www-russia.org

Chapter 14: Whispers in the Dacha

The invitations went out over a military-grade encrypted channel, but their content was deceptively mundane. Mikhail/Sergei, join me for a banya and hunting this weekend. A chance to relax from these stressful times.

Viktor Orlov was summoning the board members for the most hostile takeover in history.

He had chosen them carefully. Mikhail Khodarin, the Industrialist, an old bull of a man who had clawed his way up from being a red director in a Soviet aluminum plant to controlling a global metals empire. Khodarin was a patriot, but his patriotism was measured in tons of bauxite and cubic meters of natural gas; he saw the war not as a crusade, but as a catastrophic disruption of his supply chains. The second was Sergei Volkov, the Banker, a younger, sleeker animal who moved silently through the canyons of international finance. He had spent twenty years building the bridges that connected Russia’s economy to the world. Now, he was forced to watch as the President dynamited his life’s work.

They met in the banya, a log cabin cathedral of fragrant cedar and searing heat. Stripped to towels, their billion-dollar suits and worldly armors left behind, they were just three sweating, middle-aged men. The paranoia was a fourth presence in the room, so thick it was almost visible in the shimmering air.

For an hour, they danced. They spoke of the unreliability of their new Chinese suppliers, the rapacious discounts demanded by their Indian buyers, the sheer, bloody-minded incompetence of the state railway system. It was a careful, coded ballet of discontent, each man probing the others’ boundaries without saying anything explicitly treasonous.

“My smelters need German technology to function at ninety-plus percent efficiency,” Khodarin grunted, splashing water on the hot rocks, making the air hiss. “I am told to be grateful for a Chinese knock-off that functions at sixty percent and breaks down every other Tuesday. This is not a strategy for global competition. It is a strategy for managed decay.”

“Managed decay would be a luxury,” the Banker, Volkov, countered, his voice smooth and precise. “They tell us de-dollarization is a great victory. A victory? We have traded our seat at the global table for the privilege of becoming a captive client of the yuan. I didn’t spend two decades building an international bank. I have apparently built a provincial currency exchange for a single, very demanding customer.”

Orlov let the bitterness hang in the scorching air. He knew the time was right.

Later, they stood in the crisp, cold air outside, the snow crunching under their felt boots. An attendant handed them their hunting rifles. It was time.

Orlov looked not at them, but out at the silent, snow-dusted birch forest. “I saw images of Kharkiv last night,” he said quietly, his voice perfectly level. “The university library. The opera house. It reminded me of St. Petersburg... or what Dresden must have looked like in 1945.” He paused, letting the silence stretch. “We call ourselves men of culture. Guardians of our civilization. Instead…” He left the sentence hanging, a thread of smoke in the frozen air.

Sergei Volkov, the Banker, went pale. His eyes darted towards the woods, as if he expected a sniper to emerge from behind a tree. This was it. The line.

But Mikhail Khodarin, the Industrialist, did not flinch. He chambered a round into his rifle with a decisive, metallic snap. He stared at Orlov, his old, cold eyes completely steady.

“The CEO is drunk,” Khodarin said, his voice a low growl. “He is driving the company car towards a cliff. And he has locked the doors from the inside.”

The metaphor, brutal and pragmatic, hung between them. It wasn't treason. It was a fiduciary duty. A necessary intervention to save the corporation from a rogue executive.

Volkov, the Banker, swallowed hard. The fear was still on his face, but a new, cold calculation was dawning in his eyes. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.

The first cell of the conspiracy was live.

The Discourse, 14: Game Theory and the Oligarch's Dilemma

Section 14.1: The "Banya" as a Non-Verbal Trust Mechanism
The choice of a banya for the meeting is a culturally significant and strategic one. On the surface, it is a place of relaxation and plausible deniability. Psychologically, however, it functions as a trust accelerator. The act of stripping away the external signifiers of power (suits, watches, phones) and enduring the shared physical stress of the heat creates a state of enforced intimacy and vulnerability. In this environment, non-verbal cues become critically important. The conspirators are not just listening to what is being said; they are intensely watching how it is being said, looking for signs of fear or deception. It is a high-stakes, real-world application of game theory, where each "player" must signal their own intent and read the others' signals before committing to a cooperative (and highly risky) strategy.

Section 14.2: The Language of the "Hostile Takeover"
The dialogue reveals the specific mental framework of the elite conspirators. They are not speaking the language of political revolution, liberty, or democracy. They are speaking the language of corporate governance and risk management. Khodarin’s final metaphor—"The CEO is drunk"—is the key that unlocks their path to treason. It allows them to reframe their actions, not as a betrayal of the state, but as a betrayal of a single, incompetent leader who is violating his fiduciary duty to them, the primary "shareholders." This cognitive reframing is essential. It allows these deeply pragmatic and amoral men to justify an act of high treason as a rational, necessary, and even responsible business decision designed to protect the long-term value of their "asset," which in this case is the Russian Federation itself.

Section 14.3: The Tipping Point from Grumbling to Action
This section demonstrates the critical tipping point in any elite-led conspiracy. The initial phase consists of what can be called "strategic grumbling"—the sharing of mutual dissatisfaction to gauge the general mood. The tipping point occurs when one actor, in this case Orlov, introduces a catalyst that is both emotionally potent and ideologically "safe." By invoking the destruction of culture, he elevates the conversation from mere financial complaint to a higher-minded concern for "civilization." This provides the other conspirators with a nobler justification than pure self-interest. Khodarin’s translation of this into the "rogue CEO" metaphor completes the process. The conspiracy moves from a collection of individual grievances to a shared, actionable framework, a crucial and often fatal step for the targeted regime.