Who know what's actually going on in the Kremlin? I sure don't.
From The Hill, January 19:
Circling Valkyries over the Kremlin
High above the red crenelated walls of the Kremlin and the bloody battlefields of Ukraine, mythic Norse Valkyries, mounted on flying stallions, are, allegorically-speaking, circling overhead. Russian President Vladimir Putin is squarely in their sights and he should be wary because these helmeted versions of the winged maidens are not benevolent. They are sinister and charged by the Nordic god Odin with determining who lives and who dies, and who is worthy of entry to Valhalla.
It’s likely that Putin was nearly chosen by the Valkyries in December. Only several days after visiting Belarusian President Viktor Lukashenko in Minsk — after warning of an “escalating situation” in an obvious attempt to appear in command after weeks of lying low — Putin abruptly canceled a visit to a tank factory in Nizhny Tagil. Snow-covered streets, rarely ever plowed, had been cleared and Putin’s state limousine was already pre-positioned.
Then, before ill health rumors or other contrived explanations of Putin’s cancellation could take hold, in an eerie, 79-year old echo of the aftermath of “Operation Valkyrie” and the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler at his Wolf’s Lair in present-day Gierłoż, Poland, General Alexei Maslov, a high-profile special representative of the Uralvagonzavod tank factory, died “unexpectedly” of a heart attack on Christmas Day. Coincidence, or a repeat of elements of Germany’s high command to eliminate Hitler?
The Germans came close. In July 1944, a group of senior Wehrmacht officers led by Gen. Friedrich Olbricht, Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, and Col. Claus von Stauffenberg finalized a plan that relied upon co-opting Nazi Germany’s national emergency contingency plan that was code-named “Operation Valkyrie.” All that was needed for it to become fully operational was for Hitler to die. Stauffenberg placed a time bomb near Hitler, but a heavy wooden leg of a conference table spared him.
Had Maslov (and unknown accomplices) nearly succeeded as well in Nizhny Tagil? Maslov likely had the means and credentials to pull off a coup d’état. He was the former commander in chief of all ground forces in Russia and later the Russian military representative to NATO. He had peer contacts in the West who might have proved useful in helping to negotiate an immediate end to the war in Ukraine. ...
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