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Why would it be unreasonable for Ukraine to take out Putin? Itβs a war.
The only way this war ends is with Putin's death.
I'm not sure it would end it. The next person to take command would have everything to gain by winning what Putin couldn't. He'd also have everything to lose, but in Russia, you don't make smart choices, you make dumb choices and blame someone else when you fuck it up.
I think the next guy has a high likelihood to recognize that the war cannot be won. Putin probably knows the same by now, but he has no other options than to continue (unless he's okay with dying, but he isn't).
A successor has the option to declare something akin to a coup (even if it really isn't one) and claim that "it was Putin, not the new Russia I am leading!", getting the soldiers out of Ukraine and starting the negotiations. (Or rather: starting negotiations for withdrawing Russian troops from Ukraine and drafting a real peace deal.)
Bold of you to assume that Russians make smart decisions.
They might, if everything left is really really really dumb.
If Putin gains his own detached head, whoever comes after him will be politically much weaker. No matter who the leader will be, even if Putin, the Russia will very soon have to stop using mercenaries and must switch to conscripts. For a weak leader, it might be very difficult to squeeze people into the meat grinder. I'm not sure if such a follower-up would really have any way of continuing the war. No economy means no soldiers β except through conscription. And I don't think Russians would accept a conscription. If the fledgeling autocrat cannot continue the war, what options does he really have other than the smart one? Let go of what must go so that at least a part of the Russia will stay together.
Soviet and Russian history has a lot of points where change of leadership was a linchpin that very suddenly turned the previous heroes into detested monsters. How Russians started talking about Jeltsin very soon after Putin rose to power is actually yet another example of that. There is precedence for putting all the blame to the predecessor and then going for big reforms.
Putin will eventually lose his place. The less Kremlin has that event under control, the better for everyone outside Kremlin. Therefore, better get rolling with it, asap!
It's entirely possible that the replacement will really be as bad, but if Kremlin gets to decide on the follower, then the follower will definitely be as bad as Putin. Or worse. Because when it comes to war strategy, Putin is clueless, but micromanages all the time. If someone is otherwise the same but has some understanding of military strategy, things will only go south.
I'd argue the smart thing when succeeding Putin would be to end the war, tell the world it's a new Russia, and start getting Russian assets unfrozen.
That being the smart thing from our perspective means preciously little for the Russia, though.
The will to live in a powerful country goes over everything else in the Russia. But, I do agree that a form of that could work indeed.
To be clear, they don't need to be sincere; it's in the best interest of anyone following Putin to unfuck their economy, get on the good side of the oligarchs, and modernize their military. The quickest and easiest way to do that is to get out of Ukraine, blame everything on Putin, and at least put on a veneer of civility until things are going smoothly for them. Even if they want to continue expanding the Russian empire, they really need to get out of the current quagmire first.
I agree.
What I meant (but said very very unclearly) was that there's a high chance Russians will.simply fail to recognize this. I speak quite a lot with Russians living here in Finland and they are some seriously brainwashed bunch!
Their lack of situational awareness regarding this war is somehow... Even fascinating?
I mean, everyone kinda knows they are going to do that shit. Russia is essentially the warcrime capital of earth.
The US is working on that title
I thought Israel held that title, but itβs okay because they also hold the title of biggest victim.
They are much smaller than the Russia. Even if they do the same thing, the scale is unavoidably different.
LOL, I am envious of you: you have got some playtime with a shit-spammer and I haven't. π
lolβ¦. Yeah, heβs a lot of fun. He tends to find me occasionally and self-deprecate via proxy.
They've been targeting civilians with missiles and drones since the full scale invasion began. Terrorism to them is just a day that ends in "y".
"Whoops, my finger slipped. There goes another residential building. So sorry." - Russia every time
Cough cough September 1999 cough cough
They never done that before... /s
Adding context: I was not very familiar with it, but the article mentions it in the last three paragraphs, and links to a more elaborate, interesting article.
Yep this guy knows exactly what he's doing and has been doing it for over 30 years.