Putin’s Not Dead, But Now Is as Good a Time as Any to Discuss a Russian Succession Plan Upon Which the West and Ukraine’s Allies Can Exert Meaningful Influence
Focusing on the Prospects for United Russia Hardliners or Navalny & Co. Reformers Are Missing a Third Way — Which Will Be Key for the Global Effort to Keep Russia Under a Stable Form of Government
These headlines pop up from time to time, usually in the least reputable corners of internet and print press across the free world. Putin fell down the stairs and soiled himself. Putin has Parkinson’s and “cancer of the blood” and is bloated and slow-witted due to the medication and steroid regimens. We should all be so lucky that the headlines and body text of articles quoting “unnamed officials inside/close to the Kremlin” were even somewhat true. But because German film director Werner Herzog is probably correct when he says “… the common denominator of the universe is not harmony; but chaos, hostility and murder,” the world is still stuck with the kleptocrat-in-chief for as long as it takes for something other than Parkinson’s or cancer to kill or oust him.
The fact that the latest round of Putin-death-pool bet-handicapping intel is coming from a Russian Telegram channel that may be peddling false information meant to gauge broader to reaction to any number of knuckleheaded Kremlin ideas about how to conduct the Ukraine war and the Russian wartime economy is a key detail. Just like Progozhin’s “Playskool Putsch” earlier this year, there is an element of insider control over such events as elites want to gather information themselves. As one could imagine, gathering information on the death of the dictator in such an opaque kleptocracy is quite difficult. Kremlin-run information channels are a cross-eyed mess of contradictory lies meant to test loyalty, so it’s natural that someone would post to a domestic Telegram channel with a large following and see what one can glean from there.
Therefore, if the issue of Putin’s health is out in the public forum for the aforementioned reason, it’s been deemed serious enough to warrant study by United Russia – and that should be generating a steady stream of scenarios on how any interested coalition can keep the KGB/siloviki faction away from the levers of power and advocate for more moderate, market-oriented United Russia technocrats leading a postwar, post-Putin Russia. It sounds crazy, and it is, but so have been the centuries of ineptitude in the West’s dealings with Russia — that part doesn’t have change, but the results do.
To be clear, the West and broader global coalition that would like to see Russia out of Ukraine has so little influence over the leadership-transfer process that it has to resort to longshot tactics as a “Plan A.” The main threat to Putin aside from his health status is his complete lack of competency in steering the Russian economy. That’s been true since his early days in the 2000-2008, when the Kremlin’s disinterest in economic modernization was offset by rising energy and commodity prices and foreign investment in Russia. Now with the war going on, it seems as though the Kremlinites have an open, unadulterated disdain for the economy, sending hundreds of thousands of conscripts and draftees to battle — which may happen again soon — sending others fleeing abroad, marshaling the weakness of the ruble, rising inflation, and stiflingly high interest rates meant to kill said inflation.
Under that current scenario in Russia, Ukraine’s partners have a window to use their longshot “Plan A” weaponry, and it goes like this:
➼ the U.S. lawfully seizes frozen Russian assets that are the subject of much brow-furrowing and hand-wringing, awarding a substantial amount to Ukraine for defense purposes, and placing some in escrow for a post-Putin Russia;
➼ if Russia transitions to at least a “United Russia Lite” leadership team in the event that Putin can no longer continue as dictator, the U.S. and partners can agree to return some of the funds to kickstart Russia’s return from the economic doldrums;
➼|➼ this is highly contingent on the composition of a “United Russia Lite” leadership team. Any combination should be viewed as favorable that leans towards a Chemezov/Nabiullina/Siluanov/Novak/Oreshkin pro-markets slate of cabinet members and away from any combination of Patrushev/Bortnikov/Naryshkin/Shoigu/Gerasimov/Lavrov carousel of numbnuts that led Russia into this war.
I write this knowing full well that Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Yellen and other U.S. policymakers aren’t even remotely warm to the idea of fully seizing the currently frozen Russian assets. The amount of time and effort they spend apologizing for and shooting down fruitful ideas on how to beat Russia back economically and financially seems roughly equal to the amount of effort the Clinton White House team spent making sure Boris Yeltsin won a second term in 1996. It’s clear the White House is electorally petrified that drastic plans for asset seizure could upset multinational company and bank leadership — but it shouldn’t be to the point where their failure to act via the executive branch essentially mirrors any crusty old Russian’s view that “there is no Russia without Putin.”
What Ukraine’s global supporters have for contingency plans regarding a Russian government not led by Putin, I’m sure we don’t know – but using Russian reserves as a bank account with harsh terms as both a carrot and a stick to get to a transitional government that uses familiar faces from United Russia should be a priority. Someone’s already planning for a transition in the supervillian wing of the Kremlin, meaning an equally strong and implementable plan has to be ready from beyond Russia’s borders.