Putin’s Falling Ratings Even More Likely to Lead Him to War and Dictatorship than They Were Before 2014, Larionov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 1 – Over the last three months, the ratings of Vladimir Putin and the Russian authorities have fallen by almost 20 percent, down to a level not seen since the protest era of 2011-2012. His ratings then led him to invade Ukraine, Viktor Larionov says; now, they are likely to lead him to launch a far larger and bloodier conflict.

            The reason for that is this, the commentator says. “If in 2011-2014, … the threat to the regime, if it existed, was only in the heads of Putin and his entourage [but] today, it is really visible to the unaided eye” and has been “established by the efforts of Putin himself” (rusmonitor.com/rejjting-putina-rukhnul-na-pochti-na-20-a-veroyatnost-bolshojj-vojjny-vozrosla-na-100.html).

            And that is something that Putin and his people in the Kremlin not only understand very well but see only one way out: the unleashing of war, but this time “not in the form of ‘a small but victorious’ one but rather in a large and bloody one, but hopefully without the application of nuclear weapons.”

            “The goal of this war is not the recovery of ratings as was the case in the era of ‘Crimea is ours’ but rather the introduction of martial law which will allow the regime to deal with dissatisfaction and establish a pure and unconcealed dictatorship. The variants, besides ‘a liberation campaign on Kyiv,’ are not that many,” Larionov says.

            “In this connection,” he continues, “the murder of ‘DNR’ head Aleksandr Zakharchenko after which the pro-Kremlin ‘media’ began to write that Ukraine supposedly has moved its forces up to the borders of ‘the republic’ must be viewed as very serious indeed.”