Regarding the leak by the Dossier Center, which published a presentation developed at the end of winter in the a...

Regarding the leak by the Dossier Center, which published a presentation developed at the end of winter inside the Kiriyenko apparatus on an information strategy in case the war ends.

⬆️I uploaded all 10 slides here. I am not going to retell them, you can see all their theses and narratives for yourselves.

Look. I have absolutely no doubt that if they had decided to end the war, it would have been presented exactly the way it is on the slides. All of this really is extremely Kremlin-like: total victory, the liberation of Donbas, the defeat of the West. These are such obvious talking points, after all, how else could the Kremlin present this war as a victory? For that reason, I have no questions about the authenticity of this presentation. And trust in the Dossier Center is traditionally high.

But there is one problem: Putin is not going to end the war.

Accordingly, this entire presentation has no significance whatsoever. They will not follow this scenario, and in fact already have not.

Let me explain.

1. It was not by accident that I noted in bold above that the presentation was developed at the end of winter. Three months have already passed since then, and during that time not only have there been no signs whatsoever of Russia preparing to end the war, on the contrary everything has only gotten worse: the pace of mobilization is not slowing down, in April they recruited a record 35.2 thousand people in 2026; the offensive is unfolding, strategic reserves are being brought up; the blockages are being tightened: Telegram, the internet, VPNs, everything under the sun.

2. The Dossier Center itself emphasizes that the document has NOTHING to do with the course of the negotiations. And I will add: Kiriyenko is not involved in the negotiations at all. It is not even certain that he has full information about how they are going, and it is not certain that Putin tells him his plans at all. This presentation is simply the development of one scenario of "what if?". In this specific case, "what if the war ends with Donbas coming under Russian control?". But that never was, and in the end did not become, Putin's plan.

3. Incidentally, about Donbas. Note that the entire presentation is built around Donbas fully becoming part of Russia, this is presented as an accomplished fact. That is, they are not considering peace without Donbas as part of the Russian Federation in principle. What follows from this? That they do NOT INTEND to stop anytime soon and will seek the "liberation of Donbas" by all means, both through an offensive on the battlefield, through shelling, and through Trump, who on the issue of Donbas has unconditionally taken their side.

4. And again, back to the end of winter. That was just BEFORE the start of the American operation in Iran. Since then 1) the price of Russian oil has risen threefold; 2) the volume of oil shipments itself has risen threefold. What do you think, did that make Putin more willing to end the war, or on the contrary did it signal that he should continue?

In other words, we are talking about a past that has already failed to happen.

The very fact that they develop such presentations in the Presidential Administration, they develop all sorts of things there, but the question is something entirely different: what decisions are made there. The consequences of those decisions are felt by Ukrainians who are being killed by the dozens in the rear, and by Russians who are being sent by the truckload under the trucks of Ukrainian FPVs, and even by the last Muscovite woman, who thought the internet would never be switched off.

The Kremlin did not take the path of de-escalation and winding down the war back then, at the end of February. All the more so, it will not take it now.