Why the next six years could be Putin's last term in power | Mark Galeotti

the Temptation for any successor to frankly use Putin as a scapegoat and maybe even a bargaining chip whether it's allowing him to go to war crimes tribunal in the hag monstrously unlikely but possible or just simply to blame him for everything that goes wrong would actually be quite significant and therefore I think Putin and I don't think we need necessarily to feel particularly sympathetic for him for this but nonetheless I think he's stuck he cannot get down from the tiger he's riding so to be honest I think you know again barring some kind of illness that actually sort of forces him to stand down or political coup from within the elite that at the moment is is not very likely but nonetheless is something that could well happen if things get worse I think the only way Putin leaves the presidency is in a very ornate coffin hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio I'm James Hansen and today we're talking about Vladimir Putin and his illegal war in Ukraine and I'm delighted to be joined by Mark gallotti honorary professor at University College London and an expert in Russian politics and Global crime Mark always a pleasure welcome back to Frontline good to be here yesterday Vladimir Putin was inaugurated for his fifth term as Russian president how would you assess the relative strength or indeed weakness of his position as he enters that fifth term he's in in an odd position because on the one hand he has no Rivals he's just awarded himself self uh totally uh implausible 87% of the vote for his election he's just been inaugurated in great Pomp and splendor but it was really quite striking just how bored he looked frankly throughout the inauguration and yes he's been here before so from his point of view on the one hand there is no one who's challenging him on the other hand though there is this interesting brittleness about his system yes there's there's no opposition left anyway it's all been pushed out the country or pushed 6 feet under and yet the interesting thing is that the three pillars on which he's always rested on in the past in order to deal with crises his personal legitimacy his capacity to throw more or less unlimited amounts of money at problems and his control of the security apparatus all of those are beginning to look a bit shakier um you know he himself is is no longer the sort of great hope of Russia that he was 24 years ago which is quite extraordinary certainly that the money is is getting that that much less uh available and even his control of the security operators may not be quite as complete as we assumed as we saw with last year's Mutiny from the the Vagner mercenary group so there's also a certain brittleness he's fine dealing with the day-to-day and frankly dealing with the current war is becoming increasingly almost routine but on the other hand when as there will be there are going to be crises whether that means Putin going sick whether that means um some kind of Ukrainian breakthrough in in in the war whether it means some kind of economic crisis then I think we'll actually get a chance to really see how capable Putin is now at dealing with these unexpected incidents and we see time and again with these autocratic leaders that really the safest place for them is in power and the paranoia grows accordingly if Vladimir Putin is not Russian president does he still have a future I don't think Putin can step down now look I honestly believe that before the invasion in 2022 that he was actually toying with the prospect of of standing down the problem is this in a system like this as you said it's an autocratic one it's not law-based certainly not at the top of the system everything depends on your position your future your the fate of your family your own physical survival quite possibly and for him to stand down means he has to hand all that power to a success and rely on his successor loyalty and gratitude and the trouble is that even if today a successor is willing to be absolutely committed to you are they going to be the same in a year's time or whatever the Temptation for any successor to frankly use Putin as a scapegoat and maybe even a bargaining chip whether it's allowing him to go to a war crimes tribunal in the ha monstrously unlikely but possible or just simply to blame him for everything that goes wrong wrong would actually be quite significant and therefore I think Putin and I don't think we need necessarily to feel particularly sympathetic for him for this but nonetheless I think he's stuck he cannot get down from the tiger he's riding so to be honest I think you know again barring some kind of illness that actually sort of forces him to stand down or political coup from within the elite that at the moment is is not very likely but nonetheless is something that could well happen if things get worse I think the only way Putin leaves the presidency is in a very ornate coffin and what might be the trigger for some kind of internal move against Putin you say if things get worse what would need to happen I think we got to realize that this is an elite that is not really full of putins sure they will troop along to the inauguration and stand there and applaud as Putin gives his rather perfunctory speech there and so forth but on the whole essentially this is an elite that is full of of Ruthless opportunistic [Music] ecrater and visible so essentially there's a constant cost benefit analysis now at the moment there's no question but that the risks of going against Putin massively outweigh the potential opportunities but things may well change and I think particularly if we start to see for example the Eon economy overheating as May well happen as the war goes on as we begin to see actually Ordinary People feeling more and more the pressure of that we're likely to see more economic unrest and that's what's particularly dangerous to to the regime and if that starts to really take off it's one thing if it's you know the strike here and a strike there that can be controlled the big nightmare I think is something like the solidarity Trade union in Poland back in end of the 70s beginning of the 80s where almost out of nothing thing you know one strike in a shipyard suddenly became a national movement because there were so many people who were so fed up and a leadership that basically emerged from nowhere I think that's the the big nightmare something like that that takes all the protest potential that at the moment has nowhere to go in Russia and brings it all together and that's when we might see the elite beginning to think well basically either we break with Putin now or we risk finding ourselves hanging from a lamp post in in a week or a month or a year's time but I I said I think they they will need that sense that there is a real threat to themselves so I think for the moment you know everything looks very calm and everyone is saying all the right things but there is that constant uh you know question assessing today is today the day of course not but tomorrow might be whatever and of course so much of that may depend on what happens in Ukraine let let's turn to the war directly are you expecting Mark Russia to launch a fresh ground offensive in the coming weeks well in a way Russia has never stopped launching ground offensives I mean this is it what what we have seen is is a constant incremental push forward you know 100 meters here maybe a kilometer there but bit by bit they they are moving forward taking advantage of the fact that at the moment they have an advantage in both Manpower and and ammunition though obviously now that we've had the American um bill pass through then at least the ammunition will will start to become more more evident um I'm not convinced that they have at the moment the resources for some kind of major escalation in their ground offensive so yes we know we're seeing them trying to take jessar at the moment there's talk maybe of a move against KH in in the North in the future and these are significant but I think unless Putin bites the bullet and launches another mobilization wave which if this is going to be meaningful he has to do pretty damn soon because it takes time between announcing it mustering forces giving them some basic training arming them getting to the battlefield and if you're really trying to take advantage of the the summer you've really got to do this in June July um so unless we see that I think you know we will see offensives we will see the Russians probably pushing forward but nothing that is going to be absolutely war-winning it it's going to be simply part of this slow accretional conflict are you surprised that Putin hasn't launched a fresh wave of mobilization yet I mean a lot of people thought maybe he was waiting for the election to pass maybe he's waiting for his inauguration that has now happened so are you surprised it's taken this long not really because this is classic Putin for for all his kind of Macho Persona Putin actually tries to avoid taking T tough decisions and when he does usually he takes them quite late often too late we saw that actually with the last mobilization wave you know again he had been being hassled by his generals for months and when he eventually did it really it was just in time for AUM winter which is not really campaigning season um so you know it it could still happen it may well be in some way you're right there was the elections the inauguration there is one more Milestone which is the announcement of the new government um because you know the current cabinet forly resigns and he appoints a new one which will probably be much the same as the old one but there is some thought in the light of the recent arrest of Deputy defense minister on corruption charges that may be def def Minister shyu may be being replaced and so it may well be that they'll think they'll bring in a new defense minister and use this kind of the momentum of that announcement to also announce a mobilization so it could still happen but I said it will be classic Putin if he only ends up biting the bullet and doing this in August September when he's missed his key window of opportunity if he does replace Shu as defense minister what would be the significance of that because of course there was a lot of beef suppose you could say between progin and Shu maybe Putin felt he couldn't move Shu too soon because it would appear like he was he was caving into those demands what would be the significance if he did move him well I think to doar degree it depends very much on who replaces him I mean the point is look shyu has proven to be I mean he was a very able civilian you know civil peacetime defense minister he's proven to be catastrophically bad as a wartime one now you got to realize that what happens is in war and although this is technically a special military operation in practice it's a war in many ways what happens is the roles of the defense minister and the chief of the general staff reverse in peacetime defense minister is boss in war in effect it's the chief of the general staff who kind of calls the shots reports directly to Putin and the defense Minister's job is just to more or less ensure that the soldiers have everything that they need shu's done a sort of a middling job of that but the point is the key job he hasn't done is been able to bring some real realism into Putin's own discussions so you know although he would clearly if he went it would be very popular with the soldiers for whom deeply become deeply unpopular and it would probably mean a new chief of the general staff because generally a new defense minister will also bring in a new chief of the general staff and so the interesting thing is it all depends on whether on who these people are now one of the potential candidates is sometimes being discussed is the head of the National Guard Victor zotov very much a kind of close loyal Putin croning who's actually would probably be an even worse defense minister than shyu I mean certainly if I was sitting in Kiev I would be rooting for for for zolotov on the other hand another one of the possibilities is a man by the name of alexe Duman who is the governor of Tula region a former Putin bodyguard but also a former deputy defense minister who actually has a pretty good reputation as being an able organizer so if it was him and you know a more effective Soldier as chief of the general staff suddenly the Russian military might be looking in a rather stronger position this is why exactly it's not so much about shyu going I mean Putin has held on to him because shyu is a friend a personal friend and also again because shyu is might say the continuity candidate Putin doesn't want to see disruptive upsets at the top of his security apparatus but if he goes so much will depend on who replaces him just going back to this issue of of Putin's personal position it was interesting you wrote recently for the Times Mark about reports that the cetan warlord ramzan kadirov is terminally ill just remind us first of all why karov is so important and and why that would have significant implications for Putin in many ways one of the events that really made Putin and his reputation in Russia was the second cetan war which started when he was actually prime minister before he was he was president but then was was in way the first real challenge of his presidency and look the Russians won but the way they won apart from being monstrously brutal you know we saw the cap capital of gry pretty much leveled was essentially by Chaniz the conflict finding their own Chens to fight the rebel Chens and as a result out from that came a sort of dynastic rule first of all it was actually kadir's father akmad kadirov who became the first leader of sort of a loyalist chcha and then in due course ramzan kadiro the current one replaced him and what's really happened is that in the name of subduing cha basically ccher was bought off on a massive scale I mean kadirov basically runs ccher of his own private personal thiefdom with extraordinary brutality and extraordinary levels of corruption over 80% of the Cen budget comes from Moscow is provided by the federal government and every time someone says oh isn't it time perhaps to cut down on this money so basically kadiro throws his toys out of the pram and Moscow backs down because frankly I think Putin and his Co courts have convinced themselves that kadirov is the man who's keeping the lid on Cheta who's actually through a mix of brutality and local politics is able to actually keep the cens under control and what they're terrified of especially at the moment is of chia once again boiling over because you know cnia it's a small region but it has periodically rebelled against control by the Russians every time it gets a chance essentially and the cens frankly are hard as nails so I mean for all these reasons there is that sense of look let's just not rock the boat we know that basically what's happening in in ccher is Gastly you've more or less got Sharia law in contravention of the Russian Constitution and Moscow is having to pay for it as well as a lot of vanity projects but look it's just a lot easier to keep the status quo going but now if it's true that gadirov is uh mortally ill and certainly looking I mean he was at the inauguration and looking at this footage that he needed two guys to help him take his Jack it off you know he was definitely not looking in in in good shape if it's true then in some ways Putin's hand is going to be um you pushed at the very moment when he least needs this to happen because if there is any sort of kickoff in in Chia the question is who would deal with it when his army is I think it's 97% of all operational ground forces are currently deployed to Ukraine the last thing he wants is a third Cen War is there any obvious successor to kadirov in chetna well kadirov clearly wanted to keep this in the family uh and he was grooming his sons to to take over but his oldest son is only 18 has no real um credible standing and in any case the law says you have to be 30 to be Chet Chen Le down now again maybe they they they could tweak that a bit but probably not not 12 years and although in the past sort of when kadirov when when Raman wasn't quite old enough to take over when his father died they put in a sort of temporary Regent in effect but you know a 12year temporary Regency isn't possible so there are various candidates the man who Moscow seems to favor is apti alov who is currently the head of you know commanding cetan forces inside Ukraine and to be honest you know is is a bit more Urbane um even to the point of actually he speaks good Russian in the way that Raman k of woman spoke comically bad accented Russian sounded a little bit like something out of alo alo um you know so so they would clearly like Alo dinov to take over but the problem is there's a whole variety of other Cen bigwigs who also May well feel that they have equally if not better status and standing and you know the big concern is if they try and impose alov are others going to start kicking off and saying no we're not accepting that and you know in in Chia there is a whole variety of security forces that are notionally Russian controlled in practice they are kadirov controlled and if you take kadirov away these people swear a personal oath to kadirov so if you take him out the picture then the risk is that a whole bunch of different Warlords will have their own readymade armies whilst we're talking about the mortality of leaders we should come on to the news about zalinsky this week Ukraine says it's arrested two security officials on suspicion of plotting with Russia to take president zinski hostage and assassinate him what more do we know about the details of this plot Mark I mean it it's still quite confused so the interesting thing is that the two individual concerned are meant to actually be Colonels within the security apparatus which you know is saying something a colonel is essentially a fairly senior figure and I mean what it speaks to again look we have no idea of just how accurate it is and and and more more details will emerge but it's entirely plausible firstly in clearly the Russian who dramatically underestimated zalinski at the beginning of the war as In fairness so did everyone else no one thought that he would blossom into this extraordinarily effective wartime leader um you know I think they're they're aware of the degree to which he is an absolutely crucial Factor not just in holding Ukraine together and mobilizing it but also in terms of his capacity to cajo browbeat and charm the West into continued support for Ukraine so you know although I suppose there's always the the risk of turning him into a Marty I can well understand that that Moscow May well prefer him to be out of the picture permanently but also it it speaks to the fact that actually Russia still has continued penetration of the Ukrainian apparatus and particularly the security apparatus I mean I think this is something that we've seen even two years on is the the the degree to which there ukrainians are still finding Russian agents now look in some cases I have a suspicion there is a little hint of The Witch Hunt at work that you know it's too easy to find someone and decide that somehow they're they're Russian sympathizers because back in 2021 they said oh maybe Moscow has a case on this point or something but but in in many other cases they are clearly not they are finding genuine Russian agents and in that respect I mean actually for me the surprise is precisely that if they had officers of this standing that they hadn't basically deployed them already I mean again it's quite interesting and we don't know whether it's because again of political hesitation in Moscow you know that tent to oh well you know will it actually worsen the situation turn zinsky into a Marta push for example the American sort of uh House of Representatives into supporting Aid you know or whether it just simply that they just weren't physically in a position to be able to actually spring their plot but again it it's a case of the Russians having a powerful asset and wasting it it's a really good point you you raised there mark because surely if Russia did assassinate president zalinski that would provoke a stronger reaction from the west and maybe escalate this war exactly I think this is this is a problem that the UK the ukrainians have time and time again shown themselves to be very hard to predict for the Russians and in part that you know actually look there there's a lot of really smart Russia analysts and so forth within sorry Ukraine analysts within the Russian government structure whether we're talking about the intelligence services or the foreign Ministry or whatever the problem is that the people at the very top Putin and those people closest to him have this extraordinary notion of Ukraine you know it's clear we've seen this from Putin's speeches and his deeply weird historical essays that as far as he's concerned Ukraine is not a real country the ukrainians are not a real people you know part of Ukraine frankly is just a semi- detached part of Poland and the rest really is part of kind of Russia's cultural space and you know once he's got that fixed in his mind Putin clearly is not willing to listen to Alternative perspectives and this has been one of the recurring problems for the Russians time and time again that you know it's not that they don't know what's going on it's that Putin either cannot or will not accept the reality so in this context I think this is probably why it's such a challenge to try and assess accurately I mean it's it's difficult for any of us to have a real sense of the taking zalinski out of the picture would improve or worsen the Ukrainian position I think that what we're now seeing is precisely that um having managed to get Ukraine so wrong so often to a degree the Russians are partially Paralyzed by their understanding of the fact that they don't understand Ukraine and therefore again you know I I imagine that this is quite possibly one of those kind of plots which someone operationally sets up more or less saying look guys boss if you want zinski dead we think we can we we found a way of doing it and yet then the political leadership ums and ARS not out of any kind of humanitarian impulse I mean they clearly did try to kill zinsky at the very beginning of the war after all so certainly it's not humanitarian it's that they don't really know they are to a degree Paralyzed by their continued inability to really understand what makes ukrainians tick let alone then How the West might respond it's fascinating how it's reported that this was planned as a inauguration gift for Vladimir Putin how much does zalinski personally get under the skin of Vladimir Putin he clearly does and I think again it speaks to a wider issue in some ways the problem as far as Putin is concerned is that zalinski is you know a fairly in some ways or has been a fairly russified Ukrainian you know he he he grew up speaking Russian uh his early career actually to was in Russia that's when he really began to make his name as a comedian and and then an actor it was on on the Russian scene before he sort of he went home now we know that Putin has this kind of weird way of looking at you the sort of distinction between enemies and traitors enemies you fight with but the point is you may sometimes be able to reach some kind of a deal with them traitors though you can do nothing with traitors except wipe them out whether that means as we've seen a Defector getting shot in Spain or I think this is why sort of Putin has trouble with zinski as far as he's concerned zalinski is in some ways a traitor because he should be on the pro-russian side of ukrainians he should be as Putin sees it willing to understand moscow's point of view and willing to accept that Moscow has cultural political historical hegemony over Ukraine and the fact that zalinski turns around and sort of holds together this extraordinary coalition government um or Coalition of the people really rather in order to precisely resist Russia so effectively I suspect again look trying to psychoanalyze Putin is in manyways a a foolish and dangerous Venture but we all do it anyway um I suspect that's what really gets under Putin's skin because as far as he's concerns zinsky is not an enemy but a traitor and as you say we know that Russia have been coming up with plots to assassinate zinski for years now do you think the reverse is true are the gru is Ukrainian Military Intelligence actively planning to assassinate Putin I mean to be honest I'm sure they would have no problems I mean particularly um you know of all the various agencies of the Ukrainian government the military intelligence seems to be the most gung-ho sometimes I would suggest counterproductively in terms of some of the operations they carry out but on the other hand we have to acknowledge that there is a massive security structure built around Putin I mean I remember once I mean this is even before the war um living on one of the big thoroughfares that that head into the center of Moscow and you know the ones that that Putin would take those rare times he was going to the Kremlin from from his Palace outside and you know the for hours before you've got snipers on the rooftops and people checking all the manhole covers and people's being stopped from actually leaving their apartment buildings um and so forth I mean you know it it really was was amazing sort of operation before this huge sort of 60 odd car and motorbike motorcade zoomed along the road and I'm sure that now under wartime it's it got even more restrictive so I mean I think in that context it would be very difficult for the ukrainians to get at him especially because the Russians have been basically penetrating the Ukrainian political and security structures for years in part particularly benefiting from certain leaders such as the previous leader yanukovich who were actually fairly Pro Moscow and in some ways opened up Windows of opportunity for for the Russians to recruit agents there's never been that kind of um similar opportunity or really need up to until recently for the ukrainians to do the same so again I mean you know if if they felt they had an opportunity would would the Ukrainian Military Intelligence take out Putin quite possibly though on the other hand I also suspect that as we've seen in the past it will be zalinski who then Reigns them in for fear that something like that would would would lead to some catastrophic escalation and I don't know nuclear explosions above ke or something similar so again I'm sure the Spooks would would would love it but they tend to get kind of carried away with their own opportunities I suspect that the Ukrainian political leadership would would ultimately say better not and again it's it's sorry I'm rambling a little bit but this is It's one of these classic issues in cover operations for example if Al the Allies could have killed Hitler during World War II should they have done so and the general consensus is usually no before the war absolutely but once the war had started and in a way once Germany was locked into that well Hitler was a pretty bad War leader and the danger is you take Hitler out you might have someone more competent in place actually much the same is true with Putin in many ways Putin has been Ukraine's secret weapon throughout this War and why would you want to throw that away just to run things off Mark if we zoom out a bit where do you think we are in The Wider context of this war how significant a moment are we in um there always tempting to come up with a why now really matters in some ways I don't think that it is crucial I mean I think that we knew going into this year that it would be the year in which Russia had the advantage now the delay in getting American Aid to Ukraine has actually magnified that advantage and that's what we're seeing happen play out on the battlefield but even with all the advantages it's clear that the Russians are not in a position to deliver some kind of knockout blow now you know who knows what can happen in war tomorrow there might be some kind of breach of the of the Ukrainian front line allowing the Russians to to move further but there's very little sign that that's likely to happen and there for we're still really talking about this as a year in which the ukrainians primarily have to do two things one is endure which is no small matter I mean particular when you look at their casualties as proportionate to their population it's actually greater than the Russians are suffering and secondly they have to kind of work out ways properly to kind of metabolize the new weapons the new equipment that they're getting from the West because the plan seems to be at present that 2025 is when the ukrainians plan to launch another major counter offensive so in some ways this is a year of a kind of a holding action as far as the ukrainians are concerned and it's going to be next year then that really is a crucial one because frankly if that counter offensive doesn't work or is a sort of a you know only partial success I'm not sure if Ukraine will have a third counter offensive in it and I'm not sure that the West for all its current protestations about being in it for the long haul and so forth whether it really would be willing to to continue to support at this level so I I think at the moment it's simply question of from the Ukrainian point of view minimizing their losses and building up the forces necessary for proper operations next year by which time you know Western attempts to build up ammunition supplies will have you know actually begin to Bear fruition we'll have the F F-16 jets in Ukrainian hands as well as a whole slew of not just long-range missiles but but other kind of kit and perhaps most importantly of all hopefully by that point the Ukrainian will have had chance to really work out how they can develop new tactics to take fullest advantage of that which is something that when we didn't really see happening fully effectively in last year's counter offensive Mark we always appreciate your insights and expertise thank you for joining us today on front line glad to join you thank you for watching front line for times radio for more on Global Security and the war in Ukraine you can listen to times radio video take out a digital subscription to the times and click subscribe on our YouTube channel

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Id: ZtFZ5B29b1I

Length: 31min 5sec (1865 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024