Russian President Vladimir Putin is speculated to get hit with a coup soon, or so outlets have been reporting for months now. Warhawks are championing an end game of the Ukraine-Russia war where the “modern Hitler” is assassinated or toppled with a regime change. A new piece in the defense and national security website 19FortyFive by analyst Brent Eastwood, however, explores the possibility of military mutiny against Putin.
The threat of using nuclear weapons has been on Western leaders’ minds as Putin continues to threaten NATO countries should they get involved in the war. In many ways, they already are involved in the war as they supply Ukraine with hundreds of billions of dollars and military equipment. The United States is currently Ukraine’s greatest benefactor.
But if Putin decides to launch nuclear weapons, Eastwood speculates that his military generals may disobey him. The war is already amounting to a failure for Russia’s “special military campaign” that was ideally going to result in a quick takeover. Nevertheless, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the military’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov are reportedly too loyal to Putin to participate in a coup.
A more likely possibility might be that Russia’s military just chooses not to fight any longer as the war continues to become unpopular, Eastwood argues. Such a move would allegedly make generals so mad that they would seek to replace Putin for his “poor leadership.”
But as Eastwood mentions, those who are in positions of power owe it to Putin. While it remains unlikely that they will counter Putin, city deputies from the Smolninskoye Municipal District reportedly wrote a letter at the beginning of the war accusing Putin of “high treason.”
There have been rumors that Putin is suffering from poor health and will eventually perish, leaving some to think that his mistress and the mother of his children is vying to take control.
