﻿This is the biggest country on planet Earth. With a total area of 6,601,665 mi² and a land
area of 6,323,142 mi² it represents 11% of the total world's landmass
and is 1.8 times larger than America. But Russia isn’t just a big country, it’s
a big problem and if it collapses as a result of the consequences of the war in Ukraine this will
impact everybody everywhere. Yes, even you. But why and in what way? Let’s find out. Send in
the tanks…er, if you can find any. Russia has always prided itself on its
Victory Day celebration. Held to commemorate the Soviet victory over the Nazis in World War II,
the bombastic parade held annually in Red Square has historically served as a visual barometer of
Russian military power. It is common to see rows upon rows of marching soldiers, jets,
tanks, armored vehicles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles file past an absorbed crowd
and its approving leadership. This year, things were a little
different. This year, the Kremlin scaled things back–like, a lot. There was no flyover. There
were no Iskanders. There were 3,000 fewer soldiers–most of them cadets and students
at local military universities. And rather than a steady stream of T-90Ms T-14 Armatas,
a solitary, World War II vintage T-34 tank motored past the reviewing stand.
For how staggering Russian tank losses have been in Ukraine thus far, it’s tempting to
think this T-34 is actually the bottom of the barrel for Putin’s forces. After all,
having lost 192 tanks in the First Chechen War, 23 tanks in the Second Chechen War, and 3 tanks
in the Russo-Georgian War, Russia has now lost an impressive 1,937 tanks in Ukraine thus far as
of May 2023–and that is just how many have been visually confirmed. Just let that sink in.
There are more tanks yet in Russia’s arsenal, but most of them are currently employed in Ukraine,
along with the lion’s share of its military forces, explaining the humbler military
parade presence than year’s past. Factor in the recent drone scare over the Kremlin, and we can
see that this year’s parade was held despite legitimate strategic red flags and security
concerns unfathomable just one year ago. Some say the event, designed to capture the
public’s imagination and promote the heady militaristic nationalism of the Soviet glory days,
is merely “papering over the cracks in [Russia’s] armed forces.” Of these there are many. The
irony is that the last time the Russian military orchestrated a military victory of any consequence
was exactly 78 years ago during World War II. Today, its operations in Ukraine are on track to
follow a more common Russian pattern of strategic overstretch and ignominious withdrawal.
There are increasing warning signs that the weaknesses we are seeing are evidence
of far graver threats to Putin’s regime. Recently, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the
Wagner mercenary group fighting around Bakhmut in Ukraine, criticized the Kremlin for not sending
enough ammunition to make a difference on the frontlines. “Victory Day is the victory of
our grandfathers,” he vented on social media. “We haven’t earned that victory one millimeter.”
It should surprise no one that victory now looks far from attainable. On the contrary,
in light of economic sanctions and the declining financial health of the Russian Federation,
some are predicting far worse for Putin’s forces and his political future.
With less to be positive about now than at any point in the war,
could Putin’s regime actually be on the brink of collapse? What might that look like?
In a recent survey of 167 foreign policy experts held by the Atlantic Council, 46% of them believed
that “the collapse or disintegration of Russia could happen in the next ten years.” 40% claimed
this would happen “internally, for a number of reasons, particularly because of a ‘revolution,
civil war, or political disintegration.” We all know that war’s gone awry can exacerbate
and expedite the deterioration of a society faster than just about anything else. But
Putin’s abysmal strategic direction of Russia’s war in Ukraine could have the
country on the fast-track to obscurity, oblivion, or far, far worse–outright dissolution.
There are two prime historical touchpoints in modern history we tend to reference when we
talk about a Russian political collapse–which is really saying something, if you think about
it. The first is the most recent, when the Soviet Union broke apart at the end of the Cold War. In
case you are too young to remember, this collapse caught the world by surprise. Many were shocked
to see a country so large and powerful–on paper, at least–suddenly and rapidly fall apart.
Some blame Russia’s current state of affairs on the West’s response to that
significant geopolitical moment. Heralded as the start of a new era of freedom, liberation,
and self-determination, many worried the independence of a host of ex-Soviet
satellites and the weakening of Russia would destabilize the international order.
Since the 1990s, all of the Soviet Union’s “21 constituent republics declared themselves
sovereign.” Putin, a staunch imperialist who pines for the good old days, took this pretty hard;
after he rose to power, the West tried to maintain dialogue and positive relations with the Kremlin
even as it embarked on a repressive imperialist foreign policy with deployments in the Second
Chechen War, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
Since the end of the Cold War, Putin has created a regime that “actively [restricts] the rights
of the dozens of different national and ethnic groups within the boundaries of
the modern Russian state.” He wants to be a Czar, with a wheel of dependent satellites to
exploit for natural resources, manpower, and money. Russian officials and Kremlin
propagandists have made it their goal to promote this agenda–making the ruthless look benign.
Someday, who is to say Moldova, Kazakhstan, or other Central Asian nations might not come under
the tighter thumb of Russian imperial aggression? What would it mean for European security?
That’s why Ukraine matters. The war there poses serious problems for Putin’s
imperial ambitions. He and his cabinet thought it would be a short war, one that would permanently
bring Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit. Instead, he is suffering one of the most catastrophic
military setbacks of the past hundred years–one that has already surpassed the devastation
caused by the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and one approaching the scale with the type of suffering
that preceded the other major Russian collapse, the collapse of the Tsarist empire in 1917.
That, in case you forgot, was the first time the Russian Federation dissolved–the event
that triggered Russia’s chaotic, bloody descent into Soviet-era communism. And let me tell you,
it was a whirlwind of a time to be alive. One moment, you are a Russian soldier
fighting Germany and Austro-Hungary with the Entente allies on the Eastern Front. The next,
you learn the inefficient and widely corrupt Tsarist government can no longer sustain the
economic and material costs of the war effort. Before you know it, tens of thousands of soldiers,
workers, and peasants are fed up, rising up, overthrowing the imperial government,
and installing the Bolsheviks in power. Countless Russian minorities yearned in those
turbulent times for some form of recognition and freedom which had been elusive under the
Tsars. When the Empire disintegrated and crashed out of the war, social, economic,
and sociopolitical ruptures terminated the central control of the state and enabled the
temporary formation of a series of new polities including the Siberian Republic and other former
territories that got their first taste of independence. These include Finland, Poland,
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. It wouldn’t be long before the Soviets, consolidating state
power once more under the communist flag of the USSR, gobbled them back up.
And you wonder why they were more than happy to join NATO in the aftermath of the Cold War?
Most experts believe a modern Russian collapse will be swifter, more brutal and more akin to
the revolutionary crisis of 1917 than the Soviet collapse of 1991. It is a possible scenario. The
conditions in Russia today do bear a passing resemblance to those within the Tsarist empire
at the time of its fall: A deeply corrupt and morally bankrupt ruling class led by oligarchs,
aristocrats, and elites with no conception of the economic suffering of the masses;
ethnic minorities in places like Dagestan, Ichkeria, Ingushetia, Ossetia, Kabardino,
the Caucasus, Tuva, Buryatia and others–inhumanely treated, discriminated against, and used as cannon
fodder in Putin’s wars. A population in serious demographic decline. Growing mistrust of Russian
institutions and governance. Intensive state repression. A country that will
owe billions–if not trillions of dollars–to rebuild Ukraine when the time comes.
If you think any singular cause will cause Putin’s downfall,
you’d be wrong. History is nonlinear, multicausal,
and contingent. Janusz Bugajski, author of Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture,
put it best: “The demise of the current Russian Federation is unlikely to follow a single path,
unlike that of the Soviet Union, where the fifteen Union Republics became independent States almost
by default. [...] The fracturing of the state is likely to be chaotic, prolonged, sequential,
conflictive and, increasingly, violent. It can result in the full separation of some federal
units and the amalgamation of others into new federal or confederal arrangements.”
Bruno Tertrais, an advisor for Geopolitics at the Institut Montaigne, has argued that
the only good thing about a Russian collapse today is that the nuclear issue would be far
less serious than it was with the Soviet Union. Elites would be far more interested in preserving
some semblance of authority and power rather than commit political and personal suicide
by launching a nuclear attack. Most of Russia’s nuclear forces today are inside the Federation,
not beyond its borders like during the Cold War when it had 7,000 nukes stationed outside
Russia. Exploring the implications for Russia’s future as a nuclear power if trends continue the
way they are, Bruno observed: “In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was described as ‘Upper Volta
with rockets,” he said. “By the 2000s, it was ‘Mexico with nuclear weapons.’ In the 2010s:
‘A gas station with nuclear weapons.’ Will it become a ‘Somalia with nuclear weapons?’”
So how exactly might Russia collapse? What would it mean for its neighbors?
We know that a country’s foreign policy is a reflection of its domestic situation, and vice
versa. In Russia’s case, Putin’s actions have the country on the path to economic armageddon. The
price of Russian crude oil is the lowest it's been in years; within the first two months of 2023 the
state had already fallen into a deficit level normally achieved in an entire year. It isn’t
profiting much from its sale of hydrocarbons to India and China. It’s import sales are collapsing.
Its GDP has shrunk by 4%. Air cargo fell by 60% in 2022. There has been a massive loss of technical
expertise and specialized equipment as foreign corporations and businesses fled the country. It
lacks vital semiconductors and other specialized machinery imported from the West, meaning its
entire economy, to say nothing of its military power, is becoming more and more primitive. The
net result is an increasing reliance on states like China for resources and technology–systems
that can be integrated, but take time. While that happens, poverty will spread. It will be harder to
receive good healthcare. And the population will grow more discontent with the government.
These factors could affect the strength of existing national movements–or ethnic
minorities within the Russian Federation seeking greater independence and autonomy.
Moscow is far removed from many of these population centers, and has, until now,
relied on a technocratic system of oligarchical control where Kremlin-appointed elites receive
massive checks to keep their provinces in line. These leaders, in turn, return the regional
profits to the Kremlin’s coffers. Russian elites are deeply dependent on Moscow’s political and
economic authority for their own legitimacy. When this goes bankrupt, what happens?
When the public loses faith in these Kremlin-appointed governors,
and the Kremlin can no longer provide them with the support they need to maintain order, there’s
a chance that local separatist movements will grow. In resource and industrial-rich regions,
there might be the temptation to cut ties with Moscow and go it alone with the support of the
people. This happened in 2020, when mass protests erupted in eastern Khabarovsk after the arrest and
twenty-two year imprisonment of Sergei Furgal, a member of the opposition party. This caused
a power vacuum that Moscow had to fill. But it needs resources and support to do so.
And with the war dragging on and the bite of sanctions becoming more and more acute,
it is increasingly likely that Putin will struggle to plug the holes in the dike
as the flood of discontent spreads. Unlike the Soviet Union whose power rested
on the COMINTERN and whose governing authority always had a reasonably clear line of succession,
nobody knows what will happen in Putin’s vertical, highly centralized hierarchy
of the figurehead falls. Will there be a civil war? Will a
power struggle ensue between Putin’s elites? Will Moscow, already neck-deep in its military invasion
of Ukraine, have the resources to suppress any separatist movements that arise?
Back in 1917, this was the avenue that led to the downfall of the Tsarist empire. Like
falling dominoes, the Ukrainian Central Rada presented its First Universal Declaration;
five months later, it declared the creation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Other regions
did the same. By the time you get to 1918, the Red Army was forced to suppress these
movements and bring them into submission. Only Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania,
states with active support from the United States, Great Britain, and France–the victors of World War
I–managed to secure their independence, if only for a time. The Bolsheviks managed to set the ship
straight–but it came at a massive cost. Putin has to hope his cronies are as committed
as the Bolsheviks were when his grasp on power is brought into question. So far, one of his
tactics has been to feature minority participants in the Ukraine occupation like Kadyrov’s Chechens
in his propaganda campaign for two purposes–to both show Federation solidarity in the war, and,
if things go sour, to have a scapegoat for the Russian Army’s broader operational failures.
If Russia collapsed, it would probably start with a breakaway movement in one territory
that spreads like a virus to others on the country’s periphery. Chechnya, for example,
could be the first domino to fall–they have a history of enmity with the Kremlin, after all,
and a recent one at that. Local elites, like Kadyrov, will be posturing for greater political
power if they start to glimpse fractures in Putin’s existing political system.
Already struggling to deal with Ukraine, how might Russia deal with discontented Chechen and Wagner
mercenaries who, more loyal to the cult of their own determined rulers than they are to Russia
itself, come marching back to Moscow? Could these leaders, fueled by vengeful hatred for the way
they were left to die on the battlefields of Ukraine with too few weapons, shells,
and dilapidated equipment, form a Faustian pact and team up against Putin? Or will battlefield
defeat and economic poverty force these sides into internecine warfare amongst themselves–a battle
royale for ultimate political power? Okay, it might be a stretch. And we should
temper our prognosis just a little. While it’s tempting to look at online maps “depicting the
collapse of Russia by 2025” with “fantastical graphics car[ving] the country up into dozens
of independent republics,” the reality is that Russia’s internal divisions are
far less stark than they appear. According to Alexey Gusev, a fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, “The maps betray a delusion on the part of their authors
that is common to many political forecasters. These observers—all map fetishists—mistake the
administrative boundaries of Russia’s provinces for real borders of socioeconomic life, unaware
that the true divisions in Russian society almost never coincide with the arbitrary
lines drawn by Communist Party functionaries in the first half of the last century. Russia
is extremely unlikely to disintegrate along its regional borders for geographical, sociological,
economic, and political-administrative reasons.” “Sociologically,” Gusev argues,
“most of Russia’s regions share the same basic values and attitudes.
For those praying for Putin's downfall, just know this: “Russia always
ends up rebuilding itself.” Preferentially, a new, more egalitarian form of governance would emerge
from the ashes. Historically, hardship, defeat, and political turmoil have been
the breadbasket of totalitarianism. As long as Putin remains in power, it is
unlikely that Russia’s collapse will resemble the peaceful disintegration of 1991. Putin looks set
to “run”--in air quotes, naturally–for President again in 2024. He’ll be familiar with essays by
the likes of Ival Ilyin, who wrote in 1950 What Dismemberment of Russia Entails for the World.
He knows that battlefield victories will all but seal his grip on power for decades to come. But
with a hard year of campaigning ahead–one in which Ukraine will slowly integrate new Western weapon
systems into its counteroffensive strategy–Putin will be forced to drain Russian resources further,
sending young men to die on the frontlines. Hatred will grow. Putin will be forced to suppress
these feelings to prevent widespread discontent. This begins a vicious cycle in which the only
thing that can save his dictatorship is more suppression. Which leads to more
discontent. And you see where this is going… Edward Lucas, senior adviser and senior fellow at
the Center for European Policy Analysis, put it best: “As the butchers’ bill mounts in Ukraine,
the war story contains only stale bombast. The lie machine insists that black is white. The
result is cognitive dissonance between what Russians experience in their daily lives and
what the state propaganda machine is telling them. As we know from Soviet times, that can
last for a long time. But not indefinitely. The whiff of change is in the air.”
The truth, more than anything, is that the cracks in the Russian power pyramid have
been present since Putin came to power. His actions over the past year have only
accelerated a process of decline already long in motion. It is fighting an unwinnable war.
If it refuses to pull out of Ukraine and rebuild its military, it will soon be unable to prevent
those who want to leave the Federation from doing so. If the oligarchs turn on Putin,
will there be a struggle between intelligence services, the National Guard, and foreign
mercenaries? Will Putin be assassinated? Russia has committed several grave geopolitical
blunders throughout the past hundred years. Could this be their worst?
Could Putin survive politically–or physically–a military defeat? Let us know in the comments.