No Likely Post-Putin Transition Likely to Leave Most of Russia Any Better Off, Karmodi Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 11 – Many people are proposing models of a better future of Russia after Putin either as a single state or as a seedbed out of which many new states will emerge, but few are considering how to get to either one and whether either will leave the people of that enormous region or the world any better off, Ostap Karmodi says.

            The Prague-based Russian journalist says that even a moment’s reflection is enough to convince even skeptics that “the transition will be quite unwelcome for democrats” and others who would like to see a better future for the population. Instead and tragically, it may leave them in far worse shape than they are in now (graniru.org/opinion/m.286299.html).

            Russia will fall apart only if the center loses authority and control and regional elites demand greater autonomy or even independence, Karmodi says. “But who will these elites be?” They won’t be liberals. Instead, they will be those Putin has installed and they will act accordingly using force to suppress the population rather than help it.

            Moreover, “even if the democrats are able to take control over some region for a time, they won’t be able to hold it for long because after the collapse of Russia will inevitably follow a division of the spoils and civil war,” fights that the democrats will once again lose as they did a generation ago.

            The only places where the democrats might succeed are along the western and eastern borders of Russia. NATO and other outside forces might protect them as buffer zones against the more horrific Russia likely to emerge deeper in the interior. And these border zones will be effectively under foreign rule rather than by the people themselves.

“A more interesting question,” he says, “is how in the case of the disintegration of Russia Western countries and NATO will react considering that occupation is hardly an attractive option.” Obviously, the best arrangement would be a weakened and de-nuclearized Russia. But that is unlikely given the attitudes of those who will control central Russia.

The only way Russia can be changed fundamentally is for Russians to change their mentality, something those who talk about the future of the country or countries don’t talk about because that is not something that happens in months or even years but in the course of decades or even longer, if ever.