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Galeev is a delusional Turkic supremacist and tries to conjure his dreams of Russian dissolution into reality with prolific twitter posting. He has been right exactly once – predicting that Russia will not succeed at conquering Ukraine, the rest is downstream of that take; but this could have been and was predicted by anyone with a modicum of insight into Russian system, e.g. me.
This obsession with signaling is predicated on the idea that people in power don't know the real state of events and have to infer them from tea leaves and gestures, and is exactly why most popular analysis is hopeless. Looks don't matter, only actual capabilities. Putin looks like a pitiful monkey and he has been looking this way for a long time, but he has proven still having the capability to make Wagner run. This is enough. It'll be cold comfort for a rebelling general to know that as he dies, he's taking a few batallions' worth of FSO with him.
So, Surovikin? He's refused to join the mutiny.
There isn't anyone. Putin has worked extraordinarily well to purge every charismatic figure from the army. Killing people cooler than him is his whole edge.
Yes, well, which republic? Tyva or Chechnya, maybe. If Kadyrov and Shoigu remain "loyal", this doesn't happen. Governor, oligarchs – haha, as if.
Russia can well unravel, don't get me wrong. But this will have very little to do with the fact that Putin has looked weak the other day.
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