There is material available on the website of the Czech Ministry of the Interior, from which it becomes clear that a narrative has already been prepared with the aim to blame all the main problems of the present on the Russian President Putin. In the document entitled “Increased movement of migrants through the Czech Republic”, it is literally stated that ‘The current wave of migration from the Near and Middle East cannot be easily placed in the pre-readied “Putin is to blame for the war, world and domestic problems” communication narrative. Although the increase in the number of refugees heading to Europe is undoubtedly influenced by Russian foreign policy, it cannot be fully explained in this way.’

• The KRIT team, newly formed by the Ministry, is behind the creation of the document, which, like other similar recommendation studies can be downloaded here
• We are of the opinion that the Ministry should explain what it means by the term “pre-readied” (or “prepared in advance” in Czech), and not only in reference to the following term “narrative”, or its announced content
• If it turns out that the Ministry was purposefully (pre)readying the “manufacturing” of social consent, it would probably be the first such documented case after 1989

No matter how much I find chess parallels in geopolitics to be not only contrived, but mainly inaccurate, I do not rule out that, for the event of any major failure, the Kremlin is keeping the option of sacrificing the queen (and the continuation of the game without it) in reserve. This is, at least for the moment, however still plan B.

If the Kremlin has really succeeded in anything, it is in selling the West the impression that Putin is at the same time the director, demiurge and executor of the entire „special war“. Thanks to this, everything bad that the West (but also Ukraine) associates with Russia is concentrated in Putin.

The way I see it, however, is that if „the whole thing“ were to get into trouble, it could very easily happen that, in the interests of its survival, the Kremlin deep state simply discards Vladimir Vladmirovich; subsequently – i.e. under the guise of the fact that with Putin’s fall (be it his termination, elimination or a simple „letting go“), a correspondingly fairy-tale-like „the past is in the past“ kind of a purification ensues – it will move on. For example, the (socially) conservative (economically) liberal Navalny (so far cultivated in a safe incubator) will be installed at the head of the country – a fact that will easily lead to mutual warming between the West and the East.

During it, the Russian deep state will be able (similarly to how it did in the Yeltsin times, or, to put it simply, in the1990s and onwards) to grant itself (again) all the more access „behind enemy lines“. This will happen all the more easily as, given Russia’s newly acquired identity, the West will heartily welcome it in any of its vulnerable underbellies – doing so all the more naively as „all the evil left with Putin“, „Navalny is an honest self-made man and a holy martyr“ (and „there is no point anyway in discussing whether or not there has ever been anyone standing behind Putin or any of his successors…“) etc.

The moment Russia has gathered enough additional forces, the endless game is set to continue: the king, protected precisely thanks to the distractive effect of the sacrifice of the queen (or strengthened by the queen’s restoration through a pawn’s visit to the opposite limit line), will, helped by the remaining pieces, resume one or another form of an offensive – quite possible one that, in that precise moment, will be expected the least.

Ondřej Krátký, Rebuildsyria.cz / Dealtrade Group.