No One Left in Russia Capable of Overthrowing Putin, Let Alone Installing Someone Committed to Peace and Reform, Felshtinsky Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – There do not remain in Russia any people or forces capable of overthrowing the Putin regime, Yury Feltshtinsky says; and even if Putin does leave the scene, it is likely that he will followed not by someone who wants to make peace but rather by someone who wants to conduct the war in Ukraine against the West even more aggressively.

            The mass exodus of Russians, the US-based Russian historian tells Poland’s Dziennik Polski that those who remain in Russia are either complicit, controlled by the regime, or stupidly follow it (plus.dziennikpolski24.pl/jurij-felsztinski-putin-nie-jest-prezydentem-jest-oddelegowany-na-to-stanowisko-przez-federalna-sluzbe-bezpieczenstwa/ar/c15-17161773; in Russian at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63B32E03C4E52).

            Given the regime’s repressive nature, no one knows how much the population supports Putin; but it lacks leaders who could challenge the regime, the historian suggests. And elites groups like business and the military have too much to lose to be willing to seek Putin’s ouster whatever they think of his policies.

            Thus it is a profound mistake to think that Putin is about to be overthrown and replaced with someone committed to ending the war and reforming Russia. Far more likely should any change in fact happen that the current Kremlin leader will be followed by someone even more committed to war against the Wet.

            In that situation, Felshtinsky says, Putin has little reason to end his war and more reasons to expand it. He is convinced that the level of Russian losses is not punitive as far as he is concerned, that in fact these losses are a sign of the greatness of what he is doing, and that in the end his nuclear weapons will keep the West from winning against him.

            As a result, he continues, “Putin thinks that his victory n the battle with Ukraine and the rest of Europe is only a question of time.”

            What all this means, the historian concludes, is that “Russia will become a normal country [only] after it suffers a defeat comparable to Germany’s in 1945 and gives up its imperialistic position. Russia must be required to see that the Russian people is not great but the most ordinary that Russia is not a great power but the most ordinary, albeit big.”

            Once that happens, then everything will be in its correct place, and “Russia won’t constantly be required to ‘rise up from its knees’ in order to again become a great power.” And Russians will stop believing that all their problems are the result of the actions of others rather than of some in their own population.

            In short, “Russia will become a free country after its population comes to understand that its main enemy is the FSB, the oldest institution which was created in 1917 and the only institution which survived the disintegration of the USSR.” The FSB is Russia’s main problem and eliminating it is the only way Russia can rejoin the family of democratic peoples.