Russian March 2018 Presidential Elections are approaching. Putin has recently announced that he will run as a candidate. The global players who don't want Putin to stay in power will likely do everything possible to get rid of him. Let's explore some possible pressure points and try to predict the most unpleasant developments.
The measures to destabilize Russia amid the elections are most likely to be complex and could potentially include:
1. Exacerbating situation in Eastern Ukraine/Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic. A coordinated, big scale assault on break-away regions by the Kiev government and ultra-nationalist battalions,
if successful, could be exploited informationally by evoking a public discourse inside Russia about Putin betraying the people of Donbass/Novorossia, or being incapable of helping them, which could potentially decrease his approval ratings domestically. There are reports of soldiers from the US National Guard, namely the New York's 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), being moved to Ukraine in late October 2017, so we might expect some dangerous provocations early next year. Also, as post-2014 history shows, any increase in military clashes between the Kiev government and Donbass rebels could as well be used internationally to demonise Russia and Putin personally (by blaming it on him directly), which could conveniently serve as a justification for tougher economic sanctions, thus enabling more intense economic warfare against the Russian Federation.
2.
Direct US/NATO attack against the Syrian government. Similar to what happened on April 07, 2017, the United States government could use casus belli (manufactured by, say, the White Helmets) to launch a series of missile/airstrikes on the Syrian Arab Army forces, leaving Russia with very little choice but to leave its Syrian ally behind and surrender its geostrategic interests in the region in order to evade direct military confrontation with the United States government (the confrontation that could potentially escalate to a nuclear war). That would not only plummet Putin's domestic approval ratings, but would also harm his reputation in the Muslim world and in Arabic speaking countries, compromising Russia's foreign policy in the Middle East, Central Asia, Pakistan, as well as potentially spawning an anti-Putin sentiment in the Caucasus region.
Such strategy would certainly be dangerous to play, because it, indeed, can lead the world to a Nuclear Apocalypse; yet, given the observed desperation and lack of wisdom among certain circles in the modern US elite, we can't rule this scenario out completely.
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