Russia is not Putin: to conform to this equation would be to do a favor for the autocrat who set the tone in the aggression against Ukraine. But at the same time, according to good analysts, the majority of Russians are on Putin’s side, and a coup in the Kremlin is impossible in the near future. For many reasons. Because the President had two decades to silence the free press and independent media step by step and to make public debate impossible: the censorship that has now emerged is of Soviet character. State television denies any contradiction or problem and makes propaganda in unequivocal terms in an antiUkrainian and antiWestern tone. Because the constant reference to the past greatness “dissolved after the collapse of the USSR affects a part of the population, especially those living far from the big cities. At least 15,000 Russians have been arrested amid protests across the country, and hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled abroad to avoid a return to dictatorship. As Masha Gessen wrote in The New Yorker, the best part of the country is leaving. But that’s not enough to overthrow such a solid power.
The Blitzkrieg suspected by Putin has evolved into a much more complicated conflict due to opposition from Ukrainian forces (backed by a more compact West than in the recent past) and the Ukrainian people at large. The Kremlin boss faces the most difficult moment in power in twentytwo years. The rumors of Defense Minister Shoigu’s “strange” and prolonged absence and the likely arrest of two key members of the FSB (exKGB) suggest there could be friction in the upper echelons. But Putin’s loyalists form a compact magic circle around the head, dependent on the Kremlin. The fact that some technocrats and oligarchs, severely punished by international sanctions, are dissatisfied is an important signal, but the latter have practically no power at this stage. None of them have the strength to stand up to Putin.
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A protracted war, the economy under strain, rising unemployment, cracks in the ailing army are all elements that can cause the president’s popularity to wane over time. As Mark Galeotti, honorary professor at University College London and member of the oldest and most renowned British defense think tank Rusi, points out, it will be interesting to see what will happen in April when Russia comes to the new compulsory call: a lot is possible.. desertions. Russian forces are demoralized and deadlocked.
A coup is not a realistic scenario
Still, a coup is not a realistic scenario: there is no unity of intentions between the three key “entities” (political elite, military, and intelligence) that are essential to Putin’s eventual defenestration. Above all, the secret services, the FSB, would continue to be very loyal to the president. In a country with solid political structures and no real opposition, even in a fragile situation like the current one, stability is guaranteed by the various institutional counterweights.
We absurdly suspect a coup attempt by the Ministry of Defense or the FSB. There is the Russian National Guard, which could and probably would intervene in Putin’s defense: it is a 300,000strong body established by law by the Kremlin six years ago, officially tasked with fighting terrorism and organized crime. In fact, according to various observers, to protect Putin from everything and everyone. Someone called it his private army. At the head of this special body is Viktor Zolotov, a former Putin bodyguard, inseparable from the President, thanks to whom he has amassed enormous wealth (and like him various National Guard officers).
Putin created a ruthless security system
Another essential element is the presence of a network of military counterintelligence agents deployed in the armed forces. It is the key to Putin’s control. Shortly after taking power, the Federal Security Service (FSB) reinforced the already large military counterintelligence presence of its predecessor, the KGB. Counterintelligence officers report directly to the Russian military to oversee the armed forces. When Putin headed the FSB, he referred to counterintelligence as a “miniFSB.
Putin has created a ruthless security system and has been prepared for the risks of a possible palace or military coup since taking office in late 1999. The Russian coercive apparatus has several mechanisms to prevent a coup. The regime also maintains a number of different security services outside of the regular army and National Guard with impressive intelligencegathering capabilities. If someone attempts a coup, the conspiracy could be discovered and foiled by these agencies.
From Mussolini to Saddam, whenever sanctions haven’t ended a war
How could the end of the Putin regime actually take place, who knows if in the near or distant future? According to ForeignPolicy.com, one might not have to look too far to find an extremely different but in some respects similar scenario: just look at what happened to Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. On February 19 and 20, 2014, Yanukovych ordered his security forces to fire live bullets at protesters, killing about 70 people. Instead of cracking down on the protests, however, the repression led to their escalation and the flight of the regime’s top security services and prominent figures. Shortly thereafter, the security service SBU announced that it would cease operations against the demonstrators. With no security forces ready to crack down, Yanukovych fled into exile in Russia. Authoritarian regimes seem very stable until suddenly they are not. Putin will probably be no exception.
The sanctions
Some experts have suggested that with sanctions hitting the economy hard, an attempt to remove Putin from power might work. Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist who has studied revolutions in the postSoviet arena, disagrees. “I don’t think revolution is the most likely outcome of sanctions,” he told Al Jazeera, arguing that nothing that has happened so far is enough to trigger an insurgency. Rather, “a split between the elites is necessary. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian Empire experienced two revolutions associated with unpopular wars: one in 1905 after the humiliating defeat in the RussoJapanese War of 190405, and another in 1917 during World War I. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, other recently independent republics were the scene of a series of popular uprisings with the overthrow of governments in Georgia, Armenia and Moldova. There were three revolutions in Kyrgyzstan and three more in Ukraine. Putin has spent much of the last two decades preparing for a socalled “color revolution like Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, which he says was planned by Washington. The strategy included the marginalization of opposition figures like Alexey Navalny, whose political movement has been banned but continues to operate and help organize the protests.
“As for the opposition, it’s bad,” Ishchenko said. “The Navalny movement is being suppressed. In addition, the opposition is divided by the Ukraine conflict. The communists and many other parties that could ally with the opposition are now firmly supporting the war.” Ishchenko told Al Jazeera that the exodus of mostly antiwar Russians — estimated to number more than 200,000 since February 24 — has made a mass uprising even less likely.
The oligarchs have no influence over the Kremlin
After coming to power, Putin was quick to rein in the oligarchs who had dominated Russia’s economy, media and politics in the 1990s. He called the country’s top tycoons to a meeting and warned them not to get involved in politics. Those who did not comply, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, were jailed, forced to leave the country, or both. Those who made their fortunes and were allowed to stay in the 1990s largely accepted the status quo. They have little influence over the Kremlin. While it is logical to expect an antiwar stance from the liberal side of Russia’s elite, Putin has placed them in a position of total submission. According to political scientist and expert on the Russian military Pavel Luzin, “there is a kind of political sect, made up of some generals and other highranking officers around Putin, who believe in restoring the Russian Empire, it’s almost a religion for them”.
A possible street riot? A coup? These are currently no scenarios that can be guessed at. “This man cannot stay in power,” Joe Biden said at the end of his Saturday address in Warsaw ahead of the inevitable denials about Vladimir Putin. Dangerous words are those about regime change, because the immediate risk is to reinforce the Kremlin’s position that sees the current one as a fight “to the end” in which compromise is not an option. Over time, of course, the pressure on Putin will increase. It’s the only certainty.
John Deni, a professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, adds another element to the debate in The Wall Street Journal. While the likelihood of a coup will be debatable, one thing is certain: “If Putin were deposed in a coup, whoever replaces him would face the same domestic incentives and disincentives, likely leading to a continuation of the coup.” Russia’s most confrontational approach to the West. Political science and history tell us a lot about how authoritarian regimes begin, last, and end. In highly personalized regimes like Putin’s Russia, rulers often fight to the end, and the regime they follow is generally not democratic.