How can a coup take place in the Kremlin

Two weeks later, as Russian forces were facing heavy casualties and a sudden resistance from the Ukrainians, Putin decided to arrestepie 2 generals of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), and launched an investigation into the service’s poor record, and over the misuse of funds earmarked for the creation of pro-Kremlin groups in Ukraine.

Putin also forced a deputy commander of the National Guard to resign, again due to a criminal investigation. In early April, one of the FSB generals who was under house arrest was transferred to Lefortovo prison. Then it was the turn of the army.

For nearly two weeks in March, amid rumors that Putin was furious with the slow progress of the occupation, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the public face of the war and generally regarded as one of Putin’s most trusted military men, disappeared. from the public scene.

When he finally reappeared, first in the video footage of a Security Council meeting and then in person at a press conference at the Ministry of Defense, he looked grim and weak. In late March, US intelligence suggested that the Russian Defense Ministry had not given Putin a clear picture of the war, perhaps out of fear of further consequences.

Meanwhile, on April 9, Putin reorganized the military command chain, appointing General Alexander V.Bortnikov in charge of operations in Ukraine. At first glance, these developments suggest an impressive change.

In the years before the war, Siloviki, as the Russian elite of the security forces is known in Russian, had been one of the main centers of power of the Putin regime. As a former KGB officer himself, Putin has long relied on the security services to enforce his policies, and to help him maintain power.

And although in recent years syllogisms have been somewhat overshadowed by the Shoigu-led Defense Ministry, Putin has never been as harsh with the security services and military as he is today. Given Putin’s increasingly ruthless crackdown on these people and the growing awareness in Moscow that the war has gone much worse than expected, some analysts are wondering how long they will tolerate his catastrophic mistakes.

But such questions bypass the historical relationship between the security forces and the Russian state, and the particular way in which Putin has built the foundations of his power. Although recent developments are important, they do not suggest a larger rift in the existing order.

Even in the midst of current tensions, the chances of key members of the security or military elite being able to make a move against Putin remain slim. Therefore, it’s worth considering why this is so, and what needs to happen to change the situation.

To understand why the Siloviks are unlikely to rise up against Putin, we must first understand the historical relationship between the military and the state. Historically, the Russian military has never posed a major threat to the rulers of this country.

Unlike other highly militarized societies, in Russia there have been very few successful military coups by the military or even attempts. The last time the Russian army launched an open rebellion was in 1825, when the Decembrists (a political movement of the time) tried to overthrow Tsar Nicholas I.

The revolt failed and most of the coup leaders were killed or exiled. The Russian army itself has not established alternative centers of power, such as in the form of the Free Officers of Egypt, who overthrew King Farouk in 1952.

And this no not because of lack of effort. In some cases since the fall of the Soviet Union, groups of military veterans have sought to gain political power, but have failed in every case. During the 1990s, before Putin came to power, the Russian government was weak, and the Kremlin was forced to maintain balances between rival groups.

At times, this led to attempts by members of the military to gain influence, or even topple the government. In October 1993, a group of former Soviet veterans calling themselves the Union of Officers took part in an ultraconservative revolt.

But they were arrested before the rebellion started. Four years later, Russian General Lev Rokhlinu voluntarily left the military and formed his own political party called the Movement in Support of the Army, which aimed to take control of the Kremlin. He quickly gained popularity, but in 1998, his wife shot him to death during a family quarrel at their villa.

The assassination sparked numerous conspiracy theories, but one thing became clear: Rokhlin’s movement could not survive his death. Russia, on the other hand, no longer has any significant opposition forces. Putin’s political opponents have either been killed (like Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015), or imprisoned (like Alexei Navalny from January 2021), or forced into exile (like almost all of Navalny’s collaborators, or even a growing number of Putin’s former friends such as Vladimir Milov, former Deputy Energy Minister Sergei Alexashenko, former deputy finance minister, and even Andrei Kozyrev, former Russian foreign minister).

Even in those few cases where members of the military have challenged Putin, they have been easily stopped. For example, in 2005 Vladimir Kvachkov, a retired Russian military intelligence colonel, attempted to assassinate Anatoly Chubais, a Russian economist known as the “father” of the controversial privatization program during the 1990s.

In the early 2000s, Chubais remained close to Putin and still enjoyed his support. Kvachkov’s group detonated a roadside bomb and struck Chubais’s car with an automatic weapon, but the assassination attempt failed and the former colonel was jailed. When he was released, he re-entered politics but was later arrested again by the FSB.

But in addition to Putin’s systematic elimination of opposition forces, there is a deeper structural reason for the military’s inability to actually challenge the Kremlin. During the Soviet era, the secret police kept the army under strict surveillance.

As early as 1918, less than a year after the Bolshevik Revolution, CHEKA, the forerunner of the KGB, formed a unit that monitored opponents within the Red Army. This vigilance continued under the rule of Stalin and his successors. Each division had Communist Party cells, and the KGB set up a large counterintelligence force to spy on the army.

And when the Soviet Union collapsed, the KGB was largely rebuilt as the FSB, and the latter now has the same headquarters in Moscow, the infamous Lubyanka, and follows many of the same practices of the past. FSB agents are very present in the Russian army. There are rules that determine how many FSB agents should be assigned to each military unit and any military facility. In the war in Ukraine, the official role of the FSB is to ensure that Russian troops are not sabotaged or attacked from behind. The FSB agents are also responsible for establishing political control over the occupied territories, including cities and areas that have fallen under Russian control.

But they also keep a watchful eye on the bodies themselves. With such uninterrupted surveillance, the Russian military has never produced such officers as can lead an effective revolt. But what about the FSB men themselves? As the Putin regime itself has shown, unlike the military, the KGB has produced one of the country’s most powerful leaders since Stalin’s time.

It is therefore certain that the biggest threat to Putin may come from the agency, whose powers he has steadily strengthened in recent years. But the FBS has a weak tradition of rebellion and has been very prone to corruption. Meanwhile, they are aware that they can be subject to Putin’s blows as much as anyone else./bota.al

top channel