President Putin and his powerful team

Russia, with President Vladimir Putin at the helm, has fought NATO to a standstill in Ukraine. How was that possible and what comes next?

Mr Putin is an educated man. He can get the best out of his managers and staff – perhaps due to his management skills developed while he was a senior KGB officer. He has formal training as a lawyer. President Putin is a very cautious, wise lawyer. He has brought together a team of top-notch professionals, all well-established experts willing to work for the Russian Federation.

His team includes Mr Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Affairs minister, who is of the old school of diplomats and has an extraordinarily good memory and can quote details of historical events ranging over the last seventy years.  His deputies are equally talented and able to speak on events in a factual way as they occur in this highly stressed political climate.

Mr Putin has in his team General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed forces who is a very competent, well-educated man and who is an avid student of the war time strategist A. A. Svechin, and his fundamental, ground-breaking work, “Strategy.” By putting these organizational ideas into practice, he forms a formidable war opponent for anyone to encounter.

Mr Gerasimov’s hand is strengthened by some extraordinary innovative military technology. He has guns which can direct a shell 50 Kms to land within a few meters of the prescribed target, delivering 20 Kgs of high explosive. This wonderful technology is as a result of his team of physics graduates all of whom have degrees and who are well steeped in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. (STEM) They have developed very accurate hypersonic weapons and guided missiles, all of which wreak havoc on the enemy. There is also talk of plans to put 50 Kg thermobaric warheads on to their Kamikaze drones. This takes the war to a new level of destructiveness.

Manufacturing of armaments and shells comes under the Ministry of Defence, run by Sergei Shoigu, who is remarkably skilled and successful in managing the Russian armaments industry. His factories meet the insatiable demand for shells in the thousands a day at the war front.

Another member of Putin’s inner circle is Mr Sergei Naryshkin. He heads the FSB which was formally known as the KGB! His organization monitors and collects information especially on doubtful characters who may have links with hostile agencies in the west. His good efforts protected Mr Putin from the hybrid war conducted by the CIA.  Mr Putin is not infrequently targeted for assassination!

Some 80% of the Russian population support President Putin. However, the remaining 20% of Russians provides the CIA with fertile grounds to search for dissidents willing to go out, work and create an opposition. The US can recruit candidates for presidential office and fund them to become real challenges, a real danger to Mr Putin’s continuing election successes and tenure of office. But, the FSB protects Mr Putin one way or another. When the opportunity arises, the open doors of prison for tax dodgers always awaits these stooges of America. Or, possibly, to be received by a recently refurbished Gulag for their convenient accommodation. Hats off to Mr Sergei Naryshkin of the FSB!

Mr Putin is very keen to bring all Russian speaking Ukrainians into the Russian Federation. Transnistria is a small enclave in Moldova with about 60% of the people Russian speaking. Mr Putin would like to have a land route to Odessa and on all the way to Transnistria in Moldova, but any rapid movement of Russian troops may worry the west and lead to a confrontation. Mr Putin seems to want to avoid that outcome. It would make peace talks with the west so much more difficult.

You may ask who will succeed Mr Putin as President of the Russian Federation? You really need to know that Mr Putin has the backing of a very powerful, but secret organisation which goes by the name of the Siloviki. These are powerful men in powerful positions who guide Mr Putin’s hand. They all work for a strong Russian Federation and strongly oppose the USA Plans to break up Russia into its constituents. They want the Russian Federation to act as a counterweight which can be used for doing good around the world and empowering the world’s impoverished to prosper. They will gladly help Sri Lanka if invited.

Priyantha Hettige