What are rumored in post-Putin Russian elites?
The Russian elites who run the country and own its assets are losing faith in their president for the first time. Once unthinkable, Putin's removal can now at least be contemplated. Here are the names of the possible successors of a tsar who didn't make it. The Economist article
“What will happen next? Is there life after Putin? How does he go and who replaces him? ”.
These are the questions that weigh on the minds of the Russian elite, its bureaucrats and businessmen these days, as they watch the Ukrainian army advance, the talented people fleeing Russia and the West refusing to back down. in the face of Vladimir Putin's energy and nuclear blackmail. “In restaurants and kitchens in Moscow there is a lot of bad language and it gets angry,” says one member of the elite. "Everyone has realized that Putin has made a mistake and is losing".
This does not mean that Putin is about to retreat, be overthrown or fire a nuclear weapon. However, it means that those who run the country and own its assets are losing faith in their president. The Russian political system appears to be entering the most turbulent period in its post-Soviet history. Western governments are also beginning to fear that Russia may become ungovernable – writes The Economist .
"Never before has Vladimir Putin been in such a situation in the 23 years of his rule," said Kirill Rogov, a Russian political analyst. In the past, when faced with difficult situations such as the loss of the Kursk submarine and its 118 crew members in 2000, or a terrible school siege in 2004 that resulted in the deaths of 333 people, he managed to divert responsibility and maintain his image as a strong leader. "Now he is planning and executing operations that are visibly failing."
The invasion of Ukraine on February 24 came as a shock to the Russian establishment, which was convinced that Putin would not risk a full-scale war. But the mixture of his first, albeit limited, military advances, the absence of an economic collapse in Russia, and the first attempts at peace negotiations have calmed the nerves. (The massive consumption of alcohol may also have contributed; the situation became so acute that Putin began complaining in public about alcoholism.) Some members of the elite even convinced themselves, for a time, that Putin could not lose.
This belief was shattered by Putin's "partial" mobilization. It showed that its "special military operation" was faltering and, by enlisting more troops, it was seen that it was dragging the country even deeper into the conflict. And as the mass exodus and extensive troop withdrawal have shown, his attempt to turn the enterprise into a new "Great Patriotic War" has so far failed. The mobilization broke the fundamental premise of public compliance with the war: that it would not require its active participation. In Moscow, the richest city in Russia, where men were drafted into the streets, the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, felt compelled on October 17 to announce that the conscription was over. Other regions, with less lobbying power, will have to fill the deficit.
Putin cannot win his war, because from the beginning he had no clear objectives; and, having lost so much, he cannot finish it without being deeply humiliated. Even if the fighting in Ukraine were to stop, a return to the peaceful pre-war life is virtually impossible under his bellicose presidency. Meanwhile, the economy is starting to show the effects of sanctions and the exodus of the most skilled and educated workers; consumer confidence is falling.
The ceremony on September 30, in which Putin, after a raving speech against the West, annexed four Ukrainian provinces that he does not really control, was so absurd that it probably undermined his aura of strength even inside Russia. As Tatyana Stanovaya, political advisor, says: "Until September, the Russian elites had made the pragmatic choice to support Putin … but the situation has progressed to such an extent that now they may have to choose between various losing scenarios."
A military defeat could lead to the collapse of the regime, with all the associated risks for those who supported it. Putin's belligerence, meanwhile, "raises the question of whether Russian elites are willing to stay with Putin to the end, particularly amid growing threats to use nuclear weapons," Stanovaya notes. Putin has gone from being a perceived source of stability to a source of instability and danger. This week Ksenia Sobchak, believed to be Putin's goddaughter, fled before being arrested, a sign that the elite are devouring their own members.
Abbas Galyamov, a political analyst who spent time in the Kremlin, argues that in the coming weeks and months the elite, whose members have always trusted in Putin's ability to preserve his regime (and they), will realize that it is up to it is up to them to save the regime and even their own lives. This, according to him, will intensify the search for a possible successor within the system.
Galyamov's list of potential candidates includes Dmitry Patrushev, son of Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Security Council and one of the regime's leading ideologues. Patrushev junior is a former minister. Despite being part of the family, he could be seen as a new face for his young age. Among the best known possibilities are Sergei Kiriyenko, the deputy chief of staff of the Kremlin; Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow; and Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, who could ally with some security men and play the role of moderate negotiator with the West.
However, as Alexei Navalny, jailed Russian opposition leader recently argued in the Washington Post , the hope that "the replacement of Putin with another member of his elite will radically change this view of war, and in particular the war for the '"Legacy of the USSR" is at least naive ". The only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial nationalism, Navalny argued, is for Russia to decentralize power and transform itself into a parliamentary republic. In what appears to be an appeal to the Russian elite, Navalny argued that parliamentary democracy is also a rational and desirable choice for many of the political factions surrounding Putin. "It offers them the opportunity to maintain influence and fight for power, while ensuring they are not destroyed by a more aggressive group."
This "more aggressive group" has already begun to emerge. It includes Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former criminal known as "Putin's cook", who runs a group of mercenaries called the Wagner group, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman of Chechnya, who has his own private army. Both are considered personally loyal to Putin. Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist, compared Prigozhin's men to the oprichniki – a body of bodyguards set up by Ivan the Terrible – who plunged the country into chaos. The Russian dictator wants to turn Ukraine into a failed state. Instead, it is rapidly turning Russia into a failed state.
(Extract from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cosa-si-vocifera-nelle-elite-russe-per-il-dopo-putin/ on Sun, 30 Oct 2022 07:03:31 +0000.