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Among the many questions asked about Russia’s disastrous war against Ukraine, one of them is posed only very rarely: can Russia survive what seems increasingly likely to be a humiliating defeat at the hands of its smaller neighbour?
On the face of it, the prospect seems almost absurd. Vladimir Putin may have been weakened by a trio of crucial miscalculations – about Russian military strength, Ukrainian resolve, and Western unity – but there’s no evidence yet that he’s on the verge of losing his grip on power, much less the Russian state imploding.
There have been few significant demonstrations on the streets to protest against the war, against Putin’s leadership, or even against the mobilisation of conscripts. Those with the wherewithal to leave Russia for fear of getting drafted have already fled. And while there are likely to be significant economic shocks as Western sanctions begin to bite, some creative fiscal management by Moscow has dampened their impact so far.
Indeed, by rattling the nuclear sabre ever louder amid blatant false flags about Ukrainian “dirty bombs”, the image Putin seeks to project is one of strength, not fragility.
Cognitive biases among Western commentators can also play a role when making judgements about authoritarian states like Russia, leading us to see weakness when in fact it is absent. After all, nobody seriously thought the United States would disintegrate after its ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan for that matter.
But there are three good reasons why we should not discount the possibility that defeat in Ukraine might make the Kremlin’s edifice crumble, leaving Russia difficult to govern in its entirety, or at least its present form.
1. It has happened before
First and most obvious – it has happened before. And in an historical sense, it has happened relatively recently, with the collapse of the USSR in 1991 rightly considered a seismic event in world politics.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/could-russia-collapse-193013