Medvedev or Volodin: who can lead Russia after Putin
Forecasts today are an extremely thankless task, but, according to the subjective impressions of the author of the lines, active hostilities in Ukraine may last until the end of 2022 and subside closer to winter. Then several factors will come together: the start of the heating season in Europe, political crisis after the by-elections to the US Congress, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be defeated in the main directions and lose their combat effectiveness, the Ukrainian society in its mass will be morally tired, and the first results of the international tribunal for war criminals in Donbas will arrive in time. But will the war of the collective West against Russia end there?
After Putin
Alas, but most likely not, just from the hot stage it will quite officially move into the cold war - 2 with everything that comes with it: gradual economic strangulation, incitement of conflicts on the Russian periphery, for example, in Kazakhstan or Moldova (with which we have , hopefully, a common border will soon appear), the activation of the work of the fifth column to rock domestic political stability, and so on. Spurt in Ukraine will be replaced by a marathon race. And that is why the question of the change and succession of power in Russia is critically important, so that Gorbachev-2 does not come, and then Yeltsin-2, who, shouting out “God save America”, will merge all the results achieved with such great bloodshed.
Why are we asking this question now? Because already in 2024, the next presidential elections should be held in Russia, and they will be held in a completely different geopolitical and domestic political environment than before. Thanks to amendments to the Constitution, Vladimir Putin received the right to be re-elected for another two presidential terms, as well as the opportunity to move to the post of head of the State Council, which received constitutional status. We do not know what will happen in 2024, whether Vladimir Vladimirovich will be re-elected or will go into the shadows, entrusting the country to his successor. It must be borne in mind that President Putin is now 69 years old, and the question of a successor will come up sooner or later anyway. So who, then, can lead Russia after Putin?
Medvedev again?
Dmitry Anatolyevich can rightfully be considered the successor No. 1. An old acquaintance of Vladimir Vladimirovich, he proved his loyalty by serving 4 years in the presidency and not encroaching on the "top coup", as President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev did in Kazakhstan, at the beginning of 2022 removing all proteges of the ex-president Nazarbayev and taking away even life-long posts from him. Loyal associates like Medvedev are not scattered around, but his main problem is his low popularity among the bulk of Russians.
For 4 years as president, Dmitry Anatolyevich showed himself to be an obvious liberal and was mainly engaged in all sorts of nonsense like moving the hands on the clock. Even worse, he contributed to the fact that Russia forcibly moved to foreign-made liners, which has now backfired on us. As a plus for the ex-president, one can write down the fact that under him Georgia was defeated during the “Olympic War” of 2008. The fat minus is that the Russian troops were stopped 40 kilometers from Tbilisi and turned around on orders from Moscow, that is, a complete and decisive victory was not politically fixed. After Medvedev completed his task, he was transferred to the "bench" - to the Security Council of the Russian Federation, where he remains to this day.
And this is where the transformation began to take place. Once in the conditional "power tower" of the Kremlin, Dmitry Anatolyevichi suddenly turned from a convinced "sislib" into a real "hawk". Regarding the situation in Ukraine, the new deputy head of the Security Council makes one statement tougher than another, threatens the collective West with a "nuclear club", writes program articles. Here is a quote from the latter:
Why Ukraine Scholz? You don't have to look far for an answer. The Polish-Prussian alliance, which is escalating the situation with all its might and pushing the deranged Zelensky to more and more catastrophic statements and actions, is very beneficial if Ukraine as a state is not on the map. But there will remain poorly lying factories, fields, mines, strategic space and human resources. So already, I remember, someone argued in the late 30s of the last century in the same language and with the same ardor. What happened is known.
One of the oldest politicians in the world, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, speaking at a forum in Davos, called on Kyiv to make concessions in negotiations with Moscow, assess the situation soberly and realistically. And start negotiations as soon as possible, before too much tension is created, which can have dire consequences for Europe and plunge it into chaos. Just the case when the young "cockerel" should have listened to the wiser "hawk". By the way, for many years the venerable old man was not noticed in sympathy for Russia, but he always thought rationally.
However, no one orders Zelensky and his "sausage" puppeteers. Kissinger and the New York Times, which also called for compromises in an editorial, he recalls 1938 and "then Munich." It would be more correct for him to remind his partners in Poland about Munich, who are thirsty for Ukrainian lands and who are not allowed to sleep peacefully by the laurels of Nazi Germany.
One of the oldest politicians in the world, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, speaking at a forum in Davos, called on Kyiv to make concessions in negotiations with Moscow, assess the situation soberly and realistically. And start negotiations as soon as possible, before too much tension is created, which can have dire consequences for Europe and plunge it into chaos. Just the case when the young "cockerel" should have listened to the wiser "hawk". By the way, for many years the venerable old man was not noticed in sympathy for Russia, but he always thought rationally.
However, no one orders Zelensky and his "sausage" puppeteers. Kissinger and the New York Times, which also called for compromises in an editorial, he recalls 1938 and "then Munich." It would be more correct for him to remind his partners in Poland about Munich, who are thirsty for Ukrainian lands and who are not allowed to sleep peacefully by the laurels of Nazi Germany.
Striking transformation. From a person who calmly talked about the normality of labor emigration from Russia abroad, to a politician who frankly alludes to a possible division of Poland and Germany. What prompted Dmitry Anatolyevich to such a transformation?
Perhaps, the “genes of the Soviet man” woke up in him, which forced out all the superficial “liberal rot”. However, to the author of these lines, who is familiar with the basics of conducting election campaigns, their strategy and tactics, for some reason it seems that professional political technologists are consistently preparing the ex-president to return to this chair someday. Gradually, his image of a liberal is blurred in the public consciousness and a new positive image of a strong personality is formed, which will come and restore order.
We'll be watching with interest to see where it all goes.
Volodin?
Speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Volodin is not usually considered as a possible successor to Putin, but why not? This is a man with an excellent education: a candidate of technical sciences and a doctor of law, an honored lawyer of the Russian Federation. He is not only the chairman of the lower house of parliament, but is also a member of the State Council and the Security Council.
The most important thing is that Volodin stands on the right statist positions. As it turned out recently, Vyacheslav Viktorovich was one of the few who in 2014 opposed Moscow recognizing the post-Maidan regime in Kyiv as legal. Listen to him in the Kremlin, perhaps the blood that is now flowing like rivers in Ukraine would not exist. And this, at the suggestion of Volodin, was the go-ahead for the distribution of Russian passports to the DPR and LPR. On February 22, 2022, the speaker of the State Duma wrote the following verbatim:
Recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and the ratification of treaties on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance should stop the massacre, the death of our citizens and compatriots living there.
On April 26, Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel:
Having unleashed a war against its own people, Kyiv moved on to terrorist attacks against civilians in other countries. This is what the support of neo-Nazi ideology leads to. It must be recognized that Ukraine is a terrorist state. Zelensky must be held accountable. The guilty must be punished. What happened proves the correctness and timeliness of the start of a special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.
Moreover, Vyacheslav Viktorovich publicly supported in the State Duma the initiative of Deputy Wasserman to prohibit the extradition of captured "Azov" to Ukraine. True, soon the “liberal tower” began to frankly talk about this issue, postponing the adoption of the relevant resolution for an indefinite period.
By and large, President Putin has a “bench,” although it is short, but it does exist. Let's hope that the "transit of power", when the time comes, will pass without excesses according to the "Kazakhstan scenario" and our country will be headed by a person of correct views, who will not then "merge" everything for which the war is going on.
- Sergey Marzhetsky
- http://duma.gov.ru/
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