TIFWIW (i.e this is by no means verified or vetted...and could be part of the Russian or Western disinfo as well)....and interesting read nonetheless to muse a bit on....
Russian FSB whistleblower leak (section from March 13th internal letter):
Operation “Gordian Knot”
1st Stage: Most likely, Konashenkov (Major General, chief spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defence) will officially declare at a briefing that Europe and the “collective West” have declared war on Russia by intervening in the Ukrainian conflict with their weapons and mercenaries, while simultaneously attacking Russia in the economic plane (sanctions).
There will be an extended lecture that war is not contained to military operations on the battlefield, but it includes an array of aggressive actions aimed at causing direct damage to the opponent. That the West’s action de-facto unleashed a world war.
That this war has not yet moved into the “hot stage” with missiles and tanks only because Putin, as the supreme commander in chief, did not give such an order. Nevertheless, Konashenkov will declare that the third world war has begun.
2nd Stage: Assessment of the reaction (by the West) – 1-2 days.
3rd Stage: Putin will make a speech. In this long lecture he will declare that the modern world is not as it was before, that war now includes cyber attacks, preparation of biological attacks, direct attacks, training of terrorist & saboteurs, and devastating economic sanctions. He [allegedly] does not want war, but the West has already started it (against Russia). As a result, (Russian) response need not be symmetrical and can respond to any act of aggression with any means available in a military confrontation.
“I warned with Ukraine – but nobody listened” (Putin’s message). Russia has shown that its words (threats) are not empty. Putin will declare that he is ready to come to terms (forgive) with what the West has already done, but only if sanctions are lifted within 24 hours, all assistance to Ukraine is stopped, and that NATO will guarantee not to expand.
(Still Putin’s upcoming speech) Otherwise, Russia will have no choice but to accept the war and respond with all available means.
4th Stage: A fierce negotiation process (between Russia and the West) – in the initial hours Putin will be conspicuously unavailable for communication (with the West). Other countries’ presidents will be obliged to discuss issues with Putin’s aides – “or not at all.”
Putin's demonstrative private phone calls will begin with the leaders of countries that Russia is betting on: Serbia, Hungary, China, the Arab world, African countries and Asian countries.
Assessing the situation of the West’s readiness to respond to the challenge, agents of political influence will be activated. They will call to “immediately fulfill Russia’s just demands, and not drag the world into a new war” - here the task is to quickly propagate the message that “the war was unleashed by the West, but Russia cannot not to answer.”
Stage 5: Based on the assessment of the situation over the following 24 hours, the following options are possible:
1. The West blinks and is prepared to make local concessions.
In this instance the following position will be voiced: “we have been heard, there are positive signals and we consider this a factor that allows us to delay making a final decision." (Whether to start military operations against the West)
Putin will set aside several days for the negotiation process, after which he will “make a decision.” In this scenario the West is given time to go through stages from denial to acceptance – practically all that will remain is to extract maximal concessions (from the West), which will turn out to be the most significant. The maximal objective is to sign a new international treaty of a global nature (total appeasement of Russia).
2.The West does not comply, but openly does not want war. In this instance “military targets” will be demonstrably identified: Poland and the Baltic countries.
Moreover, identification of “limited targets” in these countries is possible, with a public appeal to civilians not to be near these objects.
Immediately after this, a super-intensive format of negotiations will start, with a key goal of forcing the West to reject all support for Ukraine and a possible “compelling of Ukraine to peace” by the West.
Strategic aviation and nuclear triad will be activated, and a No Fly Zone may be declared over these countries (by Russia).
Chances of success (for desired concessions from the West) are considered to be highly realistic (if it gets to this point). Otherwise, localized missile strikes (against Poland and Baltics) will be almost inevitable.
3.The West does not comply and demonstrates readiness for war in response. This scenario is considered to be extremely unlikely. In this instance cyber attacks will be launched on key infrastructure facilities of Western countries.
Russia will not take direct responsibility, while actively "moving" its forces of the (nuclear) triad. With this development of events, the risks of the West using military methods to respond are assessed as negligible, which gives Russia room to maneuver to conduct an indirect war to create unacceptable conditions for the West with the risk of total economic collapse. After this, negotiations are considered inevitable and will result in the scenario #2 above. And –
4. In the case of an absence of clear coordinated signals (from the West), which is assessed as unlikely but acceptable, the (Russian) behavior will be similar to scenario #2 above (as well).
5.A fundamental collapse of the West within the time allotted (by Putin) after the ultimatum was issued. Rejection of “collective security”: Withdrawal of several countries from NATO (and possibly European Union), each with separate appeals to Russia that they are not conducting aggressive actions against Russia and they are not part of the possible war.
Then everything will default back to scenario #1 above, but Russia’s strength in position (for negotiations) will be comparable to that of the USSR. In the future, this will allow Russia to take political control of a number of countries that were part of the USSR. NATO as an integral structure will cease to exist.
6. A fundamental collapse of the West, but with a clear separation of a number of countries [Poland and the Baltics] from the moderate position of other countries.
In this case the “pro-Russian wing” of the Western countries will accuse these countries (Poland/Baltics) of fomenting conflict along with a demand “not to drag our governments into someone else’s conflict.”
Russia's objective in this scenario is to apply maximum pressure on Western countries with a moderate position, demanding that they “keep the aggressors (Poland/Baltics) from reckless actions."
In this situation, within a period of 3 to 7 days, Western countries with a moderate position will be ready to accept local strikes against countries with radically irreconcilable countries (Poland/Baltics), after which missile strikes [on military targets] will be launched on them (Poland/Baltics). Direct infantry invasion is considered acceptable but unlikely.
For all the above (six) scenarios, these assumptions are assessed as extremely probable:
- Arab countries, Iran, China, some African countries, and [presumably] India and Brazil will take neutrality with a general condemnation of "mutual aggression"; - Some European countries are guaranteed not to support military confrontation: Italy, Hungary, Serbia, possibly France; - Powerful movements will be activated inside Western countries aimed to both support Russia and recognize it as a “defending side.”
A number of anti-war movements not necessarily in support of Russia but which will create an impossible environment for their governments to make a pro-war decision; - Global nuclear war will not happen; - The Ukraine question will be resolved with finality – by the West.
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TIFWIW:
A view from trusted friend of mine regarding this:
That FSB letter is indeed very conceivable. Even if it's not genuinely from where it is claimed it is, it is actually a pretty plausible and cogent analysis of where things might go (at least so far as Putin's deluded view of the situation is concerned).
It is stage 4 and stage 5 where the Russian delusion is really shown. They don't understand that a line has been crossed by Russia. It's a real red line, not a pretend one, and it fundamentally alters the strategic calculus and the behaviour of NATO members. Option 2 of stage 5 is utterly deranged as an option. The UK has already warned Russia that any incursion into NATO at all means war. That was a cabinet minister speaking on the record, on camera. It doesn't get more high level or stark than that as a warning. Just as NATO trying to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be an act of war, the reverse is true of Russia trying to impose a no-fly zone over NATO members. The result of any such action would be the Russian air assets getting blown out of the sky, followed by explicit triggering of Article V, followed by full mobilisation of all reserve forces by all NATO powers, deployment of air and naval assets to start the process of completely destroying the Russian navy and air force and entry of NATO ground forces into Ukraine.
If that letter is anywhere near accurate then it shows that the Russians simply seem unable to comprehend the changed strategic situation. It also shows the level of delusion that they are operating under to even risk direct NATO involvement. The Ukrainians have held up their army and inflicted massive casualties and seriously attrited their air force. The one area they haven't done much damage to the Russian armed forces is the naval arena, simply because they don't really have assets capable of doing such damage. NATO on the other hand has the air and naval assets to essentially smash the Russian air and naval forces utterly extremely quickly. After NATO air supremacy is established over Ukraine then air interdiction of Russian supply columns would start. If the Russians think that their current supply problems are bad that would be nothing to what would happen under NATO air attack. It would take a while to sort out the deconfliction protocols etc for close air support of Ukrainian forces to begin but it likely wouldn't be more than a few days.
I fear that the mindset laid out in that letter is all too true of the Russians. I hope I'm wrong.
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From Christo Grozev, (Bellingcat):
Three independent sources report that the deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia (a unit of RU's interior army which has had tremendous losses in Ukraine), Gen. Roman Gavrilov has been detained by FSB. Gavrilov had also previously worked in FSO, Putin's security service.
The reason for the detention is unclear: per one source he was detained by FSB's military counter-intelligence department over "leaks of military info that led to loss of life", while two others say it was "wasteful squandering of fuel", ahem.
While it's hard to guess what exactly the purge/reshuffling at the top of the siloviks will result in, one thing is clear: it's doubtless that Putin recognizes the deep s**t this operation is in. I.e. it's so bad that he changes horses in midstream - a big no-no during war.
@MisterLike et al.
