Is the Russian Federation Going to Disintegrate?

Anchal Vohra, a Brussels-based columnist for ForeignPolicy.com, writes in her front-page article... that the nightmarish Russian military invasion of Ukraine could lead to the collapse of has some strategists calling for and expecting Russia to “decolonization” itself.

Russia has already suffered 10 times more casualties and wounded in the last 13 months than it suffered in almost 20 years during its invasion of Afghanistan. Its economy is in ruins and descending into an economic depression. Putin and his minions have managed to hide the desperate situation the country has been plunged into with mass arrests, phony economic reporting and pure propaganda.

Russia’s military incompetence, poorly equipped, troops are being fed into Ukrainian battlefields like meat into a grinder. Vladimir Putin’s empty nuclear threats has only served to emboldened Western military, intelligence analysts and Russian dissidents to publicly call for Russia to “decolonization” of itself.

The Russian Federation, the successor of the Soviet Union that consists of 83 federal entities, including 21 non-Slavic republics spread over 11 time zones. 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe CSCE, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent U.S. government agency created by Congress in 1975 to monitor and encourage compliance with the Helsinki Final Act and other Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe commitments.

The CSCE has declared that decolonizing Russia should be a “moral and strategic objective.”

At the same time the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, comprising exiled politicians and journalists from Russia, has joined in for the disintegration of the Russian Federation and released a map showing how Russia should be divided into into 41 different countries, in a post-Putin world, should he lose in Ukraine and or be deposed from power. 

According to Foreign Policy columnist Anchal Vohra…

“Western analysts are increasingly pushing the theory that Russian disintegration is coming and that the West must not only prepare to manage any possible spillover of any ensuing civil wars but also to benefit from the fracture by luring resource-rich successor nations into its ambit. They argue that when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the West was blindsided and failed to fully capitalize on the momentous opportunity. It must now strategize to end the Russian threat once and for all, instead of providing an off-ramp to Putin.”

The disintegration of the Russian federation and the collapse of a central government however could be a severe threat to global peace and security. After all it could lead to a struggle among more than three dozen states over the 6,000 nuclear warheads, military assets including nuclear submarines and navy, and the vast resources that are contained over 11 time zones.

Foreign Policy columnist Anchal Vohra points to in her article…

“Janusz Bugajski, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, has recently written a book called Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture. He argues that Western sanctions have squeezed Russian economy, and there is a “disquiet in numerous regions over their shrinking budgets.” He advocates against providing security guarantees to Putin. “

Janusz Bugajski’s argument is the post-Soviet Russian Federation is heading towards collapse centers on the belief that Putin’s inevitable defeat in Ukraine will discredit his invincibility, end his strongman cult built by his propaganda machine.

Janusz Bugajski writes this incredibly salient point…

“Once the elites in the non-Slavic republics sense Moscow is neither rich enough to fill their pockets nor militarily strong enough to crush their dissent, they will rise.” 

Anchal Vohra bolsters’ Bugajski’s argument that Russia is heading for collapse by quoting Sergej Sumlenny, the director of the European Resilience Initiative Center in Berlin, and a former chief editor at Russian business broadcaster RBC-TV who has been quoted as saying…

“Putin has controlled the diverse nations by corrupting their elite and by instilling the dread of a Chechnya-style conflict.”

Putin’s Ukrainian disaster will make possible the disintegration of Russia, a repeat of the collapse of the Soviet Union when 14 of Russia’s nations declared sovereignty.

“The bloody campaign in Chechnya a few years later was designed to discourage and dissipate independence movements, while Putin’s heavily centralized policies brought the supposedly autonomous republics firmly under Moscow’s control.” 

“But the war in Ukraine has exposed Putin as a disillusioned, feeble man not worthy of the image he had cultivated, Sumlenny argued.” 

“Putin was seen [in Russia] as a leader who could defeat anyone, and Ukraine was seen as so weak that it would be defeated without any effort,” Sumlenny told Foreign Policy over the phone from Berlin. “But now, everyone, including the ruling elite in republics and regions, can see that Moscow neither has the money nor a strong army.”

“If you are a mafia boss the worst thing that can happen to you is that your subordinates suddenly realize that you are not as strong as you claimed to be.” 

A collapse of the Russian Federation would be a world-wide financial earthquake in the worlds’ commodity and financial markets. The Russian Ruble which is already not far from its historic lows could plummet by 90%.

While Anchal Vohra and Bugajski weighs the threat assuming Putin falls from power. The analysis also fits if he drops dead from the cancer that he is rumored to be taking treatments for or suffers led posioning introduced through the back of his head.