Translated material
Autumn of the Autocrat
Russia's elites are starting to think about a future without Putin, The Economist says.
"What's next? Is there life after Putin? How will he leave and who will replace him? These questions preoccupy the minds of the Russian elite, bureaucrats and businessmen who watch the military action, the flight of talented people from Russia, and the West's refusal to back down in the face of energy and nuclear blackmail of the Russian president. “There is a lot of swearing and loud arguments in Moscow restaurants and kitchens,” says one of the elite. “Everyone understood that Putin had blundered and lost.” The once unthinkable - a change of president - has now become a frequently discussed topic.
This does not mean that Putin is going to leave soon, or there will be a coup, or Putin will use nuclear weapons. It only means that those who run the country and own its assets are losing confidence in their president. Russia appears to be entering the most turbulent period in its post-Soviet political history. Western governments are also beginning to worry that Russia may become ungovernable.
“Never before has Vladimir Putin found himself in such a situation in his 22 years in office,” says Kirill Rogov. - He faced such difficult situations as the sinking of the Kursk submarine and its crew in 2000 or the Beslan school siege in 2004, where 333 people died. But in the past, he has been able to shirk responsibility and maintain the image of a strong leader. Now he is planning and executing operations that are obviously failing.”
The February 24 invasion of Ukraine came as a shock to the Russian establishment, which convinced itself that Putin would not risk an all-out war. However, the combination of his first, if limited, military successes, the modest extent of the economic crisis, and the first attempts at peace negotiations calmed the nerves. Some members of the elite even convinced themselves for a while that Putin could not lose.
This opinion was destroyed by "partial mobilization". It showed that the “special military operation” is stalling, and by raising additional troops, Putin is drawing the country even deeper into the conflict. As shown by the exodus and refusal to mobilize, his attempt to turn his adventure into a new "Great Patriotic War" failed. The mobilization violated the basic premise of society's consent to war: it should not have required its active participation. In Moscow, where men began to be caught on the streets, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin was forced on October 17 to announce the end of conscription. Other regions with less lobbying power will have to fill the gap.
Putin cannot win the war because it had no clear goals from the very beginning, and having lost so much, he cannot end it without humiliation
Even if the fighting in Ukraine ceases, a return to a peaceful pre-war life under his presidency is almost impossible. In the meantime, the effects of sanctions and the exodus of the most skilled and educated part of the labor force are beginning to show in the economy, while consumer confidence is falling.
The ceremony on September 30, in which Putin announced the annexation of four regions of Ukraine that he does not actually control after aggressive criticism of the West, was so absurd that it undermined his halo of power even inside Russia. According to Tatyana Stanovaya, “Until September, Russian elites made a pragmatic choice in favor of Putin... but things have moved so far that they may now have to choose between various losing scenarios.”
A military defeat could well lead to the collapse of the regime, with all the attendant risks for those who supported it. Putin's belligerence "raises the question of whether the Russian elites are ready to support Putin to the very end, especially against the backdrop of growing threats to use nuclear weapons," Stanovaya said. “From a source of stability, Putin has turned into a source of danger.”
Political scientist Abbas Gallyamov believes that in the next few weeks and months, members of the elite who have always believed in Putin's ability to maintain the balance of the regime will realize that saving the regime and even their own lives depends on themselves. This should be the beginning of the search for a possible successor within the system.
In the list of potential candidates, Gallyamov includes Dmitry Patrushev, son of Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Security Council and one of the main ideologists of the regime. Patrushev Jr. is a former minister. Although he is a member of the "family", he can be considered as a new face due to his youth. Other options include the Kremlin's deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, Sergei Sobyanin, and Mikhail Mishustin, who, with the backing of the security forces, could play the role of a moderate negotiator with the West.
However, as wrote Alexei Navalny recently in the Washington Post , the hope that with the change of Putin to another member of his elite ... this view of the war in general, and even more so the war for the 'legacy of the USSR', will change, is at least naive. The only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial nationalism, according to Navalny, is to decentralize power and turn Russia into a parliamentary republic. In his address to the Russian elite, Navalny argues that parliamentary democracy is also the most rational and desirable choice for many of the political factions surrounding Putin: aggressive."
This "more aggressive group" is already forming. It includes Yevgeny Prigozhin and Ramzan Kadyrov - and both of them have their own personal armies. As long as they both remain personally loyal to Putin. Ekaterina Shulman compared Prigozhin's army with the guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible, who once plunged the country into chaos. President Putin has always said that Ukraine is a failed state, a failed state. However, Ukraine is standing, and instead Putin is rapidly turning Russia into a “failed state”.