Putin clings to secret services to suffocate the ghosts of a coup

MoscowIn the last 25 years, the collapse of Russia and Vladimir Putin's regime has been predicted on countless occasions. Lately, these rumors have revived among Western analysts after European intelligence circulated reports about a possible coup and the Russian president's fear of being the victim of an assassination by his inner circle. Discontent over the delicate economic situation, growing internet restrictions and fatigue from a war that causes increasing devastation in Russian cities are ruffling the elites, but the system is not faltering or cracking. On the contrary, malaise, distrust, and intrigues could lead to an increase in internal repression and even greater empowerment of the secret services.

Analysts agree that the stress symptoms of the regime's structures are abnormal.

The president's approval ratings are at their lowest levels, citizens and businessmen are bewildered by the zeal with which the FSB –the former KGB– tries to protect its leader at all costs, even at the risk of harming an economy that has long shown signs of exhaustion, and the army cannot offer the Kremlin any notable triumph on the front in Ukraine. This translates into doubts among high-ranking officials and oligarchs about the country's direction and who is captaining it. But Putin continues to blindly trust the siloviki, the security services. He has no intention of relaxing internet restrictions, of which he is convinced, and he delegates to his technocrats the task of selling the bans to the public without appearing to be the culprit himself.

At the same time, he also considers it likely that the Kremlin will resort to new mobilization formulas to send men to fight on the front lines.At the same time, he also sees it as likely that the Kremlin will resort to new mobilization formulas to send men to fight on the front lines.An impossible coup d’etat

Furthermore, he maintains that he “has learned from the failures of other dictators” and will not let himself be caught like Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolás Maduro, or Ali Khamenei.“Suspiciously, it resembles more a psychological strategy aimed at generating paranoia among the Russian elite than a serious assessment,” adds the expert. For Wisswesser, “Putin's Russia was built to survive precisely these kinds of moments” and investigations, arrests, and selective purges “can serve political purposes”, while creating “uncertainty within the elite circles”, and at the same time “justifying harsher measures throughout society.”

The espionage expert believes that this “dominance of the mechanisms of authoritarian survival” is explained by the fact that Putin already came to power “immersed in the culture and operations of the Soviet security services.” “He was not simply a politician who adopted authoritarianism after taking power; he was a career KGB officer who rose to power understanding mass surveillance, coercion, and control of the elite from within.”, he points out. Furthermore, he maintains that “he has learned from the failures of other dictators” and will not let himself be caught like Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolás Maduro, or Ali Khamenei.To all this must be added that the elites have no agency, nor political will, nor organizational mechanisms, as pointed out by Boris Bondarev, a Russian diplomat who left the country in protest of the war. “The Russian elite finds itself in a peculiar trap”, he states. According to him, the main problem is that “there is no clear alternative” to Putin and, since the conflict in Ukraine is “a direct consequence of the efforts to preserve existing power structures”, rebelling against the Russian president and abandoning the war “would entail the risk of losing their own influence”.