Putinism without Putin or turmoil. What will soon begin in Moscow

 

We don't know what happened to Putin, but the fact that such stories appear and that all this is discussed in Moscow, and not in the Russian diaspora somewhere in Lithuania or Poland, or in Germany. There is talk that something is wrong with this regime. And there is some tension there, and that tension will develop for a longer time, and then we can expect that in a year or two (we don't know when) there will be some change. I have already written in other publications that most likely there will be no continuation of Putinism without Putin, but there will be something, and there will even be such turmoil - "time of trouble", because the Russian political system has major problems with institutions.

Prigogine's rebellion was a real rebellion, it was not some kind of IPSO. And what happened should not happen in a system like Putin's. And if that happens, it's very bad for the dictator. And I don't think it was planned. It was indeed such a rebellion, not against Putin, but against Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov. It is the instability of the system. And in general  there, in Russia, now everything looks more and more strange and it seems to me that we are already nearing an end.

Now there are rumors that Patrushev wants to transfer power to his son Dmitri Patrushev, who is the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. But such transfer of power is not a tradition in Russia. It will not be noticed by other people in these systems. And the Russian Federation has no institutions that could control or limit this struggle for power. There are clans, different agencies, ministries and groups, and they will fight each other for power. I think it will be a chaotic process, because there is no tradition there - how to organize this fight. State Duma, Federation Council, etc. they are not real institutions. And they cannot limit the struggle for power, so chaos can be expected.

 

My colleague Martin Krag and I wrote two articles about Nikolaj Patrushev, about his general attitudes and his Ukrainophobia. Of course, Patrushev will try to keep this system and start some kind of second Putinism without Putin. But it will not be so easy, because there are other people who also want power. I have a feeling that there will be a power struggle and that they will not be able to come to an agreement. This system under Putin rests on Putin's charisma. This is such a figure that stands above the rest. And there is no

other figure that could perform this function. And elections are also not a system for choosing a new leader, because they are manipulated. That is, they must mutually agree in the Kremlin. And it seems to me that it will be difficult for them to come to an agreement with each other, because the stakes are very high. If you are not in the ruling clan, then everything can be taken from you and you can even be killed.

As for Russian political Ukrainophobia, it is difficult to say who is the biggest Ukrainophobe. Because they are all Ukrainophobes. Dmitry Medvedev is probably the strangest now. Nikolai Patrushev is also very anti-Ukrainian. This is a very big Ukrainophobia. She is not so connected to any fascists, like Dugin or the late Zhirinovski. This is the main Russian nationalism of people like Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The idea that there is no Ukrainian and Belarusian nation, that there is only one big Russian nation with Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians, is unfortunately very popular. And this does not only apply to extremists and fascists. This is such a popular idea and therefore it is hard to say who is worse. People who have a biography related to Ukraine, such as Serhiy Glazyev (who was born in Zaporozhye), are probably the worst of them.

How seriously should we take what Dmitry Medvedev says. The impression is that Medvedev is not taken seriously. Once upon a time, when he was president, great hopes were placed on him — that he would represent such a liberal Russia. By the way, I also thought at the time that he was a liberal democrat, and he said so at the time. And now he got weird. They say he has a problem with alcohol. I think they look more at people like Putin and Patrushev than at the security forces. Because they are considered the most capable, the strongest. And Medvedev is not a security guard. And that's why they don't take him seriously. I have already written about the fact that the post-Putin Russian regime may degenerate towards an even more centralized and increasingly neo-Stalinist rule. And it can return to proto-democracy like at the end of Yeltsin's presidency. Why do I have this feeling that the matter can go back to the late Yeltsin period? So far, there are no such signs in Russia, but they will have a problem - how to stabilize society and how to stabilize the regime. And then, I think, they will need democracy. Not because they are democrats or like democracy, but because they will need some kind of legitimation and some way out of the dilemma of who should lead the country. I have a feeling that I can't solve it, because there is no devolution mechanism. And then they can turn to democracy again. If there is pluralism again, then probably all media will be uncontrolled by the state. And then a completely different story can happen.

Obviously, we are still far from that. But democracy also creates itself. Because this is a natural system for solving such conflict situations - just ask people. And then a new democratization can happen, as it happened in 1917 after the February revolution, and partly during Yeltsin's mandate.

Maybe I'm just guessing here, I don't know what the future will be either. Now it's all held by Putin, and it's all built on Putin's charisma. And he is a figure, and there is no other figure. That is, there is this Nikolai Patrushev, but he has absolutely no charisma. And if they can't

solve this question of who will be the next Putin, then they face civil war. Because it is simply not clear - who will be, if such a figure is found again, who will have such charisma as Putin. And if it is impossible (I think it is impossible, there is no such figure who can quickly become very popular and perform the function that Putin still performs) then the democratic process can take place there again. This does not mean that people there will become good and love Ukraine or something like that. But then the system will not be the same as Putin's, it will be a more open system and it will open up many questions, as it happened during perestroika in the Soviet Union. Specifically, about what happened to Ukraine, and everything will develop differently.