Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was arrested during the December 1989 uprising by soldiers of his own regime who had since changed camp and was executed along with his wife Elena on December 25, 1989. Ceausescu had been abandoned by almost all of his associates. the failure of a mass rally he had organized in front of the Presidential Palace. Ion Iliescu, a prominent member of the regime, was elected president of the now-democratic Romania.
Slobodan Milosevic, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, was abandoned by his own generals during mass demonstrations in the autumn of 2000, and arrested on April 1, 2001.
This is not the fate of all dictators. It is a fact, however, that in totalitarian dictatorships there may seem to be peace and political stagnation, but subversive forces are operating underground, interest groups opposed to the ruling party, conspiracies are emerging and processes of change are being activated.
The question that has been hovering over the failures of the Russian army in Ukraine in recent weeks is whether Vladimir Putin’s regime can be overthrown. By whom; The Defenders of Peace in Russia? The dissidents and the Democrats? It is not difficult to exclude them, as much as we would like the opposite in the democratic West, from any scenario for the post-Putin era. Who, then, could overthrow a man who came to power through bloody conspiracies and bombings that claimed the lives of unsuspecting residents of Russia’s major cities and caused the destruction of a country – Chechnya – and the capital, Grozny?
A major failure
It is a fact that Putin failed in his original plan to intimidate the Ukrainian government and with it the West. The second plan failed: the invasion and rapid defeat of the Ukrainian army and the replacement of its democratically elected leadership by a Quisling-type government.
Indeed, Russia has suffered heavy casualties, losing between 9,000 and 15,000 troops, many planes and helicopters, cannons and tanks. Images from the battle in early March in the strategically important town of Voznesensk, home to 35,000 people, where militias, soldiers and gunmen repulsed a large Russian force, are indicative of Russian failures.
Putin has thrown 50% of his forces into battle. If we take into account the thousands of dead soldiers, the thousands of wounded, prisoners and deserters, about 15% of the Russian army has already been put out of action. And not only that. In some cases, the Ukrainian army not only repulsed the invaders but recaptured territories such as the town of Makariv – 60 km west of Kiev – where the Ukrainian flag was raised again on March 22.
According to Yaroslav Trofimov, an experienced journalist with The Wall Street Journal, the regime’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported on March 21 that 9,861 Russian soldiers had been killed and 16,153 wounded in the clashes, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. ). The post disappeared a few hours later – not before photos were taken. Also, six Russian generals fell on the battlefield. Six generals!
In four weeks, Putin has been able to show the world that Russia is no longer a superpower but a regional power that becomes extremely dangerous because of its nuclear weapons. It is therefore a force that none of the adults wants on their feet anymore.
Putin has managed to isolate his country internationally and wreak havoc on it. The “vital space” so important to him has been lost or everything indicates that it will soon move to other spheres of economic influence. In Belarus, his loyal dictator Alexander Lukashenko is facing an underground challenge both in the military and in society. The countries of Central Asia will be permanently open to the economies of China and the West and may save the regime of Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey financially.
In addition, the group of oligarchs backed by the Putin regime has also been hit hard financially.
From the beginning of the invasion, the Russian army is doing nothing but what it knows best. To bomb civilians and cause casualties among the civilian population. The invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the destruction of the city of Aleppo in Syria in 2015 were done exactly with this recipe. Bombing of schools, hospitals and homes to cause panic.
Is the regime shaking?
The Putin regime is not a one-party dictatorship. Putin is not the Sun King no matter how vast his powers are. He is backed by his own group, which may have been the most powerful in Russia, but there are other groups he has worked with and supported over the years, such as former President Boris Yeltsin’s group of people. There are also groups that hold parallel powers and are in constant friction with Putin’s group such as large sections of the FSB (Federal Security Service).
And now; How long will these alliances be maintained when the interests of different groups are collectively threatened?
On the day that Putin, in a live television broadcast and in the style of a gambler, instructed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff General Valery Gerasimov to put Russia’s nuclear arsenal on standby, perhaps the of.
Putin’s reactions may not sound as panicked as those who admire him, but they do at least show his intense concern. In a recent sermon, he announced that he would now deal with the “fifth phalanx” of pro-democracy supporters and “Western agents” operating in Russia. He also organized a rally of 200 thousand in a stadium for the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea. Both cases show that something is wrong with Putin.
Indeed, on March 11, the head of the FSB 5th Directorate, Sergey Beseda, and his deputy, Anatoly Bolyukh, were placed under house arrest, while several arrests of FSB executives were reported by credible news sources. It is also reported that Putin has replaced at least eight generals.
Beseda is no accident in the hierarchy and is considered by Putin’s confidants. He was responsible for efforts to stop the Euromaidan uprising in 2014 and later to overthrow President Volodymyr Zelensky. For his actions in Ukraine in 2014, his name was included in the list of sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union.
A few days later, it was the turn of the deputy head of the National Guard (Rosgvardia), General Roman Gavrilov, who was arrested by the FSB counterintelligence department. The news was spread by journalist Christo Grozev of the research website Bellingcat, was initially refuted and finally confirmed by official sources. The National Guard has suffered the most serious casualties in Ukraine. The reasons for his arrest are still obscure. One of the leaked accusations concerns the “escape of important information” and the other on “fuel wastage”! There is also the possibility that the arrest was not ordered by Putin, of whom Gavrilov was one of the protégés, but was the result of an independent FSB operation.
All this does not prove that Putin is in danger of falling. But there are important indications that something is wrong with the regime. If something happens, it will happen suddenly and it will come from within.
Putin’s speech reveals that there is concern and it comes from internal enemies.
As Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya @Stanovaya wrote on Twitter, “there is a general sense that, objectively, a split has already taken place in the Russian elite: the former Yeltsin oligarchs against Putin’s conservative elites.”
euractiv.gr
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
