Dispatches From Exile: Weekly Mind Dump 5/28-6/3/2023
What if the Russian rebels succeed and Putin's hold on power frays? Prepare for a new map of Eurasia.
I’ve been closely watching the activities of two Russian anti-Putin insurgent groups as they carry out raid after raid from eastern Ukraine across the border into Russia. I, like most war-observers, had never heard of the “Freedom of Russia Legion” and “Russian Volunteer Corps” until they, accompanied by journalists, launched what appeared to be a successful incursion near the Russian city of Belgorod late last month. They caught the Russian authorities with their pants down, scrambling to scrape together a hodge-podge of security personnel to respond. The two groups, which appeared to have coordinated well, judiciously withdrew back into Ukrainian territory, incurring few casualties, before the Russians could get their act together.
They made their point: Putin’s Russia is not secure. And its well-demonstrated reputation for incompetence and military failure was enhanced, adding yet more egg onto Putin’s decidedly unhandsome face.
But then they struck again this week, some 240 kilometers further southeast from last month’s attacks. Moreover, almost daily acts of sabotage are being carried out around Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. Reports are that the Russian military has to divert troops from combat with Ukrainian forces to respond, whack-a-mole, to the partisan strikes near Belgorod. Which falls neatly into the strategy of Ukraine’s strategists to distract and disperse Russian forces. See my piece on this, “Who’s Blowing Stuff Up Inside Russia?”
Facts are hard to come by, but for what it’s worth, the Russian partisan groups are claiming that more than a thousand new recruits are joining their ranks each week. I viewed a clip today of a man, face covered, stating that he was until very recently a Russian soldier and that he had just joined the Freedom of Russia Legion because he was fed up with being mistreated and unsupported by his erstwhile commanders.
But it gets better. Other unverified reports indicate that the partisans are soon planning to hold a referendum in their occupied areas for establishing a “Belgorod People’s Republic.” The irony is exquisite. They’d be copying Putin’s 2014 playbook of seizing territory in Ukraine’s Donbas region and then setting up puppet “people’s republics.” Putin used troops sans insignia — the so-called “little green men.” In this case, Ukraine is using Russian partisans. It’s giving the Russian president-for-life (TBD) a taste of his own disgusting medicine. If this doesn’t make Putin dyspeptic, I don’t know what will. I don’t know if Russians use the term “clown car” (клоунская машина). But if they do, defense minister Shoigu is in the driver’s seat and commander Gerasimov is the navigator.
And Volodymir Zelensky is laughing all the way to the Kremlin. In an American-supplied MRAP no less.
As I keep stressing, it’s too early to have a reliable assessment of the effectiveness and viability of these Russian partisans — especially the Russian Volunteer Corps which appears to be a grab bag of neo-Nazis and other extreme right members. But they keep surprising us. I spent much of my government career dealing with freedom fighters, holy warriors and miscreant international troublemakers of varying stripes. For me, the jury is out on these clearly Ukraine-supported Russian fighters.
But suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine the Russian rebels actually gaining traction and attracting volunteers and popular support to the extent they begin to pose a real danger to the Putin regime’s stability. Let’s say they manage to liberate and hold onto swathes of Russian Federation territory. And Papa Doc Putin’s hold on power looks increasingly shaky as crackpot warlords like the Prince of Mercenaries Prigozhin maneuver to oust him.
Waiting in the wings are 21 republics, 49 territories and assorted other multi-ethnic satrapies and wannabe Central Asian and Siberian banana republics just itching to declare their independence. Not enough attention is being paid to this, which I addressed in my last article on the very real prospect of irredentism.
Serious analysts are examining the possibility of Russia breaking apart in the wake of Putin’s kleptocracy imploding.
I’m struck, for example, with increasing chatter of late about Eurasia’s borders changing. Most striking to me is talk about “the fate of Kaliningrad.” —
Why Kaliningrad, Russia's toehold in Europe, could be the next flashpoint in its war against Ukraine
Five regions want to break away from Russia, referendum shows
This is a small “exclave” sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast. It was Königsberg, an ancient German city until the Red Army occupied it toward the end of World War II, expelled the German population, made it part of Russia and renamed it in honor of a Bolshevik hero. It is strategically highly important to Moscow, hosting the Russian navy's Baltic fleet as a counterweight to NATO.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia just officially dumped “Kaliningrad” as the name they will use officially. The Latvians, in fact, reverted to the original German name. This incensed Moscow which declared the measures “a hostile act.”
Kaliningraders are very Western-oriented and have exhibited opposition to Putin’s Ukraine intervention. In a recent survey, 72.1 percent stated that they favored seceding from Russia.
Another geographical anomaly is the microstate Transnistria, which declared independence from Moldova — with Russian backing — in 1991. Moscow maintains an estimated 1500 troops there.
With the Russo-Ukraine conflict, all bets are off as to Transnistria’s continuation as a separate entity from Moldova. Visiting that nation this week, President Zelensky stated that Ukraine would help liberate Transnistria if asked to by the Moldovan government. He warned Russian troops stationed there, “If they want to live, they will leave.”
As I described in the piece on irredentism, any number of Russian constituent lands could break away, ranging from Kaliningrad to Ingushetia to Tuva to Buriyatia.
To nerd out for a moment, such a development would fly in the face of the Helsinki Final Act. Signed by 35 countries in 1975, the agreement recognizes the inviolability of the post-World War II frontiers in Europe
The participating States regard as inviolable all one another's frontiers as well as the frontiers of all States in Europe and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from assaulting these frontiers. Accordingly, they will also refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State.
The participating States will respect the territorial integrity of each of the participating States.
Diplomats will have their hands more than full should we be faced with a dozen, or more, newly independent successor states of Russia, with the attendant territorial and ethnic squabbles, unsecured nuclear weapons and competition over natural resources. And then there would be a very aggrieved and revanchist Russian rump state.
Putin’s Russia could conceivably be transformed into Putin’s Pandora’s Box.
The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.