Couping Putin

March 4, 2022 11:23 AM

Is it plausible that Putin could be removed from power by high-ranking officials in his own government? I'm imagining something vaguely along the lines of the 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev. What (if anything) would it take for that to happen, and what would the outcome look like?

Western intelligence seems to think Putin is isolated and unstable, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine came a surprise to some Kremlin officials. I can imagine government and military leaders thinking Russia would be better off without him, especially if sanctions continue and the war escalates or becomes a quagmire. But maybe Putin's power base is too solid for anything to happen?

posted by Gerald Bostock to Law & Government (4 answers total)

You may appreciate the economist's recent interview with Fiona Hill in the second half of the podcast.

> leading Russia expert Fiona Hill provides insight into the psyche of the Kremlin strongman and what would persuade him to call a ceasefire

IIRC, Hill's assessment is that historically, Russian coup attempts are made by hardliners, argues that Putin's inner circle is filled with hardliners, and that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is what the hardliners want to happen. So, why stage a coup when you are getting the outcome that you want? Hill reckons Putin is more vulnerable to and concerned with the possibility of mass public protest in Russia.
posted by are-coral-made at 12:38 PM on March 4, 2022 [10 favorites]

You might also want to read this article by BBC Russia correspondent Farida Rustamova. The original is in Russian, but the link takes you to the Google Translate version. It's very interesting. I didn't listen to the podcast referenced above, but I think that Rustamova reads the situation quite differently from Fiona Hill. See also Matt Taibbi's take on it (he quotes extensively from Rustamova's article).
posted by alex1965 at 8:25 PM on March 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

There is now a human translation, by Ilya Lozovsky, of the Rustamova article.
posted by Not A Thing at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2022

Response by poster: An ex-CIA officer wrote about this in the Washington Post a few days ago, though the article doesn't go much beyond speculating that it's a genuine possibility if the military and security elite thinks the system is threatened.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:16 AM on March 13, 2022