The Possible Ways it Ends for Putin
Welcome to Waterloo 2.0
Things were bopping along nicely for Vlad in the 20-teens. He formed an unholy alliance with Rupert Murdoch. I guess Satan’s two top trophy kills became pals at the “Most Evil Fuckers Walking the Earth” picnic and sac race or something. He became respected as an oil elite. Remember when he and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman fist-bumped at the G20 meeting?
Russia hosted the Winter Olympics and the World Cup in the span of just a few years. Also, Russia was only caught cheating a handful of times.
Win/Win/Win.
He even had his pet Shitsu win the US presidential election. Things were going very well until his Napoleonic impulses got the better of him.
Vladimir Putin has known for years that he wasn’t getting a dacha outside Moscow and a new Buick when he finally stepped down. After he pardoned Boris Yeltsin and stole his first election, he knew how a few years feeding at the tit of the Russian heartland was going to end: with him in jail or dead.
That’s how it goes in most countries. You end up with too much power and too massive a personal checkbook as people just love to give you money for things. Things that belong to the Russian people and maybe not Putin exactly.
If you haven’t seen the house he had built on the Black Sea, it’s worth a few minutes. It’s like an NFL stadium with 3/4ths of it underground, on the sea, and there is no one anywhere near him. It’s like it just popped up in the middle of nowhere. Maybe he thought it would be a great retirement spot, but he’s known all along his future would be president until death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin%27s_Palace
Had he not invaded Ukraine he could have done another 15 years allowing the Russian people to die on the vine, the economy to burn to the ground and he would have been (possibly, there are rumors that say he already is) the richest man on earth. Safe and secure enough to ride off into the sunset. As President of course.
But things have changed.
He’s now openly called a War Criminal by global media. His once great army has shown itself to be a clown show and every country near him has applied to enter NATO.
He has become so paranoid you won’t see a picture of him with another person in the shot. That’s not covid paranoia, that’s “one of my generals is going to poison me” paranoia.
He’s threatening the world with WW3, but Russia vs The Field isn’t going to work out so well. I doubt even the military would be game for anything like that. A hand full of bartenders and mailmen with some toys the US gave them prevented Russia from taking Kyiv, I don’t think the Russian ‘Rusty Tank” brigade is going to hold up so well against a NATO “Police Action”.
Hell, the Ukrainian military is only 5 years old. That’s like the Yankee’s losing to an expansion team or ALABAMA losing to FLORIDA A&T in a bowl game.
It’s embarrassing.
He does have an ok relationship with China, but China is a great ally to have if China needs something. If Russia needs something, “We are too busy building a long ass road to Africa to get involved in your mess.”
He’s also threatening with his nukes, but I feel like he knows his people won’t go there at this point. His nuking anyone ends Russia in a way nothing else would. If he nukes anyone, anyplace without destroying everyone and everything, NATO will have guys giving out lollypops to kids where the FSB’s smoldering building once stood in about 5 days.
I imagine his biggest fear is ordering an attack and his elite generals coming to see him and say, “Nyet”.
Either things escalate and we all nuke each other, (I really don’t see that happening) or Putin tries to do that and he ‘dies in his sleep’. Or he is overthrown, then trial, then executed.
No dacha.
Russia has a long history of ending things with leadership ‘in-house’.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin): Head of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924.
Lenin was poisoned by Stalin
Joseph Stalin: People’s Commissar of Defense of the Soviet Union from January 1924 to March 1953.
Stalin was poisoned by his Dr.
Nikita Khrushchev: General Secretary of the Communist Party 1953 to 1964
Had a heart attack.
Leonid Brezhnev: Some other Soviet era made up title, 1964–1982
Also died of a heart attack
Yuri Andropov was almost dead when he got the job, which lasted from late 1982 to Early 1984
Kidney”s gave out
Konstantin Chernenko was there even less time 1984 to 1985
Heart attack
Must be a stressful gig given the number of heart attacks.
Prior to Mikhail Gorbachev, the job literally killed you. Gorbachov wasn’t there long (1985–1991) but had some impact of note. He actually left after only a few years and the people (crazy idea about 1 person, 1 vote etc) voted in his successor.
Going back to the 1920’s you didn’t leave the job, the job ended you. Gorbi walked away, is alive and 91 years old. He was also the only one voted out.
The person who followed Gorbachev into office (Boris Yeltsin) was very sick and very corrupt. Putin took over for him and pardoned him. Shortly after, Yeltsin died of a (shockingly) heart attack. Go figure.
Unless Putin is really, really stupid, he knows how this ends for him. One way or the other, he’s not getting a nice watch, he’s getting a pine box.
