Mystery of the Bloody MadneZZ

Volodymyr Shevchenko and Andrii Savarets in their analytical article “Mystery of the Bloody MadneZZ” are focused on the analysis of the destructive philosophical and ideological understanding of Russia’s political leadership, which is resulted in Putin’s aggressive policy and led to his war against Ukraine.

In this context, the very approach of the authors to the global understanding of the problem is interesting: the existing international judicial and legal practice is resulted in the tens of thousands of criminal proceedings against Putin’s associates for their crimes against Ukraine, while other Russia’s crimes in the spheres of international, military, economic and humanitarian policy are still remaining outside the scope of international law.

The phenomena that the authors are talking about are indeed global in nature. Let’s use the Internet and try to create an appropriate model. The Internet has information in the category “Putin’s crimes” in the amount of 2,200,000 messages in Russian, 5,650,000 in Ukrainian and 115,000,000 in English (as of September 3, 2022).

Is it much or little, what do such figures indicate in such a categorical concept as Putin’s crimes? Let’s again use the Internet and find out that in the category “Stalin’s crimes” there are 683,000 messages in Russian, 1,550,000 in Ukrainian and 12,400,000 in English (as of September 3, 2022).

The comparison is paradoxical. Figuratively speaking, the number of Putin’s crimes is almost 10 times higher than the number of Stalin’s crimes, and Putin continues to lead Russia along the path of the Stalinist policy. The result of this Putin’s policy is war against Ukraine, and I unwittingly feel sorry for the people living in Russia. And there are more than 140 million people whose children Putin’s policy not only kills in Ukraine, but also takes away a future that they will not have.

These are my reflections inspired by an analytical article by V. Shevchenko and A. Savarets. I think that it will be of interest to our audience, among which there are many Russians living both in Russia and abroad.

First Vice-President of the Independent Analytical Center
for Geopolitical Studies “Borysfen Intel”, Olexander Bielov

Exclusively by “Borysfen Intel”

Volodymyr Shevchenko
Andrii Savarets

Part I

“Any paradox hides a secret”

After 180 days from Russian troops’ treacherous invasion of Ukraine by all the means of destruction at its disposal, we see that Russia has achieved paradoxical results, radically different from the goals that were publicly proclaimed by the top political and military leadership of the Russian Federation within the framework of the so-called special military operation (SMO).

Military component

The Russian Federation has carried out a full-scale invasion of the territory of Ukraine based on outright false notions about the internal political situation in Ukraine, the capabilities of Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as an extremely distorted perception of its own military power.

In the process of defeating Russian troops and their running away from Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv and the extremely slow, disastrous for their strategic plan, advance of troops in the Donbas, the Russian army is being “erased” by Ukrainian heroism and self-sacrifice, and in the last two months — by the destructive power of Western heavy weapons.

The strategy was extremely inefficient at the first stage of the SMO (“blitzkrieg”), and primitively stupid at the second (“the battle for Donbas”), that has led to huge losses, primarily of the advanced weapons, impossible to replenish it in full and in time for various reasons. The situation is aggravated by the sanctions, quickly and efficiently imposed by Ukraine’s allies, which make it extremely difficult or even impossible to produce modern weapons.

High-quality samples of Russian military equipment are clearly not enough; they are mainly as demonstration items.

This forced the Russian leadership to reopen the warehouses of obsolete military equipment to replace those destroyed on the battlefields, which predetermines the current way of Russia’s war — similar to the tactics of the First and Second World Wars.

For six months, the loss of personnel of the Russian troops (especially elite regular units), the so-called “army corps of the LPR/DPR”, as well as PMC mercenaries, exceeded the losses of the Russian army in the Afghan war, two Chechen and Syrian wars combined.

Now, in the eyes of the whole world, and an increasing number of Russians, the situation does not look like a “special operation”, but like a real continental war, inferior in scale to the Second World War.

At the same time, the Russian army has suffered irreparable reputational losses, because, in addition to failure in solving military tasks, the whole world witnesses an extremely ineffective military force consisting of murderers, rapists and looters led by incompetent commanders (moreover, the higher level of command — the lower level of competence).

One of the officially declared goals of the SMO was the “demilitarization” of Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine is probably the most militarized country in the world today, at this the high-tech militarization of Ukraine is at a pace unprecedented in history.

At the same time, we do not consider the version about the impossibility of access of Russia’s top political and military leadership to objective information (if they wish to receive it) about the state of Ukrainian army and society, as well as about the real state of Russian army, because of its sheer absurdity.

Military-economic component

Against the background of such “success” of the SMO, the international commercial prestige of Russian weapons naturally collapsed. Foreign contractors (including those traditional for the Russian market) are refusing increasingly to further purchase Russian weapons, and are looking increasingly at weapons that have proven themselves well (Bayraktar, Javelin, NLAW, Harpoon, HIMARS, M777, etc.).

Moreover, Russia is unlikely to be able to fulfill even existing contracts due to the lack of Western components.

Sanctions seriously affect the Russian defense industry, which throws Russia out of the global high-tech arms race.

Economic component

To date, Russia has become the world leader in the number of international economic sanctions imposed against it (there are already more than 6,000 of them);

In particular:

the Russian Federation’s gold and foreign reserves and assets around the world are blocked;
rapidly, literally by days, there is a loss of the gas and oil market in Europe;
especially impressive is the rupture of more than close economic and political ties with Germany;
hundreds of multinational corporations have left (and continue to leave) the Russian market (from the world’s leading manufacturers of cars, computers and various industrial equipment to cosmetics), which leads to a rapid primitivization of its economy;
transport corridors are closed and logistics becomes more complicated, business contracts are broken and joint projects are stopped;
a cumulative effect of sanctions continues to grow, which has already led to a catastrophic collapse in a number of basic industries and to rising unemployment.

The image of the Russian Federation as a reliable business partner, which has been consistently built over decades, and one of the key factors in economic interaction in the modern world, was irreversibly destroyed.

The number of sanctions and restrictions reflects in a new quality. In fact, we are talking about the destruction of the Russian economic potential, not only high-tech one, providing the ability to compete in the world, but also primitive raw materials potential, ensuring the level of consumption of society at a more or less acceptable level.

Cultural component

The so-called “denazification” of Ukraine was proclaimed one of the main official goals of the SMO.

If “Nazification” should be understood as the negative attitude of Ukrainians towards Russia and Russians, as well as the refusal to recognize themselves as part of a single “Russian world” (and part of an initially secondary and defective one), then the SMO has led to the fact that the dominant emotion in Ukrainian society has become contempt and hatred for everything Russian.

Such a radical turn in the mass consciousness is especially noticeable in the traditional electoral field of the pro-Russian political forces of Ukraine — among the population of the south-east of Ukraine, deadly affected by “Russian world”, taking tens of thousands of lives and leveling dozens of cities and hundreds of villages.

Sociologists demonstrate an extremely eloquent graph of the attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians over the years.

All over the world, there is a tendency to boycott Russian culture and sports. The world’s leading theaters are terminating contracts with Russian artists and removing Russian performances and works by Russian authors from their repertoires. FIFA and UEFA have decided to remove the Russian national teams and Russian clubs from international competitions under their auspices. More than 100 international sports federations and associations have imposed sanctions against Russia, and this is not the limit.

In Eastern Europe, the process of mass demolition (by hundreds) of Soviet-era monuments, and even military burials associated with the Soviet army, is on the rise. In Finland, a unique phenomenon occurred for this country — the “World Peace” monument was demolished. The monument was donated to Finland by the USSR and installed in Helsinki shortly after the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

In the countries of the anti-Putin coalition, as part of the sanctions imposed, Russian propaganda broadcasting channels were closed; albeit billions of dollars were invested in their development.

The process of visa ban for Russians in the EU countries is developing.

It is indicative that in many European countries the governments even asked their citizens not to resort to physical violence in their emotions when meeting with Russian citizens.

Science

There is an ongoing process of the “freezing” of the RF’s international contacts in the scientific field.

The European Union has cut off scientific and educational ties with Russia.

The European Commission has reviewed current projects under the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programs, has suspended grant agreements with Russian scientists, and has decided to put on hold any new contracts.

The leading world countries have imposed sanctions on the publication of the results of the work of Russian scientists in prestigious foreign journals and have suspended cooperation with scientific organizations in the Russian Federation.

Space exploration international projects have closed for Russia. Instead of Roskosmos, Europe plans to cooperate with Elon Musk’s Space X.

Foreign policy and international legal component

Here is a real disaster, despite the fact that in the modern world image and reputation of a state is the determining factor in its ability to fit into the global system of labor distribution and political influence.

The Russian Federation was expelled in disgrace from the Council of Europe and the UN Human Rights Council.

Russia has managed to devalue its “golden share” in the confrontation between the United States and China. Meanwhile, China is happy about it and now, in relations with Russia, it holds the position of the undisputed master of the situation.

There was an actual collapse of the CSTO and the EAEU.

Moreover, the “strategic ally” — Kazakhstan — literally every day, deliberately begins to take more and more unfriendly steps towards Russia, both in the political, economic and diplomatic spheres. It has announced plans for a significant increase in his armed forces, which in this region can only be used to contain the Russian Federation.

Kyrgyzstan has banned the broadcasting of five major Russian TV channels on its territory.

Uzbekistan has introduced extremely severe criminal liability for its citizens participating in the SMO on the side of the Russian Federation.

One of the main officially declared goals of Russia at the beginning of the SMO, as well as in the period preceding the invasion, was not only to prevent the expansion of NATO to the east, but also the territorial “rollback” of NATO to 1997 borders.

As a result, NATO, which had previously been in a deep crisis, revived, received a “second wind” and already included Sweden and Finland as its members, as well as, in fact, Ukraine. This overnight increased the border of direct border between Russia and NATO by 3000 km and reduced the flight time of NATO missiles to St. Petersburg to 4 minutes, and to Moscow — to 7–8 minutes. Even traditionally neutral Switzerland has declared a course towards rapprochement with NATO.

An emergency rearmament with modern military equipment (mostly American) has begun not only in NATO countries, but also in each of the 51 countries that are currently members of the anti-Putin coalition.

So, there is an unprecedented complex foreign policy isolation of the Russian Federation, the collapse of its military-political blocs and, at the same time, the consolidation of the anti-Putin coalition, currently numbering 51 countries.

Let us recall that the anti-Hitler coalition included 54 countries.

Russia is a step away from been recognized a terrorist state (on June 23, 2022, the US Congress adopted a resolution calling on the US Secretary of State to designate the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism). The parliaments of some countries are already beginning to designate the Russian Federation this status.

The United States has recognized the Russian Federation as a state promoting human trafficking and using children as soldiers, and submitted a resolution recognizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine as an act of genocide.

At the last summit of G20 foreign ministers, there was a diplomatic boycott of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. Western leaders refused to join a group photo with him, as well as to sit together with him during the official dinner.

Dozens of international prosecutors are permanently deployed in Ukraine, meticulously documenting the crimes of the Putin’s regime for future international courts.

There is a lot of crimes to document.

It is hard to find a war crime, a crime against humanity or any of the manifestations of the crime of genocide that the Russian army did not commit in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, with the participation of international prosecutors, more than 26,000 war crimes committed by the Russian Federation have been documented and are being investigated.

Now the Russian Federation is similar to Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

Putin’s image

Let us note how quickly the image of Putin has undergone significant changes in the world: from a smart, tough and pragmatic leader, consistently defending the interests of his country, to a “bloody dictator, thug and war criminal”. But this is exactly what world leaders (yesterday’s political partners) call him.

In six months, Putin has gone all the way from being one of the three most influential people in the world to a pariah and a war criminal.

*****

Such a glaring inconsistency (exactly the opposite) of the SMO proclaimed tasks and its results raises many questions.

At the same time, despite all mentioned above, the RF’s top political and military leadership does not tire of repeating that everything is “fully correspond to the plan”.

Let’s start from this amazing fact and try to put into some kind of system all the other facts related to the unprovoked aggression of the Russian Federation against the sovereign state of Ukraine.

An argument that the Russian Federation has launched a “preventive strike” is complete nonsense, debunked by the indisputable fact that Ukraine only after 100 days from the start of the invasion began to receive offensive weapons from its allies and the number of which, even today, is clearly not enough to carry out massive offensives.

Such a number of paradoxes, both of the war itself and of the events that immediately preceded it, prompt both analysts and millions of people around the world to somehow explain it.

Such interest is also caused by the fact that a correct description of the phenomenon makes it possible to predict further events and answer the question that worries, without exaggeration, hundreds of millions of people around the world: how and when will end this bloody action — senseless and merciless?

After analyzing the events in Ukraine, Russia and the world related to the war, we came to the conclusion that there are at least three versions, that at least somehow can explain the above more or less logically.

Version one
Sudden collective madness of the top military-political leadership of the Russian Federation (or the “Russian mind cannot be understood”)

As an epigraph to this section, one can cite the words of Alexander Nevzorov: “It seems that there is no “geopolitics”. And no ideas either. There is the usual obsession with killing and the enjoyment of being able to kill. Putin, of course, will be included in the textbooks. But not in the history textbooks, but in the textbooks of psychiatry. Only pure psychiatry, as it was, remains the only explanation for the war that Putin is waging with Ukraine. The longer the war goes on, the more noticeable becomes the absence of any political, military, economic and even criminal sense in it”.

This version is quite popular and, oddly enough, explains the paradoxical fact that the vast majority of the world’s intelligence agencies “slept through” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There were a lot of interviews with respected world analysts, strategists and intelligence officers. It is said that none of them could have foreseen such a large-scale attack by the Russian Federation on Ukraine (the two-month information game before the invasion in “it will definitely attack today” is not intelligence, but politics). Many respected top intelligence officers across the world have even paid with their positions and reputation for such a fundamental miscalculation.

And this despite the fact that Russia quite openly, in front of the eyes of the whole world, has been preparing for the invasion for many months, and even put forward an ultimatum to NATO countries and Ukraine with threats to use “military-technical means” against Ukraine.

The 200,000-strong army of the Russian Federation, equipped with offensive weapons, has been concentrated on the border for months, has openly carried out the accumulation of forces and means, conducting exercises and improving combat coordination.

The question arises: why did the intelligence agencies (at least according to them) fail to predict a seemingly obvious thing?

The answer is simple: because intelligence is logic. Iron logic.

And logic unequivocally said that the demonstrative military activity of the Russian Federation on the border with Ukraine was a bluff. Blackmail, effective blackmail, by the way.

Why?

Let’s look at the balance of forces before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

1. USA:

a huge number of domestic economic and social problems;
an internal split due to mass racial protests;
a discredited system of democracy after the 2020 presidential election;
the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is akin to a stampede;
an inflation beginning to acquire uncontrollable character;
and most importantly, the loss of conceptual power in the world, that is, the ability to formulate an attractive development goal on a global scale and lead the movement along this path. The transition of liberal values before the eyes of the whole world into their opposite — and in the sphere of democracy, human rights and equality and tolerance. “The End of History” of Professor Fukuyama, as a global transition of all countries to liberal values, has failed. On the contrary, authoritarian regimes demonstrate their efficiency and effectiveness.

2. NATO:

Is in crisis. It is becoming increasingly difficult to formulate clear goals for its existence. The growth of contradictions between the participants are taking place.

In many member countries at the highest level, ideas of various options for transforming NATO are being voiced, and voices against US dominance in it are growing stronger.

3. Europe

The EU’s crisis is growing along the already clearly outlined split line: “Old Europe” — “Young Europeans” (Eastern European countries which follow in the footsteps of US policy).

Talks about the imminent collapse of the EU is becoming almost mainstream.

4. The situation in Russia

Economy

Not without problems, but quite reliably and steadily developing. It demonstrates quite satisfactory economic growth and the ability to implement social programs.

Russia successfully promotes its economic projects in Europe, competes with the United States and has a whole pool of influential friends (overt and covert) among the leaders of the EU and NATO countries.

Politics

Putin is a popular leader in the world, the winner over ISIS, constantly named as “Person of the Year” by the world (including Western) magazines. He gained a reputation as a tough and a decisive political figure, consistently defending the national interests of his state.

Those citizens around the world who like the image of a “strong hand” supported the Russian Federation and its leader and complained to their leaders that they were differ from Putin.

Russian diplomacy has achieved impressive success on all continents and in many international organizations. The concept of “tripolar world” has organically entered the international lexicon, referring to the collective West, China and Russia.

A strong military-political alliance with China is already on the horizon. At the same time, China’s absorption of Russia takes place gently and cautiously. Within the framework of the “strategic partnership”, the illusion of the RF’s full sovereignty and independence in decision-making remains.

Army

The stable and undisputed halo of the “invincible”, “second strongest”, “modern and high-tech” army of the world, capable of solving any tasks anywhere in this very world, is firmly hovering over the Russian army. Hundreds of billions of “petrodollars” have been invested in the modernization of the army over a decade and a half.

Ukrainian direction

The presence in Ukraine a high percentage of pro-Russian-minded Ukrainian citizens who have their own political representation in the Ukrainian parliament, as well as in local councils.

Sub-Conclusion

As of February 23, 2022, an ideal situation was for Russia with positive trends for it in all areas.

In fact, the dream of Russia’s top political leadership was realized as much as possible — the world began to consider Russia as a strong geopolitical player.

It would seem, according to Eastern philosophy, “wait by the river long enough, and the bodies of your enemies will float by…”

Even blackmail by invading Ukraine did not destroy, but strengthened all these advantages.

The West did not want further confrontation, let alone war, and was already ready to reformat relations with the Russian Federation by recognizing its greater role in the world.

They started talking seriously about Helsinki-2.

The chance to launch Nord Stream 2 as a result of a compromise favorable to Russia was the best.

It was enough for the Russian Federation to simply “does not appear for the war”.

But!

Blackmail as a way to gain benefits only works until the moment when the potential threat to the victim of blackmail does not become a real action.

Any blackmailer knows about this, even if he attends the senior group of the kindergarten. Even domestic animals know about it on instinct.

Intelligence officers all over the world knew that a threat turned into reality eliminates all the advantages of blackmail and turns them into disadvantages.

And Putin, as an intelligence officer, with his political experience, should have known this better than anyone. And Russia’s leaders, his entourage, could not help but understand such elementary things, literally — at the level of a primer.

At the same time, over the past 22 years under the leadership of Putin, they have been governing the biggest state in the world with the second largest military nuclear potential, and behaved quite adequately and rationally.

And suddenly!

On February 24, 2022, a collective madness occurred that turned (and still does) all previous successes into their complete opposite.

Overnight, the same people who built Russia’s authority and economic stability (due to a sudden deep and irreversible mental disorder) are doing everything to cause maximum harm to their country in all conceivable and inconceivable directions, by trying on a global pariah and “absolute world evil” costume.

Recall that insanity, from a medical point of view, is characterized by the inability of the patient to adequately assess the existing situation and the consequences of its actions. And not due to the impossibility of obtaining complete information, but due to the fact that, given such an opportunity, the destroyed consciousness of a madman is guided not by reality, but by his own delusions.

The version of the sudden collective madness of the RF’s top military-political leadership is based on the belief that the above real paradoxical results, which the SMO achieved in six months, were easily calculated in advance if the leadership of the aggressor country desired.

Many facts speak in favor of such a conviction; even the fact that many Ukrainian experts are an ordinary people (who do not have even one thousandth of the information that, with a 100 % probability, the top leadership of the Russian Federation has had), who do not have access to state secrets, intelligence centers and world secret knowledge, but with the ability to logical analysis. In their Facebook (already on the 4^th–5th day of the war) they concluded, that the Invasion was a suicidal action for the Russian Federation, doomed to failure, and which would inevitably lead to the collapse of Russia (or at least to the collapse of its current military-political regime).

At the same time, both experts and just rational or intelligent persons had quickly realized that a third non-nuclear world war was really flaring up. What is at stake is the geopolitical dominance of the West and the preservation of its conceptual power (the power of values as the key to development). Therefore, the West and Ukraine (as a de facto part of the West) cannot lose this war.

Consequently, the real prospect of military defeat, internal turmoil and the collapse of the state has appeared before Russia.

We repeat once again — the prospect, which is quite simply calculated in advance, if desired.

Version two
The governance structure of the Russian Federation has completely “rotted away” and has failed a stress test

The “sudden collective madness” version has a variation. Let’s call it version two.

The version is like this.

The sudden mass madness of the Russian military-political elite headed by Putin is only a process of its gradual degradation under the influence of corruption, manifested in the conditions of the crisis, in accordance with the “Peter Principle” and the “Dunning-Kruger Effect”. Moreover, degradation to a point where the elite at all levels is not only unable to make rational decisions (but totally insane), but even unable to recognize them as madness.

As you know, the “Peter Principle” says that people in a hierarchy are promoted until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent. This level is called the level of respective incompetence. The employee will be “stuck” at this position and will remain until he leaves the system. Ideally, a hierarchical administrative system tends to a situation where all positions are occupied by incompetent people.

“The Dunning-Kruger Effect” is a cognitive bias whereby people with low experience make false conclusions and poor decisions, but are not able to realize their mistakes due to their low level of skill.

In this version, this is exactly what happened to the Russian Federation.

The version is simple, polished, easily perceived, well rooted in the minds of the masses, and, it would seem, self-evident and logically stable. That is, “We wanted the best, but it turned out as it always”.

According to this version, the RF’s top military-political leadership really believed that the so-called SMO could be completed in a maximum of 10 days. In their opinion, government in Kyiv would have been changed already before the clumsy collective West had time not only to impose any sanctions, but in general, to realize what was happening. And in case of sanctions, “we had that in 2014”. It is believed, that the Russian political and military leadership’s overconfidence has arisen after successful airborne special operation of the Russian troops with the participation of the CSTO allies in Kazakhstan in January 2022.

The version is so popular because it eliminates most of contradictions of the “sudden collective madness” version.

However, both the version of mass collective madness and the version of madness that is not sudden, but longstanding, do not really change the essence and explain far from all the paradoxes associated with the invasion.

Therefore, there is another version of what is happening, which seeks to eliminate the contradictions of the versions above.

It is based on the fact that the second version (with the undoubted existence of widespread corruption in the Russian Federation, as well as the deepest degradation of its military-political elite) serves the only purpose — to hide this very third version safely.

Version three
Conspiracy theory

The top military-political leadership of the Russian Federation constantly repeat that the SMO is proceeding as planned and its goals will be achieved. Perhaps this should be treated not as creativity from a psychiatric ward, but as a statement of the real successes of the Plan. It’s just that the Plan is somewhat different from the publicly announced one.

The third version proceeds from the fact that all this bloody madness has its own logic, pragmatic calculation and consistent implementation of the plan carried out by an extremely influential group, closely integrated into the Russian government.

The essence of the plan is a radical and comprehensive reformatting of the state with the removal from power of the overwhelming majority of the existing elites.

Such a phenomenon in political science is called a revolution.

At the same time, the war in Ukraine — “grinding down” and discrediting the “second in the world, high-tech and invincible” army of the Russian Federation, the collapse of the old system-forming myths on which the state is built, as well as a sharp deterioration in the socio-economic situation of the general population — is used to purposefully create objective and subjective conditions for revolutionary transformations.

The collapse and discrediting of Russian army, the weakening of Russian economy, the pushback of allies will inevitably lead to the inability to keep many national outskirts, the current subjects of the Russian Federation, within the framework of the previous political model.

This is an inevitable and easily calculated in advance consequence of the implementation of the plan, but, apparently, it is quite acceptable for those who started and carry it out.

That is, this is done to solve certain problems exclusively within the country.

Both the idea and the way of its realization take into account both the “Peter Principle” and the “Dunning-Kruger Effect”, and use them in their calculations.

That is, the third version is the classic version of the conspiracy.

It looks absolutely incredible. But only at first glance.

There are a number of important facts that are not explained either by the first or the second version, but only by the third.

Fact 1. Determination of managerial will to defeat

Any choice is always the result of aspirations.

In each specific situation, the RF’s highest military-political leadership proclaims a constructive goal, but it hides actions that lead to just the opposite results.

That is, among all possible options, the Russian authorities always choose the most destructive for themselves, despite the obviousness of its disastrous (which becomes obvious almost immediately), and they follow this option in any way.

This applies to all aspects of government, listed as arguments in favor of the “sudden collective madness” of the administrative and military elites.

In all branches of government, it is quite easy to predict the further actions of the Russian authorities. You just need to write out a list of possible behaviors in a particular situation. Choose from them the most destructive for the country and the army, and this option will be implemented.

Even if the authorities acted chaotically, “at random”, in most cases it would be effective decisions — “…Suddenly get into the rhythm of some uneven breathing”. There is no question of “getting into the rhythm” right there.

According to this version, since February 24, 2022, a conscious permanent crime against the Ukrainian people and international law has continued, as well as an act of sabotage against the Russian army, Russian society and Russian state.

The consequences of the so-called SMO for Russia, with each step, are becoming increasingly difficult and have already irreversible effects. The Russian authorities, contrary to even the primitive instinct of self-preservation, are increasingly tightening the noose around the neck of their country and society.

It is considered an axiom that management always depends on the direction of the manager’s will, and this direction can always be identified.

In everyday life, everyone knows the aphorism: “Who wants to achieve the goal is looking for tools and methods, who doesn’t want — is looking for excuses”. Any experienced leader can almost instantly distinguish an employee of the first type from the second.

That is, based precisely on this vector of development for the events, starting from February 24, 2022, we can assume the existence of strong will of the RF’s leadership to go in that direction but not another.

In addition, one of the undoubted postulates says that any war, if there is a will to win, should be conducted in the most effective way with minimal military, social, economic, diplomatic, moral and psychological losses.

But in reality, the results (we talked about them at the beginning of the article) are directly opposite.

That is, the Russian Federation wages war (in the pure military aspect) in the most inefficient and destructive way for itself.

Despite the fact that the Russian troops were defeated at the first stage of the SMO, and achieved almost nothing at the second, attacking the Ukrainian defenses in its most fortified place, now they are either going (or are already conducting) the third stage of the war in the south, gathering the remnants of all elite regular troops and setting up unrealistic tasks under the fire of Western most modern and deadly weapons.

At the same time, there is a simply compulsive need to accumulate and “put on one’s head” the negative costs of war, which are not determined by military needs.

For example:

1) Massive atrocities in captured cities and demonstrative encouragement of these atrocities

During these tragic six months, the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine has committed all conceivable (and by the way, clearly defined by international law) war crimes, the committing of which required the army’s determination to such an actions, and not, in fact, to military operations.

At the same time, war crimes were committed in front of the television cameras of all the news agencies of the world, almost live streaming, and had no rational military significance. Rather, on the contrary, the disclosure of details of mass torture and killings of civilians contributed to further sanctions and increased anti-Russian rhetoric in the world with the inevitable subsequent anti-Russian actions by national governments.

The awarding by Putin the 64^th brigade of the Russian army, which especially “distinguished itself” in Bucha and Irpin, the honorary title of “Guards” is clearly indicates that such tasks were set for it.

2) Rocket terror

Russia continues to shell civilian infrastructure with expensive and scarce weapons. At the same time experiencing an increasing shortage of these weapons.

According to official Ukrainian data, during the SMO, the Russian army has launched about 26,000 rocket and artillery attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine and 500 — on military ones. That is, guided exclusively by military considerations, the Russian army could, with the same resources, increase the effectiveness of its attacks on the Ukrainian military infrastructure by 52 times.

Instead, the leadership of the Russian Federation quite deliberately spends expensive and scarce military equipment and weapons for other purposes. If we count only super-expensive missiles, then this ratio is 20 (for civilian objects) to 1 (for military ones).

According to experts, firing rockets at residential buildings and killing civilians is not critical in purely military sense, but in the international arena, they are very effective. It only works against a rocket terrorist.

At the same time, the Russian Federation does not hesitate to defiantly shell civilian infrastructure during the visits of international leaders, on which both world public opinion and the scale of sanctions depend. Thus, a missile strike in the center of Kyiv was conducted precisely at the time of the visit of UN Secretary General António Guterres (although Kyiv had not been shelled for 10 days before, and three days after his visit). No one in the world had any doubts that the strike was demonstrative.

It was during the visit of the President of the European Council Charles Michel to Odesa that rockets targeted residential buildings in the city.

As luck would have it, the Russian Federation had been shelling especially intensively and brutally at Ukrainian cities, which caused numerous casualties among the civilian population right after the adoption by the US Congress of the resolution with recommendations to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism and on the eve of the G7 Summit and the Madrid NATO summit.

After a missile attack on a shopping center in Kremenchuh, a ban was imposed on the import of Russian gold.

Less than a day after the signing in Istanbul of agreements for grain shipping corridor, the Russian Federation committed a completely pointless act from a military point of view — it fired at the port of Odesa, which caused a shock at the international level. It should be noted that the invasion of Ukraine was carried out right on the eve of the launch of Nord Stream 2 (it remained to pass the certification procedure).

Fact 2. Conscious marginalization of foreign policy

It should be noted that Russian diplomacy, based on the school of Soviet diplomacy, has traditionally been considered very professional and achieved many impressive successes.

But that was before January 9, 2022.

It was on this day that Putin announced ultimatum to NATO, namely “to collect their belongings and retreat to the borders of 1997”. The ultimatum is obviously impossible to fulfill, even with a strong desire. From a diplomatic point of view, this is insane.

And so on, in the same fashion.

While the Russian Federation is driving itself deeper and deeper into isolation from the rest of the world (both economically and politically), Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is constantly “adding fuel to the fire”. Not even oil, but gasoline!

First, Lavrov officially declares that Russia did not attack anyone (!!!).

Because Hitler had Jewish blood. After that, the Russian Foreign Ministry predictably aggravated the situation by sending a letter “on anti-semitism” to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Such “diplomacy” has immediately changed the rhetoric of official Jerusalem and, in fact, unblocked the delivery of certain types of military aid by Israel to Ukraine.

All subsequent meetings with the leaders of friendly countries (the DPRK, Iran, Congo), as well as the presence at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum of an official delegation of the Taliban (the organization is recognized as a terrorist organization in the Russian Federation), not only says that Russia has become a pariah, but that it understands this, accepts and is proud of it.

Downright bizarre is the tweet of the Russian Embassy in the UK, where the Russian foreign policy representation argues that the “Azovites” deserve death by hanging (despite the fact that the death penalty is prohibited in the Russian Federation itself and the reaction of the international community to such an official statement is fully predicted). The head of the Russian delegation at the arms control talks in Vienna, Gavrilov, has supported the statement and said that modern Russia lacked Stalinist execution troikas.

The RF Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna wrote on his Twitter on August 19, 2022: “No mercy for the Ukrainian population”.

All this is happening against the background of an infinite dribble of nonsence falls from the lips of the press attaché of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.

It should be also included such a unique phenomenon in world diplomacy as the constant statements of the ex-president of the Russian Federation and the current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, who, being a high-ranking official in office, publicly threatens the whole world as a whole, and many countries, in particular (including NATO members), by preventive nuclear strike, as well as sabotage at their nuclear facilities.

Russian diplomacy has a successful experience of defending the interests of the Russian Federation on the world stage for decades.

Now its diplomats are competing who will quickly destroy the political image of the country and replace it with the image of a country with insane leadership, who decided to blackmail the whole world with nuclear weapons and spit on any rules of international coexistence.

For credibility, the Russian Federation’s nuclear blackmail is not limited to statements. It is accompanied by practical actions to seize nuclear facilities on the territory of Ukraine (Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plants), military operations on the territory of these facilities and creation of real prerequisites for a global nuclear catastrophe.

This quite predictably became the reason for the start of the process of imposing international sanctions on the RF’s nuclear sector, which isn’t under sanctions yet (recall that the Russian Federation is one of the world leaders in the field of nuclear energy).

Fact 3. “Self-sanctions” and the loss of a reliable trading partner status

At first glance, it may seem that the Russian Federation is not against sanctions at all. Moreover, every day it creates grounds for new ones, totally unconditioned by military needs, or even contradicting it, as we mentioned above.

Moreover, there is a paradoxical, unprecedented fact of “counter sanctions” against itself (the so-called self-sanctions), introduced by the Russian Federation.

Like: “You want to undermine the foundation of our economy, you want to gradually reduce purchases of our energy resources, so we will take counter obligations and stop supplying them to you right now”.

The logic of such actions is difficult to analyze, even within the framework of the degradation of the elites.

Despite the fact that Europe is predicted to find (and is already finding) a way out of the situation, but will never consider the Russian Federation as a supplier of such carriers (at least under the current Russian government).

That is, the Russian Federation is deliberately going for an economic self-blockade and the loss of reputation of a reliable business partner.

The West, allegedly, will not stand the gas blackmail and will give up (which is almost unbelievable).

In the gas blackmail of Europe, the Russian Federation looks like a real terrorist in relation to the European citizens. The public opinion is already resulted in anti-Russian decisions by the authorities of European countries, even those previously loyal to the Russian Federation, such as Germany. Even temporary difficulties are not able to make the European citizens succumb to blackmail (according to opinion polls).

Fact 4. The “national question” is like a mine under the Russian Federation

Putin’s order to carry out partial mobilization in the federal subjects and at their own expense is a process of creating national military units that inevitably see as their real commanders not the supreme commander in the distant Kremlin, but those leaders of the federal subjects who created and supported them.

The process of creating national military units (in the long term — national armies) is most evident in the example of Chechnya, where Kadyrov not only created his own army of 80,000, personally devoted to him, but also already demands for Chechnya from the Russian Federation modern air defense systems (it is not difficult to guess from which air forces these systems will protect Kadyrov).

Against the background of routine manipulations with “veteran” payments and material assistance to relatives of the dead and wounded in the SMO, the Russian leadership is laying another powerful time bomb changing death gratuities based on nationality. So, for a killed “Slav” they pay 3 million rubles, for a Dagestan — 2 million, and for a Buryat or Tuvan — only 1 million.

In total, more than 40 thousand soldiers from the invading army, including 10 generals, were killed during the SMO. This is comparable to the US losses in Vietnam, with the only difference being that the war there lasted 15 years.

Hospitals in all major cities of the Russian Federation are full of maimed soldiers.

In the structure of losses by region, there is a clear trend of whom the Russian authorities deliberately send for slaughter.

This already leads to discontent among the “national minorities”. Representatives of some regions are increasingly refusing to serve, and the elders of the national republics are already almost openly expressing dissatisfaction with Putin’s adventure.

It is necessary to say about the human military potential from the “LPR/DPR”, which the Russian army supposedly came to “liberate”. Now the pseudo-republics are almost completely liberated from the male population aged 18 to 65, and the losses of those mobilized from there reach more than 50 % (23 % were killed).

Fact 5. Chaos among the leadership of the armed forces and in the defense industry

Management of the defence industry and its “improvement” is carried out by simple castling (rearrangement) of managers who failed the task of creating a modern high-tech army.

The practice of personnel reshuffles continues in the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff and in the troops (the so-called SMO has already had its third commander, not counting the reshuffles of a lower rank) and the setting of unrealistic, frankly failed tasks for the troops.

Fact 6. The collapse of the “external circuit” of the empire

The most important moment!!!

The Russian Federation, being, of course, an imperial state (which no one in the Russian Federation hides), like its predecessor, the USSR, has created economic and military so-called “external circuits” for its stable existence.

In the USSR it was:

economic circuit — Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) with headquarters in Moscow. Which included at different times Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Mongolia, Cuba, Vietnam and Yugoslavia (associated status).
military circuit — the Warsaw Pact, which included Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, the USSR and Czechoslovakia.

Recall that the process of dissolution of the Soviet Union included, as a necessary condition, the disintegration of its “external circuit”.

This disintegration has easily crossed the borders of the USSR by inertia, and intensified the processes of disintegration inside, which led to the separation of the Union republics.

A similar process has already taken place in the “external circuit” of the Russian Federation, although it has not yet been legally fixed (which is not absolutely essential here).

For half a year of the SMO, the military and economic unions created by the Russian Federation to maintain its external and internal stability actually ceased to exist.

Now the Russian Federation is greatly contributing to this process by rapidly withdrawing its troops for the war in Ukraine from all foreign bases, which sharply accelerates the collapse of the “external circuit”.

Moreover, as well as thirty years ago, yesterday’s allies are beginning to become Russia’s enemies. And the further, the more frankly.

Let us repeat once again: the presence of an “external military-political circuit” is critically important for maintaining the Russian Federation in its current form.

Here Moscow’s will to destruction has showed itself clearly and consistently. The most illustrative example is Kazakhstan.

Why?

Because it is a key country of the RF‘s “external economic and military circuit”.

Anti-Kazakh statements were heard on Russian state television, tightly controlled by the central government, in the most rude and humiliating form for the Kazakhs, which instantly raised a wave of anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan.

On August 15, 2022, Serbian President Vučić publicly and categorically rejected the possibility of establishing a Russian military base in Serbia. This was a response to the statement about the possible deployment of a Russian military base in Serbia, which was made by the Russian Ambassador to Serbia, Botan-Kharchenko.

Recall that the inertia of the collapse of the USSR “external circuit” has intensified the processes of disintegration of the “internal circuit” — the separation of the Union republics.

In the case of the Russian Federation, the “internal circuit” is a significant part of the 85 federal subjects.

Let’s repeat. Under these conditions, Putin has urgently ordered them to form their own “national armies” under the formal pretext — for a war with Ukraine. Experts explain this by the desire to avoid the need to announce a general mobilization.

As a result, the “national battalions”, following the logic of the historical process, will fight much closer to their home and with a much more understandable goal for them — for the freedom of their people from the oppression of the “colonial center”.

We have seen this process before. It was observed, of course, by those who gave the order to create national and regional armies.

Fact 7. Putin’s irrationality

From the point of view of the RF’s interests, Putin behaves extremely irrationally (we use the most politically correct term).

First, he threw his army into a meat grinder under a delusional pretext, then he hid in a bunker (while being the aggressor, not the defender), continuing to declare that everything was going according to plan.

Until now, the goal of the so-called “special operation” has not been clearly formulated, and therefore was usually misrepresented.

Putin’s senseless and slurred speech at the key propaganda event — the Victory Parade on May 9, 2022 (literally mumbled and stammered), has greatly disappointed those who believed in a bloody adventure and wanted to hear a clear plan for further actions from a self-confident leader.

In his TV interview on August 2, 2022, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, said that Putin has many doubles, and it was a proven. If you agree with this statement, then it is almost impossible to imagine how the “real Putin” manages all these doubles (he would have to do this all the time). For each situation, rehearse with a double the whole scenario and its possible unexpected turns. Inevitably, some “collective Putin” should be doing this.

Continuing to follow the logic of the above, the question naturally arises: “If there are many Putins, and he does not manage them, then is a real Putin needed in this system, and is there a real Putin in reality?”

Putin practically does not manage the processes, and this is done by “collective Putin” consisting of 86 people, and with the death of Putin, “collective Putin” will not disappear. It was officially stated by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksii Danilov on August 5, 2022.

*****

As mentioned earlier, the authors of this study do not believe in the version of the sudden mass collective madness of the Russian elites.

We can say that the second version also has many fundamental shortcomings. Including this one: demoralized officials and oligarchs behave solely on the basis of personal selfish interests of a primitive level. Faced with the reality of the SMO, and especially with the prospects of the Russian Federation in the context of their personal material well-being, they would have end this bloody adventure long ago. At the same time, they would find a way to explain this to their population, while maintaining the country within the existing borders, and the existing system of government, and their personal position in power.

This is confirmed by recent Russian sociology (figures from the Russian Field survey agency). 65 % of the population of the Russian Federation would approve of Putin’s decision to stop the military operation in Ukraine. At the same time, 60 % of respondents would support the decision of the RF President to launch a new offensive against Kyiv.

That is, there is no public opinion in the Russian Federation. There is only the will of the Kremlin and the authoritarian ruler. Why should Putin be afraid of public opinion in such conditions?

By the way, many highly respected world analysts, based on the second version, have predicted the rapid end of the SMO, that is not yet a reality.

That is, the second version does not work.

Apparently, those who continue the SMO with fierce fanaticism are not satisfied with the preservation of the country within existing borders, the existing system of government, and, most importantly, their personal position in power.

In this case, not accepting the version of “sudden” or “prolonged madness of the elites”, but the “conspiracy version”, we can assume that it is “collective Putin” who quite deliberately leads the Russian Federation to a military defeat, an economic catastrophe and a reduction in territory due to collapse, similar to what happened to the USSR thirty years ago.

This version explains a lot, both in the preparation of the SMO, and in the nature of its implementation, and allows you to make a forecast of further developments.

The only, and most serious, argument against the “conspiracy version” is the question: “Why do people who in fact rule a huge country with untold wealth, having the possibility of unlimited enrichment and unlimited power, destroy the foundation of their such a high quality and stable existence and initiate guaranteed collapse in the future with uncertain consequences?”

In the following parts of the article, we will try to answer this question from the standpoint of political technology and assume:

what goals can be the motive for such a demonic plan (in the literal sense of the word);
what the picture of the future of the Russian Federation might look like in this regard;
what social forces in the Russian Federation it is designed for;
who will be involved in its implementation;
what are the prospects in this regard for Russia, Ukraine and the world.