According to Dossier, a presentation was shown to a small circle close to Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy head of the presidential administration, laying out how to explain the unflattering outcomes of the Kremlin’s "special military operation" to the public.
The presentation warns that continuing the war could require a general mobilization and a full conversion of the economy to wartime footing. It lists other risks of prolonging the conflict: depleted resources, higher taxes, business cutbacks, drone attacks and strikes deep inside Russia, a demographic crisis, replacement of Russians by migrants, and a potential loss to the United States in a struggle over a new world order.
Dossier says the most likely scenario described in the document differs sharply from Russia’s stated war aims. The Kremlin would portray gains as including transfer of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to Russia, a freezing of the front line in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Sumy and Kharkiv. EU sanctions would remain in place, U.S. sanctions would be lifted, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would remain in power, and "denazification" would be largely symbolic, the presentation says.
The political wing of the Kremlin would frame such an outcome as a "great victory" and a personal achievement for dictator Vladimir Putin — a victory, the presentation argues, not over Ukrainian nationalism but over a more formidable opponent: the "collective West."
Key achievements to be highlighted, the presentation says, would include territorial acquisitions, access to natural resources, a land route to Crimea and the Azov coast where new resort areas could be developed, and millions of new Russian-speaking citizens. An added "bonus," it says, would be that Russia had "cleansed" itself of elites who betrayed it, Dossier reported.
The presentation recommends assuring the public that taking Kyiv was never the objective and that "denazification" is being “carried out on the battlefield.” One of the slogans proposed is: "One must know when to stop." Propagandists would also promise that Ukraine will disappear as a state within 10 to 15 years and claim the European Union suffered a severe economic blow.
Dossier says some of the recommended talking points are cynically divorced from reality. The Kremlin would be told to claim Russia prevented a humanitarian catastrophe in Donbas, that the Russian army proved to be "the most combat-ready in the world," and that it withstood a global confrontation involving 50 countries, the report says.
The presentation calls for a "controlled thaw" in film and literature, the return of political humor to television, rehabilitating the word "peace" and even a limited amnesty. It proposes celebratory events featuring national leaders and projects highlighting past Russian victories.
It is unclear whether Putin will approve the plan. Dossier notes
the presentation was prepared shortly before Putin publicly acknowledged some economic
problems Russia faces in the fifth year of the Russo–Ukrainian war.