First of all, excuse all of my following typos. I'm currently “on the fly” and writing during working on my mobile phone. Could get very messy.
I wanted to give express my thoughts about a possible large scale Maskirovka/Deception operation.
I still value a higher possibility that we indeed witnesin a power struggle. But only to have a complete assessment we should talk about deception as well.
In business if you invest money in a project you expect a return on that. The “Return on invest”. ROI.
It makes only sense if the return is at least as high as the invest. Well… Not at all. The return should be by a factor X higher or it should generate steady profits for the years to come. Here you could calculate an amortisation.
Examples:
You invest 100$ and the return is 1,000$. Great.
You invest 100$ and this generates a steady profit of 33,33$. After 3 years you achieved the ROI and after that you have a steady profit of 33,33$.
(Excuse my English here).
I have a lot of experience in strategic deception in an business environment. For the sake of securing markets for example.
And that's why I'm struggling currently a lot with the current situation.
IF this is indeed deception and NOT a power struggle then the scale of “invest” is gigantic. It is on the scale of some WW2 deception operations.
Involving President Putin…
Well.
If it IS deception then the anticipated return needs to be an order of magnitude higher than the invest.
It could indeed point to large scale offensives on Kharkov and maybe from Belarus territory as well. (I see indications). Maybe even big arrows which I didn't think we would ever see. Well, I still think we won't under Putin but the current events might proof me wrong.
Let me put it this way. If Wagner keeps taking over oblasts bordering Ukraine and we see large-scale Russian military build ups bordering THESE oblasts THEN this could be a deception to pull up all the military forces and equipment at the right regions for a large scale invasion. At the right time Wagner would simply turn around and went on the offensive with their military broders.
Well, I admit this by unlimited orders of magnitude above me. I'm not able to come to any conclusion what it really is.
I can only observe it with you, dear community, and also keep commenting.
Let's pray it is not for real. Otherwise the proverbial “Shit is about to hit the fan “. And currently I do rather tend to believe in a power struggle…
Please, use this again as an open thread to discuss the situation.
Update:
Here is a comment that I just wrote below in the comment section. Take it into consideration as well.
“I assume that Prigozhin and the people supporting him don't see themselves as traitors. There are many people in the intelligence services and the military that are entirely dissatisfied with the SMO approach.
They see Putin as the traitor and not themselves.
Russia could have end Ukraine within 3 months comprehensively.
But Putin chose to take all the long term geopolitical aspects into consideration. Hence, the SMO approach.
It is far to easy to search for traitors. The topic is far more complicated.
Putin couldn't communicate his strategy to his military and intelligence leaders. Maybe to the highest, yes. But below not.
Hence, they didn't have the full picture and SOME of them most likely decided to go against the guy they consider as the traitor. Putin. They would never call his name since then they would lose the Russian people.”
Unfortunately, Martyanov also seems to agree with you and that we are facing a betrayal.The only thing we can do is to pray that everything will be resolved without bloodshed.Let's pray for Russia!
With Putin's address, and the movement of Wagner's troops, I no longer see this as a psyop. This is real, and I can't imagine what Prigozhin is thinking will happen as a result. Half of his troops will likely abandon Wagner and join the Russian forces.