Thread by @michaeldweiss

So regarding that alleged FSB analyst's letter of complaint... I've gone through it a bit more carefully. These are a few thoughts and observations six days after it was posted. (Usual caveats apply.)

There are a few gross exaggerations/overstatements, such as the prediction that "global famine" will hit by the summer owing to reduced grain supplies from Ukraine and Russia.

And there are statements that seem obvious and self-evident: "I can’t say what guided those in charge to decide to proceed with the execution of this operation, but now they are methodically blaming us (FSB)..."

"... We are being scolded for our analysis. Recently, we have been increasingly pressured to prepare more reports."

There's almost zero chance the FSB *isn't* being blamed for this FUBAR situation. Misjudging Ukraine's resistance and Russia's inability to fight in anything approaching the forecasted manner.

This also tracks with we have heard elsewhere: FSB was ill-prepared to predict heavy Western sanctions or offer countermeasures to protect the economy, etc. Western intel, for instance, is saying much the same re: VVP's shock at the international response.

"[Y]ou research the mode of attack, and you are being told that it’s just a hypothetical and not to stress on the details, so you understand the report is only intended as a checkbox, and the conclusions of the analysis must be positive for Russia..."

"... otherwise you basically get interrogated for not doing good work."

Well, plus ca change... Cooking the books is nothing new and accurately predicting calamity when the boss is set on a course of action doesn't get you far in the Lubyanka.

This seems a bit off, unless "such" is doing heavy lifting here: "No one knew there’d be such a war, so no one prepared for these sanctions." It's true that rank-and-file soldiers are telling Ukrainian captors they had no idea they were going to war, but it seems a bit...

... of a stretch to suggest that the FSB was caught unawares. (Though I'm prepared to be badly wrong about this, given the last fortnight of surprises.)

Now this is very interesting to me: "Kadyrov has gone nuts. We were very close to a conflict with him because the Ukrainians through their disinformation about having received intel from the FSB on his squad in Kyiv..."

"... His squad was absolutely demolished before they even began to fight and they got blown to pieces. I do not have any info that it was an FSB leak to Ukraine, so I’d give it a 1-2% chance – but can’t exclude this possibility completely."

The Kadyrovite plot to kill Zelensky being foiled by FSB leakers seemed the perfect Ukrainian psyop, preying upon the conventional wisdom that these two factions detest each other. (Though, as @AndreiSoldatov has noted, that's not entirely true either: FSB relies on...

... Kadyrov's network in Europe to target Chechens and Caucasian veterans from the wars, etc.) Even still, this analyst himself (or herself!) cannot rule out the possibility, however small, that the leak was genuine. And indeed, if this analyst is real, then that theory...

... becomes more plausible.

Of special interest: "With regards to Russian military losses: I don’t know the reality – no one does. There was some information the first 2 days, but now no one knows what is happening in Ukraine. We’ve lost contact with major divisions (!!)..."

"...They may re-establish contact, or may dissipate under an attack, and even the commanders don’t know how many are dead, injured, or captured. Total dead is definitely in the thousands, maybe 10,000, maybe 5,000, or maybe just 2,000. But even at our command no one knows..."

Again, the date this letter was posted was March 4, though it might have been (and probably was) written even before then. Note the speculative figures given here. As I posted yesterday, a senior European intel official said Russian KIA = 7-9K as of "a few days ago."

And now U.S. intel is suggesting the figure as of today (already out of date, alas) is tracking closer to that European estimate. It stands to reason that an FSB analyst (talking to others in the service) would have a better and earlier sense of losses incurred and...

... losses still to come. The analyst's own surmise: "But probably closer to 10,000. And we are not counting losses at DNR & LNR."

Now note the loss of communications even with major divisions. Well, the slipshod manner by which an FSB officer apparently phone in Maj. Gen. Vitaliy Gerasimov's death (on a cell phone with a Ukrainian SIM card) is attributed to a loss of secure comms.

"Our conditional deadline is June. Conditional because in June there will be no economy left in Russia – there will be nothing left. By and large, next week there will be a collapse (in Russia) to either of the two sides..."

"... simply because the situation cannot remain under current conditions."

Not a far-fetched assessment judging from what I'm hearing from Ukrainian and Western sources, to be honest.

And: "By and large, Russia does not have an out. There are no options for a possible victory, only of losses – this is it." (The analyst compares this to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, in which conscripted Bolsheviks turned antiwar.)

One final point, about our plainly speaking friend, Sergei Naryshkin.

The analyst writes: "We are plowing to create a scenario in which to blame everything on Ukraine. Naryshkin and his SVR is digging the ground to prove that Ukraine was secretly building nuclear weapons. FUCK..."

"...They are hammering at what we’ve already analyzed and closed the book on: We can’t just make up any evidence or proof and existence of specialists and Uranium. Ukraine has a ton of depleted isotope 238 – this is nothing..."

"...The production cycle is such that you can’t do it in secret."

The "dirty bomb" scenario was an early-floated pretext for war. Shoigu coughed it up at one point. The problem is it where absolutely nowhere and was seemingly abandoned. Now the emphasis is on some ridiculous Ukrainian chemical or biological weapon plot, which has got...

... U.S. and UK intelligence scared that this is what Russia may be planning, in keeping with their tried-and-true strategy of Freudian projection.

Is it perhaps possible that Naryshkin fucked up the nuke scenario badly and flailed to come up with an equivalent and that this accounts for his pre-recorded and unedited humiliation by the boss at the Security Council meeting? As my wife likes to say, "It's fun to think about!"

One last parting comment on the text. The analyst notes that the "Z" symbol will soon be equated with the swastika and that "[o]ur current position is like Germany in 1943-1944 – but that’s our STARTING position in Ukraine."

This is more and more proving prescient.

.@christogrozev has already said, based on what other sources in the FSB have told him, that the letter seems authentic. It's entirely possible the Ukrainians or others fabricated this as a way to demoralize the opposition. And yet... It seems to more accurately capture...

... the reality of this war as anyone sat in the Lubyanka now watching it unfold in real time would likely judge it.