It is wishful thinking. Articles like these are written by people who have no idea how political system works in Russia.
Putin is a tent-pole for all people around him. Without Putin, structure collapses and takes them down with him.
First of all, most western outlets tend to think that sanctions hitting oligarchs will make them overthrow Putin. But oligarchs not only have little political power, they also have deep connections to de facto large scale criminal activity in Russia. Putin guarantees them a level of protection and also delegates them to handle key areas of economy, giving them cash streams to leech on. Yes, they are losing a lot of money now, but they would lose even more if Putin would be suddenly gone and someone else would take his spot - new ruler would surely want to rearrange power structure and would be a threat to oligarchs, who could lose their position. Even worse for them, they could face trails or even imprisonment for frauds as no single one of them have their hands clean. So it would be extremely easy to destroy them (and it happened before, under Putin rule). Their best bet is to stick with Putin till the end and hope that the boat named Russia will survive this storm.
Then there are people who Putin considers his inner circle. These people are quite often nobodies elevated to prestige positions. A good example is Sergei Shoigu, holding title of General of the Army, even though he have no military career whatsoever and comes from public sector. People like him are deeply loyal to Putin, because they owe him literally everything when it comes to their status and careers. And they are not picked at random, too - those are people sharing the same views and sentiments as their leader. Another thing with this group is that they are not really competent at what they are supposed to do in their respective posts - they act more like a facade to show public that there's some kind of structure to the government, but in reality they have little to no say in decision making and their role boils down to making sure that Putin's plans are executed by people who are beneath them in chain of command. They also are acting as an "insurance policy" of Putin, making sure that no one dares to go against him. When Putin rule comes to end, eventually, one of these people will most likely take the seat and ensure everyone else remains in their place.
The chances of a coup attempt are very slim at this point. They may get higher over time, when Russian economy collapses, but even the it is not guaranteed. The people in power will still live wealthy lives, even if society in general will be extremely poor. Yes, they will live them less comfortably, with limited access to western civilisation, but not to the point that it will be worth risking it all. Take a look at North Korea. This is where Russia is heading.
The only realistic scenario in which Putin would be removed from his position by coup is if he would like to directly go against NATO or engage in nuclear war. By looking at incompetency and piss poor state of Russian army during current war in Ukraine, people close to Putin must realise that Russia have absolutely no military power to engage in conventional warfare against NATO. Most likely, Putin has been waiting for NATO to disband and then do a larger scale war against more Eastern European countries. But Trump 2nd term has not happened, luckily for us. Anyway - guys like Shoigu are likely to oppose open conflict, because Russia cannot win it and they would go down with their leader and the state. It is fair to say they would give Putin away to be put under a trial in exchange of guarantees of their own invulnerability from western countries. They would then choose one of them to be a new leader, ensuring their positions stay in place. But this absolutely doesn't mean that imperial ambitions of Russia would be halted - if anything, they would be thawed, as these people would need time to rebuilt and influence the political landscape (both in neighbouring countries and worldwide) to be more in their favour.
So, the more Putin pushes Russia towards conflict with NATO, the higher chance that he will see end of his rule pretty soon. But he most likely knows it, so he waves his nuclear dildo around and makes threats, to make sure it doesn't happen.
Then you have the possibility of nuclear war. Whereas there are most likely some zealots who would back Putin in this, it is hard to believe that most of people in his inner circle would. This is because of pure pragmatism - Russia (along with most of the world) would be pushed back to stone age and ruling over a pile of rubble (if you survive) is worth nothing.
As for people on the streets ...they are only statistics. Thousands of them are walking in protests, but Russia is home to over 140 million people, majority of which support Putin, do not take a side or are simply too afraid to show their insubordination. There's zero chance as of now for this nation to make a significant regime change.
06 Mar 2022, 2:41 am
