How did Putin strip off the technical cloak of the Wagner affair: "quick decisive battle" vs "protracted war"?

[Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Forces of the Russian Special Military Operation and Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces Surovikin]

One

Rumors of Surovikin's arrest reflect Western fears and fantasies. The persistent hype of this rumor by the Western media is enough to prove the vigilance of NATO and the Ukrainian authorities for this "doomsday general". They hope that Surovikin will be "cleansed" and count on this will provide NATO and the Ukrainian army with a good battlefield opportunity.

Coincidentally, Ukraine is experiencing the pain of "not to be missed". Its foreign minister complained that Wagner's troops did not last one more day. One more day is key: Ukraine's revived offensive happened just after Wagner's defeat, perfectly missing the most likely turmoil for the Russian army. However, now the opportunity is again: if Surovikin is purged, then it can be expected that the morale of the Russian army will collapse, leading to holes in the defense or even a rout.

For several days, Ukraine has been ramping up its offensive in an effort to make slow but visible progress. Before the NATO Vilnius summit, the Ukrainian army needs to come up with some achievements as a gift. Although the summit will not discuss Ukraine's accession to the treaty, if the Ukrainian army's counteroffensive is unfavorable, the lifeline of Western aid may also be weakened.

The Russian army is ready to deal with the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian army. But the Wagner affair was clearly not planned. When the Ukrainian army entered the climax of the counteroffensive, Putin and his military command had to spend extra effort to deal with this defection, and even forced to damage the command system of the Russian army, which was obviously not conducive to the actions of the Russian army.

Putin has quickly solved the problem of the Wagner mercenaries themselves. He pointed out that the salaries of the entire Wagner Group are completely guaranteed by the state, funded by the Ministry of Defense and the state budget, and that from May 2022 to May 2023 alone, the government paid 86.262 billion rubles to the Wagner Group for salaries and bonuses. In addition, Prigozhin "earned 80 billion rubles by supplying food and providing catering services to the military."

This clarifies the nature of the Wagner mercenary, i.e. it is in fact a government army, although cloaked as "private" and "mercenary". Many myths of Prigozhin no longer exist, he is just a "government project contractor" who must fulfill his obligations and responsibilities to the government. As a result, Wagner's earlier stated reasons for mutiny lost all legitimacy. He has no right to negotiate any terms with the Government. And it became natural that its soldiers would become contract soldiers under the Ministry of Defense.

Wagner still has some problems, but they are easier to solve. The conundrum was the problems involved in the mutiny, especially the loyalty and performance of duties by officials and soldiers. There are indeed phenomena such as escape, surrender, dereliction of duty, etc. For a country, such rectification work is really necessary, otherwise the state apparatus is out of control and it will be difficult to ensure social stability. But Putin may find that this is not the right time to address such issues. If loyalty is the overriding task at present, it will have to be entangled in side issues, making it impossible to conduct front-line operations effectively.

On the contrary, leniency in sentencing and battlefield priority is a viable option. President Putin has the basis for doing so. Judging from the situation of the Wagner mutiny, although Prigozhin received a lot of sympathy in Russian society, there was no situation of "rising to the top and gathering of responders". After the Wagner affair, President Putin's poll support even soared by 10 percentage points to a record 90%. This shows that people in Russian society are determined to support and support President Putin with practical actions.

Indeed, the Aerospace Forces, in quelling the Wagner mutiny, made serious tactical mistakes, which led to unnecessary losses. But that is also based on the good will to "avoid the killing of fellow citizens". This may not be offensive to Putin, it is a childish but tolerant act. What Putin really cared about was whether Surovikin planned and carried out a mutiny with Prigo. If this suspicion is ruled out, Surovikin is unlikely to face serious punishment simply for his dealings with Wagner.

For Putin, perhaps there is only one issue in the "intersection" of Surovikin with Prigozhin, and that is their disagreement with the Ministry of Defense. This disagreement is not a political line - should Ukraine be beaten? Rather, a battle of technical routes - should and can quickly defeat Ukraine?

Prigozhin launched a mutiny, the real motivation may be for money for power, but the public expression can only be like this: Wagner can hit Moscow in a few hours, then the Russian army can also hit Kiev in less time! The hidden conclusion is that the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff are incompetent, and Wagner should therefore continue to exist. This demand was resolved with the Lukashenko plan. But Putin also needs to solve Prigozhin's grandiose question: are the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff wrong during the "special military operation"? Need to change course immediately?

This issue is important because it also reflects divisions within the military. Although Surovikin has not publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the Ministry of Defense, his pragmatic style, in contrast to that of Shoigu and Gerasimov, gives the impression that there is a different faction in the army generals than the bureaucracy. Putin has reason to carefully examine this issue, determine the truth and seriousness of this "disagreement", and decide whether to eliminate and bridge it or fight and pull one faction. The handling of this issue has a bearing on the morale of frontline officers and men and the support of the people at home, and is of great significance to the war.

Putin's decision will be clearly reflected in the battlefield performance of the Russian army. He must have been well aware that battlefield setbacks were the root cause of the events of 1917, and that a "special military operation" that had not progressed well would have made 1917 possible again. Russia can easily cope with events such as the Wagner Mutiny, but it is unlikely to withstand another Kharkov-style rout. Putin must either prove that the established strategy is completely correct with a major war victory, or prove that he has mastered the battlefield initiative through a timely strategic transformation.

Two

After the Wagner Mutiny, a Russian poll showed that up to 57% of respondents wanted Shoigu and Gerasimov to step down. Putin should be able to feel this pressure, but he will also appreciate the absurdity of public opinion. He will not easily remove Shoigu, Gerasimov. This is not only a concern to maintain the stability of the government and the army, but more importantly, the Shoigu and Gerasimov he knows are not at all the image that the public thinks.

What kind of people are Shoigu and Gerasimov? Is it the kind of incompetent people portrayed by Prigozhin? This requires looking beyond the current horizon. When we delve deeper into this issue, we will find that the so-called "serious confrontation between Wagner and the Ministry of Defense" actually exaggerates the difference between the two war tactics and misleads the difference in quantity into a qualitative difference. Shoigu and Gerasimov did not advocate a never-ending war. On the contrary, they have been diligently coping with a series of extremely serious challenges, trying to push the Russian army to improve its combat effectiveness, and striving for the final victory.

The so-called "special military operation" has undergone a series of unforeseen changes. The Russian army was forced to adjust its tactics to the situation, but its performance during the adjustment period was misinterpreted as its inherent nature, which was the source of the deterioration of the social image of the Shoigus.

At the beginning of the war, Putin did not think about solving the Ukrainian problem with a "blitzkrieg". He knows that Ukraine has been preparing for war for eight years, and that strong anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine makes it impossible for a national pro-Russian regime to survive. The grandiose ideas of "half an hour" to "seven days", "capture of Kiev" and even "conquer all of Ukraine", which are widely circulated on the Internet, are not Putin's own at all. That is, the Russian army did not have the resources to end the war quickly in the first place. But at the same time, Putin did not think about fighting a protracted war. In February last year, his idea was simple: to get the Kiev authorities to sign an agreement that would reflect the so-called "neutralization" and other intentions to preserve the buffer space between Russia and NATO. Putin is not dreaming. More than two months after the war, he got more than expected at the Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul. So, the torrent of steel of the Russian army withdrew from Kyiv, preparing to successfully end the "special military operation" ... However, the British Prime Minister prevented the agreement from being realized.

A whole year of bloody battles followed. The Russian army soon exposed problems such as insufficient preparation for war and a serious lack of troops. First lost Kharkov, then fell into a series of difficult urban street battles. Surovikin took over the command of the front at the most difficult time, stabilized the front and abandoned the unfortunate western region of Kherson. The Ukrainian battlefield formed a relatively stable situation until Zelensky launched this round of the "Great Counteroffensive" more than twenty days ago.

Russia's military decision-makers eventually developed a tactic of attacking from a few points along the Russian-Ukrainian army contact line, inducing the Ukrainian army to constantly reinforce in order to avoid a full-scale exchange of fire, while building large depths of fortifications elsewhere. The Russian army staff geniusly chose Bakhmut as the offensive point, and Wagner took on the offensive task. No one knows why Bakhmut poked Zelensky's sensitive point, so that he constantly sent combat troops to crush despite strong opposition, preferring to give up testing the Russian army in other parts of the front. The Russian army used Wagnerian forces to carry out offensive operations with large casualties, mainly to avoid excessive embarrassment when informing the whole country of battle damage.

In the Russian hinterland behind the front line, Shoigu was not idle. In fact, he was busy. While replying to Prigozhin, "You TMD eat shells to live", he followed Putin's instructions and desperately organized domestic military-industrial enterprises to maximize production capacity. This is his duty, and it is difficult to say that he did not do his duty. He was also responsible for recruiting new recruits and trying to fill the huge personnel gap in the Russian army. Everything is full of blame, but the only effective revenge is to make up for the mistakes in the war plan and win the war, instead of spitting in the face of the whole life.

The whole world saw the effectiveness of the Russian military mobilization system. Missiles that were thought to have been cut off long ago are still hitting Ukrainian targets in a steady stream, and the front-line Russian army, which was thought to have been depleted long ago, is still methodically responding to the Ukrainian offensive ... This is due to the efforts of the Shoigus.

For half a year, the roar of Ukraine's "Great Counteroffensive" shook the sky but did not see the action landed, the Russian army raced against time to accumulate strength, and the Russian-Ukrainian front fell into dullness. In this way, Wagner became a standout. And in Prigozhin's repeated invective of the Ministry of Defense, Shoigu was cast as a slow-moving, insensitive, conservative and passive bureaucratic representative. But this impression based on unilateral opinions is not reliable. The Russian army needs to recharge its strength and then go to the next big enough chess game. Prigozhin, of course, did not bother to make this clear.

The Shoigus are not out to fight a defensive battle that never ends. Instead, they are creating the conditions. Once the time is ripe, the Russian army will launch a series of decisive battles, as it did in the early days of the war. Therefore, the superficially irreconcilable "dispute between Wagner and the Ministry of Defense" is in essence only a dispute between "quick victory" and "protracted war". However, "quick victory" cannot ignore specific conditions, and "persistent" cannot fail to point to the "counteroffensive" stage; Except for the difference between "straight" and "roundabout", there is no difference between the two in the pursuit of final victory.

Therefore, when Putin examines the "dispute between Wagner and the Ministry of Defense", he only needs to answer one question: - does the Russian army have the conditions for a counteroffensive?

Three

A phenomenon in the Russian-Ukrainian war is that there is a cycle of "alternating growth and loss" in the comparison of military strength between the two sides, that is, the two sides have not reached the balance of power, and one side always accumulates strength to attack, and the other side is in a defensive posture but is also gathering strength to prepare for a counterattack. Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the two sides have entered the fourth round of offensive and defensive activities. Last year, each side had a hearty offensive battle, characterized by a strong breakthrough followed by a rapid advance. In the first half of this year, the Russian army adopted a steady and steady encroachment method in Bakhmut and other places, which achieved little results. Now, Ukraine is waging a bloody offensive war against Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Luhansk, characterized by hard pre-war preparations and a rush to the top.

This round of Ukrainian counteroffensive has lasted for nearly a month. Ukraine's offensive capability has reached a turning point, but it will still try to maintain it for another ten days or so, until the end of the NATO summit in Vilnius, and then it tends to be depressed. In fact, the Ukrainian army has set up minefields and fortifications in the newly occupied areas, apparently to prevent the Russian army from taking advantage of the Ukrainian army's retreat or even collapse from the contact line and carry out sticky counterattacks. Now, official Ukraine openly admits that the counteroffensive is progressing more slowly than expected, and claims that this is not "a Hollywood movie", which shows that the Kharkiv miracle that Zelensky expected has not been repeated.

If the Ukrainian army learned incorrect experience from the Kharkov offensive and defensive battle, and firmly believed in the decisive impact of the tactics of the sea of people, the Russian army realized from it that strong fortifications and careful deployment are the basis for invincibility. After this round of actual combat, the Russian army has actually come out of the shadow of defeat, showing the characteristics of making good use of fortifications and firepower, and playing steadily and ruthlessly. But as Putin warned, now is far from the time when Russia can say that "the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed." Contrary to many people's expectations, the offensive of the Ukrainian army not only did not stop abruptly, but increased the investment of troops in certain directions. This is not irrational behavior. On the one hand, the Ukrainian army urgently needs to show the results of the war to the NATO summit; On the other hand, from the history of world wars, as long as the attacking side is tenacious and persistent, it may shake the enemy's defense line and even make considerable progress.

Imagine that the Ukrainian army sent wave after wave of attacking troops to the front line and launched a continuous attack, who dares to say that the opponent will not fall into exhaustion and weakness? Anything is possible. The "copper wall and iron wall" of the Russian army is by no means tightly fitted, the war machine is inevitably physically fatigued, human beings cannot withstand psychological pressure indefinitely, and some advanced technologies of the enemy may also form certain advantages ... As long as the Ukrainian army keeps probing, it may really be able to find the weakness of the Russian defense line and finally break through, thus opening up a broad road to the Crimean Zelensky villa.

Therefore, the Russian-Ukrainian war situation is in an extremely critical ten days. At present, the Russian-Ukrainian war known to most people is like a Chechen commander of the Russian army said: the Ukrainian counteroffensive has not progressed, and Kiev continues to send people to death. But this widespread perception unfortunately overshadows the Ukrainian army's efforts to "seek change". The change of the Ukrainian army is, first, to increase its strength and firepower, and second, to change its strategy and tactics. In fact, both situations currently exist. In front of the Russian defense line, the Ukrainian army is trying to organize a number of elite brigade-level assault units to launch a sufficiently fierce offensive in the Zaporozhye-Donetsk direction, and the offensive arrows are still pointing to the Crimea. At the same time, the Ukrainian army has concentrated a considerable part of technical weapons, focusing on the combat area, and strives to form a technological balance. But these are unsustainable, if the Ukrainian army still cannot break through the Russian defense line within ten days, it will not be able to make up for the high level of casualties, equipment losses and ammunition consumption, and at the same time no longer have the motivation to "present a gift to the NATO summit", and can only turn offensive to defensive.

The Ukrainian army is also trying to engage in some actions with technical content. Its special forces have produced about 1,200 Russian military costumes, which are said to be possible for "false flag operations" in Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporozhye and other regions. It is worth noting that 1,200 uniforms are just enough for a "battalion-level battle group" of the Russian army. The Ukrainian army does not lack Russian-style equipment, and can fully form a Russian-style composite battalion or multiple special operations groups, not only to engage in "false flag operations", but also to infiltrate the Russian army's combat area and even into Russia, creating a big trouble for the Russian side. It is said that the Russian army has eliminated Ukrainian special operations units disguised as Russian troops on the battlefield.

The Ukrainian army is also trying to open up new battlefields, for example, to break through from Kherson. This is an offensive direction that the Ukrainian army desperately hopes that the Russian army will ignore. By opening up the Kherson battlefield, in the best case, the Ukrainian army can put the Russian army in the plight of the enemy; Even the worst-case scenario can distract the Russian army and create holes in its northeastern defense line. Recently, the Ukrainian army claimed to have made progress near the Antonovsky bridge, but it seems that it has failed to put the Russian army in passivity.

The Kherson line is not easy to break through: after the Kakhovka dam collapse, the dry part of the reservoir area is actually deep silt, the downstream geomorphology has changed greatly and maintains normal runoff, which is not conducive to the passage of personnel and equipment, and the Russian army can restore the minefield by mechanized means, and can also use the advantage of firepower to annihilate the Ukrainian army behind the water. If the Russian army is really embarrassed, it can also expand the surface of the Dnieper River by gradually blowing up five dams in the upper Ukrainian occupation area, which is enough to cause heavy losses to the Ukrainian army. The Russian army is not responsible for blowing up the dams, because the international community agrees that these dams cannot be destroyed by missiles, and if they are blown up, it must be the work of the defenders.

Fortunately for the Russian army, Zelensky has fewer and fewer cards in his hands. Even if he can make one or two breakthroughs on the Russian defense line, he lacks enough follow-up forces to expand and maintain the results. Therefore, every step forward of the Ukrainian army must be prepared to retreat in case the Russian army takes advantage of the situation to counterattack after the collapse of the offensive. Now, Ukraine will not pin all its hopes on this counteroffensive, it only wants to come up with some decent results before the NATO summit, and then turn offensive to defense in order to reaccumulate troops and equipment, and make a comeback under the cover of F16 in two months at the earliest, launching a "real counteroffensive" that can be declared externally.

Four

Once the Ukrainian army turns offensive to defensive, then it is in the weakest state, and a new cycle of "alternating growth and loss" of the balance of forces between the two sides will begin. At this time, the decisive victory of the Russian army came. If Putin wants to answer the "dispute between Wagner and the Ministry of Defense", it is unlikely to give the Ukrainian army a respite. Because the next round of counteroffensive of the Ukrainian army will be a big trouble for Russia. At that time, not only F16 will enter the game, but the NATO heavy equipment of the Ukrainian army will also grow exponentially. More importantly, due to the exhaustion of the Ukrainian army, NATO troops will directly or indirectly enter the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield.

Therefore, the "protracted war" of the Russian army has entered the stage of strategic counteroffensive, and it is time to plan and implement a key offensive of a high level. The Russian army has an excellent defensive system, but passively waiting for the enemy's action is by no means a good method, and it is easy to be spied by the other side over time. Only an offensive can seize the initiative in the war. The Russian army is by no means incapable of attacking, and the Soviet army is an army that prefers to attack. The "special military operation" itself is also an offensive; Long before the Ukrainian army began this round of counteroffensive, the Russian army had launched attacks in Bahmud and Malinka and achieved results. At a time when the offensive potential of the Ukrainian army may be exhausted, the Russian army can only achieve strategic results if it puts a strong offensive spirit into the entire battlefield and campaign.

The Russian army needs "the enemy retreats and we pursue" on the defensive line, and also needs to take the initiative in strategic counteroffensive, focusing on attacking the enemy's strategic key points, "taking it by surprise, hitting its laziness, and attacking it to save it", damaging the opponent's war plan and forcing the other side to deteriorate the established strategic deployment. Expanded mobilization for war seems inevitable. Putin is sensitive to military casualties, but long-term interests require short-term sacrifices and sacrifices.

The size of the Russian army should be based on the ability to defeat Ukraine in the short term. Defeating Ukraine is not to completely annihilate the Ukrainian army or occupy its entire territory, but to create a battlefield situation that is enough to make its will to war fade. To achieve this, it is necessary to form an encirclement of a number of Ukrainian field brigades in the Wudong Theater. Judging from the current situation of the Russian army, defeating the Ukrainian army in front of it will not have an immediate strategic effect, and it is difficult to immediately encircle and annihilate the Ukrainian army, but it is possible to form an encirclement.

This is the so-called "external combat". Although the Russian army is not rich, it has the necessary resources to achieve this. On the old front, the Russian army was on the offensive against Marinka and other places on the eastern front, and if it intensified, it was expected to put pressure on the Bakhmut Ukrainian army. At the same time, a second or even a third battlefield must be opened. Opening up new battlefields can be a manifestation, mobilizing enemy forces, and disrupting their strategic deployment; It can also be a real battle, directly destroying a living enemy army and consuming its strategic resources. Due to the high shortage of resources of the Ukrainian army, it is easier for the Russian army to "attack and save". If you do not take into account the false route to Belarus, there are three optional targets: Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa.

Comprehensively analyzed, attacking Kyiv is laborious and unnecessary, and attacking Odessa is necessary but not urgent, so that Kharkov becomes the first choice.

Kharkiv is an ideal new battlefield because Ukraine is less wise to carry out the activities of the "Free Russian Army" in the territory of its neighboring Russian Belgorod region. The Russian army has already deployed troops and fought in Belgorod, and can take advantage of the situation to attack the Ukrainian territory. Putin has already spoken of "creating a buffer zone, a zone where shelling of our country is impossible" on the territory of Ukraine. But do not expect the Russian army to be "in full swing" in Kharkov, because it is a region that has long been fortified and new defensive lines are being built. It is not necessary to spare large casualties in order to make small advances, as the Ukrainian army did. As long as the Russian army enters Kharkiv, gradually breaks through the Ukrainian defense line with heavy firepower and a small number of fist troops, and approaches its capital, which is less than 50 kilometers away from the Russian border, it can echo the Russian army east of the Oskol River, making the Ukrainian army staff feel thorny in the back, and is forced to mobilize troops from the southeastern battlefield of Ukraine, which should be strategically prioritized to go to the rescue. Once the Ukrainian army is dispersed, the Russian army will have the opportunity to seek to break through one by one on the battlefield of Wudong.

As soon as the situation in Kharkov changes, the Russian-Ukrainian war situation will undergo fundamental changes, and the victory of the Russian army is slightly determined. Then we can consider actions in the Odessa and Kiev directions. The premise of these actions is that the Ukrainian army must not be given the opportunity to reorganize and arm, so cheap barrel guns, rocket launchers and drones can be used to continuously attack Ukrainian missile positions, fortifications, army assembly areas, material distribution points, and important communication lines, so as to ensure that the important facilities of the Ukrainian army are blown up, difficult to repair, and unusable at any time. In the Kiev direction, Prigozhin, who once made a terrible mistake, will also have the opportunity to show loyalty to the country again.

Five

In the next ten days, the first task of the Russian army is to block the Ukrainian army's attack regardless of casualties. The Ukrainian offensive may lead to the continued passivity of the Russian army or even the loss of some defense areas. This is hard to avoid. As long as the enemy's vital strength and vital equipment are visibly depleted in battle, it should not be considered a defeat. However, the Russian army cannot passively defend, and while holding the defensive line, it should be accompanied by counteroffensives on other fronts, gradually causing a reversal of the situation on the battlefield.

The Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on long enough and should not continue. It must be admitted that many underestimate Zelensky's fear of death - not fear of the death of others. He made many speeches, but never mentioned the heavy casualties of the Ukrainian army. In his view, it was only a small price to pay for his heroic image. If he feels the need, he will firmly send more Ukrainians to the line of fire. On the contrary, many people say that Putin is a tough guy, but he once held a strong "blood is thicker than water" tenderness, and once tried his best to avoid fratricide between Russian and Ukrainian "compatriots", so that he lost valuable strategic opportunities in the early stage of the war.

Reality played a joke with Putin. In the early days of the war, he threatened nuclear strikes against foreign countries intervening in the war. Nuclear deterrence was intended to reduce casualties, but he underestimated the opportunistic and murderous nature of Western politicians. Long before the "special military operation", the West was supplying weapons and training to the Kyiv regime. After the withdrawal of the Russian army from the Kiev region, the West provided light and heavy weapons to the Ukrainian army in a gradual escalation, resulting in the Russian army falling passive for a while, and the war process became far away.

Now, the Russian army may usher in a favorable situation to reverse the passive situation, but Putin faces the harsh reality that nuclear means must be used.

Because there is a possibility that NATO will directly join the war in some form. If NATO makes a move, it may constitute an overwhelming advantage over the Russian army. If this happens, then Russia has no good means other than nuclear weapons. The so-called "no winner in nuclear war" is not only against the abuse of nuclear weapons, but also means that once a nuclear power like Russia is put in a situation where it must lose, then the optimal solution is "it is better for everyone to lose than to lose alone."

The use of nuclear weapons does not imply a global or all-European nuclear war. The Russian military's use of nuclear weapons can also be hidden and quiet. One way is to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the most powerful and threatening part of the enemy when the war is unfavorable, and then claim to have used a high-powered weapon such as the "father of the bomb" to hit the opponent's fuel and weapons warehouses, resulting in the explosion smoke column mixed with depleted uranium bombs or nuclear fuel powder. At this point, although the West can easily distinguish between a nuclear explosion and a dirty bomb, it must adopt a blind eye, or acquiesce to Russia's declaration, lest it be declared to carry out a nuclear attack on Russia, as it has repeatedly and explicitly threatened beforehand, and then its own territory will be destroyed by nuclear destruction.

No Western country would plunge its country into a nuclear war for the sake of a poor and backward, undemocratic and illiberal Ukraine.

However, the popular "nuclear power plant accident" is not a better option. The Zaporizhzhia power plant is too close to the front line and can be hit by ammunition from both sides and cause a nuclear catastrophe. The consequence was that the lower Dnieper River was polluted within a 100-kilometer radius of the power station, which was no longer suitable for human habitation. Until the nuclear leakage area is effectively blocked, the radioactive material will be dispersed hundreds of kilometers downwind, and both Russia and Ukraine will suffer, although Ukraine will suffer the most.

Therefore, bombing a nuclear power plant is not a rational choice, but the possibility of an accident cannot be ruled out. Apart from these two, a nuclear war aimed at mutual destruction is unlikely. But once the Russian military uses tactical nuclear weapons in the aforementioned covert manner, the West will quickly lose its determination to continue fighting, and turn to avoid igniting the fire as an urgent demand. Thus, the war will end quickly. Much of the gains of the war were embodied in a strengthened version of the Istanbul Agreement. Russia will somehow de facto control the region east of the Dnieper River in Ukraine and limit Ukraine's military growth through institutional design. Such a Ukraine will not be in line with the hearts of the West. But this is not a bad thing for Ukraine. The "Israelization" dreams of Zelensky are simply unrealistic, and copying the "Polish miracle" is purely imaginary, since Poland itself has fallen into long-term stagnation.

It's time for Ukraine's "EU/NATO dream" to wake up. The whole of Western Europe is in trouble, and it is not looking at itself. Paris is even burning.

Russia can laugh at the formation of a new pattern in the world. A vast Eurasian economic sphere has emerged rapidly and has given a number of former Soviet countries long-lost growth momentum. For the past three decades, Russia has provided Western European economies with vital energy and raw materials and markets, but has itself been caught in a vicious cycle of slow growth that has been nearly wiped out by NATO. However, after leaving the development model dependent on the West, Russia can achieve lasting and stable growth by strengthening its internal development vitality through a series of internal reforms.

To sum up, the dispute between Prigozhin and Shoigu is not a battle of goals, but a dispute between "walking the bowstring" and "walking the bowstring". As the Russian army nears the completion of its military build-up plan, the "bow-back" side will also push the Russian army to pursue the goal of victory, so this debate is no longer meaningful. In the next Russian battle, Surovikin may not be indispensable, but his genius will undoubtedly make the Russian army more brilliant, thereby enriching Russian military scholarship. Wagner may find his place again to repair the damage caused on June 24. After the end of the war, the ruins of the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield will eventually disappear, and the "new military revolution" led by the United States will fade and fade. We will find that the soldiers and people are still the foundation of victory. This war is reshaping the future of military science, and the lessons it produces may take us many years to digest.

(Author: Global Village Passerby, Policy and Strategy Researcher; Source: Kunlun Ce Net [Original], authorized by the author for the first release)