Dec 1- Charles McPhedran, Russia planned to "subjugate" Ukraine
Thread as published December 1, 2022
Charles McPhedran: Russia planned to “subjugate” Ukraine
Russia planned to “subjugate” Ukraine in ten days and control it by summer as part of plans drawn up by a small group of officials led by Vladimir Putin. That’s according to a new report by Britain’s RUSI, an institute linked to Britain’s army, drawing on captured Russian orders.
Putin wrote his famous essay (asserting that Ukrainians and Russians were one people) in July 2021. That same month, the report says, the FSB was tasked with surveying Ukrainians. The result of their work seems to have been shaped by confirmation bias.
Russia’s army leadership said (and believed) it had achieved parity with the US due to military reforms. It devised a blitzkrieg plan, according to which several forces would seize different areas of Left Bank Ukraine. Only the Southern Military Command appeared to achieve goals.
Russian counterintelligence had been drawing up lists of Ukrainians:
Those who were to be liquidated
Those to be suppressed
Those who could be induced to collaborate
Collaborators
It considered most Ukrainians docile, to be controlled with electricity and heating.
The crushing of Ukrainian resistance was to culminate in monstrous show trials and executions of those involved in the Maidan Revolution:
Meanwhile, Europe was to be kept inactive through targeted “blackmail” involving nuclear power plants.
The Russian plan did not assume any degree of Ukrainian agency. It was not subject to critical scrutiny and success was believed to be assured:
My analysis: The report obviously was shaped by Ukrainian sources. It says that the initial Russian plan failed due to hubris and delusion. But it also seems that elements of it are being used in the occupied territories (eg. the Zaporizhzhya plant).
The report reflects Ukrainian decision-makers’ perspectives. A lot more reporting on the Russian plan is needed. This report, however, lines up with an investigation by the Washington Post by Catherine Belton and Greg Miller:
Russia’s spies misread Ukraine and misled Kremlin as war loomed
In the final days before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s security service began sending cryptic instructions to informants in Kyiv. Pack up and get out of the capital, the Kremlin collaborators were told, but leave behind the keys to your homes.
Further reading on the topic…
Sergey Radchenko “Check out the bit from p. 7, which includes a discussion of Putin’s initial goals in Ukraine. Hard to assess the veracity of these claims (the authors note that key sources remain classified) but sounds highly believable.”
