93
Is this just western pundits playing with "what if" scenarios, or are there actually signs of major splits inside Russia?
I'll bite, here's a little list of the top of my head.
- They've had a failed invasion of Ukraine
- Rampant corruption
- Putin is getting old and frail
- Russia has a struggling economy where "Fortress Russia" is starting to fall short
- Drone strikes from Ukraine have been able to target major Russian cities.
- There was a mini-coup attempt by one of Putin's closest allies where a standing army nearly made it to Moscow while shooting down multiple Russian military aircraft.
The linked article hypothesizes "a rump Russia reduced to the area bounded by St. Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod." Even given the country's struggles, I have a hard time imagining large chunks of Russia breaking away. My question is whether there is evidence to believe that kind of split has become a real possibility. Neither Putin nor his successor would allow it without a serious fight given the immense value of the natural resources and sea ports Russia would lose.
They're getting pushed back in Ukraine 400 km from Moscow, I think the Muscovites would have a hard time sustaining logistics 5000 km away in Siberia.
Imo, anyone who's going to try to break away from Russia, ahem Serbia, would wait until Russia's military collapses before they make any official announcements.
But plenty of Russian allies have secretly worked against Russia itself, won't be long before they're all doing it as overtly as Turkey's Erdogan.
It's an opinion piece
The interesting part to me is that the article is talking about a reduced Russia centered around St. Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, all of which are in the Western part of Russia. I could see China eying any splintered territories in their area for ~~annexation~~ "stabilization". And I could see some of those territories deciding that it's better to stick with an imperialistic Russia than it would be to get "subdued" by China.
In the Foundation novel, Hari Seldon described the Empire as a dead tree branch has all the appearance of strength until the storm blast breaks it into two.
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
93 points (100.0% liked)
News
23301 readers
3020 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS