While efforts by Wagner’s founder, Prigozhin, to march on Moscow have ended, subsequent shock waves are still reverberating within Russia, with some experts speaking to Kyiv post, By saying that it could lead to the end of Putin’s regime.
Mark N. said: Katz, professor of international relations at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia Kyiv Post that “Prigozhin’s adventure certainly shook the Kremlin. Putin had built Prigozhin up as a rival to the Ministry of Defense and seemed to relish Prigozhin’s criticisms of the generals. I don’t think Putin expected anything like that from him, or that the regular armed forces would do little to stop him.”
If “a man with as many enemies as Prigozhin can get farther than he did, Putin must wonder which general has so many powerful connections with.” [Ministry of Defense] you can do,” Katz introduced.
The situation in Russia is so bad that, while speaking in the British Parliament, last week, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss said that London needed a strategy in case Russia suddenly collapsed.
Truss stressed that the UK and “our allies – including the Ukrainians, including the Poles, including the Baltic states – need to make sure we have a plan in case Russia collapses,” according to the BBC.
But does Putin himself think the situation is dangerous?
Putin may not have the full picture of how bad the situation is, says Eric Chiraev, a political psychologist who has studied Russian political leaders, “after 23 years in power, [Putin] He has increasingly limited access to information, because he gets what he wants to hear.”
He adds, “He doesn’t want to hear bad news (and his colleagues know that, too). This is a problem with all world leaders, but in democracies the information available is much greater compared to authoritarian regimes.”
Former Russian intelligence officer Igor Girkin (Strelkov), who helped invade Ukraine in 2014, said Putin’s reaction to Prigozhin’s challenge to his presidency was so bad that “another rebellion is not far off. We just need to wait for another defeat at the front and the rebellion will begin.” .
Girkin noted: “It doesn’t matter who starts the rebellion—now no one will resist the rebellion. No one ever will”, adding: “It makes no sense to risk your life to defend such a miserable and useless government.”
Putin’s recent remarks about the Russian military’s successes in the war were said to have shocked some Russian military bloggers, who discovered that the alleged “achievements” did not match what they saw on the battlefield.
Prigozhin himself had denied Moscow’s earlier claims that Leopard tanks had been “destroyed or captured”, saying they were simply untrue.
Despite the growing circle of Russians realizing that Russia has not achieved some of the successes it has publicly announced, Defense Minister Shoigu said Monday that Russia had destroyed 16 Leopard tanks, or “100% of those donated by Poland and Portugal,” a fact that news sources derided. Pro-Ukrainian and Western.
Chiraev sees the inner sanctuary of Putin’s world now, realizing that “the end of the road” is approaching and preparing for how they and their families will escape, while others in Putin’s orbit are “in denial”.
So why does Putin continue to believe these delusions? Shirayev speculates: “Putin’s mind is like a powerful delusion. The problem with delusions is that patients vehemently deny that they have delusions.
“People with emotional problems clearly understand that they have a problem,” he adds.
So, how is all this done?
“Something very important is now likely to happen in Russia,” Katz says. “I think the most likely scenario is for soldiers to stop fighting, as happened in World War I.”
This, he concedes, is something that “could precipitate a coup (if Putin had fired the hangar first).”
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