As long as the elite of dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime continues to be united, the Russian people will have little influence over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said Martin Hirsch, a foreign policy researcher and doctor of political science.
“Historically, unfortunately, if Russia’s political, military, economic elite are united, divided, and ready to arrest rallies and otherwise violently suppress protests, the Russian people will not be able to change much of the regime,” Hirsch said, commenting on the impact of protests in Russia.
Asked to estimate the number of Russian protesters, he explained that the number of participants in the rallies was not a decisive factor in the absence of a split in the Russian elite, and that the Kremlin’s current impression was that there was no such split. The unity of the elite is also influenced by the fact that neither Putin nor the generals of the Russian armed forces have a way to retreat, as the alternative is that they would either be punished in the same way as Nazi Germany after World War II or killed by its own citizens. .
Consequently, the logic of such violent authoritarian leaders as Putin is cynical and very cruel – to hold on to power by any means so that it is not imprisoned or killed, Hirsch emphasized.
Asked whether the number of protests by the Russian population could be predicted in the coming weeks, the foreign policy researcher explained that it was difficult to predict because the regime’s services were working to prevent large-scale protests. For example, the contents of the population’s telephones are being checked on the streets, and, as has already been seen in the crackdown on protests in Belarus, other steps may be taken, such as blocking traffic.
In this context, the political scientist also pointed out that after more than 20 years in power, Putin has done everything to strengthen his regime. This is also evidenced by the fact that key members of the opposition have either been killed or forced to leave Russia or imprisoned. The same is true of the media, all of which are largely Kremlin-controlled, Hirsch said. Information about the protests can still be spread on the Internet, but in Russia, access to Western social networks is restricted, making it difficult for people to self-organize in one way or another, the expert explained.
If the situation changed and if the armed forces and the security services of the regime started to disobey the orders, it would be possible to talk about the collapse of the Kremlin regime, the foreign policy researcher noted.
Hirsch drew attention to the fact that after the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the graves of more than 100 paratroopers appeared in Pskov, letting the Russian public know about the fallen. If Russian women and their children took to the streets this time after the pictures of soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine, it would be harder to suppress such protests, because it may not be emotionally acceptable for Russian society that the regime’s employees beat crying mothers whose children died in the war.
Asked if we could talk about a new Cold War now, Hirsch replied in the affirmative, stating that we were at the beginning of a new Cold War because the West was isolating Russia economically, financially and on other levels. At the same time, Russia is much weaker than the Soviet Union in many areas, for example, Russia cannot produce goods alone in part, and a week and a half in the war against Ukraine has shown that Russia’s armed forces are not as strong as they were in the previous Cold War. previously expressed by Russia and considered by Western analysts.
More than 4,000 participants have been detained in Russian cities on Sunday, according to the non-governmental organization OVD-Info. Anti-war campaigns took place throughout Russia, from the Far East and Siberia to Moscow and St. Petersburg. OVD-Info reports that the number of people detained in anti-war campaigns since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 has exceeded 10,000.
LETA has already reported that on February 24, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, starting to fire not only military but also civilian objects and causing a stream of refugees.
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