Volodymyr Fesenko: Chinese Trace In Kinzhal Case

• 18.05.2023, 17:15

Three developers of hypersonic missiles have been arrested in Russia on charges of treason. What lies behind this case?

Charter97.org spoke to Volodymyr Fesenko, a well-known Ukrainian political scientist and head of the Penta Centre for Applied Political Research:

- Russia is undergoing a rapid transformation of an authoritarian regime into a totalitarian one with elements of Stalinism, mass denunciations, persecution of the opposition. There is no complete transformation into a totalitarian regime, but the process is under way.

As for the situation of the arrested developers, it raises many questions. It is suspicious that when the shooting down of the Kinzhals by modern Western air defence systems in Ukraine (primarily the American Patriot) became known, three developers were immediately arrested and charged with treason.

Isn't this a punishment for having done something wrong? Might they overestimate the qualitative characteristics of their product or steal money? But then the article would be different, and here it is treason.

Judging by what Russian sources say, the semi-official version says that they are suspected of having passed or sold this information to the Chinese. Notice, not the Ukrainians or Americans but the Chinese. This, by the way, is not an isolated case.

There have already been several cases when scientists from Siberia, who apparently have scientific and academic contacts with their Chinese colleagues and publish in scientific journals, were prosecuted and accused of treason. For allegedly providing or publishing classified information.

In this case, there is a Chinese trace or spy mania in Russia has already reached such limits, when they start looking for someone to blame even among scientists who took part in development of certain kinds of weapons after some military mishaps.

Maybe it is coincidence or there is a logical connection. It was necessary to find one to blame and take it out on someone. It is possible that officials of the Defence Ministry, dissatisfied with the fact that Kinzhals did were not a "magic weapon" as they told everyone, decided to take it out on specific scientists. One can just come up with a reason. In this case, it was an alleged leaking of classified information.

- As for Kinzhals, Putin has previously stated that Patriot would be as easy as shelling peas. Was the Kremlin head bluffing or could he have been duped by officials from the Defence Ministry?

- Putin's current situation reminds of Hitler after 1943. After the defeat in the USSR, Hitler started betting on "magic weapons". He realized he did not have enough resources to win the war, there were fewer weapons and the war had two fronts.

It seems to me that Putin has a similar story. It is a psychological deformation and not just in him, but in the Russian Defence Ministry as well. They know they cannot win the war. They do not want to lose, and it is extremely dangerous for them. They look for a "magic weapon".

They could sincerely believe the developers, and then comes the well-known situation of propaganda promotion. Later, those who ordered this propaganda start believing it. It is a well-known psychological phenomenon.

Any political technologist will tell you many examples of a candidate ordering a campaign and then starting to believe it. It was so convincing, and nice. That is what happened to Kinzhals.

On the one hand, the desire and aspiration for "super-weapons". One begins to publicize them and the leaders themselves unwittingly start to believe that they have a cool system in their hands and it can do anything.

Putin is not a technical expert. He was told that this system would defeat the American Patriot air defense system. He was happy. He must have believed it sincerely. And now it turns out that there are problems, so what do they do in this case? Stalin used to put some people in jail and some were shot. Putin has apparently decided to imitate Stalin in this regard.

In any case, it is a search for the guilty. This is happening now in Russia in various spheres. The squabble between Prigozhin and the leadership of the Russian Defence Ministry is exactly the same - a search for the guilty. They will be looking for someone to blame for military failures. The developers of Kinzhals are vnow to blame for the failure.