Window on Eurasia: Coup against Putin Possible, Could Spark Disintegration of Russia, Cemilev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – Mustafa Cemilev, the Crimean Tatar leader, said in an interview to the Belarusian television channel “Belsat” that people close to Vladimir Putin are growing so angry at the Kremlin leader because of sanctions that they are ready to rise in revolt against him, an action that could lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation.

            Cemilev said that “not everything is in order in Putin’s entourage, that sanctions are having an impact, [that] the more sanctions there will be, the more quickly this will happen, [and that it]  will most likely occur” from within that group, and that it could lead to the disintegration of Russia (obozrevatel.com/politics/68034-dzhemilev-v-okruzhenii-putina-nazrevaet-bunt-kotoryij-mozhet-privesti-k-raspadu-rossii.htm).

            Such a coup, he continued, could lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation, something that is of concern to him and in his view to everyone because that country is a nuclear power and its sudden demise could have unpredictable and potentially extremely dangerous consequences. “We are afraid” of this outcome, Cemilev added.

            Asked about Russia’s Anschluss of Crimea, Cemilev responded that “the Crimean Tatars at one time seized Moscow. Does that mean that we should be saying that Moscow should be returned to the Crimean Tatars?”  That is the kind of thinking that is characteristic “not of the 21^st century but of the 17^th and 18^th” where countries operated “by right of conquest.”

            “We don’t accept this,” the Crimean Tatar leader said.