The development of the current geopolitical situation around Russia is far from being in its favor. The introduction of an ever-increasing collective sanctions regime from the US and the EU, the adoption of the American "lend-lease" and the allocation of a total of 57 billion dollars by the US Congress for military, economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, which has undergone a Russian military invasion, affects not only the domestic Russian economy, but also directly affects the foreign policy positions of the state, whose number of “sympathizers” on the world “chessboard” is decreasing daily.
Countries that on the eve of the start of the special operation on February 24 of this year were considered “friends on the board”, for example, such as China and India, while they continue to observe a very fragile neutrality, which in the shortest period of time will incline to the unpredictable. The United States and the countries of the collective West are pursuing a very active "explanatory" policy with these two key countries of the Asia-Pacific region, which are still demonstrating their own neutrality towards the military events in Ukraine. But, China is already officially opening new transport corridors with the EU countries, realizing that Russia is now not a "bridge", but a "wall" between Europe and Asia. And India, in turn, announces a reduction in purchases of Russian energy resources despite the high discount provided.
But, the biggest “surprise” came from Kazakhstan, which directly states that “it will not violate any anti-Russian sanctions and will not become a tool to bypass anti-Russian sanctions of the US and the EU.” This line of Nur-Sultan looks especially challenging for Moscow, given the fact that only five months ago, only with the support of the CSTO peacekeeping forces with the maximum participation of Russia, Kazakhstan managed to overcome the most serious political crisis in its history. Also, in fact, Armenia “abandoned” by Russia by hastily transferring its Russian military units to the “burning” Ukrainian front, which allowed Azerbaijan to close the long-playing issue of belonging to Nagorno-Karabakh and, moreover, this contributed to the growth of Prime Minister Pashinyan’s determination to make an attempt to free himself from the “Russian umbrella" - making a statement about the correctness, the need and timeliness of restoring relations between Armenia and Turkey. Even the Belarusian under-president Lukashenko hesitates to openly engage his troops in the Russian so-called special operation in Ukraine, which angers Putin beyond words.
The special military operation started at the end of February by Putin did something in relation to Ukraine that ardent opponents of Russia could not even dream of - already this year, neutral Sweden and Finland, which for decades were considered an example of a "balanced" attitude towards a "dangerous neighbor", can join NATO. It is quite expected that over the next few years, NATO's military spending will increase significantly, and the doctrine of Russia's hard containment will not have a single opponent. In turn, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia already in June this year. can get the status of a candidate for EU accession. The position of the current Chancellor Scholz and Germany as a whole, which over the past 75 years has been considered the most reliable European partner of Russia and the largest consumer of Russian energy resources in Europe, has changed radically. It is very "sad" that Germany was a country through which Russia methodically implemented its ambitious plans by building a cascade of energy pipelines and thereby "planted" the European economy and European social life on the Russian energy needle, which allowed it to pursue the "correct" Russian policy in all European countries without exception.
All that remains is a “frightened” France, which, through the mouth of President Macron, calls for allowing “saving Putin face” and “not making Putin too angry” by supplying Ukraine with Western heavy offensive weapons. And the fact that peaceful civilians die every day in Ukraine, peaceful cities are subjected to endless bombardments, and Russian missiles continue to fly into the capital Kyiv to this day, this goes unnoticed by the French leader. He calls for immediate peace talks. It is quite obvious that, hearing such a position of France, the Russian president "finds the strength" to explain to the Russian society about the need to continue hostilities, which must endure a little more.
In such a paradigm of events, spiced with outright failures in achieving the stated goals of the Russian NWO in Ukraine, plus President Putin’s obvious, already impossible to hide health problems, forces the Russian political establishment to seriously look for all sorts of ways out of the current situation. One of the most discussed options is the change of the President of the Russian Federation and the rapid end of hostilities in Ukraine. Most Russians are sure that these two actions should take place simultaneously, then the usual life before the start of the war will immediately be restored and Western sanctions will be lifted automatically. The only question is the choice of Putin's successor.
And this is where the fun begins. The question of a successor came up sharply after a month of setbacks connected with the failure of the "blitzkrieg" on the Ukrainian front. Military leaders — Shoigu and Gerasimov, later Dvornikov — began to “disappear” from the screens of Russian TVs, arrests began in the 5th service of the FSB, which is responsible for the quality of information about the situation, events and undercover work in Ukraine on the eve of the Russian invasion. The Chechen leader Kadyrov “played” with new colors, who is striving to climb the career ladder, where the next step is the appointment as Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, and then even higher, which is even scary to imagine ... Then different names of possible candidates for successors were called: Medvedev, Kiriyenko, Turchak and other lesser-known personalities. Very weak chances were given to the speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation - Volodin, who is considered a typical opportunist "whatever you like." But still, the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Patrushev, who today heads the so-called “Chekist clan”, which opposes the “military clan”, represented by Minister of Defense Shoigu, has always been considered the most realistic candidate. Prior to the start of the special military operation, Minister Shoigu was Putin's most trusted person, with whom the Russian national leader spent his free time alone. It seemed that the history of 2008 could repeat itself - at that time the closest interlocutor was Prime Minister Medvedev, with whom Putin "swapped" positions, alone with whom the Russian national leader spent his free time.
At the moment, in 2022, a little less than two years before the next elections (March 2024), things are shaping up differently. Age, a progressive illness, and the very foreign policy and domestic economic situation in which Putin's Russia finds itself makes it impossible to carry out such a combination. In fact, the whole world is waiting for the new president of Russia, and, paradoxically, in Russia itself, this is also known and expected. But the peculiarity of the current moment is that any new president of the Russian Federation will face a lot of challenges that Putin will leave him. This is an inevitable punishment not only for the military involved in the brutal murders and abuse of civilians in Ukraine, but also for the top political leadership of the country. The countries of the collective West and Ukraine will not just let it go on the brakes, with the possible exception of France, Hungary, Cyprus. The issue of holding an international tribunal is agreed upon by all members of the anti-Putin coalition. The issue of accrual and payment of indemnities for destroyed cities and infrastructure facilities in Ukraine will also become acute. The withdrawal of Russian troops from the occupied Ukrainian Donbas and the abolition of ORDLO. And finally, the question of the Russians leaving Crimea and the financial payment for stolen objects, enterprises, housing, as well as the illegal use of the natural resources of Crimea, for example, gas production on the Black Sea shelf. We will also have to compensate financial losses to Western companies - for the use of real estate and intellectual property, which Russia has misused over the past three months. Japan is likely to add to the claims to Russia from the countries of world leaders - the settlement of the issue of ownership of the "illegally occupied" northern territories "- the South Kuriles and from Poland - Russia's withdrawal from Kaliningrad. Perhaps Georgia will not remain silent on the issue of returning the territory of South Ossetia. Only after that, the collective West and the United States, together with Ukraine, will decide on the gradual lifting of sanctions. It is also possible that the United States and Ukraine, as a country that is the aggressor’s neighbor and most affected by Russian military operations, will insist on depriving Russia of the status of a nuclear power, following the example of Japan, which, following the results of World War II, is still forbidden to have its own army.
Understanding the complexity of the situation and not seeing a clear resolution of it without an admission of guilt, which implies the recognition of the defeat of Russia and the further fulfillment of the requirements of the world states-winners, including Ukraine, there are no obvious reasonable people who want to become Putin's "replacement" at the moment. Let's just keep silent about Kadyrov - only his own Chechen clan takes him seriously. As for Patrushev, information appeared that he himself had an oncological disease and he devotes most of his time to the fight against this disease. It is clearly not up to the presidency. According to some information, the "Chekist clan" was ready to nominate the son of Dmitry Patrushev, who now holds the post of Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, but who graduated from the Academy of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, as successor. But given the impending bankruptcy of Russia and the inevitability of making the most unpopular decisions in the history of the Russian state, the senior Pateushem has diminished the desire to “burn” his son. The "military" simply stepped aside, taking into account the results on the battlefields. The same is noted by the opposing clan of Prime Minister Mishustin, who made his "frontman" the head of the Prime Minister's apparatus - Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Grigorenko, an economist and tax specialist in the past, who knows how to strictly adhere to the rules of executive discipline. The person in the government is new, since January 2022 and the age is suitable - 43 years. Prime Minister Mishustin and President Putin himself are pleased with him - the ability to quickly understand the intricacies of the life of a senior official has been demonstrated.
Particular attention should be paid to Medvedev, who in the past 10 days has been doing everything possible not to be on the list of successors. Hence his emotional public statements and posts in social networks with the use of such expressions and verbal aggression, which clearly do not correspond to the status of the President of the Russian Federation. After many years of being a liberal democrat, his frank swearing at the collective West, and confession of personal hostility, indicates that Medvedev is deliberately avoiding the prospect of becoming a successor at the present time, and has made his choice in favor of the vacant niche after his death Zhirinovsky, which allows pro-Russian nasty things to be said about Russia's opponents.
Any official who takes up a high presidential post after Putin is simply doomed to be misunderstood and scolded by the majority of the Russian population, which over the past 20 years has been subjected to total propaganda about the chosenness and greatness of Russia. And here we will have to admit the defeat of Russia, which will be inscribed in world history without the possibility of its double reading and, in most cases, submit to the will of third parties for the sake of normalizing the existence of the Russian state. At the same time, it will still be necessary to keep Russia from disintegrating into small independent states and not to lose part of its ancestral territories, for example, Siberia is in the minds of the PRC, taking advantage of Russia's weakness after the failed Ukrainian campaign.
This is how one wrong decision of one person threatened the existence of the whole state, set in motion all the mechanisms of the world and made the highest post in the state “toxic”.
