If you missed part I, you can read it here.
On June 28, Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok appeared on “Bolshaya Igra,” the Kremlin’s main propaganda talk show, and laid out his view of Russia’s war in Ukraine with striking professionalism and candor. The drone revolution has shifted the center of gravity of this conflict into the air, both along the front line and over the entire territory of Russia.
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Ukraine has exploited this shift more aggressively and now leans on the full economic power of Europe as its de facto defense‑industrial base, producing not only unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) but also cruise missiles and ballistic systems in joint ventures. Trying to answer this threat by racing ahead with expensive air defense systems that cover the whole country is economically impossible.
It is hard not to notice the paradox. One of the most beloved anti‑Western sayings of Alexander III, quoted endlessly by Russian imperialists for 135 years, was: “They fear our vastness.” In today’s war, that “vastness” has turned from an asset into a vulnerability.
But let us return to Khodarenok. He is a convinced imperialist and no friend of Ukraine. We could easily quote dozens of his bloodthirsty remarks. Yet he is also a General Staff professional. It is enough to recall his prophetic article of Feb. 3, 2022, “Bloodthirsty Political Scientists,” where he carefully took apart the coming failure of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s lightning‑war plan. Naturally, he despises Putin. How else can a military professional feel today, after monstrous losses, toward a pathetic little figure with a glass of champagne trembling in his hands, mumbling incoherently, “We are pounding them at the front; we pound them every single day”?
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Khodarenok’s appearance sounded like the General Staff joining the initiative of the “deep Chekists” to remove Putin. It is quite possible that the two sides have already begun negotiating the exact wording of the post‑Putin legend. In the first draft, the Chekists planned to add “thieving, incompetent generals” to the list of those guilty of the military disaster. But the present heirs of the two eternal rivals, GRU and KGB, now face in post‑Putin Russia a much more dangerous common threat: roughly a million armed men with a criminal mentality returning from the meat assaults and the prison pits. This Prigozhin-style popular element is capable of sweeping away both camps, and the oligarchs fattening on Rublyovka as well.
Let us return to the June 28 episode of “Bolshaya Igra.” After Khodarenok’s speech, the remaining studio time was devoted to a loyal monologue about the terrible, agonizing choice supposedly facing our Supreme Commander: whether to order strikes on 27 factories located in NATO countries that are working for Ukraine. The sly Mr. Simis, who has already betrayed so many homelands that he has lost count of them, knows perfectly well that Putin will never give that order.
He will not, because he is a pathological coward who has firmly decided to live, changing his organs as needed, to the age of 150. Every new appearance by Putin (or his doubles) on screen against the backdrop of destructive Ukrainian attacks will only deepen public rejection of him. When the bulletin about his “serious illness” finally appears, it will be received as expected and almost routine.
The name of the successor is not essential. In post‑Putin Russia, at least in the first phase of its existence, there will be no real Successor. Formally, of course, some official will be called acting president. In reality, a junta made up of several silovik groups will try to rule in a very difficult situation, united by one heavy task: to preserve their power (and, accordingly, their enormous property) in a country that has suffered defeat, while blaming that defeat entirely on the former president.
Having removed Putin for cowardly refusing to strike NATO countries, they will then discover with horror that the former president has already inflicted such damage on Russia’s security that a strike of that kind now would only make our position worse.
In the text of the acting president’s first address to the “nation,” a few small corrections are made. The invective against “thieving generals” is removed, since those same generals (including General Gerasimov) have now been incorporated into the ruling junta.
The key conclusion remains unchanged. The acting president takes a “difficult decision” and issues an order to the troops to cease fire from tomorrow at 00:00 along the entire line of contact between the sides.
This will be an historic intermediate victory for UKRAINE.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the authors and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.
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