My translation of the 16th #FSBletters from the #WindofChange inside the FSB to Vladimir Osechkin. Dated 4/12. Topics: #Ramzan #Kadyrov, #Russia #Nukes, Coming up in Russia: total collapse or civil war, and much more Kadyrov! Please share far & wide.

Please listen to this audio as it explains the context and the genesis of the #FSBletters. It will help you understand the prism through which these letters are to be read. You will understand in real human terms why #WindofChange writes to Vladimir.

As always, my comments for clarification are in (parenthesis). #WindofChange's parenthesis are in [brackets]. So, let's roll:
“Kadyrov has been demanding special attention of late, so let me go over this character.

For transparency: I have preconceptions about this figure, but I will try to give an analysis without making personal judgments. Kadyrov has long ago [as part of the "war-operation"] reduced the activity of his militarized formations to purely media work.

Yes, his special forces are involved in some attacks, but I will give a few clarifications that can be considered maximally credible:

- The core of his strike groups at the moment is not made up of his elite special forces, but of some "Chechen volunteers," members of the law enforcement agencies, and so on. The percentage of his elite fighters there has decreased dramatically;

- Virtually all combat operations by Chechen units are conducted from behind the lines of the Russian Armed Forces, and even the forces in LDPR. This is called the "dog-and-pony-show";

- The Russian military command, judging by the data provided by the guys from ДВКР (DCKR - Military Counterintelligence), does not have a very good idea of where the so-called "elite forces of Chechen units" are now.

In Chechnya itself there are very active military moves being made, maximally hidden from the public eye.

There is reason to believe that Ramzan Kadyrov fears for his own safety due to risks of both internal revolts and external threats [everyone from Ingushetia (bordering Chechnya) to the various agencies, including our Service, is getting in line (to neutralize Kadyrov)].

But everything may not turn out to be so simple. There is reason to believe that Kadyrov not only understands the inevitable civil war in Russia, but is actively playing the sides of the potential rift [Hawks-Doves]:

He is simultaneously agitating this rift to a hot phase while also trying to accumulate sufficient large-mass support of the radical forces ready to be activated in case the schism fully materializes.

Once again about the civil war: The current reality leaves the country with two options.
First - a total collapse due to a complete combination all the wrong actions put together.
Second - a civil war and a chance to leap into some kind of engineered solution.

To acknowledge this reality – a factual admission of the defeat for the Service. Which is why I don't want to elaborate on this topic for now - it hurts.

Kadyrov himself couldn't care less about Ukraine, about Donbass, or about this whole war-operation.
He has transcended this framework; he is already thinking in a different reality where war/operation is just an element for his plans.

While he was considered just a fool with great power resources, he turned out to be much more cunning [I won't yet say anything about "wiser-smarter"].

Right now, Ramzan is building his game at breakneck speed, a game in which he is not just intending on shutting himself out in defense [like we ourselves assessed until recently], but he is determined to go on the attack.

In essence, he will be the main beneficiary of Russia's military failure: in the coming Donbass meat grinder, he is guaranteed to keep his forces intact, while in any outcome of the battle, the rest of the Russian forces will be severely depleted and exhausted.

His loud declarations about "marching on Kiev" are a wind-up of the supporters of war in Russian society, who can absolutely no longer satiate their appetites through any theoretically possible outcome.

Even if our armed forces win the Donbass battle, the forces will be so weakened that the only thing left to do is take a long pause, consolidate positions, and start urgent replenishment of forces,

while it is already unrealistic to restore technical capabilities under such large-scale sanctions in a short period of time.

And even for that you still have to win, which is impossible without large-scale use of non-conventional means of destruction.
The experience of modern warfare of this kind [Syria, Iraq] shows that in the best case, Russian losses will be 1:8, if not 1:10.

"A tactical nuclear strike" with this kind of intended battle line system would accomplish nothing, a massive strike could provoke such consequences that there is no point in considering them. That is, if it’s “technically possible,” for which there is no certainty.

More precisely, to begin with, this would require the consent of all those involved (to execute a nuclear strike), which appears to be complicated.

Then it will require that the technical capabilities match the "wants," and everything is tricky here. And then you still have to launch in a way that you don't get an equally entertaining missile hitting the point of origin. (A responding nuclear strike from the West)

And the missiles will still need to reach the targets, because "non-uniform intercepts" of such missiles over our territory could be an unpleasant "side effect" that would override everything.

In any event, Kadyrov can't help but realize that after the battle of Donbass he will have the most powerful and combat-ready military force in the country.
But then a great turmoil could ensue, in which everything would be unclear.

The Bolsheviks weren’t any serious force in Russia at the beginning of the last century, but they took proper advantage of the situation, along with the presence of certain valuable cadres, and did not make a mistake over time.

Turmoil gives a chance to those who before it had no chance and who will turn out to be situationally ready for it.

Moreover, Kadyrov is not actually a supporter of the "Russian patriotic ideology" [all his fairy tales of being "Putin's infantryman" are tales for idiots]: If he manages to swallow the whole of Russia - ideal, if he manages to swallow a significant part of it - also good,

if he manages to create a conditional "Caucasus Emirates" - and who says that this isn’t enough for Kadyrov and those who are now very quietly and methodically preparing the turf for this project?

All real analysis ends at the point at which the turmoil [civil war, total upheaval - wordsmithing is allowed here] begins. By all indications, Kadyrov is preparing for this moment like no other, everything else is noise, designed to conceal his true plans.

The culmination of the Russian problem has now been created personally by Putin - already by the fact that he puts his political demands above any expediency: military, social, economic.

We don’t have a strategy - there are some global requirements that demand positive reports and plans only in the style of "now we will achieve" [hence the "analytics", rather than real analytics].

As recently as two weeks ago, there was hope that the current crisis would force the country's top leadership to take a responsible step back, assess the situation, and look for real solutions to the current situation.

But instead we see the behavior of a player who has had a breakdown in the excitement and is trying to win back his lost bets at any cost. And there is no one to stop him, and his environment indulges in it [you should see how even our people grovel (in the FSB)]…

And it is Kadyrov who has now popped up from this theme. He screams out louder than anyone else, he is yelling about the adventure on Kiev louder than anyone else.
Right now he's getting ready to make a breakthrough, which will not be easy for us to counter.

And a lot of forces in the coming chaos may try to quickly join the "strong hand" (Kadyrov) that will help them not lose the old, and also bite off the new.

The fact that after their victory this strong hand of theirs will beautifully let them slide onto the knife – that notion will be somewhere out there, in the "wonderful far away.”

But we are not allowed to talk about this today. We can’t write such reports. Prohibited from assessing the global situation. Do you remember, as in Galich's story?

“And you will breed the wolves on earth,
And teach them to wag their tail,
And that it will come at a cost –
Well that’s, you must understand – is later…”

So Kadyrov is getting ready for this "later" now, for all intents and purposes. In the meantime, we're going to catch some traitors, so there's that...
I don't see any more options for preventing this and I'm moving into the mode of declarations.”

(END OF TRANSLATION of the 16th #FSBletters from the #WindofChange)

Note - there's a @TwitterSupport bug with regards to threading/caching because for many on phone apps the thread doesn't keep going unless you click on the last post to see further replies which are hidden. Threading was done correctly, and it works right on the computer.

16th #FSBletters from the #WindofChange is now available in article form here: http://igorsushko.com 

UPDATE: https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1534596030901145600?s=20&t=BOA0YrX8LzzlRJvm9WR3tg