This year’s been a long one for Ukrainians (and Russians) after Vladimir Putin decided to wage an imperialistic war. This move quickly backfired with Ukrainians (including grandmas) refusing to accept defeat and Russian army numbers dwindling to such a point that Putin called up hundreds of thousands of replacements, who are abandoning tanks after being told that there’s no medical care, sorry, and please bring tampons to treat your own bullet wounds. It’s no wonder that, along the way, we’ve heard mutterings about how Putin’s underlings were secretly maneuvering to install a successor, should he be found incapable of continuing to lead. And it sure sounds like they got closer to doing so this week while the world awaited fallout from the stray (mystery) missile that killed two people in Poland.
Previously, independent Russia news outlet Meduza had revealed that Putin’s henchmen were (via The Daily Beast) tiptoeing around with “an understanding, or a desire, that in the fairly foreseeable future he will not run the country.” Amid missile gate, Putin’s inner circle reportedly prepped themselves for imminent action to oust and replace the president at a moment’s notice. Also from The Daily Beast, it sounds like a relevant Telegram channel (apparently run by an ex-Russia security services member) detailed how high-ranking Russian security dudes consulted each other and plotted:
“Knowing Putin’s penchant for raising the stakes through escalation, … this group of security officials quickly became convinced that in response to a Russian strike on a country included in NATO there could be both a retaliatory strike and an ultimatum.”
So, according to the channel, they decided that “if the U.S. leadership and the adjoining countries show readiness for a harsh response, then the best way out would be to remove the current Russian president, Vladimir Putin, from power and create a collegial council of security officials to ‘temporarily’ take control of the country into their own hands … blaming all the problems on either a seriously ill or law-breaking president.”
As it turns out, there’s been no immediate action from Poland, the U.S., or NATO at large, so this could all be moot, at least until the next stray missile rolls out. Or when Putin officially runs out of Botox, which seems like only a matter of time, given that he’s tanked the Russian economy and earned pariah status for his country. But yeah, we have to have Botox jokes to cope with the enormity of this entire conflict. What a disaster.
(Via The Daily Beast)