Quote:
Originally Posted by mapuc
Serious I think the Swedish expert on Russia, are right it has been some kind of coup, Putin's nearest friends suffered a lot due to these sanctions.
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It's plausible but unlikely. I have heard some rumblings from Russian nationalists recently that Putin is not hardline enough - that he is attempting to couch a relatively aggressive policy in language that is just too rationalist and uninspired, paying lip service to liberals and internationalists. And then Kadyrov dropped a cryptic declaration that "he respects Putin as a person and will respect him regardless of what position he occupies". Some think that Kadyrov, being a Kremlin insider (and someone prone to gaffes) may have accidentally revealed that Putin has been tipped for removal from presidency. Though that seems farfetched.
It wouldn't be unprecedented though - back in 2011, everybody was caught by surprise by the reshuffle in "United Russia's" leadership. Russia's economic success up until then had been arguably up to an influential faction I like to call technocrats - business-savvy, educated, wealthy people of the lawyer/economist/policy analyst types loyal to Putin's regime and willing to play the system while also improving it. Socially and politically, the technocrats were relatively moderate and even somewhat progressive. Medvedev is the classic example of a Russian pro-Putin technocrat. Well, in fall 2011 something happened, and I don't know if we'll ever know exactly what, but there was a massive (but entirely unpublicised) reshuffle which had effectively ejected the technocrats or forced them in line with the "siloviki". It took several weeks for it to become apparent. In 2012, of course, he was re-elected.
By 2013, however, Putin himself seemed to be distancing himself from the United Russia party, for reasons that are also not entirely clear right now. There had been some suggestions that he was about to break off that alliance and start his own party, bringing back the same voter base and coalition, but under a renegotiated banner. However, that never happened.
Then we had 2014 and we all know what happened there - although one thing to add to that is the sudden (and again, largely unpublicized and unknown in the West) decimation of non-state-controlled media which over the course of March saw independent journalism in Russia on the verge of extinction. There's still no clarity whose initiative this was on, whether Putin approved of it or somebody else instigated it - and some of the pressure seemed to relax later on as the year went on.
With the turmoil going on recently, I'm certainly willing to see this a symptom of some sort of shady dealings going on behind the scenes of Russia's governing coalition once again. But I don't see any obvious evidence of it yet. And my instinct is that getting rid of Putin right now would be too much. I don't know if most Russians are ready to swallow that yet.
But as Oberon said, ironically, right now I'd honestly suggest crossing fingers and hoping Putin is alright, because there are worse devils behind him and compared to some of the current "patriotic ideologues" he indeed comes off as a relative moderate.
I'd equally not be surprised if Kadyrov is somehow involved in all of this. Even assuming nothing is actually happening, all of this may just be another in a series of attempts to create hysteria and divert attention from Kadyrov, whose role in the Nemtsov assassination is becoming harder and harder to conceal. Even some government-controlled media had actually openly discussed a possible Kadyrov connection recently. This might be a way to drown that out in a sea of media noise.