A provocation at the ZNPP makes sense only before the NATO summit.

A provocation at the ZNPP makes sense only before the NATO summit.

Calculation according to the Patrushev doctrine “de-escalation through escalation”.

And here the very word “provocation” is important. Not the ZNPP explosion. And not the spread of a nuclear cloud. And an imitation of them.

But such a game at high stakes makes sense as long as the stakes in the game are accepted. If a conditional “river” is shown, and the dealer closes the “bargaining”, ZAES will not change anything – the political decision will be accepted.

There is a risk that the whole world will be engaged in the radiation agenda, but in general the West does not like to deal with the consequences, ignoring their cause.

In military terms, a real undermining of the ZNPP will greatly slow down hostilities, in fact creating a long-term “sanitary zone”.

And here another point is important – the readiness of the West to respond to any nuclear provocations of the Kremlin as the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

It would be correct to let NATO into the war under such a scenario. Moreover, at this stage, only one official statement will be enough that in the event of a nuclear provocation on the territory of Ukraine, NATO will deliver a set of conventional and non-conventional strikes that will wipe Russia off the face of the Earth.

This is an appropriate position. By itself, the willingness to voice it seriously reduces the chance of any provocation.

The Kremlin and especially Putin are emotionally and psychologically weak. They escalate until they feel ready to fight back.

So it will be correct to “overlap” nuclear threats with even more rude and apocalyptic threats.

Look at the situation with the eyes that the Kremlin could have had if Putin had the information: the war is obviously lost and the Kremlin has no chance of winning, which means that both Putin and his entire regime are doomed: it means that the game cannot be played out – it is necessary flip the table. And this table overturn can only be a nuclear risk. Literally, the stake should be the existence of mankind: here is the undermining of the ZNPP. Everything before it is ours; the rest – take it. The radiation zone is a cordon sanitaire. Here is a nuclear weapon – it is sent to London, Washington, Paris, Berlin, etc. Throw your hands or…

It sounds logical, but another detail plays against this – Putin is cut off from the information field, therefore he believes that he still has a chance to win without an overturned table. And that’s a plus.

Because in a situation where we cannot guarantee NATO’s nuclear response, we must proceed from the opponent’s logic.

And this logic is a combination of fear, show-off, madness and idiocy.

In fact, this is a protection against a real (!) explosion of a nuclear power plant.

In this case, provocation is possible. Just it should (according to the logic of bluffs) signify the “turn”. Before the “river” and before the end of the stakes (NATO summit), a nuclear provocation (without nuclear clouds) is a logical step in order to force opponents to fold their hand if they are not ready to “play for everything”.

Here is a question. Is NATO really ready to hit Moscow if Russia raises the stakes? This will become the very “river”. It doesn’t look like it.

And this means that a provocation for the Kremlin must necessarily be combined with a real release, and all this must happen before the NATO summit.

But this will probably not happen for the reason that the Kremlin lives in a parallel reality, where the RF Armed Forces stopped the offensive; Prigozhin’s rebellion demonstrated the consolidation of Russians, and today’s “Chechen trick” is an unremarkable event.

So the Kremlin is likely to oversleep its party at high stakes.

The most likely outcome is a provocation without continuation.
The outcome of the average probability is the absence of any events at all.
The most unlikely outcome is a provocation followed by a real undermining of the ZNPP.

And here there is a kind of “indirect guarantee of security.” Putin never acts strategically reasonably, choosing the worst of all options (which only the hydroelectric power station “cost”). In the current situation, only the third outcome is strategic, which gives the Kremlin the only possible scenario for exiting the war while maintaining power.

Which means he’s on the run. We hope so.