MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
- A Russian chess grandmaster has outlined the conditions for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to be ousted.
- Garry Kasparov said Putin’s inner circle might look for a “scapegoat” if Russia’s losses in Ukraine begin to mount.
- “It’s always a dictator who should be blamed for all the failures,” Kasparov said.
Garry Kasparov, a famed chess grandmaster and vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has outlined the conditions necessary for the Russian leader to be overthrown.
During an appearance on CNN this week, host Paula Reid asked Kasparov if discontentment with Putin’s leadership could be building in Moscow amid the country’s mounting military losses in Ukraine and mounting sanctions.
He replied that anti-Kremlin sentiments are likely to increase in time and laid out an “order of moves” that could lead to Putin’s fall.
“First, the Russian public and Russian elite, they have to recognize the war is lost,” he said. “The bad news coming from Ukraine will inspire more people to rise because economic hardship will increase.”
“So, military defeat in Ukraine, social-economic revolt, and then you will have conditions, the right conditions, for a palace coup,” Kasparov added. “Because many of Putin’s inner circle will be looking for a scapegoat and it’s always a dictator who should be blamed for all the failures.”
Kasparov noted that, for Putin, failure in the war with Ukraine is not an option. He attributed this to Putin’s desire to project strength and an “aura of invincibility,” precisely to avoid becoming a target for his “disillusioned henchmen” and the “angry mob” of Russian citizens.
“For a dictator for life, losing a war, it’s devastating,” Kasparov said. “It’s a matter of political survival and in many cases, of physical survival. That’s why he has to pretend he is winning the war.”
Russia is now moving into another phase of the war, in what is expected to be an attritional conflict in the Donbas region.
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