Putin is leading Russia to its collapse
Intro
Entering the pointless and cruel war against Ukraine, Putin's regime routinely approaches the point of no return when he as a politic and living being, but also Russia as a state, head towards the eclipse. It is no wonder: the history knows many examples of huge empires which ceased to exist during historically short periods of time. Vladimir Putin likes to talk about the so-called historical justice; but he constantly forgets to mention that the historically justified territory of so-called Russia is at most a small chunk of land called Moscowia; all the rest being temporary occupied territories, as shown on the cover image.
This essey analyses the historic parallels in the Russian past that provides clues to the understanding that Russia gallops into its final days which are now counted. It is a huge free of charge personal work based on many open sources and structured logical deduction. Unlike the majority of my posts, it is almost free of proof links; it is up to the reader to find the truth.
Due to the high volume of material this essey is split into 3 parts together forming the Russian Disassembly Trilogy:
Over some time I promise to do several concise extracts from this essey for those lazy souls who have no time to read it in full at once.
TL;DR
Histrotical Background
The history teaches that the Empire only has the peaceful future if it has fully cut off its imperial past. All great european nations have come through this excercise in the past, but seldom they have come through it peacefully. Those pages of history are still painful for some, still, they must be mentioned here for the greater historical context.
The pioneer in this transformation was Sweden, which was defeated in both the Great Northern War (and lost Baltics) and the Finnish War (and lost Finland) within a timespan of almost 100 years. These major losses created the existential threat to the Sweden core, so that it was forced to part with its imperial sentiments and relatively quickly (as for the beginning of XIX century) implement political and economic reforms that allowed it to prosper in peace for well over 200 years to date.
For other european nations, the transformation was faster, although not less painful: for Austria and Turkey it was the defeat in the WWI which led to the loss of all their non-core territories; for Germany it was the defeat in WWII which led to the loss of Eastern Prussia; for Netherlands it was the defeat in two Indonesian Wars for Independence when it lost all its overseas colonies beyond the Carribeans; for Portugal it was the defeat in Diu which led to the loss of its Indian colonies; for France it was the defeat in the Algiers War for Independence which led to the loss of it African colonies; for The United Kingdom it was the victory in WWII which led to the economic stagnation and the loss of the majority of its colonies, etc.
However, not all empires have evolved that far; some still exist today and possess the permanent existential threat to its neighbours. One should never be fooled by temporary absence of warmongering sentiments inside the empire during its times of weakness. The only path for the empire to survive (as the empire) is through expansion; otherwise it is doomed to collapse. Any temporary times of peace on the empire borders is just... temporary. These period only exist for the empire to foster enough strength to be ready to gloat its next unwarry victim. Thus, the only way to make the empire peaceful is to force its collapse and strip it off all its non-core territories, just like the history teaches.
Russian Context
It is evident from any perspective that modern Russia is the empire. Those who look for ethnic or lingustic proofs that Russia is a mono-cultural unitary state must not be falsified. The majority of people inside a worldwide Portugese, Spanish, or British empires spoke the ligua franca of their empire title nations; nontheless, they were never unitary. Furthermore, Germany before the WWII was almost mono-cultural and united like never before; still, having the colonial territory of Eastern Prussia was pushing it to expand into the Polish territory no matter what. As historians often say, geography rules over politics; thus, the geography often forces the empire to expand.
Returning back to Russia: a cover image briefly shows what is the nowadays Russia: a gargantuan empire with well over 90% of territory being non-Russia, and a small peace of land on its western borders called Moscowia being its core territories circled around the capital. That core territory is so small that it even cannot be called Russia anymore - it is what it is: the historic and cultural center of the former late medieval state - Moscow Tsardom - which have stolen the history of its neighbor states in order to falsify its imperial claims over their territory. Anyway, putting history aside, the cover image also hides behind the scene that Russia is neither unitary, nor mono-cultural, and even more so it is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual state with centuries-long cultural boundaries within its territory.
As the history teaches: the cultural boundary leads to the state boundary over time. For long, the war was the only way to prevent such breaches for empires; and modern Russia is no exception. Its geography, history, culture, and ethnical situation forces it to expand through the war or disassemble. However, it is unfair to say that the Russia has no choice, there is always a choice. For nowadays Russia it is either constantly grab new territories through regular war campaigns or voluntarily give up the independence to its colonies. There were few cases in history when the empire accepted the option to voluntarily part with its colonial past in order to preserve its peaceful future; one of them is The United Kingdom. However, most of them prefer the war, even despite a fact that in the contemporary history such war almost certainly leads to the defeat.
So, Russian had a choice; but the history is of little value to contemporary russians; they prefer utopian dreams of ruling the world. Thus, they chose the path of the war and disgraceful collapse over the path of glory and peaceful disassembling. The year of 2022 was not the year they made this choice. As surprisingly as it sounds russian elites chose it back in 1996 when they started the second Chechen War; and all the time since then they were building up modern armor, gaining military experience in constant border and geopolitical conflicts, and growing economy sufficently enough to support war campaigns. While the western democracies were improving infrastructure and institutions for their citizens, russians were investing heavily in military, propaganda, and bribery of the western politicians. In 2022 they simply decided that their time has come to overthrow the globe and install their authority.
Given the above, it must be apparent to the world community that the mere existence of Russia on the political map of the globe in its current shape poses an existential threat to the world safety, no matter what dictator occupies its throne. Thus, there is no question "if Russia should be disassembled"; the only question that still stands is "how Russia should be disassembled".
The first historic attempt to disassemble the Russian Empire
Credits to Fjana for this map.
Exactly 100 years ago during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923, Russia had a chance to disassemble and enter the world scene as the set of modern, peaceful, economically grown up, independent states between Warsaw and Vladivostok. However, only Estonia, Finnland, Mongolia, Latvia, Lithania, and Poland were able to exit; though not fully and not for long. All these countries still feel what it means to neighbour the evil empire (Russia) until now; only Finnland and Mongolia stood strong throughout these 100 years; others had the second chance to be gloated by the empire during or after the WWII. The other (well over 30) independent quasi-states (which born during the collapse of the Russian Empire) were crushed and grinded at their birth by the terrorist red army of the soviet union - the forgotten evil empire usually called the prison of nations.
As one can see from the map, the starting territory of the red plague (this is how dissidents of soviet union usally called the red army) only controlled the minority portion of the former territory of the Russian Empire. However, through constant terror and war crimes they were able to overthrow any resistence of the newborn independent states. There are many whatifs to this story that could end into a completely different story. But lets not focus on that. This paragraph is here just to show that the idea to disassemble Russia is not new; it is at least 100 years old and was attempted by the former russian nationals in the past, although unsuccessfully.
The modern path to the collapse of the Russian Empire
This large section discusses the reasons why the Second Russo-Ukrainian War started by the Russian nazi regime of the terrorist Putin in 2022 will (now certainly) lead to the ultimate collapse of the Russian Federation (Empire) and what are the potential scenarios of its disassembly.
The First Russo-Ukrainian War of 2014-2015
A short discourse into the recent history. On February 2014 after 3 months of the (third) peaceful Ukrainian revolution against the quasi-dictator and russian collaborant Viktor Yanukovych, the russian special operation forces entered Kyiv, and with the help of some collaborant police guards started to shoot into the protesters. Quickly, this resulted into street fightings that ended within 2 days when Yanukovich left the country and fled for Russia via the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea.
The russian president Vladimir Putin's administration was not ready for that turnaround and recalled its special forces from Kyiv in order to mask its support of the Ukrainian quasi-dictator. At the same time, Putin quickly realized that the temporary paralysis of the Ukrainian government can be leveraged in order to implement the long-prepared plan to occupy Crimea which was actually scheduled for a later time. Thus, within a month and almost without resistance of Ukrainian military russia army entered Crimea from two directions (from Sevastopol and Taman peninsula) and fully occupied it; following the scened illegal pseudo-referendum with just 10% public attendance Crimea was annexed by the Russia.
Russians planned to annex the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine using the same method within the following few months; but met fierce resistance of the Ukrainian government and Army which were only starting to organize after the ensuing administrative chaos; the most critical role in this was played by the Ukrainian society and volunteers which were both fighting the russian terrorist troops sneaking into the Ukrainian territory and supporting the Army. Soon, the war transited from the covert operation of russian intelligence into the full-scale invasion of russia into the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by the end of 2014.
The most important battles in this hybrid undeclared First Russo-Ukrainian war of 2014-2015 were fought near Slovyansk, Illovaisk, Luhansk, Donetsk (airport), Mariupol, and Debaltseve with different results. After the most dramatic battles during January-March 2015 were close to the end, the russian military understood that it can barely advance any further. Thus, it started to seak the diplomatic decision to cement its position.
Unfortunately, the Minsk Treaty of Ceasefire, signed by Ukrainian, Russian, German, and French leaders in March 2015 was quite miserable for Ukraine; it was a hard compromise to take by the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko who was forced to sign it not only by Russia, but also by the Franco-German tandem of Fran?ois Hollande and Angela Merkel who were seaking for the peace at any cost in order to achieve their own goals to restore the trade as usual with Russia. Still many people, even in Ukraine, viewed this as the bad peace treaty is better than a good war. As is often the case over the time that proved to be a self-delusion.
The Second Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022
Ukraine versus Russia took different evolutionary strategies after the ceasefire. The Ukrainian strategy (by both Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelenksyi) was to build institutions, infrastructure, and grow economically, so that the people living on temporary occupied territories of Crimea and parts of Donbass would prefer to rejoin Ukraine after the nonevitable Putin's demise within 10-15 years. Obviously, there were many (usual for Ukraine) corruption scandals following this path, yet the country was slowly but steadily moving in the direction of prosperity.
Contrary, russian dictator, russian elites, and (most importantly) the russian nation viewed the Minsk Treaty of 2015 with even higher grievance than Ukrainians. For Russians it was the same insult as the loss of WWI for Germans. Thus, the russian society, instigated by the official propaganda quickly dived into the aggressive nazism and chauvinism ideologies. By the end of 2021 more than 70% of common russians supported the war against Ukraine; thus, Vladimir Putin was mentally ready to attempt an implementation of the decades old plans to invade Ukraine.
Both UK and USA intelligences were warning Ukrainian government about the planned invasion. The Ukrainian intelligence have foreseen it too; however, there was little the Ukrainian Army could do to avoid it. As is often the case, the war was inevitable; thus the Ukrainian General Staff took the decision to deceit russians into the total weakness and unpreparedness of Ukraine for the war. Although this decision is debatable by many; have Ukraine mobilized 100'000 or even 200'000 troops before the war starts the russians would simply gather 500'000 of their troops on the Ukrainian border instead of 200'000. Anyway, on 24 of February 2022 the second Russo-Ukrainian war of 2022 have started by the full-scale russian invasion.
The russian terrorist army used the tactics of massive missile strikes and blitzkrieg. Assymmetrically, the Ukrainian Army used the tactics of highly mobile small groups. After one month of the heavy battles russian were able to occupy a huge chunk of the Ukrainian territory on the north, east, and south. However, the Ukrainian tactics turned out to be more efficient: attacking russian forces sufferred major losses in personnel and military equipment; and within the next month the Ukrainian Army counter-attacked on the north and south.
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After the heavy battles all over the place, in particular, near Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol, Donetsk, Lysychansk, Izium, and other places it is by now clear that: the Ukrainian Army have reached a decisive victory on the north front (and liberated all cities and towns there); however, the battles on the east and south fronts still continue with even higher energy.
The huge factors in the Ukrainian resistance (and victories) over the dominating enemy are the total support of the Ukrainian society from the first days of the war as well as the constantly increasing humanitarian and military supplies of Ukrainian western allies and the entire civilized world.
Shocked by the fierce resistance and global support of Ukrainians the russian terrorists started to do what they like the most: maradeur, rob, kill, and rape civilians, without respect to age or ethnicity. Some experts state that russian terrorists killed more russian-speaking civilians since the beginning of war than any other groups of people. All these cruelties obviously led to the unification of the civilized world in their support of Ukraine in this war; and as the result the flow of unprecedented military equipment supplies to Ukrainians and chocking economic and political sanctions against russians.
This war is far from its finish and will continue for at least a few months or even years. However, it is now clear that no matter how long it will take, this war will lead to the decisive victory of Ukraine and the disgraceful defeat of Russia. Most probably, it the russian troops will be repelled from the entirety of the Ukrainian territory (except, maybe, Crimea) till the end of 2022. Still, it is almost clear that russian terrorists will continue the attempts to invade and missile strikes even after that. Thus, a very probable scenario is that the warfare will continue on the russian territory bordering Ukraine during 2023, similar to the Israel army operations in the Golan Heights. Also, sanctions against Russia will be enforced a few years after the ceasefire or even beyond that, as the current russian nazist regime will not accept the defeat and will continue tensions on the Ukrainian border for long.
The Second Russian Civil War and the Collapse of Russia
Disclaimer: I am not going to assess a moral view onto the collapse of Russia, although I think it is more good than bad for the world. Instead, I will try to project the nearest future based on the evident factors that drive Russia towards its demise.
So, now, we enter the usual russian history. When Russians lose the war and have no ability to marauder the neighbouring countries, they are used to start the civil war. There is no other way they can react to this, be it good or bad. Russian Empire had to sell Alaska and abandon its Pacific expansion as the result of the disgraceful defeat in the Crimean War in XIX century in order to buy food for its citizens. Russian Empire suffered from the short-term Decemberists Civil War of 1905-1906 just months after the disgraceful loss in the Russo-Japanese War and had to forget about its pan-Asian expansion for 50 years. As said before Russian Empire died in the First Russian Civil War after its disgraceful defeat in the WWI and lost many of its territories and millions of citizens, so that even Antanta allies were unable to save it. Finally, USSR (de facto - the Communist Russian Empire) was disassembled a couple of years after a disgraceful defeat in the Soviet-Afgan War of 1978-1988. Russians are known to step on the same rake multiple times, so here we are again.
The world as we know it must be prepared for the Second Russian Civil War that will most probably begin in 2023 (or the latest 2025), probably, even before the end of the Second Russo-Ukrainian War and will continue for at least 3-5 years. Like the First Russian Civil War in 1917-1923 it will lead to the loss of territories. It can also lead to the collapse of the Russian Federation as we know it today, so much that Russia will cease to exist altogether. Below is an approximate view of one of the most mournful fates of the russian collapse.
The detailed analysis of each breakaway new state will be discussed in the Part 2 of the Trilogy. Here, is the discussion about why and how the Second Russian Civil War will happen.
As stated in previous paragraphs Russia is neither unitary, nor mono-cultural, and even more so it is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual state with centuries-long cultural boundaries within its territory. Moreover, during the recent history Russia has entered a phase of mutual intolerance of the multiple ethnicities which populate the russian territory, that intolerance reach the culmination during the Second Russo-Ukrainian War. Thus, the loss in this war will quickly lead to the escalation of multiple economic, political, ethnical, cultural, and linguistic tensions across the vast russian territory.
Russian Civil War is not yet certain. If Russia would stop the war against Ukraine tomorrow, signing the status-quo peace ceasefire and agreeing to reparations, the civil war would probably not happen; if Russia would stop the war 2-4 months from now signing the humiliating capitulation and returning all temporarily occupied territories in Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine, the civil war might not start as well. But here is the problem: Putin regime is not going to sign any peace treaty where he does not declare a decisive victory, so formally the war will most probably continue in some form till 2023 and beyond, although russian terrorists will most probably be repelled outside the Ukrainian territory by the end of 2022.
As surprising as it might seem, the russian civil war will not be started by liberal opposition (which is honestly quite pityful and fragmented), nor by any of the many suppressed ethnicities of Russian borderlands (which are already used to live under repressions). As irrationally as it sounds, it will be started by the most extreme russian nationalists of all kinds who will claim that the current russian government was not enough harsh or cluel towards Ukrainians in the war. However surprizing or irrational it seems this is an expected reality of the nearest future. Just think of it: right now over 80% of russian population supports the war against Ukraine (after many adequate russian citizens left the country); moreover, many of them think that all the russian losses in this war were possible because of the incompetence of the Putin's regime, and the amount of such people quickly grows. Thus, the days of Vladimir Putin are counted: probably, he will not survive the year of 2022. However, his assassination (by somebody from the inner court) will not lead to the peace with Ukraine; instead it will lead to the competition of several russian military, intelligence, and extremist groups for the power, resulting into the start of the civil war somewhere between 2023-2025.
It would be extremely "interesting" to see the "struggle" of the terrorists Dmitry Medvedev, Nikolai Patrushev, Sergei Shoigu, Igor Girkin (Strelkov), and Ramzan Kadyrov for the power. I think there will be even more such groups, some of which are currently hidden. For example, for westerners the Russian FSB and GRU seem quite monolithic while in reality the most powerful Russian secret agencies are hugely clan-based, with the biggest 3-4 clans fighting for power. Additionally, there is a powerful military clan, several oligarch clans, as well as a multitude of regional and ethnic clans seeking for dominance within their areas of control. Quickly the south of Russia between Caucasus mountains and the Don river, which is home to the most extremist russian groups, will explode in the growing uprisings, rapidly transitioning into the civil war. Possibly, it will lead to the ceasefire with Ukraine few months after the start of the civil war. Contrary, it may also involve several regional or world powers (supporting different groups) into the conflict.
Obviously, such large-scale conflict cannot happen unnoticed and will have major consequences for the world regardless of the outcome. However, this impact can be minimized if the economic sanctions against Russia are gradually imposed onto it during the Second Russo-Ukrainian War. A Civil War in the economically isolated Russia will have much lesser impact onto the world economy. That is one more reason why the most painful for the globe sanctions onto Russia must be planned and implemented as early as possible, so that e.g. less developed countries have enough time to prepare for the Russian collapse and avoid unexpected food or fossil fuel shortages.
The First Disassembly of Russia - Caucasus and Far East
The first stage of the Russian disassembly will happen as soon as the Civil War starts between 2023-2026 and will be led by the clearly separatist regions on the Russian periphery which are already waiting for the Russian period of weakness.
Although Russia is called the prison of nations, the first region to part with Russia and accelerate the further disassembly is, ironically, populated primarily by russians - the far-east Khabarovsk Krai. This region is known as the least controlled region of Russia, and is constantly protesting against the Putin's regime even during recent years when other regions were mercilessly "pacified". Moreover, even the Khabarovsk Krai governor was assigned by local elites, not personally Vladimir Putin - something unimaginable for the russian autocracy. Thus, as soon as the Russian Civil War starts on the european part of Russia, the far east will seek for the ways to escape. As soon as that happens, some of the most discontent mono-ethnic autonomous provinces of the Russian Federation in mountainous regions of Caucasus and Altai will erupt as well.
During this phase Russia will lose a small chunk of territories (up to 1'700'000 sq km or 10% of land area) and population (up to 10'000'000 or 7% of citizens). However, it will set the scene for the next disintegration phases, serving as the catalizer. Note that the process for this initial phase of Russian disassembly has probably already started; so that it is almost inevitable as much as the Russo-Ukrainian War will inevitably continue for at least few more months.
The Second Disassembly of Russia - Oligarhs and Nation States
The second stage of the Russian disassembly will take place at the peak of the Civil War between 1924-1927 and will be led by the self-made Russian oligarchs grown up during the Yeltsin era and the resource rich separatist regions at the Russian heartland, supported by the FSB covert operations.
With the constantly increasing Russian Civil War operational territory and the ongoing economic and political sanctions from the civilized world (especially EU, USA, and Japan), Russian oligarchs will have hard time selling crude resources. Thus, they will seek different options to restore their past riches. From the other perspective, after the ceasefire in the Second Russo-Ukrainian War a large amount of soldiers, many of which are of non-russian ethnicity will return home. And many of these people know little but warfare, so they will seek to apply their knowledge elsewhere. The other group of people interested in saving their power and wealth will be top-level FSB agents fearing to lose everything in the brutal Civil War. This is where so different interests will meet. So we enter the second phase of the Russian disassembly, which will again start at the far east. Expectedly, this time it will not be so peaceful as the first phase, as it will happen closer to the Russian core provinces, and more importantly, closer to the Russian resource rich provices, especially the primary oil & gas deposits.
During this phase Russia will lose Russia will lose a significant chunk of its territories (up to 4'100'000 sq km or 25% of land area) and population (up to 17'000'000 or 12% of citizens). More importantly, it will lose some economically and logistically valuable provinces, cutting its ties with the far east and fragmenting the remaining territory. That way, it will stage conditions for the next disintegration phase, making it imminent. Russia is expected to lose its resource rich hardly accessible lands along the Yenisey river and around the lake of Baikal, as well as grant a wide autonomy to some rich provinces with non-Russian ethnic majority in the Volga-Ural region (which will declare their independence shortly after). As the first phase, preparations for the second phase are probably already ongoing within the Russian oligarchs internal circles.
It is unlikely that Russia could be able to restore its control of these territories as that would result into the conflict with China which is militarily and economically much more powerful.
The Third Disassembly of Russia - Ongoing Crisis and Logistics
The third stage of the Russian disassembly will take place before the end of the Civil War and a few years after the ceasefire between 2026-2033 and will be led by the oligarchs and elites of the geographically or logistically separated regions who will prefer to not take an active participation in the Civil War.
This will be the phase when Russia loses the biggest chunk of its territory (up to 8'600'000 sq km or 52% of land area) and population (up to 47'000'000 or 25% of citizens) alike, including the majority of its oil & gas rich provinces. The most influential Russian oligarchs and FSB will play the leading role in this process. Russia is expected to lose all its provinces beyond the Ural mountains, as well as all Caucasian subjects, and the rest of minor autonomous republics with primarily non-Russian ethnic majority of the Volga-Ural region. Potentially, not all of the renegade provinces will be able to break away, in particular, the minor states of the Volga-Ural region. That depends primarily onto how long the Russo-Ukrainian War and Russian Civil War will take: the longer they continue the higher the chances are for the complete disintegration for Russia. So much that the next phase may happen in case if these two wars are long enough to drain Russian coffers to zero.
It is unlikely that Russia could be able to restore its control over any territories beyond the Ural mountains as that would result into the conflict with China and potentially also USA which are militarily and economically much more powerful.
The Final Disassembly of Russia - Restoration of Moscowia
The forth stage of the Russian disassembly will take place after the end of the Civil War (potentially, as the result of the Civil War Peace Treaty cementing the Russian fragmentation) and the following decade between 2028-2040 and will be led by the opposing Civil War parties and the emerging regional clans (political, economic, and criminal) in the core Russian provinces. Any quasi-state which is not able to secure its independence a decade after the Civil War ceasefire (betwen 2035-2040) will most probably will be dragged back into the gravity well towards Moscow.
During this stage Russia will lose those parts of its remainin provinces which will be controlled by the rebellious forces at the end of the Russian Civil War, but also some time after its end due to the worsening internal conflicts between the remaining centers of gravity within the Russian society. None of these secessions is guaranteed, but if all of them happen, Russia might lose the rest of its southern provinces beyond the city of Voronezh and even the large city of St Petersburg with neighbouring provinces.
As described in the Part 2 of the Trilogy, upon successful disintegration the remaining core provinces of Russia together with some Arctic colonies will have land area around 1'700'000 sq km (mere 10% of its current size) and population over 43'000'000 citizens (around 40% of its current population). Justifiably renamed into Moscowia, it will be still one of the top 20 largest states in the world, comparable to Iran or Sudan by size, but comparable to Ukraine or Spain by population. This much smaller primarily ethnically Russian population, together with the limited access to the rich oil & gas deposits this will make Moscowia comparable militarily, politically, and economically to its neighbours. Thus, finally, after 700 years of ruthless expansion the wild beast will have all chances to be pacified and step on the path of mutual respect with its neighbours.
Below is the map of remaining Moscowian (Russian) lands after the disintegration of the modern Russian Federation (Empire) plus its colonies in Arctics. See the Part 2 of the Trilogy for more details.
Epilogue
Empires are born and die just like living beings. And so the Russian Empire, which was born in torment times of the Genghys Khan invasion into the Rus (Ukrainian) lands, will cease to exist in the torment times of the Putin invasion into the modern Ukraine. Some would say it is the irony, but I would say it is the justice.
Senior Staff Software Engineer at Qualcomm Ukraine LLC ????
2 年Re-published on Medium: https://medium.com/@vkhoroz/putin-is-leading-russia-to-its-collapse-c712205cf7a3