Several present and past events suggest that some very capable people in Russia have been deliberately undermining the Putin regime.
Recently leaked alleged telephone conversation between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary formation who was killed last year, revealed or actually reminded that there might be a group among the Russian intelligence factions that is in sharp opposition to the Putin regime.
Russians, particularly those who grew up in the USSR, have known since childhood that phone communication is not secure and that the Russian intelligence intercepts phone calls.
All Russians who have something to hide take precautions with telephones and mobile phones. People like Prigozhin and Lukashenko have an infrastructure and hardware that make their communication safer compared to the average people.
In Russia's reality, it is impossible to intercept, record, and store a telephone conversation between Prigozhin and Lukashenko without the involvement of a group and individuals from the Russian intelligence who have special equipment, access, and technology.
The same applies to the case of a telephone conversation between two notorious Russian oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, that occurred in the 1990s and was leaked by Maria Pevchikh in one of her recent investigative documentaries.
Leaks are always controlled
The mechanism of "leaking" important telephone conversations and other materials to the public became clear in 2015 after the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, then leader of the Russian opposition and former deputy prime minister.
As the Russian authorities wanted to keep the details of Boris Nemtsov's murder secret, the sudden publication of material and photos of the suspected assassins and their accomplices revealed individuals close to Chechen President and Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov to the public.
Every leak involving high-profile figures had a powerful beneficiary and a client
Investigative reporting is not as widespread in Russia as it is in the West. Every leak involving high-profile figures had a powerful beneficiary and a client. There are no exceptions.
Every leakage of important information is in the function of the intertribal frictions and infighting between the various powerful factions on which the Putin regime itself was built.
With this in mind, let us go back to the details of Prigozhin's rebellion last year, which came to a halt after his conversation with the president of Belarus, whose alleged contents have now been “leaked.”
At the time of the rebellion, Prigozhin was undoubtedly the second most popular person in the country after Vladimir Putin. Therefore, Prigozhin could have been a perfect frontrunner for the powerful and clandestine forces from the Russian intelligence factions that opposed Putin.
Surprisingly, Prigozhin encountered no resistance from the Russian law enforcement agencies or the army during his rebellion and his militia march across Russia to Moscow, although he almost reached Moscow with his army of murderous mercenaries.
Prigozhin's rebellion and martial law
The recently leaked telephone conversation with Alexander Lukashenko most likely prevented Prigozhin from entering Moscow. Only one man in Russia could have made this phone call possible—Vladimir Putin.
There is a rumour that, quite frankly, appears feasible that Prigozhin's rebellion had secret beneficiaries—people who, as the intelligence service regularly does, secretly and anonymously used Prigozhin and led him to Moscow.
The success of this action would have enabled them to declare martial law in Moscow.
It is quite possible that if Prigozhin had entered the city of Moscow, the whole of Russia would have come under the control of some powerful new forces.
If this theory about Prigozhin sounds too "conspiratorial," we should remember how the war against Ukraine began.
What if someone powerful in Russia found out that Vladimir Putin was considering the occupation of Ukraine and deliberately tried to discredit him
Based on the reports they received, Vladimir Putin and the few nationalist radicals around him decided to launch the war against Ukraine. They clearly expected a glorious and swift "happy return" and almost no resistance in Ukraine. It very rapidly became clear that these estimates were completely inaccurate and based on false input data.
What if someone powerful in Russia found out that Vladimir Putin was considering the occupation of Ukraine and deliberately tried to discredit him in the eyes of the Russian elite and the world community by convincing him that the invasion of Ukraine would be incredibly simple and spectacular?
What if someone inspired Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion with the intention of using the unrest in Moscow—with or without Prigozhin's troops—to initiate a coup and remove Vladimir Putin from power?
Sowing fear of a nuclear attack
Vladimir Putin's alleged willingness to employ tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine during the initial months of the war demonstrates the same twilight zone.
From this perspective, it does not matter whether Vladimir Putin was actually planning to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine or not.
The leaked telephone conversation between Yevgeny Prigozhin and Alexander Lukashenko required serious intelligence involvement
What matters is that Russian sources leaked the news from Moscow about Vladimir Putin's willingness to use a tactical nuclear bomb against Ukraine to the American intelligence services, as we know from American reports.
Based on what we already know, we can assume that some forces in Russia expected the US to take extremely harsh measures against the Putin regime and thus crush it completely.
The leaked telephone conversation between Prigozhin and Lukashenko required serious intelligence involvement. It serves as a reminder that Russia possesses highly capable individuals who can execute a variety of actions in Moscow in the event of another perfect storm, similar to those that were not utilised—the Prigozhin rebellion and the disastrous failure of the Russian army in the early months of the invasion.
The West's authorisation for the use of long-range weapons could potentially trigger a new perfect storm because Russia will soon experience something it has never experienced before. There is certainly a scenario in which these powerful domestic forces can use these new developments against the Putin regime.
Moreover, the deployment of ballistic missiles against Ukraine could serve as a pretext for a new perfect storm, as Vladimir Putin has started to cross new lines, and thus the West could have a second attempt to inflict damage on the Putin regime in cooperation with powerful opposition forces at home.
