Putin’s Avalanche: A Stubborn and Crumbling Kremlin
By Janosh Neumann, Skytop Contributor / December 20th, 2022
Janosh Neumann is a former Russian FSB counterintelligence officer who was appointed by the Russian government to supervise internationally the multibillion money laundering operation for the state. He later defected and was brought to the United States by U.S. government agencies. After that he was a consultant for a variety of U.S. government agencies, helping them with investigations related to Russian intelligence, money laundering, and the fight against Eurasian organized crime groups.
For Janosh, joining the State security was a given. Both his parents had worked for the KGB and other elements of the state security apparatus, so it was effectively the “family business.” But once you’re in this line of work, there’s no way out. As the saying goes, “there’s no such thing as an ex-spy.”
Russia vs Western Elites
Russia is a reflective nation. This is the DNA of Russian society, it manifests itself in culture, politics, society, and in the constant balancing between war and peace. This is encoded in the expression, “Russians harness for a long time, but they go fast.”
Before taking a step and moving on to a new round of its historical path, Russia, each time, goes through a painful process of self-eating, self-overcoming, a struggle with internal contradictions and a tragic, bloody process of self-mobilization. The war in Ukraine and open confrontation with the West have launched irreversible processes within Russia itself. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia never became part of the Western world. Only a small group within the Russian elite — oligarchs, part of state and regional officials, businessmen, some representatives of the intelligentsia and show business – have integrated themselves into the Western world.
But this is precisely self-integration.
Western elites do not consider this small group within the Russian elite as equal, do not consider them partners, do not consider them worthy of being part of a Western society in which the rules, such as the principles of coexistence, structure, connections and social consciousness have been formed over the centuries. The West perfectly understands the essence and sources of the incalculable wealth of the Russian elite. Yachts worth hundreds of millions of dollars and luxurious castles and chateaus, cause nothing but irritation and contempt among real European elites. It is remembered that they once belonged to the noble clans of old Europe, but are now part of the portfolio of the Russian nouveau riches, including former and current government officials of modern “democratic” Russia.
In Russia, leftist ideas have always been extremely strong. There is a catastrophic stratification of society into rich and/or royal people. The officials and the pro-Western elite perceive Russia only as a fodder base for self-enrichment. This causes nothing but hatred among Kremlin labeled “deep people”.
Within Russian society there is a huge demand for at least a partial reassessment of the results of the privatization of the holy nineties.
Why the Hawks Continue
The West has imposed harsh sanctions against Russia and its elites, including the oligarchs. Their luxury properties, bank accounts and business assets, in Europe and U.S. accounts, were frozen and seized. The sanctions pressure on the Russian elites should have motivated them to stage a palace coup and overthrow the current regime in the Kremlin, but it failed.
Failed Coup
First, there is awareness by the majority of the elites that the West has not recognized them as equal partners and has actually taken away from them what has always been considered inviolable in the Western world — their private property.
This step catastrophically undermined the faith of the nouveau riches in the sanctity of the West and forced them to seek common ground within Russian society, the source from which they continue to draw their wealth.
Second, Russian elites understand that they exist only because the regime exists. If the regime falls, then a merciless Russian rebellion will sweep them away, as experienced in Russian history at the beginning of the 20th century. And even having lost their castles and yachts in the West, they still have the main thing, which is access to unlimited Russian resources and the state budget. The West cannot take this away. And the only way to survive through current conditions is a fictional or a real transition to supporting the Kremlin hawks.
Fear of Change
Long before the current Ukraine situation, the Kremlin began systematically squeezing opposition out of Russia’s media space. A slow, creeping, clumsy, and even seemingly inept campaign to discredit the systemic and non-systemic opposition within Russia began.
As time has shown, the Kremlin managed to almost completely discredit, criminalize and marginalize what was called the opposition in Russia.The active core of the Russian opposition fled Russia. The Kremlin disabled the opposition’s ability to receive funding by calling it illegal support of extremism. Opposition media and opinion leaders have been branded as foreign agents, defined as a person or organization receiving funding from foreign sources.
The Kremlin allowed opposition-minded citizens to escape from the country, referring to them as “boots on the ground”, or the driving force behind public protest. The Kremlin created a campaign calling the opposition an internal enemy, the fifth column, which is financed by the West and seeks Russia’s military and political defeat, resulting in a desired collapse of the country.
The opposition made a number of fatal mistakes.
In particular, it started to discuss a possible collapse and projected the division of Russia into several independent states. Likewise, the opposition has not been able to formulate a plan. It failed to build a vision for the future of Russian society, one that would consider its history, cultural code and mindstate of its multinational people.
This example characterizes the attitude of an ordinary Russian to the very idea of protest and regime change.
If you ask an ordinary Russian who works for minimum wage at a state-owned enterprise or a factory owned by one of the oligarchs, ‘Do you want you to live like they live in Spain, Germany and France?’, the answer will be yes. But after that, he will ask, ‘What should I do for this?’
The Russian opposition response is that it is necessary to demolish the regime and give power to us, we have already decided everything for you. And then a simple and naive person recalls that this happened already in the early 1990s and doesn’t want to repeat the 90s where there was rampant crime and the redistribution of property. He doesn’t want a civil war. He wants stability, a job and minimal comfort.
The Russian people understand that the regime and the bureaucracy are corrupt. However, they understand that a regime change will lead, at best, to a repetition of the catastrophe of the “holy nineties.” The so-called “Russian opposition” is a self-sufficient, very limited circle of the liberal minded, bourgeoisie, intelligentsia and representatives of the middle class. They are far from those whom the Kremlin called the “deep people ”, who are the real driving force inside Russia capable of changing the course of history.
What the Hawks Know
Kremlin hawks have long realized the irreversibility of the processes launched within Russian society. They led these processes. This is their only opportunity to keep power. The war in Ukraine provided the hawks with an excellent opportunity to use the already accumulated and daily growing energy of hatred and frustration within Russian society to their advantage. They distanced themselves from the pro-Western elite.
The hawk’s message to Russian has a clearly expressed meaning. This is a call for mobilization and consolidation against the external and internal enemy. It says, we hear you, we are ready to go along with you, we are united.
The Kremlin hawks are actually openly admitting their mistakes, as can be seen from Putin’s recent speech. Note the following comments:
In previous years, the Russian Federation lived “in a foreign meadow” and current events are the path to purification.
The problem with the mobilization of society with the ideological vacuum from 1991-2022.
Lack of will to fight and change the perception of reality among the majority of the Russian elite.
The irresponsibility of the Russian bureaucracy is due to almost complete impunity and the absence of fear of punishment, since prison terms are minimal and most often end with early release.
Most often, the risk of corruption is fully justified.
Weak communication between the people and the authorities. The silence of the authorities and the slow indirect reaction of the Kremlin to the challenges. Example: the murder of Daria Dugina and the execution of prisoners of war.
The lack of consistency in their actions against those whom the Kremlin called enemies is the opposition. Most likely it is connected with the internal chair – within the clan struggle.
Excessive bureaucracy.
Lack of qualified personnel (military, workers, officials) in unsuccessful reforms and unresolved issues of their 90s.
In the final analysis, is this just an attempt to stay in power and reduce the tension within Russian society, or are the hawks really ready for decisive action?
Why Russia Continues in Ukraine
The main trump card of the Kremlin hawks is that more than 700,000 Russians are participating or will soon take part in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine. This includes 300,000 mobilized, 250,000 military personnel, 100,000 from the corps of the Donetsk and Lugansk militia, more than 100,000 volunteers and PMC fighters.
In the Russian media space, the process of advancing the perception of the war in Ukraine from a limited military operation to a people-patriotic war with a united West has been launched. This is a clear signal that the Kremlin hawks are ready to go to the end, regardless of losses, and they are in dire need of the support of the Russian society.
Regardless of when and how the campaign in Ukraine will end, these fighters have gone through the hell of war. This will become the basis of a new state and social structure in Russia. They will become a support base for the Kremlin hawks. Their main task and mission is to replace the pro-Western, liberal elites. There have already been enough examples in Russian history where the Kremlin rebuilt or reset the state system, elites, culture and society in this manner. Note the Napoleonic campaign 1812 to1815, revolution and civil war from 1917 to 1922, and the Great Patriotic War of 1941 to 1945.
We can say with confidence that the hawks will not allow a situation where, after the Afghan War of 1979 to 1989, veterans were left to their fate. The Kremlin hawks are well aware of the opportunities and the potential that is in their hands. As seen over and over, “Putin’s Avalanche” is ready to crush anyone who does not agree with the course chosen by the Kremlin hawks.