What I had in mind by factions is more that Russia is not a monolith. There are many different interests and groups who might be pushing in various directions.

What I had in mind by factions is more that Russia is not a monolith. There are many different interests and groups who might be pushing in various directions. Such “factions” wouldn’t be executing something like this entirely on their own though. I’m imagining something more like them pushing through a plan like this within the Russian Navy on the Baltic and then maybe getting a green light from the top to execute. This is at least my own understanding of Putin’s Russia - Putin only explains who the enemy is and what the Pravda is. Stakeholders vying for power in his orbit then respond by bringing forward complete solutions. He can then reward the ones he likes and punish for the ones that he doesn’t. This gives him a layer of insulation from responsibility. No one can ever say for certain that he ordered the execution of this journalist or was involved in that war-zone hospital bombing. He only has to integrate such events as they happen and refocus attention on who the enemy is. Those factions vying for his attention are also probably sabotaging each other all the time as well. Anyways, with the conscription rolling ahead in full force and the Russian media proclaiming that enormous losses in Ukraine are due to NATO help; I think there are powerful factions within the Russian system who are pushing for a return to a healthy EU relationship with gas flowing and access to Western tech. And then there are other factions who would prefer the war to continue to escalate. Nothing quite shuts up the former group like the destruction of critical infrastructure needed to revert to the previous status quo.