The West is trembling, the "time of trouble" is approaching: Russia is falling apart?

The West is trembling, the "time of trouble" is approaching: Russia is falling apart?

This internationally recognized expert on espionage, subversion, use and abuse of history, in an article for the London Times, states that next month representatives of countless nationalities and regions of Russia are meeting in London to make plans for a post-Putin future.

Their organization, the Post-Russia Free Nations Forum, was founded in response to the war in Ukraine. Some of their supporters are fighting as foreign volunteers against Putin's forces. They believe that the defeat of the Kremlin is inevitable, followed by the disintegration of Russia, it is stated further.

It means freedom for their long-forgotten homelands. They want outside help in economic stabilization, preserving Russia's vast nuclear arsenal, and building democratic institutions.

The rhetoric is anti-imperialist. For centuries, Russian authorities have treated their peoples the way other countries treat their overseas colonies: plundering natural resources, crushing any form of dissent, and imposing ruthless Russification, Lukas continues to write, as Danas reports. "In the kaleidoscope of survivors, some have Turkic roots, such as the Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvash. Others - the Mari, Komi and Karel - are ethnic cousins of the Finns and Estonians. There are the Buddhist Kalmyks and Buryats, plus the Cossacks (descended from Russian warrior tribes), Circassians from the Caucasus, Siberians and dozens of others", it is further explained.

Paul Goble, who as a US government official in the 1980s was the lone voice predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, now thinks a much messier 1918-style collapse is more likely.

"Regionalism will be the nationalism of the next Russian revolution," he said at a meeting of the Post-Russia Free Nations Forum in Washington earlier this year.

Other Russia watchers believe that economic interests and territorial divisions could be a powerful combination in some remote regions, while central power is disappearing.

The failed revolt of Wagner's mercenaries in June highlighted the fragility of Putin's power. But the reality is still not in line with the ambition of "free nations", Lucas points out, adding:

Although within Russia the Forum is officially banned as an "undesirable organization", the specter of separatism haunts the Kremlin. Propagandists target exiles. Putin's security chief, Nikolai Patrushev, claims (without evidence) to have discovered ten Western-backed conspiracies in Karelia, a region neighboring Finland. An allergic reaction, Lucas writes, has deep roots. Russian nationalists believe that Western conspiracies destroyed the Soviet Union and continue to do so. Lucas also emphasizes that Western governments are staying away these days, stating that one of the reasons is ignorance.

"We have pitifully few diplomats or experts who know the languages, culture and history of Russian regions. Even countries with deep knowledge, such as Estonia, are worried about giving the kiss of death," says Lukas.

"The leaders of the old Soviet republics were political heavyweights, encouraged by five years of liberalization under Mikhail Gorbachev. Regional elites in Russia are now full of nothings. Ethnic Russians are the majority almost everywhere, and non-Russian languages are marginalized," he reveals.

He goes on to say that while the war in Ukraine has largely spared Moscow and St. Petersburg, casualties and economic problems have hit the provinces disproportionately hard. Yet so far it has encouraged, not corroded, patriotic sentiment. He also reminds that the most cohesive non-Russian entity is Chechnya, which fought two wars for independence. But now it's in a fiery alliance with the Kremlin and ruled under strict Sharia law by a particularly nasty warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov.

"The biggest reason for reluctance is that, to many outside eyes, collapse is neither likely nor desirable. Some parts of the evil empire sprang to freedom in 1991, but others became dictatorships. Inside Russia, it heralded a decade of chaos and misery", Lucas stated. Few want to risk it happening again. Leading regional policy expert Aleksandar Kinyev says that the pro-Russian movement is a counterproductive distraction.

"The collapse of large countries almost inevitably leads to wars, territorial disputes and ethnic cleansing. Internal borders are usually as controversial as external ones. There is nothing good about 20 smaller dictatorships fighting each other," he wrote recently. The priority, he claims, is not "destroying the state and creating chaos", but rebuilding the institutions that Putin destroyed. For those under Moscow's yoke, along with Ukrainians, Georgians and others, only disintegration can exorcise the demon of Russian imperialism. They would rather risk a fragmented, disordered Russia than face some future Putin.

"Western governments tremble, however, at the prospect of 'times of trouble', they prefer stability to a hundred new countries. But that may not be on the menu," the text concludes.