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14.03.2022, 19:30
Leonid Volkov: A coup d'etat in the Kremlin is possible. There are people who don't want to be couples
Vitali Bestchastny
Editor of RusDelf

PHOTO: Snapshot of a VIDEO
Both Europeans and Russians will have to pay a high price for Putin's war, but it cannot be compared to the suffering of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, says Russian oppositionist Leonid Volkov, former coordinator of imprisoned Alexei Navalny staff. .

Intelligence is leaving Russia en masse. People who do not agree with the war will leave. In the West, Ukraine won the information war immediately, but in Russia, many still believe in "denaturing" and "saving the Russian people in Ukraine." At the same time, the Kremlin quietly liquidated the country's independent media. It is felt that Putin succeeded in Russia. Or not?
No. Putin is not doing anything as planned. He loses control of the situation. I do not understand how Putin will get out of this situation. He had a stable, controlled system of authoritarianism. He himself destroyed this system, destroyed the Russian economy and Russia's future. It is not very clear why. He obviously made a mistake in his calculations when starting this war, he considered with a flash war that there would be a reception with flowers, in 3-4 days of war he would easily set up a puppet government in Kiev. Now, however, he has turned Russia's economy into ruins, without a clear exit strategy.
Of course, Putin has a strong rating, the victims of his propaganda continue in the country. There are conformists, they always have been, no matter what happens. However, we have never seen such a change in sociological dynamics, such a change in public sentiment, and the economic crisis has not yet fully affected people. People have not yet felt the economic catastrophe. However, according to our sociological research, Putin is now losing a few percent of his support every day. Not every month, not every week, but every day. Of course, there are people who believe in nonsense, a "special operation", but slowly people realize that Russia has started a war. That is a very terrible truth. Of course, it is not easy for a person who has previously believed in Putin's propaganda to embrace this information. But we are working on it. People wake up.
The war is fought on three fronts. The first front is hostility. Ukrainian armed forces repel aggressor. The second front is economic. Western countries were finally able to operate within a single bloc and responded with very harsh sanctions. They were able to cause serious tensions in the Russian economy. The third front is for information. The struggle for the minds of the Russians. These are the three fronts against Putin.
Do you believe in a coup d'etat? That anyone in the system can remove Putin?
No, I don't think anyone in the system will replace Putin. It is impossible. Putin has built a very person-centered system, it cannot exist without him. However, I believe in the possibility of a coup d'état, I believe that there are people for whom there is no other way out of this situation and they do not want to sit in The Hague as war criminals. Putin, for example, put the oligarchs in front of the fact that they have become couples that no one in the West wants to see anymore. These people do not want to be pushed out of the Western world.
Russia has tightened protest laws, issued an "anti-counterfeiting law", and war cannot be written honestly. Can mass actions be expected in such an environment?
Navalnõi's team and I personally call on the Russians to disobey from the first day of the war. We held rallies in Russian cities on March 6 and - not so large - on this Sunday, March 13.
More than 15,000 people have been detained at rallies since the war began. It is more than ever. This shows that hundreds of thousands of people across the country attended anti-war rallies. And in more dangerous conditions than before. The stakes have been raised to the last limit. Now, the punishment for participating in the protests is not expulsion from university or dismissal, not even 15 days' detention, but a criminal charge. Nevertheless, they still go out. This shows that there is no mass support for Putin's war.

To what extent did the sanctions affect the people of Russia?
Sanctions, of course, have a very strong effect on ordinary Russians. The collapse of the national currency can only affect. After the collapse of the ruble, the prices of Western products will rise by 50-60%. Sanctions are clearly also affecting Europeans through rising energy prices. Unfortunately, this is the price to be paid for Europe's many years of indecision. We have been saying for years that Putin must be restrained through targeted sanctions. If it had been done earlier, if the oligarchs' accounts had been frozen earlier, it would have been more serious. Putin thought that the whole thing about red lines that should not be crossed is blah-blah, Western leaders say so, because that is what needs to be said. In fact, no one has punished Putin before.
No one punished him for poisoning Crimea, Donbass, the shot-down Boeing, the Scripals or Alexei Navalny. There was no serious punishment. And Putin was sure he could escape again. We have repeatedly said that the West should show the seriousness of its intentions earlier. Then it would have been possible to prevent this war. The elite would have turned their backs on Putin in the past and acted as a deterrent. Now both Europeans and Russians have to pay a high price. However, this price still cannot be compared to the price paid by residents of Mariupol, Kharkov, Sumy, Kiev and other Ukrainian cities under bomb. Now it's getting tough for everyone.