. Well, not so gloomy. Remember Putin: “We haven’t even started anything yet.”
Translation: SM
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