A creeping coup is underway in Russia as high-ranking officials are deliberately not carrying out orders properly to "sabotage" Vladimir Putin, a respected Moscow political analyst has claimed.
The Russian president is being hit by a “paralysis in decision-making”, according to analyst Kirill Rogov.
While Mr Rogov does not expect an “archaic palace coup” as the president’s “powerful” security service will protect him, he has still forecast that ultimately “it will disappear with him”.
Unease with the war in Ukraine and its impact on the economy and society is threatening Putin’s power, he indicated.
Mr Rogov was formerly a leading research fellow at the Institute for Economic Policy, and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and is now a senior researcher with the INDEM Foundation and a Board Member of the Liberal Mission Foundation.
He said: “A conspiracy can be a creeping one. Sabotage of decisions becomes the most effective type of plot.”
A refusal to execute decisions “does not imply high risks” but is effective in undermining the regime, he claimed on YouTube in a channel linked to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation.
“When some fraction of the elites feels strong enough to show it, then it becomes a plot to a significant extent,” said Rogov, who has previously advised the Russian government.
“This happens in a passive way. You don’t have to be strong to go to the Kremlin and shoot down the president’s security service.
“It is enough to have the forces that will not allow the president’s security service to arrest you…”
His words could indicate a widespread resistance to Putin and his war within high-ranking officials, with Russian officials and others finding subtle means to disrupt his operations.
“It is hard to conduct an archaic palace coup, but that is not necessary, because political mechanisms work differently.”
He stated:”If some fraction [of the Russian elites] has enough power to make decisions and to disobey, and to be invulnerable in their area of responsibility, then it already is a collapse of management which is followed by serious consequences….
“Because everyone else sees that it can be done, and unpleasant things start happening.”
Meanwhile one of Putin’s leading cronies issued an appeal for Russians to stay loyal to the beleaguered president.
“Only the closest unity, daily hard work and the highest morale can ensure victory for the country,” said ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Kremlin’s shadowy security council.
His statement, appearing to smack of desperation, ignored the humiliating loss of Kherson.
“It is Russia that protects its citizens,” he said,“and that it is our country that returns and has already returned its ancestral Russian land…and this will continue.”
He claimed it was Putin and “not the States and Britain or dark Kyiv” that was “shaping the future world order”, and that Russia “alone is fighting NATO and the Western world”.
“Therefore any parallels with the past are wrong or tentative. Except for one: we alone know how to destroy a powerful enemy or enemy alliances.”
The Putin apologist said: “Russia is fighting, trying to save the lives of our servicemen and civilians as much as possible.
“Our enemies do not count the lives of their soldiers and civilians. And that is our great moral difference with them.”
He claimed that Russia “has not yet used its entire arsenal of possible means of destruction for reasons that are obvious to all reasonable people.
“Nor has it struck every possible enemy target located in populated areas. And not just out of our inherent human kindness. All in good time.”
The statements come after Russian forces suffered a humiliating loss in Kherson, the only regional capital they took since beginning their invasion of Ukraine, with even Putin's extensive propagandists struggling to put a positive spin on the defeat.
Russian armed forces appeared to be in retreat across the Dnipro river, while blue and yellow flags once more festooned official buildings.
Nonetheless, the mood in Kyiv remains one of caution, with Zelensky reportedly wary of a trap in the so-called "media war".
Although retreating across the river, Russian forces are now likely to dig themselves into stronger defensive positions for what looks to be a harsh winter.
Meanwhile, the memory of chilling reports from liberated regions Mariupol, Kharkhiv, and Zaporizhzhia makes the blood run cold at the prospect of what further evidence of war crimes may yet be uncovered in Kherson.
