Kremlin's plan: war lasting lifetime of those who started it

Because for the rapid decisions it desires, there is essentially no programmatic or systemic approach to forming certain constructs.  

Instead, there are vetoes, reprisals, or cancellations.  

If this targets our enemies or their allies, it’s good news. If not, it’s a mixed blessing. Interestingly, the team there will also likely change frequently, aligning with the format of quick decisions.

Thus, the new U.S. administration truly has no concrete plans regarding Russian aggression. It will agree to or reject proposals but will not act as their creator.

By the way, Trump won't dismantle the world order.  

Nor will he become the emperor of the Inuits (spoiler alert).  

This means no "billion trees" initiative in Pennsylvania, nor any "middle-ground agreements" will happen—because institutionally, it’s simply not feasible.  

This also limits the "window of opportunity" for Russian agents of influence to quick decisions, which come with a familiar problem: they are too obvious to political competitors and too toxic for their advocates.

As for Old Europe, the constants will remain: the same international order, an enemy at the gates, and millions of Ukrainians within its borders.

Europe will seek answers, and unlike the U.S., it will leverage its strong institutions and long-term thinking to propose solutions for the aggressor that are at least hypothetically grounded in reality. 

These proposals will not be anti-Ukrainian; the continent will not bargain for its survival at Ukraine's expense. It is not foolish enough to issue this "microloan" under collateral of its own security and future at a 300% cost. 

However, for the time being, these proposals will be stillborn due to the Kremlin's internal crisis, which we will discuss further.

Meanwhile, Communist China will delay presenting a clear stance on Ukraine until the very last moment—not because it lacks strategic thinking, but because this cautious waiting is, in fact, its current strategy.

Now, let’s talk about the aggressor.

To understand the real strategy of the Kremlin and the Russian deep state, one must delve into their fears and motivations.

The unchanging motive of the aggressor, namely the genocide of Ukrainians and the destruction of Ukraine, is traditionally not framed so much in the context of expanding the empire geographically, but rather in the fear of "unity collapse" and the "loss of stability."

But this fear has other dimensions as well.

I already mentioned that the Kremlin, following the doctrine inherited from the late USSR, does not view its own army as its support, and the military leadership as part of its top elite. Paraphrasing Alexander the Wagon Driver, "Russia has two enemies: its army and its navy."

Therefore, over the past three years, Russian leaders have been constantly seeking a balance between "military victory over Ukraine" and a politically neutralized and controlled army and its puppets.

Various measures have been employed, from the fiercely anti-army "St. Petersburg cook" who ultimately wanted to become the "mistress of the seas," to the Grozny TikTokers.

By the way, the Koreans in Kursk are part of the same story.

For the Kremlin, they are "politically" safe, even though bringing in a million of them — in the internal Russian "politics," traditionally shaped by terrorists, rebels, and other Decembrists — they remain neutral, like sand in a fire.

In reality, no one denies this, the Kremlin still has its own mobilization resource. Unlike, for example, tanks or artillery barrels. And they can indeed ramp up the covert mobilization.

However, over the past year, the Russian army has been on a characteristic "drip feed," where the influx of cannon fodder is just enough to be utilized within the "reporting period," with some tactical result.

They recruit this manpower either for significant sums of money or through less torturous paths before death, which applies to convicts and conscripts. This somewhat "stabilizes" future corpses, preventing excessive pre-death movements that would "disrupt the decorum."

Moreover, the current cult of death, where Russians finish off heavily wounded soldiers, taboo the surrender of prisoners, and send the remaining "300s" into battle on crutches, has the same simple goal.

The Kremlin does not need a mass of living veterans of its aggression in the rear, especially with a significant number of frontline officers in uniform.

For the current Kremlin, this poses a far greater threat of turbulence than preserving the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin understands this well.

Can it recruit another million with "Mosin-Nagants" and AKs? Hypothetically, yes. But then there's a chance that half a million frontline soldiers will survive after the war, return home, and they can no longer be ignored.

I have already written about how in Crimea, starting from spring 2024, they hastily appointed "veteran deputies" to "fill quotas in councils," ensuring that only "heroes of Yalta encirclements" or ordinary intelligence agents would be included.

I couldn't find a single officer-aggressor among these "deputies," not even a staff officer who had actually fought. This "social lift" is just like in Motorola's case. Even "Crimean senators" among these "heroic heroes" were made into caricatures by the aggressor, such as a grotesquely stupid senior sergeant tank commander.

He certainly won't be participating in uprisings or in the "politics" of collective farm politics. 

And more.

An example of the reality: out of the thousands of Crimean corpses from the Russian army, only 50 disabled veterans are officially on the "republican register." At first, I thought it would be impossible for these "self-serving" individuals—there should be 300-400 of them by now—to obtain "documents," but in fact, only about a hundred of them have managed to hide in the rear.

The rest are either finished off or sent back to the frontlines to die.

I'm not writing this out of sympathy for the "veterans" of the aggressor. Rather, it's a simple suggestion: imagine what will happen to the Kremlin's fears after a hypothetical "end of the hot phase" of the war.

There will be a mass demobilization, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. And that's what the Kremlin fears more than anything else.

It fears the very "officer generation" that Khrushchev squeezed and squeezed all the way to Gorbachev... But I won't repeat myself.

Therefore, even a hypothetical end to the war in 2025 on some "intermediate" terms, allowing the Kremlin a few years to prepare for the "final solution to the Ukrainian question," doesn't suit the current Russian leadership. Because during those years, it could cease to be in power, or at the very least experience significant erosion.

In addition to the fear of a general's coup or officer unrest, or even the infiltration of "boots" into the "vertical" — a chronic issue for the Kremlin — there is another primal, insurmountable fear.

Because a hypothetical end to the war in 2025, even under strategically favorable conditions for the Kremlin, but without the total and swift destruction of Ukraine, would be perceived by some as a defeat.

And it’s not about the population or half a million demobilized soldiers. 

It’s not about the Russian army either.

This time, it’s no longer about infiltration or gradual local control.

It will be about the traditional snuffbox for the "tsar-father."

And the scariest part is the secrecy. The Kremlin clearly suspects someone has the snuffbox in their pocket, but the question is: who? Unfortunately, they will only know post-factum.

This is why the Kremlin dictator has repeatedly and hastily stated such "negotiation conditions" that no one would sign, not even as a "starting package."

Because there will be no Ukrainian capitulation, everyone understands this, even Trump. And without such a capitulation, any peace agreement is just a snuffbox.

For example, the Kremlin took trillions to the war. Has anyone lost trillions in the war? A ceasefire without capitulation would mean that the Kremlin won’t pay off all those "card debts."

Because there’s nothing to pay with. The only unique resource the Kremlin could use for this, it will not receive in 2025. We won’t give it to them.

Therefore, the real plan of the Kremlin is purely a war to the end of the lives of those who started it. The current leadership will not accept any "compromise" conditions to end the situation. They are driven by fear.

Given this, we can model certain strategies for the "negotiations" process, because fear is a bad advisor.

An imitation of "negotiations" will take place, but we must go through this stage.

This is necessary to maintain diplomatic or, more importantly, moral advantages for our partners and neutrals.

But nothing more will come from it.

So, here's a very brief summary:

There will be a lot of bad, but not so much disgraceful.

We hold much more power than we even realize.

Certain shifts in the current situation toward a different dimension will not be as the Kremlin desires, and certainly not by "Victory Day" (complete capitulation by May 9th according to the first criminal plan, fake "elections and referendums" on capitulation after "agreements"—according to the second).

Real, and of course, less tragic changes will not happen before September.

Especially if we learn how to get by without the luxuries (brioche).

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