Rumors of infighting among the elites are likely accurate. The thing is - there’s always infighting - they’re jockeying for the next step up the ladder, in much the same way you’d see in any other political hierarchy. The whole back and forth in the Russian media between different factions probably relates to an attempt to avoid being the scapegoat - getting fired and sidelined. The out-of-breath speculation about coups and so on are probably more wishful thinking than anything else.
🇺🇸 Copied from another response I made to another question, but related —
“In 2014, we tracked in detail, multiple brigades of Russia’s 8th and 10th Armies, as well as mixed CIS military elements from other orgs across the CIS, marshalling weeks in advance of attacking Ukraine from the carefully infiltrated Eastern Donbas region.
As well, we tracked, documented, and studied Russian Airborne, Spetsnaz, and FSB and GRU infiltration and seizure of key strategic water, fuel, and utility locations across Crimea in advance of the next paragraph.
We notified all the right people on our side, but were literally shut down by the Obama Administration, and warned.
Think about that...
Regarding Crimea —
Spetsnaz and FSB kept the Cell Services up (critical to their OP), and literally took the homes (with families) of Crimean Government Assembly members, while surrounded and infiltrated the Crimean Assembly while it went into *In Session*, and threatened to kill their families as well as the assembly and staff, unless the 🇷🇺 Russian flag was hoisted above their building.
So in reality, a full on Coup d’etat of an entire regional government.
I cannot provide footage of all the above.
HOWEVER —
🇷🇺 Here are a few video clips s showing related Spetsnaz sea lane activity which took place on the same morning.
Video of Russian FSB and Spetsnaz 2014 takeover of shipping lanes, and harassment operations immediately South of Odessa (from 2014) to present, as well as Russia taking the natural gas and selling it, even selling it back to desperate Ukraine during Winter months —
2017 replay of 2014 servicemen from the 104th Paratrooper Regiment of the 76th Russian Paratrooper Division who took part in the capture of the Ukrainian oil rigs
“The oil drill platforms [developed by Exxon Mobile, Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, etc, etc] were then largely moved from the Odessa shelf gas field accompanied by a convoy of the FSB boats and a missile boat of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The protection of the rigs was carried out by servicemen of the 25th Separate Spetsnaz GRU Regiment together with the servicemen from the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.”
There are short clips of elements of the 104th PR and 76th PD here —
This is just a tiny bit of what Ukraine was hit by in 2014, and as stated above, there were not merely transplanted Russian civilian vols.
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UA was on a rapid track to become a much more vital economic force in Europe.
This is arguably one of the reasons they had to be stopped.
Despite all the war and multi-decade KGB/FSB DCM (asymmetric subversion strategies referred to as “Demoralization by Corruptive Means and Measures”), UA’s resources are largely known, and as such UA is still categorized for loans “+” (funding).
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The wild card is Russia, as historically, Russia as of 2014 has invaded Ukraine 12 times since “Ivan the Terrible”, who in reality formally established RUS in 1547.
Depending on the source, from roughly the late 9th Century to 1547, there had been multiple invasions from different armies, but Kiev had yet remained the capital of the entire Slavic region, regardless of shifting borders and war.”