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The Russian elite is starting to think about a future without Putin

And then? Is there life after Putin? How does it go and who replaces it? These are the questions that weigh on the minds of the Russian elite, its bureaucrats and businessmen, as they watch the advance of the Ukrainian army, the talents flee Russia, and the West refuses to give in to energy and Vladimir Putin’s nuclear blackmail. “There is a lot of swearing and angry talk in Moscow’s restaurants and kitchens,” says a representative of the elite. “Everyone understood that Putin was wrong and he was losing,” writes The Economist.

This does not mean that Putin is about to retire, be ousted or fire an atomic bomb. This means that those who run the country and own assets there lose credibility. The Russian political system appears to be entering the most turbulent period in its post-Soviet history. Western governments are also starting to worry that Russia may become ungovernable.

“Never before has Vladimir Putin been in such a situation in his 23 years of government,” said Kirill Rogov, a Russian political analyst. In the past, 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 ended in the deaths of 333 people, he managed to deflect responsibility and keep the his image as a strong leader. “He Now he is planning and executing operations that are visibly failing.”

The February 24 invasion of Ukraine came as a shock to Russia’s ruling elite, who had become convinced that Putin would not risk a full-scale war. But the combination of his initial, albeit limited, military advances, the lack of an economic collapse in Russia, and the first attempts at peace talks have calmed the nerves. (Heavy drinking may have helped too; but it got so bad that Putin started complaining publicly about his alcoholism.) Some members of the elite even became convinced for a time that Putin couldn’t lose.

This view was shattered by Putin’s “partial” mobilization. This proved that his “special military operation” was failing; and by recruiting more troops, it was seen as pulling the country deeper into the conflict. And as the mass exodus and widespread draft dodging have shown, her attempt to turn his enterprise into a new “Great Patriotic War” has so far failed. The mobilization violated the fundamental premise of society’s tacit consent to war: that no active participation would be required. In Moscow, the richest city in Russia, where men were chased through the streets, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin felt obliged on October 17 to announce that the mobilization was over. Other regions with less lobbying power will have to make up the deficit.

Putin cannot win his war because he lacked clear objectives from the start; and having lost so much, he cannot finish it without being deeply humiliated by it. Even if the fighting in Ukraine should cease, a return to peaceful pre-war life is nearly impossible under his bellicose presidency. Meanwhile, the economy is beginning to show the effects of sanctions and the exodus of the most skilled and educated workers; consumer confidence is falling.

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A ceremony on September 30 in which, after a fierce speech against the West, Putin annexed four provinces in Ukraine that he doesn’t really control was so absurd as to undermine his aura of power in Russia as well. As political advisor Tatyana Stanovaya puts it: “Until September, the Russian elites made the pragmatic choice to support Putin … but things have come so far that now they may have to choose between different defeat scenarios.”

A military defeat could lead to the fall of the regime with all the associated risks for those who supported it. Meanwhile, Putin’s belligerence “raises the question of whether Russian elites are willing to stick with Putin to the end, especially amid growing threats to use nuclear weapons,” Stanovaya noted. Putin has gone from a perceived source of stability to a source of danger.

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 believed in Putin’s ability to preserve his regime (and they), will realize it’s up to them to save him and also to save their own life. This, according to him, will intensify the search for a possible successor in the system.

Galyamov’s list of potential candidates includes Dmitry Patrushev, son of Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Security Council and one of the regime’s leading ideologues. Patrushev Jr. is a former minister. Although he is part of the family, he can be perceived as a fresh face thanks to his youth. More familiar possibilities include Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff; Sobyanin, mayor of Moscow; and Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, who can ally with some security men and play the role of moderate negotiator with the West.

Yet, as Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, said in a recent Washington Post op-ed, the hope is that “Putin’s replacement by another member of his elite will radically change this view of war, and in particular the war of succession “. of the USSR “is naive to say the least”. The only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial nationalism, Navalny argues, is for Russia to decentralize power and become a parliamentary republic. In what appeared to be an appeal to the Russian elite, Navalny argued that parliamentary democracy was also a rational and desirable choice for many of the political factions around Putin. “This gives them the opportunity to maintain influence and fight for power, ensuring they are not wiped out by a more aggressive group.”

This “more aggressive group” has already started to go public. It includes Yevgeny Prigozhin, a “former” criminal known as “Putin’s cook” who leads a group of mercenaries called the “Wagner group” and Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman of Chechnya who has his own private army. Both men are considered personally loyal to Putin. Ekaterina Shulman, a political scientist, compared Prigozhin’s men to the “oprichniki” – a body of bodyguards created by Ivan the Terrible – who were throwing the country into chaos. The Russian dictator started his war with the intention of turning Ukraine into a failed state. Instead, he is rapidly turning Russia into one.

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