Olga Lautman: Special Services Can Eliminate Putin

18.10.2022, 16:43
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The inner circle of the Kremlin’s head understands that he is taking them to a ditch.

Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) Olga Lautman said in an interview with Charter97.org that the mobilization announced by Putin launched the countdown of his rule.

— What is the reason for creating a joint Russian-Belarusian military group? What is its intended purpose?

— I think the intended purpose for Lukashenka is to show his loyalty to Putin publicly because at this moment Putin is dwindling down on friends and he has very few people in his corner (see what's happening in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan). It is like a statement to the West that Lukashenka and his regime stand with Putin.

Is it going to do anything? Absolutely not. Maybe they'll create a few small units publicly to show that they're being supportive, but that's about it. I think it's just a show. I don't think there's any kind of logistical value to it. It is not going to change the trajectory of the war and not going to help Russia fight.

I do believe that if Lukashenka ever did order a full scale invasion by the Belarusian Army (that I don't think will ever happen) it would be the end of him: the Belarusians would just switch sides, they would cross the border and help Ukrainians.

Belarusians really have nothing against Ukraine. They don't want to fight Ukraine. There's absolutely no reason, there's zero motivation. There's no bad blood between the Belarusian people and the Ukrainian people. During protests in Belarus, Ukraine gladly opened their doors and helped Belarusian activists and journalists to come in.

— So, why do they need a joint Russian-Belarusian military group? To distract the Ukrainians?

— I think it is to distract the Ukrainians. Since the summer, Ukrainians are very well aware that there was a build-up on the Belarusian border and that Putin was pressuring Lukashenka to send the troops in. So far Lukashenka has resisted, but at the same time, if they're is a threat that starts building on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, then that temporarily distracts Ukrainians to look at the Belarusian border and potentially protect it.

I think at this moment 90% of what they are doing doesn't make sense: everything is for show and distraction and to make us guess. If you look at the propaganda coming from the Kremlin, their Kremlin shows, and social media, then it makes no sense. It's just to deflect what's happening: from Russia's thinking of having losses, their military being exposed as not a military (when you start pulling people out of prisons they are not military). And also it is to deflect from the chaos inside Russia — during the Soviet Union you would never imagine something like this playing out publicly: military arguing with Prigozhin and State Duma questioning the military.

There's just so much chaos between the government, the military, intel agencies that they would rather us talking about some weird joint military group instead of what's happening there. And what's happening is that Ukraine is conducting an excellent counter-offensive, taking more of their territory back every day and has the capability and will continue to take back the rest of the territory, occupied by Russia since 2014, including Crimea.

— As of today, what is the biggest immediate threat from Russia to the West?

— I think still the biggest threat from Russia — and it still hasn't changed — is that they use a tactical nuclear weapon inside Ukraine, because that would then have to force the West to act in some way. They just can't ignore something like that on European soil.

So, I think that's the biggest threat. Putin is old, he has nothing to lose. He can easily order it. And then it just comes down to the person who has to carry out the order: do they carry out the order or do they just say, "You know what, No." At this point, it's anyone's guess because of all the friction inside and between the agencies.

Other than that they might do sabotage attacks to blow up infrastructure in Europe where they can have plausible deniability.

I highly doubt the Russians want to fight NATO (Poland or anyone for that matter) — they can't even handle the Ukrainian military.

— Why, do you think, Putin did not declare full mobilization to defend "mother Russia"? Why did he choose partial mobilization?

— I think he was getting a lot of pressure from inside because the counteroffensive from Ukraine came so quickly and so strong. He's really down to no options except mobilizing or a tactical nuclear strike. Both of these options are not going to change anything on the field. If Ukraine, for instance, does suffer limited nuclear strikes in the East or in the South, the Ukrainians are not going to surrender their country. If anything, that's just going to give them more resolve to continue and say, "You see, this is why we're fighting, this is the threat we're facing."

Same thing with mobilization. I've never seen anything like this. Before I was saying, "The minute Putin signs a mobilization order, you could start a countdown to his demise," and this is what's happening. He is causing such a panic and such terror-like conditions in the country that people are scared to use the Moscow subway where they could be pulled from for the mobilization.

There's absolutely zero training for them. There's not enough equipment, not enough weapons, not enough food. There was one famous video. I fact-checked it and it was actually true. A recruiter was telling recently mobilized people that they have to ask their mothers and wives for tampons to plug bullet holes because they don't have any kind of first aid equipment.

So, he's just pulling people from Russia for execution in Ukraine.

— Do you believe that by declaring the mobilization Putin started the countdown to his end?

— Yes, absolutely. The Russians don't really particularly care what their military or country does outside the borders. Russia has committed atrocities in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine, and normally there is a handful who do care, but for the most part the rest of the country occupy with themselves. But the minute it comes to their door that is when they are going to act. You are seeing the chaos right now in every single region: enlistment offices being set on fire, in Ust-Ilimsk a man went into it enlistment office and shot one of the commanders, there is the chaos in St. Petersburg, the chaos in Moscow — this is not a how a mobilization should look.

I saw one IT guy from Sberbank who never held a weapon that got mobilized said, "Well, I guess I'm gonna go." What use is this? Sending untrained people who don't have the proper equipment by numbers is not going to be helpful. That's not a strategy.

I don't see this making any difference except only infuriating Russians even more inside. Putin did mobilize half a million people outside of the country.

— What does the probable end for Putin look like? Complete withdrawal from Ukraine and hanging to power a bit? Tragic, dramatic Gaddafi-style end? Where it's all going?

— For Ukraine, the end is when the Russian military, every single last one of them leaves the occupied territory. The Ukrainians are not going to stop until they have Crimea, Donbas and all of their territory secured. So that will be the end. Despite many in the West in the past few weeks getting louder in calling for negotiations, the Ukrainians are taking back more land, and they are not going to sit down for negotiations.

On the other hand, security services ultimately control Russia. They might at some point, get tired of Putin because he is taking them to a ditch. They can eliminate him, the elimination can come from within. And if that happens, then — despite many people saying there are plenty of people worse than Putin — with these heavy losses, I am pretty sure, if the Putin regime collapses tomorrow, the war would stop.

Would the long-term threat disappear? No. But the war would stop temporarily because they would need to figure out all the short-term logistics and potentially even try to get back into the good graces with the West by pulling out, making concessions and putting everything on the Putin regime.

— Putin has been selecting his security guys for years who are very loyal, and the probability of an internal coup seems rather low, doesn't it?

— Yes and no, because if you look at Soviet and Russian history, everyone is loyal until they are not loyal. It is very based on survival there. One minute an oligarch is in Putin's good graces, the next minute he is being jailed and his assets are being seized over some 1990s murder charge.

It is such a paranoid society, it stems from the Soviet Union — nothing has changed. Do you think Shoigu and Gerasimov and the rest of the high leadership don't understand that they can be eliminated by Putin as quickly as anyone else despite their loyalty just for failing this operation?

There's no true loyalty in the country. When someone has power and is in full control, people flock to this person and then this person loses and makes a lot of mistakes — the one couldn't have destroyed Russia any worse already, even for the inner circle — people tend to reconsider.

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Olga Lautman: Special Services Can Eliminate Putin

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