Why has Russia been so politically stable?

kamilkazani.substack.com

3 points·wujf··9 comments

>> in spite of the humiliating military defeats

What "humiliating military defeats"? They are winning on the battlefield.

The author seems to be oblivious to the reality and drinks a bit too much western mainstream media kool-aid.

There are many channels on Youtube that report a much more realistic picture with full tracking of the moving battle lines without much bias for any side.

Eg: https://www.youtube.com/@historylegends/videos

Sure now they are slowly but surely taking/retaking territory. But until late 2023, they were on the defensive. It took almost 2 years for Putin to turn things around after a botched initial invasion. And at the rate of the worst month since (November 2024) it will take them like, 100+ years to capture the entirety of Ukraine.

And Russia has been stable because vast majority of people indeed support what Putin does. Putin in fact, isn't a problem at all, problem is Russians themselves.

Putin originally believed that they could take Kyiv in two days

By turning defenestration and heart attacks of political enemies into an natural cause of death.

I'd think that autocracies are stable until they aren't, upon which they shatter completely, such as the Assad regime.

That's not to say that the successor regime is necessarily better.

Sure. "Stable": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group_rebellion

(Didn’t read the entire thing). I assume stability here means that big changes in Russian society and big changes in its stated ideology occur with more independence than more-transparent Western states.

Looking at this in terms of a powdered-wig upper class with negotiable access to control defies the siloviki narrative of Russian history. We’re all wondering what collective leadership will execute Putin’s plans for succession.

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