GRUMPY RANT: Putin's nuclear threat is a sign of a KGBist in over his head.

Pressured by Russia’s enormous casualties and Ukraine’s peace summit, the Russian dictator is trying to intimidate in all directions. It is all the bitter, small man knows.

(writes Michael Andersen)

(@Gerashchenko_en, Vladimir Putin speaking June 14, 2024)

When you watch the videos of the Russian president today threatening nuclear war, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, stating his willingness to start negotiations to end this horrific war, bear in mind that Vladimir Putin grew up in the KGB. In fact, according to himself, he dreamed of becoming a “KGBist” from a young age.

The KGB (The Committee for State Security in the Soviet Union) was never put in the world to build or construct or do anything positive. The KGB (during the Soviet Union, it had a number of different titles, but the purpose remained steady) was put in this world to control, destroy, threaten, and kill. But it was always under the control of somebody higher up in the Soviet system. The KGB was merely a tool for the rulers of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Politburo expected a concrete, tactical plan to eliminate threats from its KGB. That was all. These threats were mostly political opponents or critics. As Josef Stalin said, “You get rid of the man, you get rid of the problem.”

By all accounts, Putin was a decent enough KGB agent, although not outstanding, carrying out the orders he was given. He was a cog in the wheel of Soviet oppression.

In Russian, they have a word – “krutitsya” (“крутиться” in Cyrillic) – meaning the ability of a person to hustle, to wheel and deal, to know when to shut up and bow to the right people. Think Seth Pecksniff in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, a squirming, hypocritical, unctuous underling, quietly working along with his own agenda while smiling and carrying out orders. I remember the first time I ever met Putin; it was in Leningrad (now Sct Petersburg) at the beginning of the 1990s when he had left the collapsing KGB and was working as a kind of assistant/guide for foreigners for the reform-minded mayor of Leningrad, Anatoly Sobchak. Putin never looked you in the eyes but was overly keen to be seen to be helpful. Even students like me, apparently, could potentially be of value. The mayor’s little helper did not make much of an impression on me. In fact, I only remembered him years later when a friend who had been on the same trip reminded me of the episode. If you had asked me, I would not have tipped the mayor’s unassuming assistant in a thousand years to become the most murderous, corrupt, and feared hooligan in the world.

Somehow, Putin’s “krutitsya” act worked, and in 1999, comrade Vova took over Russia. Installed by a helpless, drunk President Yeltsin.

But as president, you need to do overall planning and leading. However, from a longer perspective, Putin has never led, only reacted, and only ever tried to claw back what was lost. He has toppled and tried, or threatened to topple, numerous governments around the former Soviet Union when they became too independent of the Kremlin (Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus), not to mention all the critics falling out of windows. “You get rid of the man, you…”

But Putin has never managed to build anything that these former satellites ever really believed in or wanted to join. The best example is the CSTO (The Collective Security Treaty Organization)—at first, in 2002, billed as Putin’s answer to NATO—but never anything more than an empty joke, slowly but surely falling apart. (Yesterday, Armenia revealed that they are leaving.)

Of course, nothing has exposed Putin’s lack of strategy and planning as painfully as his invasion of Ukraine. Putin publicly talked about occupying Kyiv and changing the government (he expected this to happen within three days). Ironically, a KGBist would act on such poor information about the situation in Ukraine and the resilience of the Ukrainians themselves (Russian-speaking or not).

Neither has Putin, later—after the Ukraine fiasco soon became obvious—managed to identify a (new, better) actual strategy for his adventure in Ukraine. (He is not alone here; the West still seems reluctant or unable to identify our preferred end game.) In fact, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is the only leader in this horror debacle who knows what he wants to see happen—all Russian soldiers off Ukrainian soil.

Right now, Putin has two problems he needs to solve. But in the absence of an ability to strategize, the little KGBist once again resorts to yet another tactical strike: pinpricks.

His two main problems are the enormous losses the Ukrainians are inflicting on his army and the upcoming Peace Summit in Switzerland.

Earlier this week, Putin was told by his closest security advisors that the enormous losses of Russian soldiers are unsustainable, both from a military-operational and a political point of view. Western experts guestimate that 100,000 to 150,000 Russian soldiers have died.

My source in Moscow for this information is an assistant to one of the Russian president’s close advisors. I have known this person since the 1980s, and he has often given me valuable information. My source stresses that this week was the first time that Putin’s advisors unabashedly explained to him the actual, real situation on the battlefield.

Putin’s second problem is that Saturday sees the opening of the Ukraine-driven Peace Summit in Switzerland. Around 80 countries are expected to show up, although not U.S. President Joe Biden, not Russia or China.

What does a KGBist do in this situation? Well, he harks back to what he knows from the KGB—shooting down the opponents and seeking short-term victories.

Now, with these factors in mind, let’s watch Putin's videos from Friday.

(@Gerashchenko_en, Vladimir Putin speaking 14 June 2024 )

True to KGB's methods, Putin is trying to create internal strife within the enemy camp and peel away individual countries from the alliance supporting Ukraine. No, not to build anything with them but to create doubt and fear.

By threatening the use of nuclear weapons and stating that this is because of “Western adventurism,” Putin is trying to sow doubt among the weaker members of the alliance supporting Ukraine. And within individual countries where the traditional “left” still plays a role (first and foremost Germany) or amongst countries that are ‘on the fence’ (several countries in Eastern Europe, or, indeed, non-European countries).

By proposing negotiations – even with those obviously unacceptable conditions - Putin is trying to sow doubt amongst Ukrainians. 2024 has, in many ways, been a very sobering year for Ukrainians, with the war at a stalemate, but a stalemate that has cost many thousands of Ukrainian soldiers their lives.

Putin understands that a schism is opening between the Ukrainians who are fighting at the front and the many who are doing what they can to avoid fighting. And even though the support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his policies remains high, Putin is, of course, aware, as we all are, that “all wars end at the negotiation table,” as the saying goes. And he is aware that there now are people in Zelensky’s inner circle – as witnessed by the publication two days ago by the Ukrainian president’s former spokesperson, Iuliia Mendel – who are now considering how to “open” the negotiation options without losing too much face politically.

And, finally, as always in international politics, timing is everything. Tomorrow, Ukraine’s peace summit in Switzerland will start. By pretending to want to negotiate peace, on the one hand, and threaten with nuclear war, on the other, the Russian president is manipulating the many countries that are hesitant to come down 100% on Ukraine’s side in this conflict. Putin is trying to pull out the rug from under the feet of the Ukrainian president and secure himself a seat at the table even though he has not been invited.

In classical KGB style. Remember that when you watch.