Trick or retreat: Is Putin planning a Halloween surprise?

Vladimir Putin needs his Harry Houdini moment in Ukraine. Russian forces are retreating under full-court pressure in the Donbas, facing defeat in the Kherson Oblast by an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive,  and the Kremlin is being openly criticized by Russian state-controlled media and Telegram milbloggers. Putin and his regime of elites also are feeling the pressure from growing internal dissent — and, notably, from Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, who is blatantly gunning for Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.

The long knives are out in the Kremlin, and Putin is turning to Gen. Sergei Surovikin to provide him with an escape — an existential “sweet escape” from his bungling of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and tasking him to find a path to victory. Nicknamed “General Armageddon” by his military comrades, Surovikin is “absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life” — and he has a toolkit to wield that his two predecessors did not: overall control and command of the battlefield theaters and operations in Ukraine.

Surovikin’s consolidation of command is significant because Putin rules over Russia by design in a drug cartel-like fashion, intentionally pitting subordinates against each other so that no one consigliere or faction becomes too strong — and potentially a threat to the czar’s survival. Putin’s elevation of Surovikin, therefore, comes with great risk and likely the cause of future, if not imminent, palace intrigue in Moscow.

If the new unified commander succeeds in Ukraine, Putin will have likely — and reluctantly — anointed his successor, and Surovikin might prove unwilling to wait for Putin to retire or die of old age. The general, however, is not without competition of his own from Putin’s other underbosses. Prigozhin, in effect, is arguing the Wagner Group’s mercenaries are outperforming the Russian army in the Donbass, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is adding his own criticisms of the Russian Defense Ministry.

Nonetheless, Surovikin likely understands the high stakes, personally and as a military commander. To date, his actions on the battlefield have been loud and purposely visible. He is sending messages to Moscow and Kyiv that the Russian empire is striking back. Surovikin’s opening gambit was to launch cruise missile strikes at “the center of Kyiv and dozens of regions in Ukraine.” This was preceded by Minsk prepping railroads for a possible offensive in Ukraine and followed on by more than 9,000 Russian troops moving into Belarus.

Something is rotten in Ukraine, however. Surovikin wants Kyiv, Washington and Brussels to see these moves — and NATO needs to quickly determine why. Moreover, these overt demonstrations keep coming, including the kamikaze drone strikes on Kyiv, the evacuation of Kherson city and a showy declaration of martial law in Russian-occupied Ukraine by Putin at his Security Council meeting. Putin’s would-be Houdini is up to something, and he is likely using the magician’s art of deception to achieve it.

Surovikin’s actions have all the markings of a military deception. Army Field Manual 3-14.4 — Army Support to Military Deception — defines military deception as “actions executed to deliberately mislead adversary military, paramilitary, or violent extremist organization decision makers, thereby causing the adversary to take specific actions (or inactions) that will contribute to the accomplishment of the friendly mission. When properly integrated with operations security and other information-related capabilities, deception can be a decisive tool in altering how the enemy views, analyzes, decides, and acts in response to friendly military operations.”

Putin’s commanders are already victims of Ukrainian deception on the battlefield. Believing the Ukrainian counteroffensive would be launched in the southern Kherson Oblast, Moscow repositioned forces to counter the threat, only to have the actual counteroffensive come at them from Kharkiv. This led to humiliating defeats and the loss of more than 6,000 square kilometers of captured terrain. Surovikin may be preparing to return the favor in kind.

Somewhere within the collective bowels of the Pentagon, United States European Command and Kyiv, intelligence officers must be getting the same feeling that something is not right. Everything points to the four annexed Ukrainian territories, but it is all a little too orchestrated — and laid out for the media and their analysts to fixate on.

Four Russian-occupied territories voted to join Russia in referendums on Sept. 23. Russia announced its intent to annex the territories on Sept. 29, followed by a formal ceremony in the Kremlin, where the Moscow-installed leaders of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia signed the documents the next day. During the ceremony, Putin issued a statement proclaiming the territories as “forever” Russian and said an attack on them would be considered an attack on Russia. He repeated his nuclear threats and announced the “partial mobilization” of 300,000 soldiers.

Now, as the Ukraine counteroffensive threatens the newly acquired territories, Putin declared martial law in a televised Security Council meeting on Oct. 19 and the evacuation of “Russian” citizens. It was all very well scripted, documented and oriented toward the annexed territories — a sideshow or distraction away from something the Kremlin does not want the world to see. 

What are we missing? What is Putin’s Houdini trying to hide from the world?

We are getting glimpses from recent reporting. The formation of a joint military group along the Belarus border, posing a renewed northern threat to Kyiv. Military trainers, likely from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Crimea, supporting drone attacks to strike targets throughout Ukraine. Possible deployment of nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad.

But what could it all mean?

One possibility, and the most dangerous course of action, would be to generate a chaotic battlefield, presenting multiple threats and crises that Ukraine and the West would have to address concurrently, supporting a main effort of a combined Belarus-Russian force positioned just 140 miles to the north along the border whose mission would be to secure Kyiv and remove Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from power.

The main effort would be supported with deep strikes from Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze  drones, launched to strike Ukraine’s remaining power infrastructure and other civilian targets; the threat of a nuclear attack on NATO if it responds; and destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam, to cause widespread “destructive flooding in Kherson.” To fix NATO, Surovikin could launch a simultaneous ground incursion into the Suwalki Gap from Kaliningrad, forcing Brussels to make a decision: Article V or Ukraine. 

Unlikely? Yes, on a surface level. But so, too, were Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Yet intel reporting indicates everything outlined here appears to be in place. Link it with a ruthless, win-at-all-costs Russian general and a humiliated authoritarian with an ax to grind and the reality at a deeper level might be closer than the Biden administration or the media want to believe.

Putin and Surovikin are maneuvering, and it is vital that Washington, Brussels and Kyiv guard against every deception, whether a trick or a retreat.

Mark Toth is a retired economist, historian and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing and global commerce. He is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, and has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world, including London, Tel Aviv, Augsburg and Nagoya. Follow him on Twitter @MCTothSTL. 

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14, working with NATO partners in the Black Sea and Baltics. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.