CIA expert: Putin will be killed, and Russia will fall apart

By Kavkaz-Center 

kavkazcenter.com

5 min

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Russia will collapse into potentially nuclear warring mini-states in Putin's disastrous invasion of Ukraine, a former CIA analyst grimly predicts.

A vast country has been fatally weakened by the recklessness of a tyrant, and he is likely to be killed on the verge of turbulent events that will engulf it in the coming years, argues Paul Goble.

The interview with the CIA expert was published earlier in The Sun.

Goble is a longtime expert on Russia and formerly the Soviet Union, who worked as an analyst for the CIA as well as the US State Department.

“People are now much more open to the possibility that the Russian Federation cannot stay whole has increased,” he told The Sun Online.

“What we are likely to see is something other than the collapse of great empires. I think it will be a kaleidoscopic process. Everything will happen chaotically - what you see in one year will not be the same in two years.

According to the expert, the world will face "Yugoslavia with nuclear weapons", giving an example of the bloody collapse of the former Balkan state.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated into 15 new states in 1991, the countries hosting the superpower's vast arsenal of nuclear weapons were persuaded to give them up.

"I would say that this time the period of decay will be more erratic, longer and much more diverse than in 1991," the expert said.

In his opinion, "a terrible situation in which a number of states have suddenly acquired weapons of mass destruction" cannot be allowed.

But, according to Paul Goble, such a scenario is quite realistic. "I suspect that there may be many more people with nuclear weapons than we think."

The expert draws parallels with the years when Russia and the Soviet Union were on the eve of catastrophic changes - 1916 and 1991.

In 1916 Russia had a huge army fighting in the 1st World War and with the opposition in jail or exile. To outsiders, it seemed that the rule of the royal family was not in danger, says Goble

But the following year the tsar was overthrown and executed as a result of the Russian Revolution.

Similarly, in 1991, this state seemed secure, but within a few weeks it disintegrated and 15 new independent countries appeared.

Goble argues that Russia is on the verge of events that could be even more dramatic.

Putin, he said, "made a fatal mistake in invading Ukraine" and the way he ran Russia "made the country fundamentally unstable."

“The war in Ukraine has jeopardized Putin’s ability to effectively govern the country,” the expert said.

“Putin, by his actions, has called into question the ability of the state centered in Moscow to manage its territory.

We are talking about the death of the Russian state and the chaos after this state dies, as its constituent parts are fragmented.”

Goble agrees with those experts who believe that Russia will begin to disintegrate into fiefdoms controlled by local warlords when the central government collapses.

“I think that will be part of what will happen. We will see some places run by local leaders, businessmen, military people, it can also be people who are part of an ethnic or cultural tradition.”

“Russia is an incredibly complex and diverse place, and I expect its impending demise to be incredibly complex and diverse.

The question arises, will there be alliances between different leaders? Yes. Will any of these alliances and new entities go to war with each other or with foreign forces? The answer to both questions is positive.

The expert explained that "no one knows how many countries will appear on the territory of Russia," the figures vary from one to more than a hundred.

“No one knows what the borders will be, no one knows what the political relations will be like, no one knows who will form the political elites.

I think this process will take years. I do not think that suddenly 47 new states will join the United Nations.

Goble also singled out the Cossacks as one of the groups that might seek to break away from Russia.

“I think we will see Cossack proto-states. And they can play an interesting role."

As for the fate of Putin himself, "he will either die just before this happens, or shortly thereafter."

The expert added: "The most likely situation is that Putin is being killed by people who understand that he is destroying the country."

Another factor that could mean the end of Putin and the collapse of Russia is the prospect of the return of war veterans from ethnic minorities to Ukraine, argues another expert, Douglas London, another CIA veteran.

The figures show that the highest death rate of soldiers was among people from the national republics and poor regions of Siberia and the Russian Far East.

“The Russians sent a large number of ethnic minorities to the war,” London said on the Background Briefing podcast.

"Putin has tried to avoid pressure on his base of support, which is actually the more urban and wealthy Russian communities like Moscow and St. Petersburg," the expert said.

He drew attention to the fact that mobilization in Russia is focused on those peoples whose mother tongue is not Russian, from remote and rural regions.

“In Russia, there are the most affected communities that do not receive resources because they are not significant to Putin.

Since they are often used as cannon fodder, this can really stir up some of the historical divisions and become something that turns into a crisis.”

London drew a parallel with the Islamic volunteers who fought in Afghanistan against the occupation of the country by the Soviet Union.

"They will return home to see the repression their own people have faced and, like many foreign fighters of the last three decades, will decide to embrace the revolution," predicts the CIA veteran.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz-Center

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