Chances of a Coup in Moscow Still Small but Nonetheless on the Rise, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Dissatisfaction with Putin is growing among key Russian elites, Igor Eiman says, both because of Putin’s unwillingness to accept anything less than the total defeat of Ukraine and his de facto ally US President Donald Trump’s inability to deliver that by political means given Ukrainian intransigence.

            As a result and because of problems at home and falling petroleum prices abroad, the Russian sociologist who now lives in Berlin says, what was unthinkable only months ago – a coup that would remove Putin -- now must be considered (t.me/igoreidman/2709 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/vozmozhen-li-perevorot-v-rossii-v-2026-godu).

            According to Eidman, “the main result of 2025 is that the Putin-Trump band has not been able to put Ukraine on its knees.” Many members of Russian elites had hoped for a compromise to end the war and end sanctions, but Putin is not among them and now plans to take militarily what Trump was not able to deliver to him.

            In this situation, the analyst says, dissatisfaction with Putin “within his own circle will only increase;” and that means that one “cannot rule out that there are hypothetical chances of a coup in Russia as early as next year,” as improbable an outcome as that has always been in the past and seems to many even now.

            Eidman argues that “the Russian ruling elite already has a preferred candidate to succeed Putin. That is Dmitry Kozak,” who has connections with both the St. Petersburg and Moscow portions of the top leadership of the country” and whose bona fides as “an opponent of the war and a reformer have been actively created and promoted in the media.”

            “This cannot be a coincidence,” Eidman says. “Apparently, Kozak is already being prepared to negotiate with the West on lifting sanctions and restoring relations as the representative of a ‘new anti-war reforming Russia.” The chances of his succeeding remain low, but “the only alternative may be a major European war” sometime in the future.

Putin’s Russia has Passed from an Era of Understandings to One of Complete Lawlessness and Chaos, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 30 – It is almost universally recognized that Putin, in his drive to build his own power, destroyed law as the basis of the Russian state in favor of understandings that he could periodically redefine to enhance his position, but now, Vladimir Pastukhov says, he has moved on, ending the era of understandings in favor of one of complete lawlessness and chaos.

            The London-based Russian analyst says that “the era of understandings has come to an end, but this is not the end.” Rather, it is a step to make “creative chaos the highest and final form of existence of Russian civilization” in the view of its Kremlin author (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2025/12/30/svod-poniatii-russkoi-imperii).

              According to Pastukhov, Russia has been “freeing itself from laws in the name of understanding only to then free itself from these concepts in the name of chaos,” which gives rise to “a state of lawlessness” in which “citizens live in fear but no one knows exactly what to be afraid of because anything can happen to anyone at any time.”

              Indeed, “if nothing has happened to someone yet in this state of lawlessness,” the analyst continues, “it is merely an historical accident that will soon be corrected.” There is no need for a constitution because any limitation at all is “incompatible with the essence of lawlessness.”

              This has many consequences, Pastukhov says. Among them, the following are especially noteworthy: There is no need for a written constitution, “the right of lawlessness is violence that has the force of law,” “the authorities do not control lawlessness: they participate in it,” and “Lawlessness is the opium of the deep people who believe they will survive even it.”

Four Developments Changed Politics in Russia’s Regions in 2025, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 30 – In its year-end review, Horizontal Russia, a portal covers developments in the federal subjects of the Russian Federation beyond Moscow’s ring road – and gives particular attention to the oblasts and krays where ethnic Russians predominate, identifies four trends as transformative (semnasem.org/articles/2025/12/30/politika-v-2025-godu).

            First of all, the portal says, the Russian government has take away the rights of citizens to take part in politics at the local level, convinced that decision making “should be concentrated in districts and regions” that Moscow can more easily control. As a result, citizens now have much less say over their lives and there are fewer chances for the emergence of alternative leaders.

            Second, the Kremlin’s United Russia Party won more than 80 percent of the seats in local and regional legislatures, significantly improving its position from the earlier elections in 2020. Because that party is more loyal to the Kremlin than the population, governors can now ignore local demands far more easily.

            Third, Moscow has called for including more veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine in positions of political authority. Twenty-two regions, about a quarter of the total, have formed commissions to ensure that happens. But this policy has angered many in the regions who say that apparently the Kremlin has decided that ordinary people aren’t qualified for such jobs.

            And fourth, neural networks – computer systems modeled on the human brain – have become part of politics in Russia’s regions, with ever more politicians using AI to show meetings that never happened or to present themselves in a good light and their opponents in a bad one. Many are now calling for a new Russian law to bring order to this development. 

In 2025, Lukashenka Convicted of Political Crimes10 Times More Belarusians than He Released

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 30 – Several weeks ago, Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka released 123 political prisoners in exchange for which the US lifted some of its sanctions on his regime, actions that attracted international attention but failed to change the repression that continues to characterize his regime.

            According to the Vyasna human rights organization, the Lukashenka regime sent “no fewer than 1254” people to prison on political charges, ten times more than the number it released in a deal with the US (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20251230-правозащитники-в-2025-году-в-беларуси-за-политику-осудили-не-менее-1254-человек).

            And as the group points out, the mass repressions in Belarus “have not ceased since 2020” and the recent release to which the international media devoted so much attention has not affected that picture in any fundamental way since more than a thousand Belarusians remain in Lukashenka’s prisons on invented political charges.

            Indeed, if anything, the situation in Belarus is getting worse because so many rights activists who gathered information on political prisoners there have either been arrested or fled the country that in many cases, there is no one to keep track of the number of those subjected to Lukashenka’s repressions.

            But it is almost certain that the Vyasna report about the number of political prisoners in Belarus will not attract the attention of the world’s media that the release of one-tenth of their number earlier in December did, yet another way in which dictatorships around the world can manipulate the image of their country abroad so easily. 

FSB Arrests Members of Batal-Haji Sufi Order in Moscow, Ingushetia, and Chechnya

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 30 – The FSB has arrested five more members of the Batal-Haji Sufi order in separate raids in Moscow, Ingushetia, and Chechnya, bringing to 12 the number of those identified as part of a militant wing of that group now facing charges in Russian courts (kommersant.ru/doc/8336201 and fortanga.org/2025/12/18680/).

            The leaders of the order say that those arrested were acting on their own rather than at the direction of the wird, but perhaps the most intriguing aspect of these arrests is that they suggest Moscow is now prepared to take on a Sufi order of enormous size and influence not only in Ingushetia but more generally.

            In reports about the arrests, Kommersant says that the Batal-Haji Sufi order numbers as many as 35,000 people; and Fortanga adds that it is only “one of the largest” such orders in that republic, where it has long played a key role in the government and society.  (For background, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/rise-and-fall-of-batal-haji-sufi-order.html.)

            The Batal-Haji order also is closely tied Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov who has sought to use it to expand his influence in neighboring Ingushetia (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/chechnyas-kadyrov-takes-up-cause-of.html). As a result, Moscow has proceeded cautiously against the order in the past (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/moscow-authorities-forced-to-proceed.html).

            The latest arrests and the fact that they involved people far from Ingushetia suggest that Moscow has decided to take on the Batal-Haji Sufi order even though moves against it threaten to trigger violence in the North Caucasus and Moscow as members of the order defend themselves and their activities.