Many Now Worried Putin No Longer Seems to Know What to Do Next, ‘Forbidden Opinion’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 13 – For the last two weekends while protests roiled his capital, Vladimir Putin “recused” himself from his duties by going on vacation, first in a bathysphere and then at a biker show, unwittingly sending a message not that he has everything under control but that he has no idea what to do, according to The Forbidden Opinion telegram channel.

            With his ratings falling and ever more Russians protesting against the actions of his regime, the channel  says, Putin, “judging by everything doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do with all this in the future” and has apparently decided to pull back and await events (t.me/TheForbiddenOpinion/3866).

            That sense of his uncertainty frightens the population because many Russians have the sense that the siloviki are now acting on their own without any constraints from above and Putin’s entourage who have counted on him to keep things from getting out of control and no longer have the sense that he is capable of doing so.

            The fears of elites in that regard, the telegram channel says, may prompt one or more of them to try to push Putin out of the way, not because they necessarily know what to do next but because they fear he doesn’t and that the Russian ship of state is therefore is in potentially dangerous waters.