Coup D'état Committed In Russia?

Putin has been locked down.

It is possible that the terrorist attack in Crocus may have been used by a group of politicians in the Russian Federation who, de facto, carried out a hidden coup d'état. And so far we can say with a high degree of probability that the main beneficiary could be Nikolai Patrushev.

To begin with, we cannot yet fully understand what it really was. Both the ISIS version has inconsistencies (the main one is the lack of an ideological base for the killers), and the Russian version raises too many questions (primarily because of its lack of organisation).

In the end, at the moment, these things, although important, are secondary. More important to me is the sharp radicalisation of the entire Russian vertical, which is already being demonstrated at all levels:

- innovations with the return of the death penalty;

- Peskov's change of rhetoric, the obvious ban on any smooth statements;

- the tough stance of the Russian ambassador to Poland and the demonstration of unnecessary aggressiveness;

- the use of Zircons, and so on.

All this cumulatively tells us about a sharp shift in the balance of power in favour of the most radical elements. Behind all this we can see first of all the head of the Russian Security Council, the number two politician in the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev.

I would like to note straight away that in recent years there has been a rapprochement, and with the full-scale invasion we can talk about the tandem of Patrushev and Chemezov, the head of Rostekh (Chemezov is among the top 5 politicians in Russia in terms of influence). The combination of these two figures now guarantees complete superiority over all other towers. In other words, we see a sharp increase in the influence of one group with the tacit consent of all the others. Moreover, we see everyone else adjusting to the new reality.

Obviously, we still need to monitor all of this, but so far it looks like Putin's native structure has locked its pet down and is taking away from him the wiggle room to create certain balances. The main wiggle room, by the way, is the negotiations. All Russian rhetoric is now imbued exclusively with aggression and does not suggest any compromise, even in details.

I repeat, we should keep an eye on this for the time being, because the situation is not static now, but is developing on a daily basis. And there is no need to wait for personnel decisions. We should first of all watch the rhetoric. If this hypothesis is confirmed, it is a quit from all negotiations and a sharp shift towards turning Russia into Iran. The upside of this is that Patrushev will be putting the economy in a detrimental state.

Vadim Denisenko, Facebook