NEWSWATCH: How Putin could lose power

Vladimir Putin

[“How Putin could lose power” – Vox.com – Amanda Taub – January 5, 2015]

Vox.com and Amanda Taub talk with NYU Professor Mark Galeotti about possibilities for a Putin transition, especially if the apparatus supporting Putin has a change of attitude:

After more than a decade in power, Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing what may be his most turbulent and difficult year in office. His economy is crumbling under the global collapse in gas prices; US and European economic sanctions are punishing his inner circle and most powerful state institutions; his military is occupying Crimea and still fighting in eastern Ukraine. Just before New Year’s, thousands gathered in Moscow to protest the politically tinged conviction of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who announced from the courthouse, ‘This regime has no right to exist.’

* * * The real question for Putin, [Galeotti] explained, is the loyalty of a few key groups keeping him in power – and what might cause those groups to abandon him. He also explained why he thinks that 2016 might be the year that Putin’s regime finally starts to crumble.

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