According to a former Russian diplomat, Putin could be removed from the post of Russian president when the Russians realize that he has nothing to offer them except repression.
Russian President Vladimir Putin could be removed from power after losing the war to Ukraine. This was told by the former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev to Newsweek.
According to him, the current head of the Kremlin can be replaced, as he is “an ordinary dictator.”
“And here, if we look at history, we will see that such dictators were replaced from time to time. So usually, if they lost the war and could not satisfy the needs of supporters, they usually left,” Bondarev said.
The diplomat also believes that serious disagreements will begin in Russia, as the Russians will understand that Putin has lost the war and can no longer offer them anything. Moreover, they may think that they no longer need the President of the Russian Federation.
“I think that as soon as they say goodbye to their delusions and find themselves in a new reality where Putin has nothing to give except fear and some threats of reprisals against their own people, this will change the situation,” the diplomat said.
Russia’s defeat in the war against Ukraine
Vlad Mikhnenko, an expert on the post-communist transformation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at Oxford University, laid out three possible scenarios for Russia’s defeat.
According to the expert, a lot depends on how exactly Russia loses the war. Mikhnenko is sure that the first scenario involves a chaotic retreat of Russian forces, caused by a Ukrainian counter-offensive on one or several fronts at once. It will also cause panic among the 600,000 Russians in Crimea and collaborators.
“The situation in Moscow will develop rapidly, the security forces will push Putin out of power. He will not have a chance to use nuclear weapons, as many fear, because this order will most likely be sabotaged at many levels,” Mikhnenko said.
The second scenario, according to the expert, involves an exit from hostilities in the style of the First World War, when the war will slowly end for a long time. Mobilized Russian soldiers will spend months in the trenches under precise shelling by Ukrainian forces.
According to Mikhnenko, this development will give Putin time to advocate for a ceasefire or a short-term settlement on almost any terms. Then the head of the Kremlin may agree to resign in order to make way for a new leader in Russia. True, the security forces may grant Putin immunity from judicial investigation.
The third scenario proposed by Mikhnenko assumes that the war in Ukraine will last at least another two years. Ukrainian forces will carry out counter-offensives, pushing the invaders out of the occupied territories in some sectors of the front. In other areas, perhaps, the Russian defense will still hold out.
In this case, according to the expert, the security forces and economic elites of Russia will try to negotiate with Putin so that he transfers power to a successor. At the same time, they will try to present small successes at the front to Russian society as a “victory” in the war against the West.
Recall that the Kremlin said they did not recognize the court in The Hague. The speaker of the President of the Russian Federation said that he does not recognize the International Criminal Court in The Hague, because, in his opinion, international courts did not pay attention to the war crimes of “Ukrainian nationalists in Donbass.”
Also earlier, the reservists of the RF Armed Forces complained to Putin about their commanders. The mobilized are indignant that they were transferred from the defense to assault units and sent to the attack near Avdiivka without reconnaissance, communications and equipment.
