2. Orban the traitor

Putin's Diary is the behind-the-scenes story of the special Military operation in Ukraine. It is based on an infamous Russian telegram channel with gossip from the Kremlin. Today's diary is about my meeting with Comrade Orban. If you want to subscribe you can do so below.

I sit at my breakfast table, eating a dull piece of Croissant. Something bad is going to happen today. I know it. My bladder hurts. All night, the same thing. Wake up. Go to the toilet. Some lousy drips, then back to these strange dreams. I look through the window. The sky outside is gray as asphalt. The birch trees have no leaves anymore, their thin branches pointing to the sky like spider legs. Dead spiders on their backs with their lifeless legs in the air. I make a mental note to have the caretaker buy me some new plastic trees instead before Christmas.

“My President, Sorry to interrupt. Something has come up.”

I look up from my croissant. It is Igor.

“What is it now?”

Igor is the boss of my bodyguards. Or “Федеральная служба охраны” to be precise. The federal presidential protection service. A short muscular man, with a sharp nose and bulging eyes. Patrushev once said he looks like Beria on steroids. It is a good description.

“It is Orban” Igor says “Our sources say he has caved in to Schultz. He will let the aid package through. 30 billion euros.“

Блядь! The bad news did not take long today. But this… I have a bad feeling in my stomach.

“Where did you get the intel Igor?”

“It’s from the Strasbourg Ring.” he says “we got it forwarded from the 9th. Probably one of the taps in Bruxelles. We’re looking into that."

The Strasbourg ring has been one of our best sources in Europe. A group of former youth organization communists who swapped their loyalty from the KGB to the FSB. We sent them to infiltrate the EU bureaucracy and through the years, some of them have ended up in very high places. High enough to even plant surveillance equipment..

I put my croissant down and stand up.

“So. Did the Intel say what made that fat fool change his mind?”

“It seems the EU finally promised him the funds for the Budapest - Bratislava highway”

A highway? I am betrayed for some road? I feel a strange anger growing.

“Send for Patrushev,” I say “I need his cool brain.”

“B…but Patrushev is on his way to Tehran!”

*“Is he travelling by aeroplane?”

“Yes of course.”*

*“Then tell them to turn that plane around. I want him at the afternoon meeting”

“But…the Irainans….”*

“Do you want to make these decisions instead of me, Igor?” I say “become Igor the president?”

I do not raise my voice, but Igor turns white.

“Of course not my president. Never! I’ll do it at once.” He nods and walks away to make the calls.

I am walking towards the car. A cold drizzle stings my face. My head hurts. My bladder hurts. I need to urinate, but I already made excuses two times. It would look weak to go again, and I cannot afford to look weak now, not even in front of my staff. I step into the limousine. As the car speeds out the gates I think through the Orban- situation. The worst is that it is my own fault. I trusted that Hungarian swine. In the early days, when Soros and the Hollywood degenerates attacked him, it was me that propped him up. I gave him a generous slush fund for взятки. Helped him with the surveillance of his opposition. I even let him use the TTP for some wet jobs. I sigh. Outside the car window the bleak morning Moscow flies by. The convoy must be driving at least 120 km per hour. It happens that some poor motorist doesn’t manage to get out of the way fast enough, and is inevitably crushed by the weight of the lead limos.

I spend the afternoon with Shoigu, straightening out a thousand small things. A new defence perimeter needs to be set up on the other side of Dnjepr. It is hard to concentrate. My gaze drifts to the window and those horrible dead trees outside. Why must trees lose their beautiful leaves like that? It looks so unnatural and depressing. Is there no science that could stop this decay? At four PM, Patrushev finally arrives, sweaty and irritated.

“I was one hour from Teheran when we turned,” he says “the Iranians are not happy”

I don’t say anything, just look at him. He seems to hesitate.

“But I am happy to be back” he suddenly grins “what can I do for you, my President?”

I brief him on the situation with Orban. He turns ashen. Shoigu, who has been listening in, gasps.

“If the Ukrainians get that money” he says* “our whole ‘cold, dark winter’ plan will be for nothing."*

He talks with a strangely muffled voice.

“You don’t say Shoigu!” I snap. He grins stupidly and looks away.

I turn back to Patrushev, who has gone quiet. All the annoyance is gone from his face. He looks deeply concentrated. This is the reason I still love the psychotic old swine. In calmer times his total lack of human emotions makes him hard to predict, but now, when everyone else is losing their head, this coldness is an advantage.

“We could of course just kill him” he finally says “but much as I would like to jam a rusty screwdriver into the ear of that traitor, it will be a sign of weakness from our point.”

“I agree” I say “do you have an alternative?”

He thinks for a while.

*“I see only two alternatives” *he finally says.

I make a sign for him to continue

“The first alternative is that we scare him. We show him the kompromat we have from his time in KISZ. The real file.”

I nod. I remember the photos. Quite disturbing. He knows we have them of course. So whatever made him do what he just did- it is a calculated move. He believes he is in a stable enough situation to survive the publication. But what he doesn’t know is that we didn’t show him all the pictures. It’s an old GRU tactic. Only use the exact amount of gunpowder you need to kill your enemy. There are pictures in the file that he will not survive.

“And the other alternative?”

Patrushev doesn’t hesitate.

“We really scare him.” he says “there could be a nuclear accident. A small bomb, one of the backpack ones. Maybe it was us, maybe it was the Ukrainians, who knows. That would not just make Orban soil his pants. I suspect the whole EU would be wary of sending money in that situation”

In the corner of my eye, I see Shoigu turn white, but for once, he is quiet. Perhaps the idiot finally has started to sense my mood.

“No” I say after a while “I prefer number one”

I hear Shoigu exhale loudly. The sound of a man that just escaped the firing squad.

“How do we proceed?” I ask. Patrushev shrugs.

“Send the Dresden boys”. He says “Let them pay the fat fool a visit!”*

For the first time today, I smile.

The “Dresden Boys” is one of these typical Russian outfits. They could not exist anywhere else in the world. Their full name is something like “special department nineteen. They are a remnant from the KGB days. A mix of people from the eastern bloc. Romanians, Hungarians and Russians of course. In the old days their orders from the 9th directorate, or the Politbureau. They were used for wet jobs outside the sphere. Somehow they survived all the reorganizations and the last year they have even thrived, working with the Wagnerites, mainly in Africa. Formally I suppose they work within the FSB, but they are not under anyone's direct command, except mine, of course. Igor raises his hand. A strange gesture, like he is in school.

“Yes Igor?”

“I must protest My president,” he says, voice thick with emotion “These people…they are not…professionals. They are killers. Mad dogs. You want them to threaten him, good, but according to my experience, they might just happen to kill him.”

As he speaks, I conceal a smile. It is a strange thing with humans such as Igor. I’ve seen him kill students with his bare hands. At the экзамен he placed a dirty bomb at a Kindergarten. Did not move a muscle in his face. Yet these people scare him. I suppose this is a good sign.

Tomorrow we will set the plans to warn Mr Orban. Want to read about it? Subscribe HERE!