Evgenia Sokolenko19:20, 01/30/23

He argues that the Russian elite lives not so much in imperial fantasies as in a very specific future struggle for the redistribution of property.

In Russia, new PMCs are being created not for military operations in Ukraine, but for the next war, but already inside Russia .

At the moment, there are 27 PMCs in the Russian Federation, Russian political scientist and publicist Andrey Piontkovsky said in an interview with  UNIAN

“They are not needed for the war with Ukraine. We need a single, cohesive army led by the Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov. The pinnacle of absurdity is that the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Shoigu has his own PMC, which is called the Shield. These people create PMCs not for the war with Ukraine, but for the next war. The war with Ukraine is lost, all reasonable people understand this. And they are preparing for a mafia war for a huge redistribution of property,” the expert explained

He is sure that after the defeat of Russia, Putin and his group will not be able to stay in power. According to Piontkovsky, the Russian leadership will not be able to find those responsible for the loss and somehow explain it.

“With the departure of Putin’s group, trillions of assets are released. And these PMCs are created to fight in this black redistribution of property. Half of the PMCs are regional, they are created by governors who are also billionaires in their provinces. Their goal is to keep property from such “prigozhins” or something else some ambitious criminals,” the political scientist said.

The expert argues that the Russian elite lives not so much in imperial fantasies as in a very specific future struggle for the redistribution of property. In the Russian Federation, they understand that after the war “no one will climb into their viper” – neither Ukraine nor Western countries.

“Ukraine will be accepted into NATO, it will create security guarantees for the whole of Europe. And in Russia they will go about their business – fight for Norilsk nickel, Krasnoyarsk aluminum. Today, all this is rewritten to some people or Putin’s relatives, and when the regime collapses, these huge assets will become tasty prey. This is the near future of Russia, and they are already living it,” Piontkovsky summed up.

Regime change in Russia

As UNIAN previously reported, ex-deputy of the Russian State Duma Ilya Ponomarev  believes that Putin will be killed by his own people before he gets to the Hague for a tribunal due to large-scale aggression against Ukraine.

Military expert Oleg Zhdanov  claims that the Russian president’s entourage is actively preparing for a regime change and organizing “alternate airfields” for themselves in Latin American countries. 

Abbas Gallyamov, a political strategist and former speechwriter for Putin, predicts that the Russian elites may remove Vladimir Putin from power in 2023 by offering him a “voluntary” option – to leave himself, leaving behind a successor.

(C)UNIAN 2023