Buru, Moscow, General Staff Headquarters.
Shaposhnikov, Chief of the Buru General Staff, sat in his office without saying a word. His gaze rested on the map of the Middle East hanging on the wall. He knew that hundreds of thousands of Buru troops were being slaughtered by the Germans there. Yet as Chief of the General Staff, he could do nothing about it.
Originally, those Buru officers and soldiers could have been withdrawn. Even if not all of them could be brought back, at least the main force could have been saved. But Joseph, for the sake of his own pride, had refused to allow those troops to retreat and demanded that they fight to the bitter end. Clearly, he was sending those Buru officers and soldiers to their deaths! The casualties of several hundred thousand troops filled Shaposhnikov with guilt. However, in order to preserve his position, he could not contradict Joseph and could only obey Joseph's arrangements.
Shaposhnikov had only managed to become Chief of the Buru General Staff after great difficulty, and now he also held the post of People's Commissar of Defense. But Shaposhnikov did not want his political career to end like this. He still wanted to climb higher. For example, to be promoted to marshal and become a Politburo member of the Bolshevik Party. To realize those dreams, he had to cling tightly to Joseph's thigh. Otherwise, let alone climbing any higher, even keeping his current position would be extremely difficult.
"Comrade Chief of Staff, we have just received word that the 47th Army Corps and 51st Army Corps have been wiped out by the Germans. Lieutenant General Kozlov, commander of the Caucasian Front Army, Major General Shamanin, the Political Commissar, and Major General Torbushin, the Chief of Staff, have all been killed in