Officials and representatives of the business elites of Russia are depressed because of the situation in the aggressor country, which is deteriorating due to the war, and they begin to talk about a possible change of power.
The Washington Post writes about this, citing several Russian top officials and business leaders.
Some of Russia’s top officials and members of the business elite are devastated and depressed and expect the political and economic climate to deteriorate further. An influential Moscow businessman has expressed doubts that increased Russian missile attacks will improve the situation on the battlefield for her.
Nobody is satisfied with the status quo… It is clear that a military or political victory is impossible. But losing is also impossible. This turns into a situation in chess known as zugzwang, where each step is worse than the next, but it is impossible not to move, the Russian official said.
According to another Russian government official, the elderly optimism, when many in the country’s elite believed that “we will return everything and find a way out,” has completely evaporated.
People see that there is no future,” he said.
Active mobilization has already dealt a blow to Putin’s popularity, one of the main foundations of his legitimacy as president, and when the corpses of reservists begin to return from the front, the situation may worsen, the Moscow businessman believes.
In a few months, Russia will have a very negative trend: the deterioration of public sentiment, he said.
Sergei Aleksashenko, a former deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank who now lives in exile in the United States, notes that apart from attacking civilian infrastructure, Putin’s only option is to use tactical nuclear weapons.
According to a Moscow businessman, few people in Moscow believe that the paths will launch a tactical nuclear strike, because “then he will have no cards left” and China can block such an escalation.
This is a Pandora’s box that (the Chinese – ed.) do not want to open, he said.
Against the background of expectations of new and tougher sanctions, every bad news on the front line is a new blow to the Russian economy, said another member of the Moscow business elite.
The old belief that Russia could redirect trade from the West through China, Kazakhstan and India is rapidly fading, two Russian businessmen say. Kazakhstan has begun blocking shipments carrying European goods to Russia, and the Chinese have also begun to stop some shipments.
Everything is in complete disarray. The mood is very bad,” said a third senior Russian businessman.
The publication notes that members of the Moscow elite are beginning to talk about a possible change in leadership in a way they have never done in more than 20 years of Putin’s rule, although no one can say how this can happen.
We have begun to enter into a revolutionary situation… Everyone is waiting for something different than what is happening now: another leadership, another war. The hawks want tougher action. The pigeons want no war at all. It’s time to change the political system. But how this will happen, I don’t know,” the official summed up.
Source: Racurs
