Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#42The article is paywalled
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#43It's ironic that Economist keeps pushing this propaganda year after year, but it's UK that has worse and worse performing PM's, but every single one of them keep dreaming not about their own country and economy, but how to topple Putin.
Writing an article is not an attempt to depose someone.
There are many, many articles on the front page of this publication that are not about Russia, so clearly "every single one of them" isn't even hyperbolically true.
Writing an article about the problems of a foreign nation when your own nation has problems isn't - and has never been - ironic.
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#44I've heard this about a hundred times over the years.
Yes it's pretty clear the world gives the Russian people far more credit than it deserves.
But there have been some clear cases of Putin's omniscience leaking - the "3-day war" failure, the milbloggers he's has to imprison, the rebellion and loss of Wagner, the inability to protect Syria and Iran, every oligarch he has to execute, 20% interest rates. These aren't the indicators of a firm grasp of power.
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#45Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#46I've heard this about a hundred times over the years.
I don't remember hearing he's losing his grip in the past. He always seemed pretty secure as dictator for life with any serious opponents like Navaly or Boris Nemtsov being killed in various ways. There seems more criticism now. Like from "Ilya Remeslo, a longtime Kremlin attack lawyer and propagandist":
>I have the impression that part of the system is already starting to work against Putin … It’s essentially … similar to what happened at the end of the Soviet Union, when people hated the [Communist] Party and did everything for it to end. Putin’s Russia will follow the same path as the Soviet Union. Everything is being repeated.
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#47I've heard this about a hundred times over the years.
And if you were old enough, you'd have heard it about the Soviet Union, too. And nothing happened... until, abruptly, it did.
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#48I've heard this about a hundred times over the years.
And if you were old enough, you'd have heard it about the Soviet Union, too. And nothing happened... until, abruptly, it did.
You have a good point but the thing is its hard to separate speculation, educated guesses and actual facts. There is so much propaganda mixed with fake news these days. You can't believe anything you read.
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mistake that we seem to see repeatedly is blindness to adaptation. Russia's economy would have collapsed had the Russian government carried on exactly as things were before sanctions. No economy will really truly collapse while the people in it need an economy: they will make changes. At some point those changes might include stopping the war and getting rid of Putin. I don't think all commentators fall into this…
I agree with you that war can easily become unpopular and turn people against their government. But is there any country, whose economy has been sanctioned by the foreigners and crippled by it, where the people then decided to overthrow their government? As far as I know my history, no. Foreign sanctions easily give every country an easy excuse to blame all economic problems on the foreigners. In every instance, they…
> But is there any country, whose economy has been sanctioned by the foreigners and crippled by it, where the people then decided to overthrow their government?
Arguably the Soviet Union. There's also a fairly strong argument, I think, that apartheid South Africa jumped before it was pushed, here.
There was also an attempt in Belarus, but Belarus is imperfectly sanctioned; it has Russia propping it up. There is no super-Russia propping Russia up, however (China's support is fairly conditional and Putin would be foolish to depend on it.)
Re: Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
#50It's ironic that Economist keeps pushing this propaganda year after year, but it's UK that has worse and worse performing PM's, but every single one of them keep dreaming not about their own country and economy, but how to topple Putin.
I mean, the Economist has been... pretty sceptical of the UK's behaviour for a long time. It was extremely critical of Brexit, for instance. In 2017 and 2019 it endorsed the _Liberal Democrats_, for goodness sake.