The Goal of Policy May Be Defeat in the War of Weapons, for Defeat as a Stratagem

1. SITUATION As of 06.07.2026, combined strikes on frontline and rear areas of Ukraine (Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia) continue. On the front — 69 attacks per day, priority on the Pokrovsk-Kostiantynivka direction. Meanwhile, Urals crude dropped to $42/barrel, returning to pre-crisis Middle East levels. Britain imposed sanctions over Novichok, Poland completes rotation of US forces. Inside Russia, the information background about a 'new war for decades' intensifies (Bezrukov's report in 'Russia in Global Affairs').

2. ANALYSIS THROUGH PRISMS

KISSINGER: A real deal requires a visible defeat of one side to save face for the other. Defeat as a bargaining position allows Russia to exit the 'war of weapons' format and shift the conflict into a division of assets (territories, resources, status).

BRZEZINSKI: Ukraine is finally consolidating as a buffer zone without subjectivity. Control of space passes to those who can guarantee neutrality and logistics, not to Kyiv. The chessboard is being restructured into a 'frozen conflict + elite rotation' format.

SCHWAB: The crisis is used for managed rotation. Defeat is presented as a tool for elite renewal without losing the vertical. Global networks (through energy prices and sanctions) create pressure under which a 'wise decision' looks like saving the system.

DEVYATOV + EURASIAN MATRIX: The stratagem of defeat is a classic technique to seize initiative from 'hawks' and transfer levers to the next generation. The Primakov — Karaganov — Bezrukov line reproduces the matrix of 'competent persons', where an external threat becomes justification for internal purge and transfer of power along the line of K. Tikhonova.

HUNTINGTON: The civilizational rift between Russia and the West is not removed but shifted into a mode of managed confrontation. Defeat in the 'war of weapons' does not cancel the cultural conflict, only changes tools — from direct violence to economic and informational pressure.

PETROV (COB): The priority matrix shifts: worldview (nuclear nightmare) → ideology (victory as deliverance) → chronology (2027–2028) → technology and economy (new currency). Weapons and genocide remain secondary; the main thing is changing the ruling layer without destroying the vertical.

3. KEY ACTORS - Political intelligence line: Primakov — Karaganov — Bezrukov (forming the threat background). - K. Tikhonova's circle (Belousov, Dyumin, Kovalchuk Jr., Fradkov Jr.) as beneficiary of rotation. - Kyrylo Budanov — pressure tool through strikes on energy. - Overseer of Odesa — control of port logistics as a real lever. - China as a 'sleeping tiger' — strategic observer of competitors' collapse.

4. RISKS 30/90/180 days 30 days: escalation of strikes on infrastructure to create a 'nightmare background'. 90 days: internal purges under the guise of fighting the 'hawkish' wing. 180 days: fixation of agreements where Ukraine loses the remnants of subjectivity and Russia declares 'victory of peace'.

5. WEATHER VANE VECTOR Act through channels that fix real levers: energy prices, port logistics, and elite rotations. Avoid public rhetoric; monitor signals from the Valdai Club and the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy as markers of course change.

6. RETHINKING The worldview shifts from 'war to victory' to 'war as a tool of rotation'. Defeat ceases to be a catastrophe and becomes a mechanism for elite renewal while preserving the vertical. Ukraine finally transitions to the status of a bargaining object.

7. SUNWISE / COUNTER-SUNWISE Sunwise: real strength lies in the ability to carry out rotation without destroying statehood and with minimal losses for the population. Counter-sunwise: an imposed stratagem of defeat, where the form of a 'wise decision' hides the renunciation of subjectivity and transfer of control to external beneficiaries.