Вторжение России | Христо Грозев: Putin is acting irrationally

Difficult to present a more suitable time for the visit Христо Грозева в Финляндию. Just at the beginning of this week, Bellingcat published another important thing investigation. This time, it was about the unmasking of a group of Russian officers who are engaged in targeting cruise missiles flying towards Ukraine.

Investigations, the author of which is Grozev himself, it is said that the calculation of the trajectory of the flight of the Russian rockets aimed at military and civilian objects of Ukraine is carried out by a group of 33 young engineers-sviatists. It is she who is responsible for the October attacks on electric stations, residential houses and children’s gardens. Ючислить всех чемнов этой группе программе для блингу телефонных звонков, which Bellingcat employees purchased on the black market.

In recent years, Hristo Grozev and Bellingact became famous thanks to their bright investigations. Including the investigation of the circumstances of the poisoning attempts of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal и его дочери Юлииа также лидера оппозиции Alexey Navalny. In January 2022, Grozev was appointed general director of Bellingcat.

В это среду in the morning, Hristo Grozev was in the Helsinki press center. He is one of the invited speakers of the Forum Millennium Innovation, which took place in the capital of Finland.

Talking about the latest investigation, the Bulgarian says that the publication of the name of the members of the Russian liaison group of engineers engaged in rocket target detection was carefully thought out.

В Bellingcat made the decision to reveal their real names, as according to the investigators, experts involved in guiding rockets – exactly the same soldiers as those who fight on the front line. And also because Russian strikes on civilian objects are widely condemned in the world as war crimes.

“People who guided rockets probably thought they were protected because they weren’t on the front lines,” Grozev said.

”Публикация их имён важна. [Благодаря этому] in the future, there may be fewer people who will agree to a similar job.”

Рассуждая About further military activities of Russia, Grozev shows accuracy. He emphasizes that this is his own personal assessment, not the position of the Bellingcat organization.

According to him, it is impossible to get information about further steps, since after the failure of the initial plans, Vladimir Putin стал реагировать “понедельно”.

In recent days, the minister of defense of Russia Sergey Shoigu regularly declares plans of Ukraine to blow up the so-called “dirty bomb” – a weapon that spreads a radioactive substance with the help of an ordinary explosive.

In the West, Shoigu’s statements were perceived as a sign that Russia itself intends to detonate a similar “dirty bomb”. Hristo Grozeva has a more careful look at these things

“Currently, the information coming to Russia is not of very high quality. Ето может часть там паранойю регистрация просмотрих планов Украины. Они могут и вррямь беревить в то, что Украина собирается установка грязную бомбу. In my opinion, the fact that Shoigu is calling the defense ministers of other countries shows that this is not part of the disinformation operation.”

Second theme, about which Grozev talks a lot – this is an actively discussed now concern about the possible use of nuclear weapons. He considers it extremely improbable that Putin can take such a big risk as the use of heavy nuclear weapons.

However, Russia also has small rockets with a nuclear warhead capacity of about 0.5 kilotons. This is the smallest of the so-called tactical nuclear weapons (it is traditionally divided into tactical and strategic). Дальность полёта и разушительная сила тактического менеше чем у стратегического.

But the tactical and technical characteristics of different types of tactical nuclear weapons are noticeably different. Even rockets with a power of tens of kilotons (that is, tens of times stronger than warheads of 0.5 kilotons) are considered tactical. Для пример: the explosion of a 10-kiloton tactical nuclear warhead will present a serious danger to everything within a radius of 2-3 kilometers from the epicenter.

However, any nuclear weapon – even with the smallest charge – causes mass destruction and radioactive contamination. Although the area of ​​influence is relatively small.

“If Russian troops start to lose battles in Ukraine even more obviously, it is quite possible that Putin will decide to use a 0.5 kiloton rocket,” says Hristo Grozev.

And he adds that the probability of a similar development of events will increase if the commander of Wagner’s mercenaries Yevgeny Prigozhin, who stands for an even more aggressive war, will get more influence in the Ministry of Defense. According to Grozev, a nuclear attack may not be delivered until the beginning of the next year.

Estimated number of nuclear warheads in different countries

Grozev he says that thanks to the information he had, he understood already in December last year that Russia would attack Ukraine. According to him, the war could have been avoided if the Russian oligarchs had been given a “possible exit”, which would have helped them in time to refuse to support aggression.

Most of all, Grozev was surprised by the fact that Putin still made the decision to attack, despite the fact that the Russian generals knew very well that the current state of the Russian army would not allow it to capture Ukraine. Also, Hristo expressed surprise at the fact that Russia did not manage to bring more Ukrainian political parties and organizations to its side with the help of bribery before the war.

In Finland – yes and not only – many military experts did not believe in the possibility of a full-scale war even a day before its start. According to Grozev, this is due to the fact that it was extremely difficult for people to believe in something like this in the XXI century.

“It was considered that Putin is a rational politician and therefore he will not undertake such an operation. However, in the last couple of years it became clear that Putin stopped being rational. He had a compelling idea to become a big historical figure.”

Будущее России Христо Грозев видит контродитивым. On the other hand, in the wild field of Russian politics, “worse former” players appeared, like Prigozhin. On the other hand, Grozev believes that they are driving the country into a situation that the nation will no longer be able to tolerate.

“During the entire war, one of the most popular requests of the Yandex search system was – “When will Ikea return to Russia?” The Russians will not put up with the fact that their country will become closed like the DPRK.”

Article first published on 26 October 2022.

You can read the article in Finnish from here.