National Security journal Military Hardware: Tanks, Bombers, Submarines and MorePutin’s Control over Russia Might Not Be As Secure As He Thinks Alexander Motyl

 National Security journal

Military Hardware: Tanks, Bombers, Submarines and MorePutin’s Control over Russia Might Not Be As Secure As He Thinks

Alexander Motyl

ByAlexander MotylPublished3 days ago

T-72 Russian TankT-72 Russian Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

A few days ago, another mercenary leader called for Russian President Putin’s overthrow. Now, a leading political player of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) has issued a dire warning to Russia’s self-elected president.

Aleksandr Vaskovsky, 52,  is no small fry. Since April 2017, he’s served as acting chairman of the DNR Supreme Council and co-chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Miners. A DNR patriot and proud son of Mother Russian, he knows of which he speaks. And if he speaks critically, he must mean it.

Here’s what he had to say about life in the DNR in an interview with the pro-Putin Russian blogger, Pavel Ivanov:

“Here’s what we hear in private conversations. The people have had enough. When there accumulates a critical mass of people and participants of the Special Military Operation [the war against Ukraine] with combat experience, all their anger and fury will be enhanced by our organizational abilities and technologies. Then, I fear, neither the prosecutor’s agencies nor the special services will be able to control things…. Don’t push people to their limit, because we will not be able to control them.”

Apparently, said Vaskovsky, he tried to contact Putin about his region’s explosive problems, but—unsurprisingly—to no avail. After all, Russia’s leader has been too busy conducting a losing war and ensuring that over 1,000 Russian soldiers lose their lives or limbs every day.

Ivanov, taken aback by Vaskovsky’s openness, suggested that he cool it, lest he be accused of “various extremisms”—the Putin regime’s favorite charge against its political opponents.

Now, if things are that bad in the Donetsk “people’s republic,” they must be significantly worse in the Luhansk equivalent, which was always less developed than Donetsk, and they must be abysmal in those parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia since the start of the genocidal war in February 2022.

If Vaskovsky is right that the DNR is inches away from a massive social explosion, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia must follow close behind. Some Russian provinces may also be in the running for oblivion.

Not surprisingly, after all. Economists Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Michal Wyrebkowski, Anders Aslund and Tymofiy Mylovanov have convincingly shown that “an economic catastrophe is lurking beneath Russia’s GDP growth as Putin ‘throws everything into the fireplace’.” Life has gotten much worse for all Russians.

Russians may be prone to admire authority and blindly follow orders, but they also know when they and their families are suffering. Massive explosions of blind violence punctuate Russian history and maybe the flip side of the coin of subservience to authority.

If and when such an explosion takes place, possibly in the DNR, possibly elsewhere, Russians will kill, pillage, and destroy with wanton abandon. The procurator’s agencies and the unique services will sit on the sidelines while the inflamed mercenaries will sharpen their knives and join the fray. Putin will be lucky to escape with his life. In all likelihood, to sunny North Korea.

About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl

Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”

In this article:Defense, featured, Military, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, War in Ukraine