#Russia: Putin's regime may fall - but what comes next? #usa #uk

 

This article was published in Freitag, a weekly newspaper for politics and economics, published in Berlin. The article is written by Anatole Levin, director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute, which was founded in Washington, DC in 2019. Carola Torti has been translated by Carola Torti.

to the text:

The head of the Russian Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, has become embroiled in the Ukraine war and is in turmoil at home. The Russian army's reservists are now paying the price for Vladimir Putin's strategic failure. It is time for the West to try to negotiate before falling into the abyss.

Putin's announcement of partial mobilization is a sign of the complete failure of Russia's strategy in Ukraine since the invasion in February. Part of the reason the Russian president has waited so long for mobilization is that he acknowledges not only this failure, but also the fact that the “special military operation” is in fact an all-out war, one that Russia seems to be losing. Another reason is that Putin rightly feared a backlash from the Russian public. His system is now in grave danger. Another major defeat would likely end his reign.

Perhaps more dangerous than the mobilization itself, however, is the combination of this declaration with the decision to hold referendums in eastern Donbass, which Russia recognized as independent in February, and other areas occupied by Russian forces during the invasion.

The result of these “votes” to join Russia, which is certain from the start, is not important. The deciding factor is whether the Russian government and parliament will annex these areas immediately. If they do, it will be a sign that Moscow has given up all hope of peace, and is ready to fight indefinitely. Neither Ukraine nor the West can accept such annexation. It cannot be part of a negotiated agreement. The best we could hope for for Ukraine then, would be a series of precarious war-plagued cease-fires, like the one in Kashmir over the past 75 years.

Vladimir Putin's plan failed

Next week will show whether this is really Moscow's intention, or whether the referendums are, instead, a step toward carrying the trump cards for future negotiations. We should not forget that the breakaway republics of Donbass declared their independence from Ukraine in 2014. Only eight years later, on the eve of the war in February of that year, Moscow officially recognized their independence. Meanwhile, Moscow was negotiating with Ukraine and the West under the 2015 Minsk II accords to return those territories to Ukraine in exchange for guarantees of full autonomy.

Again, the referendums may not be a prelude to immediate annexation, but they underscore the threat of annexation if the West does not seek a compromise. There is some hope that this will be the case, as came from a speech last week by Putin in which he signaled approval of Ukraine's peace offer in March, which included a neutrality treaty and deferred territorial disputes to future negotiations. The reasons for the interruption of these peace negotiations are highly contested. According to the Russian version of events, it was banned from the West and aborted by the Ukraine.

Moscow's pursuit of the reasons for the cease-fire is clear. Putin's original plan to take Kyiv and turn Ukraine into a client state has failed miserably. Several important points in Plan B, namely the control of the Russian-speaking regions in the east and south, were discontinued. Russia is at grave risk from Ukrainian counterattacks. Putin's regime was severely shaken by the defeat in Kharkiv. If Ukraine drives Russia out of the southern Ukrainian region around the port city of Kherson or large parts of Donbass, Putin's survival in power will be called into question.

Russia will have the means to escalate

If there is no ceasefire or peace talks, Russia has the means to seriously escalate the situation. It can defend the remaining occupied territories, while escalating attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure already underway. If Russia annexes the occupied territories, Putin will likely threaten nuclear attacks to defend what Moscow will do on Russian soil. Meanwhile, the administration of US President Joe Biden is increasingly making clear that it is changing the United States' one-China policy. Therefore, Moscow can also hope that China, in return, will significantly increase its military and financial assistance to Russia.

At the same time, it can be noted that already, the unrest in Russian society will increase. Discontent is a combination of opposition to the war itself and anger at the incompetent conduct of war by Putin and his entourage, and both components coexist in the minds of many Russians.

If this continues, the overthrow of Putin will become a real possibility. A potential coup does not have to be violent, and it cannot even be made public. Alternatively, a delegation of well-known politicians could approach Putin and suggest that the regime's survival would require his resignation (and the resignation of some other leaders associated with military defeat, such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu). In return, they can guarantee immunity from prosecution and secure his property. Something very similar happened, when former head of state Boris Yeltsin handed over power to Putin in 1999.

The West must respond to offers of talks

Members of the Russian establishment who take such a step will face great risks: to themselves if the attempt fails, and to the Russian establishment and Russia as well, if a change of leadership leads to elite division, political chaos, and a radical weakening of the central state.

So it is very likely, that they will need some kind of coverage for the period when Putin is away to do so; Some assurances that the West is making an offer to its successor, which would allow the new government to enjoy a certain degree of Russian success. Otherwise, it will have to rule a weak state and a weak army and face what the people of Russia might understand as Western demands for unconditional surrender. This would leave the new government with a similar disastrous burden as the government in the Weimar Republic in Germany after World War I. It will always be described as a system of national abandonment and degradation.

From this perspective, it is very likely that Putin's successor, the president, will be held personally responsible for everything that went wrong in Ukraine. At the same time, he will respond to the growing calls of Russian militants by ordering a full national mobilization and a significant intensification of the war. It could expand the war beyond the borders of Ukraine.

If we are to avoid such potential developments, the West now has time to respond to Putin's tacit offers for talks, but not much time.