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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
'Ailing' Putin is flailing over his war strategy and torn between using nuclear weapons or admitting defeat
2022-08-22
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] An ailing Vladimir Putin
" ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
is flailing over his war strategy, torn between using nuclear weapons and accepting defeat and handing back Ukrainian regions invaded by his forces, a Telegram channel claims.

Amid fresh concerns over his health, his security officials have bluntly told the warmonger president that he has run out of 'good' options.

This comes as the corpse count in the Russian armed forces plus separatist fighters and pro-Putin private armies has reached almost 65,000, said General SVR Telegram channel, an opposition source offering 'insider' information which the Kremlin is 'seeking to shut down'.

There is 'despondency' among Putin’s senior entourage that he had privately raised the 'extreme' option with 'top aides" of a 'goodwill' to cede newly invaded territories to Ukraine.

At the same time, there is a warning from his defence chiefs that a Ukrainian military counter strike is likely to be 'effective'.

Such an outcome would threaten his presidency, being seen as a humbling, crushing defeat.

But Putin’s leading officials are also said to be braced for a 'sharp deterioration' in his medical condition.

'With a high degree of probability, we can say that soon the president will not be able to personally hold meetings and participate in large events,' said the channel, which has long asserted the he suffers from cancer and other serious medical problems.

Putin’s absence will be explained as due to a return of the Covid pandemic, it was alleged.

Body doubles 'have also recently been used quite often', it alleged without specifying where or when.

In recent meetings with his security and defence aides, claimed General SVR, 'various options were discussed, from the possibility of mobilising and using tactical nuclear weapons, to opening a second front in a third country, and, finally, to "gestures of good will" with the return of the occupied territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions to Ukraine.'

A second front might involve an invasion of northern Kazakhstan, a region with many ethnic Russians, as a distraction to hide the ignominy of his failings in Ukraine.

He has so far rejected a full mobilisation, another option, amid fears it would trigger mass mutiny.

But an ’extreme’ course was also discussed involving the return of land in the Luhansk and Donetsk 'people’s republic's' won during the almost six-month war, in addition to land in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, stated the channel.

The discussion of the ’extreme’ options in the presence and at the initiative of the President led many in his war team to 'despondency'.

'Without exception, all of Putin's interlocutors realised that the president simply does not have ’good’ options for solving urgent and upcoming problems at the front.'

Such a move would amount to the 'beginning of the end' for his rule and the regime he heads.

The report also argued that military chiefs blame Putin for tactics which have led them to such heavy loses.

'Almost the entire military leadership of Russia lays the blame for both the unsuccessful start and, in general, the course of the military operation, and the huge losses of manpower and weapons, precisely on President Vladimir Putin,' said the channel.

Yet the military leadership 'has no doubt that they will be made guilty for all the failures and problems at the front'.

Posted by:Fred

#7  Gotta bring out the big bombs or be laughed into infamy.
Posted by: Skidmark   2022-08-22 23:50  

#6  65000 KIA in 6 months? The US lost about 58000 in the entire Vietnam War, which lasted years.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia    2022-08-22 17:33  

#5  Why not both?
Posted by: Angstrom   2022-08-22 13:54  

#4  Leave UKR with 70% of their former territory, admit defeat and go home. If that's losing, I wish I could lose like that.

Fan Fiction - 'Russia will return the land'.
They are not giving that land back to neo-nazis.

"soon the president [Putin] will not be able to personally hold meetings..."

What's the expiration on this statement? This sound like more fan fiction.
Posted by: mossomo   2022-08-22 13:03  

#3  While this would be bad, I would laugh my ass off if Putin decided to use nukes and deployed say 15 or so delivered by arty and say 80% of them FAILED to go BOOM. Using nukes makes the Russians look horrible but has he considered the optics of TRYING to use them and FAILING?
Posted by: Silentbrick   2022-08-22 12:16  

#2  Explosions rock Donbas as Russian ammo dump goes up in flames in fresh blow to Putin's 'exhausted' forces almost six months after war began
Posted by: Skidmark   2022-08-22 08:52  

#1  I thought the Russian position was that they were winning. All is well, remaining calm, send your sons...
Posted by: ruprecht   2022-08-22 08:00  

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