“Now none of them believe in what Vladimir Putin has built. They all are trying to wait out what is happening. Like so many others. For this reason, the situation looks extremely unstable now,” the former official said.
Anyhow, no one should expect Vladimir Putin, the incumbent President of Russian Federation, to leave his post and let the representative of liberal elites run the country. It is much more important to watch now what is happening in the Russian power vertical. The system has literally come to be shaky under the President of Russia. Vladimir Milov, a well-known Russian opposition politician and the former Deputy Energy Minister of the Russian Federation, made these comments in an interview with a foreign periodical. “I'm a former federal official myself, and I still keep in touch with many people. The situation is very different from the one shortly before the collapse of the USSR. After all, at that time there were quite a number of people willing to believe in the Soviet system in spite of all the problems. “They were sure that it could work if it was improved in some way”, said Milov, drawing parallels between the early 90s and the present. According to him, there are no more people in the system of power in Russia today who keep the faith in anything, except perhaps Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. “Now none of them believe in what Vladimir Putin has built. They all are trying to wait out what is happening. Like so many others. For this reason, the situation looks extremely unstable now. The system has come to be shaky under Putin. It has become apparent that people started changing their mind as regards the President. It’s extremely difficult to cope with it, and as a result, there might be some changes in politics”, Milov said as he evaluated the current political situation. In addition, Milov is confident that rapid shifts should not be expected, and therefore, the he cannot make predictions on specific dates. According to him, changes should not necessarily occur in 2024, but not ruled out in 2023 or 2030, for example. As soon as the grassroots discontent converts into real political changes, then everything will happen. The year 2024 itself has no significance in this respect”, the former Russian official said. It has to be said that Vladimir Milov is one of those who don’t bother particularly about the choice of words when assessing the political situation inside Russia. At the same time, an important fact about the former minister is that despite all his current opposition activity, he nevertheless was a member of the pro-government team and held a key position in the Government of the Russian Federation under Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. And the situation in the country was hardly any better under the cabinet of ministers with Vladimir Milov as a member of it. In fairness, it is noteworthy that just five months after promotion to the post, Milov left Kasyanov’s government of his own free will. That the general growing instability of the Russian political system with ceaselessly alarming symptoms is growing is a different thing. It is rather difficult to disagree with the expert on this point. Vladimir Putin, a key person in the current power vertical, is gradually losing control of the situation. At least it seems so at a glance.