Putin's power is still strong despite military failures and mobilization - Reuters
"Putin is currently holding on to Anthony Brenton's former UK ambassador to Russia. In his opinion, the Russian dictator hoped for negotiations on Ukraine, perhaps with Americans, and military luck, although the Russian army is experiencing a lack of live power, equipment and missiles. After humiliating retreats and vast losses of the Russian army, Putin began threatening nuclear weapons, which some interpret as a sign of despair.
The allies of the dictator - from the "Putin infantryman", the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, to the "Putin chef", the head of the Wagner PEC "Yevgeny Prigogine - accused the warlords of warfare. However, Brenton emphasizes that there was no public criticism against Putin by political or business elite or any signs of action against him. However, it may not last long.
"If the retreat continues in the spring, then my sense suggests that at this moment there will be serious problems for Putin - not at the level of the people, but at the level of the elite," Brenton said. "There is a group of people who are at the heart of his selfish and do not want to be part of possible fiasco.
" A high -ranking Western official who carefully monitors the situation in Russia, under the conditions of anonymity, said that there were still no serious desertions from the Putin environment. Signs of quarrel, complaints about slow decision -making were observed, but nothing indicates that Putin had lost control. The US official also stated that Washington and his allies consider the Russian president's position reliable.
"However, many of his recent actions, including mobilization, clearly show that Putin is late," he said. There is another factor that ensures the safety of Vladimir Putin: powerful intelligence services that support the political system, equipped with loyalists. Everyone is closely monitored, so it is difficult and dangerous to speak against the dictator.
Andrew Weiss, a specialist from the Carnegie Foundation, who studies Putin, said that the Russian president can theoretically overthrow as a result of a palace coup, an uprising of the elite or the mass "assault of Bastille". However, he does not see people capable of it now. Weice recalled that after losing in the war against Kuwait in 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had ruled for more than ten years. Tatiana Stanova, the founder of the analytical firm R.
Politik, still believes that Vladimir Putin will have problems if he exhauses the options for escalation of war. And here the elite will try to persuade him to resign. "If he is able to fulfill his unspoken obligations to the elite and the population - stability, peace, pensions and salaries - then he will not threaten him," said Stanova. " The offensive and if the budget does not stand and pensions will start delayed, the elite will gradually mobilize ”.
The French diplomatic source has told reporters that among his colleagues there is an opinion that Putin, dominant in influential state media, will be able to preserve his power. What fear prevails in Russia, ”he said. "I still think that most Russians will support Putin, whatever he decided. " The decisions in the Russian Federation see it a threat. Recall that during the CIS summit, which took place in Kazakhstan, it became clear that Putin's authority in Central Asia has swayed.