Russia Begins to Discuss Defeat: Hard or soft landing? Why incomplete removal of the architects of the war risks the mistake of Versailles treaty

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“Any past weakening of Russia was accompanied by bloody conflicts at its borders,” the author wrote, recalling the post-Czarist Russian Civil War and conflicts inside the failing Soviet Union around the time of its collapse. The West, it stated, would without question seek to exploit Russia’s weakness and create new bloodshed

These are established themes in Putin-era propaganda. During the spontaneous popular protests of 2011–2012, propagandists?told ?Russians that a change of power would inevitably lead to “the collapse of Russia, bloody chaos, and war.” The population was?told ?that a “Swamp Revolution” had been prepared by the CIA, which sought to replicate in Russia the uprisings in Libya and Syria.

To justify his September 21?“partial” mobilization , Putin again played on such fears of disorder and dismemberment,?declaring ?that “the goal of the West is to weaken, divide, and finally destroy Russia.” This theme has since been extended to more actively make the point that defeat is a disaster not just for the government, but for ordinary people who would suffer terribly from the depredations of “the collective West.”

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To a certain degree we of the USA and other countries made their bed of nails by intervening in the mid 1990s election of Yelsin when he was competing with the Communist party for the Presidency\

The shambolic idiotsy of how that was managed, and the deep humiliation of having a second rate DRUNK, Yelsin, run Russia, is the ONLY thing which gives credence to the Putin narrative

Having said that, Here is the other thing to keep in mind

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Musk deserves praise for this, in my view. As I have written before, one crucial attraction of Starlink is that it creates a “distributed” system — ie one that is spread about. This is much harder to destroy with missiles than something centred on a cell tower. And with some 25,000 Starlinks now sitting in Ukraine, according to Musk, this network has kept vital civic and humanitarian functions running, ranging from hospitals to banks. Starlinks have also been extensively used by the Ukrainian army to fight its savvy campaign, funded by multiple sources. But recently events became odd. Last month Musk suddenly tweeted that “Starlink is meant for peaceful use only”

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In order to disgorge Russia, Ukraine needs to clean up its relationships to MUSK and other actors, while keeping in mind that one has to be aware of the utterly conspiratorial mind set of the Russian population which has, unfortunately clung to Putin like Linus's blanket, while not surrendering its own independence

Right now, in the propaganda netherworld created in MOSCOW, Musk will be held up to be the epitome of the "dark forces " attempting to destroy Russia

I lack the space here to deal with this idiotsy, but let me state that the mythology of Russian exceptionalism, like its MAGA counter part in N. America, lacks a logical foundation. And that diminishing it, is not the problem of anyone else but the Russians themselves. However failing to address it will lead to a ruined nation state about Moscow which will do no one any good.

Needless to state, the consequences of defeat, need to be handled in such a way that the partial dismantlement of the Russian Federation empire does not feed into the "stab in the back" mythology which made Hitler even remotely acceptable to the German people in the 1930s

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Whisper it — Russia Begins to Discuss Defeat

EUROPE'S EDGE REGIONAL SECURITY RUSSIA October 13, 2022

Written By:?Kseniya Kirillova

We need to be prepared to talk with the Russians about the consequences of the war.

Photo: Russian flags in a garbage dumpster after a rally. Source: UkraineBizMag/Twitter https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/1506311026400272396

Despite the massive attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure underway for several days, Russian propagandists are beginning to signal that they understand deep down that the Kremlin is losing the war. The response is an attempt to mobilize the population by painting a bleak and frightening picture of what defeat would look like.

Russia responded to the?October 8 attack ?on the Kerch Bridge by pummeling Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian areas, a form of collective punishment that it’s already suggested, may amount to?war crimes . These attacks are now new — Russia has targeted civilians throughout its full-scale invasion — but the current scale of attacks is huge. On the night of October 12-13 alone, more than 40 Ukrainian settlements?were hit ?by Russian barrages.

Yet these attacks have made?no appreciable difference ?to Ukrainian military operations. Advances continue on the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts, as they have for the past month, leading many analysts to conclude that Russia’s targeting of civilians and infrastructure is a sign of limited military options.

It seems that at least some Russian propagandists understand this. Along with bold threats and?calls for further ?strikes on civilian infrastructure, there is a growing amount of commentary describing the possibility and consequences of defeat. In particular, these fears are being voiced by participants in the country’s foremost propaganda show,?Evenings with Vladimir Solovyov.

Here, defeat is painted as a historical disaster, and not just for Russia. One participant on the show, director Karen Shakhnazarov, stated on air at the end of September that the West does not understand the consequences it would suffer if this happened. In her view, the West’s dreams of gay pride parades on the streets of Moscow would be disappointed, and instead “we will see the bloody disintegration of a country stuffed with nuclear weapons, the consequences of which will be unpredictable.”

Likewise, the website of Russia’s main news agency, RIA Novosti, in?an article ?entitled “Russia Can’t Afford to Lose”, stated that mayhem would result. “Any past weakening of Russia was accompanied by bloody conflicts at its borders,” the author wrote, recalling the post-Czarist Russian Civil War and conflicts inside the failing Soviet Union around the time of its collapse. The West, it stated, would without question seek to exploit Russia’s weakness and create new bloodshed

These are established themes in Putin-era propaganda. During the spontaneous popular protests of 2011–2012, propagandists?told ?Russians that a change of power would inevitably lead to “the collapse of Russia, bloody chaos, and war.” The population was?told ?that a “Swamp Revolution” had been prepared by the CIA, which sought to replicate in Russia the uprisings in Libya and Syria.

To justify his September 21?“partial” mobilization , Putin again played on such fears of disorder and dismemberment,?declaring ?that “the goal of the West is to weaken, divide, and finally destroy Russia.” This theme has since been extended to more actively make the point that defeat is a disaster not just for the government, but for ordinary people who would suffer terribly from the depredations of “the collective West.”

Russian propaganda can — and often does — look absurd to outsiders. The falsehoods are so transparent that there is no need for individual refutation. And yet events, conceived and executed by the Kremlin leadership can be self-fulfilling. If before 2022, or especially 2014, the West never considered the need for war — or even in its wildest dreams — victory over Russia, now it does. The desire to defeat Russia is the implicit goal of most NATO states’ efforts. So the threat to the regime which so recently seemed only the fruit of the fecund mind of Vladimir Putin, now threatens to come true.

This trend is clearly?reflected ?in an article published by?Readovka, one of the popular pro-war Russian Telegram channels, under the headline, “Woe to the vanquished. What happens if we lose.” Unlike previous propaganda myths, some consequences of a Russian defeat are described in quite realistic terms.

Readovka?says that defeat will mean the loss of Donbas and Crimea; that Russia would have to “surrender for trial a large number of people,” including “militiamen and journalists” who represent “the most energetic and active part of the country.” There would follow a shortage of money and technology; the country would be forced to admit guilt for its past behavior (in other words, the notorious “de-Nazification” campaign), as well as accept a process of decolonization, meaning a pull-back from the lands the Kremlin refers to as the near-abroad.

The West and the Russian opposition face a complex mission: to assist Russian society to accept the inevitable consequences of defeat and to explain that these are not as terrible as the propagandists say (at least for ordinary Russians.) But in the end, it must also be stated that countries which wage wars of aggression against their neighbors must accept that they have lost, and that this is no one’s fault but their own. This is not merely a whim of the victors, but a natural consequence of the crimes of the Putin era.

Kseniya Kirillova is an analyst focused on Russian society, mentality, propaganda, and foreign policy. The author of numerous articles for the Jamestown Foundation, she has also written for the Atlantic Council, Stratfor

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Whereas here is PART of the Financial times article

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Then, in late September, Starlink terminals stopped working in parts of eastern and southern Ukraine that Putin claims to have annexed, but which have been recaptured by the Ukrainian army. Kyiv officials say this has created some “catastrophic” situations. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or possibly a technical glitch or Russian jamming. But well-placed Ukrainian observers wonder whether SpaceX officials were trying to slow Ukraine’s advance. To add to the rumour mill, Vladimir Solovyov, the Russian television personality, said this week that Musk was taking a pro-Russia stance to avoid sparking attacks on his satellites. I and others have asked Musk’s team about this, without response. (Musk previously tweeted that the coverage issue was “classified”, SpaceX had provided $80mn subsidies for Ukraine and he desired peace). But since the malfunctions were first reported last week, coverage has apparently mostly returned. And when Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, posted praise for Starlinks this week, Musk tweeted in reply that he was “Glad to support Ukraine”.

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Andrew Beckwith, PhD