For at least ten days.....I've probably seen this news agenda item come up at least a dozen times. It'll be some journalist asking a historian, economist, or politician the question. In most cases, you end up with a four-minute 'answer' which is about a 80-percent 'no', with an exception built into it.
Most of these answers go to the idea that Putin could be replaced (mostly as a coup), or that five or six top Kremlin guys just suddenly disappear. It's not what I'd call a decent answer to the question.
For all practical purposes...Russia CAN NEVER collapse. Putin might go (odds against that), or some group of bigwigs (Oligarch folks included) might just disappear. But Russia will never collapse.
If you look at things from a 2022 prospective....the country is puzzle-pieced together and it has to have the coal/oil/natural gas element....to carry the bulk of the 190-million population.
It probably is true that a quarter of the military budget was carved off for greed, bribes or insider profits....which paid for private jets, big mansions in the midst of forests, and luxury yachts. But without the pieced-together situation....there's no billionaire or Oligarch folks, and no world-class fake wealth. They would just be another Greece-like economy...mostly surviving week after week (paycheck-to-paycheck).
St Petersburg and the Finland-sized area to the north and east of it? They could probably survive on their own, and be as successful as Finland. That's not saying a lot, but they certainly would not fail.
The Novograd/Pskov district....to the east of the Baltic states? They also could survive on their own.
The Kaliningrad district? They could probably ask for some re-entry back into Germany and get accepted fairly easily.
The dozen-odd districts to the east of Ukraine? These are all agricultural production areas, and could easily market to Europe and the world.
The central region, from Kazan to Perm, and onto Omsk? They've got the oil and natural gas reserves.....to survive off.
Economically, it's sad to suggest this, but without Moscow's interference or the greed of the Oligarch folks....every major district could probably do better on lifestyles and the economy.
But then you'd be admitting that you really don't need Moscow managing everything and directing how things work. Do you really want to put those Kremlin guys out of business....with nothing much to do?
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