"Not Superhero": the media told what would be with Putin after defeat in the war in Ukraine

This was stated by the former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who resigned after the large -scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, Newsweek reports. "Putin may be replaced. He is not a superhero. He has no one. Bondarev is the only Russian diplomat who has publicly left his post due to war in Ukraine. According to him, world history indicates that such dictators have been shifted from time to time.

"As a rule, if they could not win the war and meet the needs of their supporters, they went," the ex-diplomat explained. He believes that if the Russians realize that the war is lost and that Putin has nothing to offer instead, "disappointment and disagreement" will come. "They can decide that Putin is no longer needed.

I think when they say goodbye to illusions and show themselves in a new reality where Putin cannot offer them anything - except for fear and repression against their own people - it will change the situation," - - Bondarev said. Vlad Mikhnenko, an expert on post -communist transformations in Eastern Europe and the former USSR from Oxford University, described three potential scenarios of Russian defeat in Ukraine. "Many, if not all, depends on the nature of the defeat," he said.

The first scenario is the chaotic retreat of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation under the conditions of a rapid offensive of Ukrainian forces on one or more fronts. This will panic among 600,000 Russians who settled in the Crimea after the annexation of the peninsula in 2014 and Russian collaborators in the Donbass. They will try to escape and this will lead to a "rapid collapse of the front. " In Moscow, security forces will quickly remove Putin from power.

"He will not have the opportunity to deploy nuclear weapons, which many will be afraid, such an order will sabotage at many levels," Mikhnenko explained. The second scenario is a retreat in the style of the First World War. The current situation on the front line in Ukraine is reminiscent of the events of 1916-1917.

"The protracted war for exhaustion, mobilized Russians, poor equipment and supply, months in dirty cold trenches under the growing blows of Ukrainian artillery, mass desertion, which leads to the collapse of the front," Mikhnenko explained. In this case, unlike the first scenario, the events will develop slower and not so dramatic. Putin will have enough time to ask for ceasefire on almost any conditions.

"Again, no nuclear weapons will be used, because if Russian soldiers are deserted, no one will take advantage of the nuclear stroke," he said. The third scenario - the war will last two years. Dissatisfaction in the Russian Federation will grow and be accompanied by slow deviations from several areas of hostilities.

In this case, the Russian elite will try to negotiate with Putin and declare a "victory" in "confrontation with the West", they may say that they "did not lose", "defended their homeland" and so on. In this case, the steering wheel will be handed over to Putin's successor. We will remind that the editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan stated that Russian troops disarmed Ukraine in 2-3 days, now fighting with NATO and further "defeat the whole Western world".