‘A Cold Civil War’ Now Exists between Russian People and the Kremlin, Lepekhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – Vladimir Putin and other senior officials do not recognize the extent of the problems Russia is now facing not only economically but politically, Vladimir Lepekhin says. Not only is unemployment far higher than the powers that be imagine, but businesses are at the brink of collapse.

            Indeed, the director of the Institute for the Eurasian Economic Community, says “a cold civil war” has broken out between the population and the powers: with the population ignoring the powers as much as possible and sabotaging their decisions, and bureaucrats tightening the screws and producing ever more resistance” (svpressa.ru/economy/article/262134/).

            Unemployment is already far higher than the government says, real incomes are falling further and faster, and businesses are at the brink of liquidation because if they close no one will want to buy them in the current environment.  And the regime continues to operate according to old rules because all power is concentrated in the hands of one man, Vladimir Putin.

            What should happen in this situation is “well-known,” Lepekhin says. “The current head of the state must either give up his place to someone else or, if he doesn’t want to leave, immediately form a new command of administrators” having gotten rid of the current failed bunch.