Day 11
Tickling Russia with sanctions
It goes like this:
Putin's main mistake was that he was sure Ukrainians would not fight.
Ukraine’s main mistake was thinking the West would fight.
The West’s main mistake is thinking it would not have to fight after Putin’s war spread to NATO-member states.
Putin doesn’t eat from hunger. He eats from fear, and fear has large eyes.
There are plenty of reasons for Putin to be terrified, if you believe the disgruntled analyst at the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. His/her grumpy letter was posted on March 4 by Vladimir Osechkin to Facebook.
Some excerpts:
I can't tell you what the top people were thinking when they approved the special military operation, but now they are methodically siccing all the dogs on us [in the FSB].
The author says he/she hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep since Putin signed off on the special military operation, which has opened “a Pandora’s box of problems, including global famine, since Russia and Ukraine are the world’s biggest grain suppliers.”
This year's harvest will be smaller, and logistical problems will make the catastrophe more acute.
Whoever wrote the letter says his/her speciality is analysis and complains that top brass [in the Kremlin] have increased pressure to customize reports as per their requirements.
You need to write in a victorious style so that there are no questions.
He/she says it’s likely Central Bank boss Elvira Nabullina and her assistants will blamed for not doing enough to mitigate damage from sanctions to what’s left of the country’s economy.
No one knew that there would be such a war, so no one prepared for such sanctions.
Lots of bitching about Ramzan Kadyrov’s self-aggrandizing role in Russia’s botched invasion of Ukraine.
[The Chechens] were simply torn to pieces in some places. Someone spread the rumor that it was the FSB that leaked the itinerary of Chechen units to the Ukrainians. I do not have such information.
According to the letter, the blitzkrieg was poorly planned and has failed miserably.
It is simply impossible to complete the task now: Even if Zelensky and the authorities had been captured in the first 1-3 days and all the key buildings in Kyiv had been seized…. and surrendered … What next? …With whom to negotiate?
The author says leaders of Ukraine’s pro-Russia Opposition Platform - For Life party have be less than helpful.
[Viktor] Medvedchuk is a coward, he fled. [Yuriy] Boiko refuses to work with us. They wanted to bring in [Oleh] Tsarev, but even our pro-Russia allies were against this. Bring back [disgraced ex-President Viktor] Yanukovych?
Whoever wrote the letter says it will be impossible to get enough Russians to occupy, must less manage, a vanquished Ukraine.
Even with minimal resistance, we need 500,000 or more occupiers. And that’s not counting the people who will put in charge of managing the supply system.
As for KIAs and MIAs, the picture is murky.
Casualties: I don't know how many there are. No one knows. There was command and control during first two days of the specop, but now no one has a clue about what’s going on. KIAs are definitely in the thousands. Maybe 10,000, maybe 5,000 or maybe only 2,000.
Other interesting bits from the bitchy letter:
Denazification and demilitarization are not analytical categories, because they do not have clearly defined parameters by which one can determine the level of accomplishment or non-completion of the task.
Our Z emblem will be compared with Hitler’s swastika.
Kadyrov is mouthing off for a reason… He wants to burnish his image as someone who is influential and invincible.
The last part of the letter talks about how Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine will overload Russia’s already overburdened prison system, touches on whether Putin will press the red button “to destroy the world,” and questions the readiness [of Putin’s disciples] to sacrifice themselves for someone who has isolated himself from his cheerleaders in the Russian Federation Council and top advisers.